> People can quibble about the origin of the idea and who is to blame. Look... I think there is a whole lot of extremely motivated reasoning. Even the British

> People can quibble about the origin of the idea and who is to blame. Look... I think there is a whole lot of extremely motivated reasoning. Even the British weren't that keen to defend British imperialism by the time of India's independence. The Brits being already responsible for so many sins, make an easy place to put "blame" that cannot be borne elsewhere. The alternative is to "blame" nationalism, self determination, liberalism. republicanism, and/or democracy. Everyone knew that India was going to civil war. It was a big factor delaying British decolonisation. Gandhi's whole ideology/rhetoric as independence loomed changed to try an prevent it. Naive in retrospect. This has always been the sticking point, for modern nationalism. People have strong, inconvenient notions of who the "nation" is.