Fighting Retreat: Why was Winston Churchill so strangely hostile towards India?

Hyderabad: Fighting Retreat throws up some debatable questions of why Winston Churchill was so hostile towards India. As the author of some pivotal works on both India and Churchill, Walter Reid elucidates in his book Churchill at his worst, cruel, obstructive and selfish.

Reid through his accounts explains Churchill’s attitude as prime minister during the Second World War. Churchill deceitfully fought tooth and nail and frustrated the freedom struggle from behind the scenes delaying Indian Independence by a decade. To every Indian, he is the imperialist villain held personally responsible for the Bengal Famine of 1943.

The author of Keeping the Jewel in the Crown: The British Betrayal of India clinically arrays the issues in this book and takes an impartial stand to explain Churchill’s controversial figure. He is seen as a great patriot in Britain but nothing less than an exemplary imperialist villain in India who interfered in India’s politics so consistently and harmfully that no other British statesman had.

Fighting Retreat is a good read which perfectly captures Churchill’s hatred and ire towards India and addresses questions whether his stubbornness over independence fed the rancor that led to partition. This is an important and immensely rewarding account of a hitherto puzzling conundrum.