When the Nawab was being taken in a procession through the public streets, there occurred a case of assault on Hindus, and looting of a few Hindu, pa… - Ramesh Chandra Majumdar

The official history of the freedom movement starts with the premises that India lost independence only in the eighteenth century and had thus an experience of subjection to a foreign power for only two centuries. Real history, on the other hand, teaches us that the major part of India lost independence about five centuries before, and merely changed masters in the eighteenth century. (xxii-xxiii)

There are some obvious difficulties in writing a history of the movement for freedom in India only fifteen years after it was achieved, and by one who has himself passed through the most! eventful period in it, covering the third and fourth phases mentioned above. We are all too near the events to view them in their true perspective. I have been a witness to the grim struggle from 1905 to 1947, and do not pretend to be merely a dispassionate or disinterested spectator ; I would have been more or less than a human being if I were so. My views and judgments of men and things may, therefore, have been influenced by passions and prejudices. Without denying this possibility, I may claim that I have tried my best to take a detached view. On the other hand, I possess certain advantages also#in having a first-hand knowledge of the important events and the fleeting impressions and sentiments they left behind on the minds of the people. It is difficult to form a proper idea of these by one who, living at a later period, has only to rely on the record of the past in order to re- construct its history. Although these reflections do not directly, concern the present Volume, indirect influence cannot altogether be ruled out. I have therefore tried to place before the reader all the relevant facts, leaving them to form their own conclusions. As the feelings and impressions of a class or community, whether justified by facts and events and reasonable or not, are of great significance in history, I have, wherever available, quoted at some length views of representative persons whose names carry some weight. (xv-xvi)

Generally communal riots were confined to the British territory, and the Indian States were free from them. A serious riot in 1924 in Gulburga, in the Nizam's territory, formed an exception. The Muhammadan mobs attacked all the Hindu temples in jthe city, numbering about fifteen, and broke the idols. They also raided the Sharan Vish- veshwar Temple and attempted to set fiie to the Temple car. The Police were eventually obliged to fiie, with the result that three Muhammadans, including the Police Superintendent Mr. Azizullah, were killed and about a dozen persons injured. Next morning the streets were again in the hands of Muhammadan mobs and considerable damage was done to Hindu houses and shops. On the arrival of Police reinforcements, order was restored. On the 14th August the Muslim mob fury was at its height and almost all the temples within the range of the mob, some fifty in number, were desecrated, their sanctum sanctorum entered into, their idols broken, and their buildings damaged.