ABSTRACT
War, so the truism goes, is the mother of change; it upsets existing political structures and precipitates economic and social upheavals. So not surprisingly the Second World War had a far-reaching impact upon the British in India. Indeed it brought about the end of empire3 and has much to do with the unseemly haste with which the British divided and quit India.4 This chapter looks at the impact of war upon the organised left in the wartime Punjab.
