The transfer of Jodhpur railways, 1947-48: Denials, delays and divisions

The process of partition between India and Pakistan, that is, dividing up material assets, remains an under-written subject, barring its border-building aspects. While the old scholarship offered an adversarial account of this exercise, the recent attempts revise this narrative by stressing upon the cooperation evinced by the two sides. Where the former found antagonism, the latter has sought to locate some mutually agreed method in the madness. Focusing on Jodhpur, a princely state, which has not found a place in this matrix, this paper brings together a slice of history from the integration of the princely states with the history of partition, a connection not usually made. Delineating a facet of early interdominion relations on the division of asset of a princely state, it questions the "two peas in a pod" seeking-consensus approach to early India-Pakistan relations that puts two unequal entities together on an equal plane.