The book Mountbatten, Cabinet Mission and Provincial Boundaries has been written by Prof Dr Mohammad Iqbal Chawla, an established and renowned historian of Pakistan. His commitment towards the overall growth of the subject and setting high standards of writing history is well accomplished. The main theme of the book is Mountbatten’s role in the transfer of power to indigenous settlers in the light of the Cabinet Mission proposals and to decide the provincial boundaries between two independent nations.
To achieve this gigantic target, his era experienced large-scale massacre in Punjab, mostly due to problematic provincial boundaries. Prof Chawla has constructed the history of creation of Pakistan from a different perspective - ie Lord Mountbatten as the main character in the final episode of the transfer of power to two independent nation states-Pakistan and India. The uniqueness of the book is that a Pakistani perspective on Mountbatten, in the context of the Pakistan movement, has been provided thoroughly for the first time, even though Indian and British perspectives are already available.
The already available Pakistani perspective is highly critical towards Mountbatten, leaving gaps when it comes to in-depth analysis and evaluation. The current book, written by Prof Chawla, has filled this existing gap by bringing various facts to light. One of the strongest elements of the book is the use of primary source material, which the author has collected from various archives .