I have been listening with the utmost interest to the programmes broadcast each morning about Partition and have been waiting for some reference to the fact that Indian Independence also involved the rapid unwinding of at least two centuries of British rule and the transfer of authority to two new governments and two new systems of administration, both of which were modelled on the previous Indian Civil Service and involved the transfer of a number of existing civil servants, a small number British (the great majority returned to Britain) and a much larger Indian.   But there seems to be a tacit assumption that this period of Empire was either an accident or an embarrassment, responsible for the disastrous consequences of Partition.   In marking Independence, it is surely worth considering the British side of the narrative, as well as the Indian, whether or right or wrong.