In this excerpt, the main idea is that Britain’s decision to leave India and the hurried partition caused lasting harm.
Wolpert argues that Britain, especially Mountbatten, rushed to divide British India into India and Pakistan instead of helping India stay together as a single nation with dialogue and cooperation.
The passage criticizes the way the lines were drawn in Punjab and Bengal, which divided multicultural areas and sparked conflict.
It also blames both British leaders and Indian leaders for arrogance and ignorance that made a violent split more likely.
The author suggests that if there had been ten more months of talks, cooperation and peaceful solutions might have worked better than division and war.
Overall, the main idea is that partition was a tragic result of rushed decisions and missed chances for peaceful, joint leadership.