This paper is a study of the Interim Government in British India, formed during the penultimate viceroyalty of Archibald Wavell, from September 1946 to March 1947. It tries to throw light on major and minor personalities and micro and macro processes at work in this improbable interlude and, thus, probes an overshadowed ministerial and bureaucratic set-up in the lead-up to Partition. This understudied set-up constituted yet another compelling ‘space before Partition’ which would continue to affect the Indian state after Partition.

"Political history of Partition of India in 1947 is well-documented by historians. However, the grass root politics and and the ‘victimhood’ of a number of communities affected by the Partition are still not fully explored. The scholarly moves to write alternative History based on individual memory and family experience, aided by the technological revolution have opened up multiple narratives of the partition of Assam and its aftermath.