I think this book largely accomplished what it set out to accomplish, i.e. outlining Partition narratively and establishing chaos and uncertainty as its essential characteristics. So my rating isn't so much about that, but moreso about my personal reaction to it.
First of all, I kind of hated how this was written, and my stylistic objection got worse as it went on. I just wish Khan had used more commas. Second, I think that because I already knew a fair bit about Partition, this felt pretty simplistic. Especially because I had just read [b:When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda|66419|When Victims Become Killers Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda|Mahmood Mamdani|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388515349l/66419._SY75_.jpg|1340078], I felt like this left me with a lot of questions parallel to those Mamdani asked in his book - How did the political identities of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' change, and why? What were the regional patterns which contributed to Partition even being possible, and where prior to World War II did its origins lie? I get that this wasn't really the goal of this book, so I can't really fault it for not including such questions, but for me personally the whole thing felt kind of basic. But if you're looking for a good introduction to Partition in its own time, this is pretty solid.