Book excerpt: This volume presents an analytical history of India's struggle for freedom and the role played in it by the Indian National Congress. It provides a comprehensive account of the Independence movement, encompassing events such as the extremist-moderate split in the Congress, Morley-Minto reforms, Round Table Conferences, the Quit India Movement; and the Partition. Drawing on statistical analysis and exhaustive research, it examines the impact of prevailing domestic and international economic conditions on the evolution of the politics of the Congress, the Muslim League, as well as the Indian revolutionary, socialist, and communist parties. The book also throws light on the complex interplay of power politics between the Centre, the States, and the various grass-roots organizatons on one hand and the push and pull of Hindu-Muslim communal politics on the other. This is the first English translation of the Bengali classic Swadhinata Sangrame Bharatiya Jatiya Congress: 1885-1947 (first published in 1990) by the late Professor Amales Tripathi, an eminent scholar and a renowned historian. This translation also carries a foreword by Dr Rudrangshu Mukherjee.