The Allied victory in 1945 ensured that a greater degree of freedom was guaranteed to individual Japanese by law. Since the end of the Occupation Japanese intellectuals, alert to any moves that they considered an infringement of the postwar constitution, have acted as watchdogs for the whole community. Ienaga Saburo, historian and political ideologist, is one such intellectual.

The decade preceding the Second World War was a crucial period in the history of the Indian nationalist movement. It was at this time that the leadership of Gandhi and the ‘Old Guard’—Congress veterans who, with few exceptions, were annually re-elected to the party's Working Committee—faced its most serious challenge for control of the Congress Party. The outcome of this internal party struggle determined the nature and scope of the independence movement throughout the war years and until the attainment of freedom in 1947. It also determined the political complexion of the party that was to guide the Republic of India through the early, and critical, formative years of its existence.

Whereas reformers (occasionally with intent to mislead, often because they are themselves misled) tend to describe their work as if it were a concerted, directed whole worked out with a minimal difference of attitude and opinion, historians often gravitate to the glaring points of conflict in studying the development of a reform act. From these it is easy and interesting to paint a colourful picture. One might (rather inaccurately) describe the evolution of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms as the product of a process of conflict between the ambitious, radical, eccentric, ego-centric, Jewish, Secretary of State for India, Montagu and the Edwardian, unambitious, conscientious, self-effacing Viceroy, Chelmsford. Similarly, there is some temptation to view the growth of these reforms as the outcome of a battle between the forces of light (Montagu and Chelmsford) and the forces of darkness (the provincial governors).