"Lord Elphinstone had said as far back as 1851 that “Divide et empera was the old Roman motto, and it should be ours”. Many other British politicians, historians and bureaucrats, in Britain as well as in India, had made similar statements of British policy. The British had never tried very hard to hide the game they had played in the past, and were planning to play in the future. But the [Indian] national leaders who read or heard these statements became agog with excitement as if they had uncovered a ‘dark secret’, and could now answer comfortably all questions regarding the ‘communal problem’ [the Hindu-Muslim divide]."
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Lord Elphinstone cited in Sita Ram Goel: Muslim Separatism - Causes and Consequences. (1983) ISBN 9788185990262
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/British_Raj
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British Raj
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