This book shows how much the late colonial and early post-colonial states had in common. It reassesses Pakistan's experience of independence in the longer context of the rising, often mutually-contradictory ideas that the state was responsible for promoting material progress and that political participation should be extended. These ideas both drove and responded to changing relationships between rulers, politicians, and rural magnates in Sindh between the 1920s and 1960s. The book thus examines tensions between representative and developmental sources of state legitimacy. (Political History)