The novel’s setting in 1955 is significant because India had become an independent country less than a decade earlier. The nation’s struggle to achieve its own identity is mirrored in the struggle of the novel’s characters to define their own course in life.

India gained independence from Great Britain on August 15, 1947, after nearly two centuries of British colonial rule. The independence movement, led by prominent figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who advocated for nonviolent resistance and self-rule, included mass protests, civil disobedience, and negotiations with the British government. These negotiations culminated in the partition of British India into two separate nations: India and Pakistan. This partition, however, was accompanied by widespread violence and mass migrations, as millions of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs moved across the newly drawn borders. This created a humanitarian crisis that lasted into the 1950s.