A Village Divided

I'd be curious to hear if anyone had thoughts about the introduction that appears 2/3rds of the way into the novel. Of course, it's the division in the novel that marks the division of India and Pakistan, but formally it's interesting, since the novel already had one introduction (which is presumably composed after partition as well). On the one hand, the novel has to find some way of marking time and change, but on the other hand, it seems a little too obvious to me. I'd love to hear what others thought about it.

Also, I think it's pretty interesting in a novel like this that you don't really have individual characters which you can focus in on. The first chapter is probably the only time that you have a situation where you have a single focal point, but that seems to be colored by the fact that its also a kind of innocent fantasy about the past that's designed to set up the decline of tradition and family over the course of the novel. Did anyone else get the sense that the multiple character method was in some ways related to the fragmentation of village life, the collapse of the extended family, the migration of important figures to Pakistan, etc?