If you are looking for a history of India, or _____ of the British Raj, or for the reason of the cleaving of the subcontinent into two mutually antagonistic parts and the effects this mutilation will have _____ , you will not find it in these pages for though I have spent a lifetime in the country, I lived too near the seat of events, and was too intimately associated with the actors, to get the perspective needed for the impartial recording of these matters.
Which of the following is closest in meaning to cleaving?