When was partition

In the years leading up to independence, the idea for the new independent region to be divided into two separate states - India and Pakistan - was born.

India was formed mostly of Hindu regions, while Pakistan was mostly Muslim areas. The partition of India forced millions of people to leave their homes to move to the other state. This was the largest forced migration of people that has ever happened, which wasn't because of war or famine. Ten-year-old Sumayyah, year-old Shubhashukla and nine-year-old Kamolpriya went on the mission of their lives to find out what happened to their families during the Partition of India.

Since Partition, there has been conflict between India and Pakistan - particularly over an area called Kashmir, which both states say, even now, should belong to them. Pakistan and India have gone to war with each other, and there was conflict when East Pakistan broke away and became Bangladesh. At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will wake up to life and freedom. There are still tensions and divisions in the country and many families have never been able to go back to where their ancestors used to live.

For people living in India and Pakistan, travelling to the other country is not easy - even if it is to visit their family. Progress has been made, but just as the country was divided 70 years ago, there are still divisions to this day. Malala Yousafzai returns to home town for first time since shooting.

This was a textbook case of a power vacuum. Where did the power lie as the British left and the new states formed? The British come out of the story looking ill-prepared, naive and even callous. But could the British have settled the competing nationalist visions in south Asia in the s, and could they have created a constitution to please everybody? This is the great hypothetical question. Endless rounds of previous negotiations had ended in disappointment and overlaying new nation states over the grid of messy, large, complex empires was a challenge all over the world.

Many Muslim Leaguers would have accepted power within a federal, decentralised and unified India in , while many members of the Indian National Congress resisted power-sharing schemes.

But, ultimately, we just do not know how the alternatives would have worked. In the event, Jinnah pushed for Pakistan, and the final compromise was to create two states by drawing borders across Punjab and Bengal. All the key leaders — including Jinnah, Nehru and Mountbatten — agreed to this plan, and with some relief: they hoped it might actually bring an end to violence and herald a new beginning. The tragedy of partition is that the stories of extreme violence in have provided fodder to opposing perspectives ever since, and myths have crystallised around the origins of India and Pakistan.

This sweeps aside any appreciation of the hybrid, Indo-Islamic world that flourished before the British began their conquest in the 18th century. The land in which vernacular Sanskrit-based languages were cross-pollinated with Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, in which Rajput princesses married Mughal rulers, and musical and artistic styles had thrived on the fusion of influences from central Asia and local courtly cultures.

This world of more fluid identities and cultures was gradually dismantled throughout the 19th century under British rule and then smashed by partition. It becomes ever harder, today, to imagine the pre-partitioned Indian subcontinent. In the south Asian case, the historical conflict is now acted out on a different, international stage.

India and Pakistan stand frozen in a cold war, with nuclear missiles pointed at each other. At least one billion people living in the region today were not even born when partition took place and south Asia has many more immediate and far more pressing problems: water supply, environmental crisis and adaptation to climate change.

Nonetheless, a sense of shared history, and a more multidimensional understanding of what happened in is also vital for the future of the region. After 70 years, this anniversary is a valuable moment for reflection and provides an opportunity to commemorate the dead.

It may also provide a chance to ask questions, to disrupt some of the cliches, and to think once again about how we tell this history. The party is the heart of the long struggle for independence from Britain. This website uses cookies We place some essential cookies on your device to make this website work. Set cookie preferences. Skip to Main Content. Search our website Search Discovery, our catalogue.

The Road to Partition The violent creation of two new nations Teachers' notes Introduction External links. About this classroom resource. Download documents and transcripts Teachers' notes The purpose of this document collection is to allow students and teachers to develop their own lines of historical enquiry or historical questions using original documents on this period of history. One million Indians on the move. One could fault the increasingly hostile rhetoric that accompanied the rise of Hindu and Muslim nationalism or the divide and rule policies of the British.

Whereas the popularly accepted narrative of Partition stresses each of these factors and characterizes the violence as neighbor turning against neighbor and bands of weapon-laden young men in the throes of a communal frenzy seeking out their next victims, these interviews provide different perspectives. They not only help illuminate a period that has been difficult to make sense of, but they also provide a challenge to popular narratives of Partition. As more scholars, students, and lay people work with these interviews it is my hope that new histories will be written — ones that balance the political workings of Partition with the lived human experiences.

These Partition memories, as represented in this collection of interviews, underscore the fragility of our humanity, of the depths and heights of which we are capable of falling to and ascending. It is hoped that these personal stories will not only provide a greater level of understanding of the lived experiences of Partition, but that they will serve to bridge the stories from all sides of the borders and remind us that our commonalities are greater than our differences.