Partition of India

This decision, rooted partly in the pressure exerted by Gandhi's persistent campaigns, ultimately led to one of the most massive population movements and tragic communal violence.

Partition remains a contentious legacy.

Many historians argue that the British hurriedly drew borders for expediency rather than respect for demographic realities.

While Gandhi fought to prevent it, he also had to accept its inevitability after independence was secured.

The lessons still echo in contemporary strategic thinking about convoy protection and intelligence gathering.

Now that we’ve seen how a disaster can expose institutional failures, let’s turn our attention to perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis Britain has ever managed, the partition of India in nineteen forty-seven.

When the British Raj finally withdrew, it was not an orderly handover.

Instead, it produced a shockwave.

Terrible combination in India at that time.

And my dad's family had lost everything in the partition of India in 1947.

So he ended up in a refugee camp at the age of 13 and they'd lost everything.

So for then, you know, it really was, they'd want to leave all the people they loved, but You know, they didn't have much of a future in the way that India was at that time and their economic situation.

Um, uh, you know, I think there's this one meta or master narrative about Pakistan that I think is partly correct, uh, but needs some debunking.

And it is, you know, it begins with, you know, pa- the Partition being some kind of a British conspiracy, and after that, Pakistan becoming part of the American camp against the Soviet Union, again, partly true with, um, you know, the signing of the SEATO Centre defense pacts in the 1950s.

And then Pakistan playing a specific historical role of undermining any kind of national liberation movements in, in, uh, South and West Asia, uh, you know, playing a pretty negative role in the Afghan, so-called Afghan jihad in the 1980s at the behest of the US, then becoming a proxy again after 9/11.

Um, so, you know, there's a lot of, um, evidence to suggest that Pakistan has been aligned with the West in the region.

Mm.

And I think Bollywood has done a lot of movies that focus on India's freedom struggle and Partition.

Mm.

And we've seen this most recently with Batwara 1947.

So these movies don't tend to over-index on the hate toward Pakistan, and it's, it's not really like a jingoistic movie.

Mm.

But it mostly maps the journey of a family or a person, and how Partition impacted them.

And, uh, in this one, I really like Pinjar, which had Urmila Matondkar, and it's based on Amrita Pritam novel, and it's just such a beautiful story.

Mm.

But, and it's important that we raise this before we end the episode because you talk about it in your book, which is, you know, some of the more unfortunate incidents, shall we say, in India, particularly, you know, the Partition.

And we're talking about leaving with grace.

I think we can say that was not well executed when you look at the amount of people who died.

And it's hard to see that as being-

Yeah

... a, a more peaceful, a basis for more- Yeah ... peaceful existence than, than even the Partition.

So I think the Partition was, a- as you say, a tragedy, but one which, um, th- the British did try to avoid.

Right

... with the Partition of India.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

less so.

The second is Mohan, a partition story, a look at the partition of India through the personal story of Murjani's grandfather.

Finally, Selki, past, present, future, is a look at what it means to be human through storytelling, live music and Orcadian folk song.

We talk about the impact of the Charlie Hart Hill Fund, both in supporting Kanpur 1857 in 2025 and the difference in not having it in 2026.

How do you deal with less support and resources with the same show? Following that, we talk about the story of their grandfather during the partition of India and the importance of oral history.

After that, a little discussion about the wider financial challenges facing fringe performers this year, in previous years, and going forwards.

Many shows at the Fringe.

That's how oral history works.

... you know, um, to his girlfriend, and the poem was actually quite bad.

[laughs] There were a lot of these things, but the, the, the, the overall movie I had, like, you know, it's, it's such a touching, loving thing and just the sensitivity of the portrayal of Partition and the horror of it.

But I thought, you know, um, the younger, uh, actors, you know, uh, um, what's his name? Raina, uh, uh-

Vidang Raina

I thought they, that track was just beautiful and amazing.

Yeah.

You know? And, um, also just the horror of Partition, you know, actually seeing those women, um, you know, uh, committing suicide is, these are stories we've heard so many times, but seeing the horror of it and the burden placed on the elders of, um, you know, the elder women of, uh, of these, uh, families, you know, is so big.

I was just like, horrific, horrific to see.