Maps of India offers a summary of events that describe the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.

This website provides first-hand accounts of people’s own experiences and memories of partition. It also provides reflections on the actions of political leaders during partition.

Literature and history serve the same God and have a close interdependence on each other in that they both ‘narrate’ events. The empiricist and the constructionist theories of history have come under challenge and there is now an increased recognition that history's invented, discursive narratives have a close relationship with the figurative codes of literature as both depend on language and narrative forms. Both are, in particular ways, creations of the human imagination, although with differing objectives.

A vibrant nation flourishes in global trade and culture, and catches the eye of an empire. Empire swoops in, takes over the nation, holds them in bondage for two centuries, until a grassroots movement rises to remove the imperialists and claim what is rightfully theirs. It’s the story of India.

Abstract: This essay draws upon the anthropological conceptualization of ‘rites of passage’ to consider the 1947 Partition of the Indian sub-continent as such a rite, into what Liisa Malkki has called the national order of things. As a rite of passage, analytically distinguished into three phases of separation, transition or limen and incorporation, Partition stories can be seen as potentially about the phase of liminality — Pakistani-Indian and not-Pakistaninot-Indian — a liminality which is both ‘structurally invisible’ and deeply threatening to the ‘stable state’ or national order.

From website: "Our stories of migration came out of a three- year London School of Economics/University of Cambridge project. They’re told by people who left Bengal after Independence in 1947 when the state was divided into West Bengal and East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). These are stories of people who left behind home and family, people who crossed new borders and travelled overseas, people who made new lives."

"The exhibition marks the acquisition by the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at LSU of a series of taped interviews -- conducted by Professors Frank de Caro and Rosan Augusta Jordan of the LSU English Department -- with British people who lived and worked in India before Independence in 1947. Collectively they provide a sort of "self-portrait" of a colonial subculture and accounts of how Europeans experienced a great Asian society under the peculiar conditions of their time. Quotations from the interviews have been included for each section of the exhibition.

"China and India are burying the hatchet after four-plus decades of hostility. A few companies from both nations have been quick to gain competitive advantages by viewing the two as symbiotic. If Western corporations fail to do the same, they will lose their competitive edge—and not just in China and India but globally.

34 Field Trip Larkin, Brian. 2018. “Promising Forms: The Political Aesthetics of Infrastructure .” In The Promise of Infrastructure, edited by Hannah Appel, Nikhil Anand, and Akhil Gupta, 175–­ 202. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Perlez, Jane, and Yufan Huang. 2016. “China Promoting Tourism for Disputed Paracel Islands.” New York Times, May 8. https://www.nytimes .com/2016/05/29/world/asia/south-china-sea-tourism.html. Roberts, Brian Russel, and Michelle Ann Stephens, eds. 2017. Archipelagic American Studies. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

The spectre of partition narratives of 1947 and its legacy continues to haunt diverse groups of people across the nation-state including the mindset of North East Indians. North East India, also known as the ‘Land of Seven Sisters’ is home to numerous ethnolinguistic groups, consisting of 357 constitutional communities embracing 32 scheduled castes and 182 scheduled tribes communities. Despite being a melting pot of diverse ethnic groups and a hub of untapped resources, the region continues to be one of the most economically laggard regions within the country.

The motion: This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies.

ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY: The Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 189 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.

"Political history of Partition of India in 1947 is well-documented by historians. However, the grass root politics and and the ‘victimhood’ of a number of communities affected by the Partition are still not fully explored. The scholarly moves to write alternative History based on individual memory and family experience, aided by the technological revolution have opened up multiple narratives of the partition of Assam and its aftermath.

"With the 60th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India taking place in the spring of 2010, the time was right to further explore the China-India relationship. On July 29, 2010, CNA China Studies hosted a half-day roundtable to discuss this important topic. Participants, who included analysts from various think-tanks in Washington, DC, were asked to address the following issues:
 India’s perspective on the China-India relationship
 China’s perspective on the China-India relationship

Food is not just to satiate your palate, it can also play a part in improving strained ties between India and Pakistan, says Pakistani celebrity chef Mohammed Gyazzuddin.

Abstract: The focus of this essay is gendered collective memory of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, at the time of Independence from British rule. The essay addresses the question of whether there are similarities between trauma studies that developed within a Western Freudian psychoanalytic framework and the anti-colonial theory practiced by decolonizing nations. Taking two women's texts, the essay examines how gender manifests itself within the framework of trauma and how it is played out in collective memory of partition.

A collection of photographic images relating to the 1947 Partition of India. Some notable photographers included in this collection are Margaret Bourke-White, Bert Hardy, and Robert Nickelsberg.

The Himal Southasian is "South Asia's first and only regional news and analysis magazine...critical analysis, commentary, opinion, essays and reviews -- covering regional trends in politics and economics with the same perspective as culture and history, Himal stories do not stop at national borders, but are followed wherever they lead." This online magazine features material on important aspects of Indian History as well, including the Partition of India.

Abstract:This paper seeks to analyse the causes of sectarian violence against women which are rooted in the history of the partition of the country during independence and patriarchal attitudes which continue to dominate society. That this violence was gendered is a fact largely ignored by recorded historyal though it appears as a recurrent theme in the fictional narratives of the partition.

This website is "preserving memories of India and Indians." It features written interviews, exposing the personal stories of people's first-hand experiences during important times of Indian History.

The Choices Program is a non-profit organization based at Brown University that develops curricula on current and historical international issues. Course materials place special emphasis on the importance of educating students in their participatory role as citizens. This particular curriculum focuses on Indian Independence and the Partition of 1947.

From website: "Indian Memory Project is an online, curated, visual and narrative based archive that traces a history of the Indian Subcontinent, via photographs and letters found in personal archives. Contextualised with narratives, the photographs & letters (contributed by people all over the world) reveal a powerful and historical palimpsest of a largely undocumented society and sub-continent.

Abstract: The disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir represents the unfinished business of the Partition of India and Pakistan. This essay examines how claims to Kashmir by India, Pakistan, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and the Kashmiri Pandits influence usage of the term ‘Kashmiriyat’ (i.e. the ethos of being Kashmiri). The term is frequently invoked with inconsistent meaning. Kashmiriyat is analysed, through linguistic and semiotic theories of the ‘empty signifier’, to identify which groups are present and absent within sociopolitical discourses.

An online archive of an exhibit held May 2, 2009 at the Braunstone Civic Centre focusing on The Legacy of Partition, 1947-2009.

A look back at the Partition and all the events that took place during the mass migration of people from one side of border to the other. In addition, Guha quickly touches on and re-asks many question that surround partition and the tragedy that occurred in the lead up to, during and after the drawing of the India-Pakistan border.

From website: "This site aims at offering a scholarly yet readable narrative of some aspects of Indian history, politics, culture, and religion. It does not in the least aspire to be comprehensive, an objective that at any rate cannot be achieved, and subjects, personalities, and themes have been chosen for exploration and interpretation because they interest the creator of the site, though often they are of intrinsic importance in understanding the history and evolution of Indian civilization."

Abstract:Partition Novels based on the social and political upheaval, which occurred at the fag end of the two hundred years of British Raj, became a distinct type in the context of Indian English Novels.

Abstract: Histories and aesthetics of space intersected in South Asian decolonization. The contest for space has continued to be reflected in South Asian cinema from the 1950s to the present. Spatial politics and the aestheticization of spaces both reflect current politics and urban policies and also glance back at colonial and postcolonial histories of national fragmentation and nation-formation.

The Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence is a database “focusing on massacres and genocides of the 20th century,” including historical descriptions and analyses of well-documented and less well-known massacres. There are three types of documents available on the website: Chronological Indexes, Case Studies, Scholarly Reviews and Theoretical Papers.

Abstract: Postcolonialism, as a discipline and approach, offers an analytical lens through which to investigate problems in formerly colonized states of Africa and South Asia, along with a poststructuralist perspective on culture and discourse on politics of representation. Pakistan is one such former colony where postcolonial narratives and the persistence of colonial legacies such as the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), on its periphery of Pashtun-dominated tribal areas of FATA, has contributed to growing instability in the region.

From The National Archives: The National Archives has recorded the narratives of four Panjabi elders uprooted from their homeland during the Partition of British India in 1947. At least 18 million people were uprooted and one million died in the mass migration that followed. In 2010, Jaswant, Mohammed, Reginald and Tilak Raj met at The National Archives to describe how Partition had shaped their lives.

An academic work, (PhD Thesis). Abstract from the author: The partition of India in August 1947 was marked by the greatest migration in the Twentieth Century and the death of an estimated one million persons. Yet until recently (Ansari 2005; Talbot 2006) little was written about the longer term socioeconomic consequences of this massive dislocation, especially for Pakistan. Even when the ‘human dimension’ of refugee experience rather than the ‘high politics’ of partition was addressed, it was not specifically tied to local case studies (Butalia, 1998).

The older cuisines like Mughlai faded away and in their place came the robust makhni gravy and tandoori dishes

An appendix of resources on Partition from The University of Texas at Austin's South Asia department.

While India is known to have taken birth in 1947 as a modern state, the civilisational ethos of India has survived for ages. Mr. Fatah proposes the need to develop a grand narrative of the Indian civilisation that extends beyond the geographical boundaries of the Indian Territory. Narrating the horror of the continuing conflict in Baluchistan, Tarek Fatah supports the cause of Baloch nationalists to be liberated from the control of Pakistan.

Writer, Broadcaster, a Secular and Liberal Activist. Tarek Fatah is a scholar par excellence with command over a range of subjects.

From Website: "Over the past twenty years, I have conducted scores of interviews with people with personal stories to tell of Partition - the botched division of British India in August 1947 to created two independent nations, India and Pakistan. It produced one of the great tragedies of a deeply tragic century - at least half-a-million dead, ten million or more migrants, and the rupture of a symbiotic culture, most notably in Punjab.

Abstract: During the 1947 Partition of India, an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 women were abducted by members of other religious communities – to be raped and murdered, sold into prostitution, or forced into marriage. In response to this crisis, the governments of India and Pakistan initiated a bilateral recovery programme whose objective it was to return ‘abducted persons’ to their natal or conjugal families. Over the last decade or so, however, criticism of this programme has become increasingly vociferous.

Abstract: The mediation, through representations, which gives rise to cultural trauma, sets off 'a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people that has achieved some degree of cohesion’. An application of Bon Eyerman’s theory of cultural trauma as it relates to the formation of the Indian and Pakistani identities depends largely on the experiential mediation of the partition violence of 1947 — a mediation which conjoins collective memory and national identity through cultural templates.

The restoration of the famous paintings done by Bashir Mirza 16 years ago.

Abstract: This essay argues that aesthetic approaches to studying politics can allow us to read politics in more nuanced ways. Through the study of murals and statues in the Indian parliament, it is suggested that the politics of art and the art of politics are conjoined. In particular, the essay examines the ways in which the postcolonial Indian state reproduces the discourse of nationalism and modernity through its production of a nationalist aesthetic and how the consumption of this aesthetics results in struggles over meaning-making and its legitimacy.

“Postcolonial Studies @ Emory is a student-authored project in (perpetual) progress at the English Department at Emory University. Begun in Spring 1996, it aims to furnish introductory level information on important creative and critical figures and significant topics in Postcolonial Studies.” Featured on this site is a study of the 1947 Partition of India and it includes a detailed timeline of events that occurred.

A story of how Partition ripped families apart, and inflected everlasting damage. Bhatia shares a story of how a sister, who lives in India, cannot see her brother who live in Pakistan.

In 2005 Rev. Michael Roden, the vicar at Church of England church of St Mary’s in Hitchin (a small town about 30 miles north of London) was invited to India to give a series of sermons to Indian Church of England congregations. He was struck during his visit by the scars in Indian society that he thought were the remnants of Partition’s aftermath. His visit set him thinking about the ways in which Partition has shaped British as well as Indian and Pakistani society, and about how little people in the UK know about the calamitous results of British policy at the time of decolonization.

Gandhi’s role in the leadership he gave to Assam Congress to help geographically integrate the northeast to independent India is not well documented.

Abstract: While communal violence has been an ongoing and unfortunate reality for post-colonial and post-partition India, there’s no sidestepping the fact that attacks and hate crime incidences against the country’s Muslim minority by members of the Hindu majority have occurred in greater frequency and ferocity in the years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), came to power in 2014 –on the back of a Hindu nationalist agenda, one in which anti-Muslim animus and discrimination features in mainstream political discourse and government policy.

A story of how "Sikhs and Hindus across rural Punjab are helping restore mosques destroyed during Partition."

The South Asian Citizens Web “aims to promote dialogue and information exchange between and about South Asian citizens initiatives.” It features resources and articles on the 1947 Partition of India.

India's partition was intended to create a strong, homogeneous nation, capable of being governed effectively from the centre, a goal which could be achieved only by excising from India its Muslim-majority regions. In a parallel but differently motivated campaign, the Hindus who pressed for Bengal's partition wanted to cut out territories in which Muslims were a threatening majority, even if this meant sacrificing the economic viability of their new province. But these partitions were inevitably incomplete.

Abstract: Bapsi Sidhwa's novel, Cracking India, presents the experiences of women during the violence of the subcontinental partition of 1947. In broaching the topics of rape and trauma, topics considered culturally taboo or unspeakable for subcontinental women, the novel obliges us to confront both the possibilities and the limits of literary representation.

An academic work, (PhD Thesis). Abstract from the author: This dissertation will focus on the history of bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. It looks at how the process of dealing with issues thrown up in the aftermath of partition shaped relations between the two countries. I focus on the debates around the immediate aftermath of partition, evacuee property disputes, border and water disputes, minorities and migration, trade between the two countries, which shaped the canvas in which the India-Pakistan relationship took shape.

This document collection through the National Archives is “related to India and the struggle for independence and the road to partition 1939-1947.” It provides sources such as letters, government documents, and articles pertaining to Partition and Independence. The National Archives “is the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and for England and Wales.”

The main focus of the The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust is to set up a Partition Museum. The Partition Museum Project (TPMP) was initiated by The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT), in early 2015, to work towards the establishment of a world class, physical museum, dedicated to the memory of the Partition in 1947 — its victims, its survivors and its lasting legacy. In one of the greatest and most painful upheavals of contemporary history, over twenty million migrated to a new homeland on the other side of a quickly demarcated border, leaving behind precious memories.

Citizenship practices in the Indian state of Assam have a serious fault line. The government appears uninterested in policing borders and enforcing the citizen/alien distinction. This has drawn the ire of even the Indian Supreme Court. Certain ambiguities about citizenship in post-Partition India explain these practices. Pragmatic politicians have adapted to the reality of a post-Partition space that does not conform to the idealized notion of a bounded national territory with a clearly defined community of citizens.

From website: "Explore The Story of India through this interactive photo gallery that weaves together a series of interrelated themes, events, and individuals that helped shape India's history."

A comparative analysis on states that experienced partition, specifically Cyprus, India, Palestine, and Ireland.

Brinjals stuffed with meat, chhole paired with boiled eggs, a planter’s lunch in Assam — events by home chefs explore niche micro-cuisines.

Bangladesh's existence as a nation-state only dates from 1971, but the nation cannot be understood without reference to a much-longer historical backdrop. In this chapter we provide a selective historical overview leading up to the moment when Bangladesh emerged as a separate country, aiming to contextualise analysis of state and economy against the longer-term developments in the region. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of precolonial Bengal, a period with important implications for the shaping of the natural environment and of social and religious identities.

Abstract:The Partition of India in 1947 that resulted in the death and displacement of millions of people continues to inhabit the cognizance of the people of South Asia as a historical phenomenon laden with violence. Although the bequest of the Partition is palpable in episodes of religious tension, discourses on minority belonging, secularism, nation and nationalism in India, critical exploration of the phenomenon as a tension-ridden historical episode has largely been restricted.

Abstract from author: Scholarly inquiries into communalism in South Asia have often exclusively focused on politically constructed religious and ethnic identity categories. This article challenges these assumptions by arguing that territoriality and the designation of homelands played an important, but largely unrecognized, role in developing social and political boundaries in the region.