Partition of India

The Partition of India divided British India into the countries of India and Pakistan (East and West Pakistan) in 1947. That was part of the end of British Raj, British rule in the Indian subcontinent. One reason for partition was the two-nation theory, which was presented by Syed Ahmed Khan and stated that Muslims and Hindus were too different to be in one country. Pakistan became a Muslim country. India became a majority Hindu country and became a nominally secular country in 1974 when the word "secular" was added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

The main supporter for partition was Muhammad Ali Jinnah; he became the first Governor-General of Pakistan.

Millions of people moved across the new Radcliffe Line between the two newly formed states. The population of British India in 1947 was about 570 million. After partition, there were 370 million people in India, 170 million in West Pakistan and 30 million people in East Pakistan.

Once the lines had been established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the safety of their religious majority. The 1951 Pakistani Census showed the number of displaced there at 7,226,600. They were presumably Muslims who had entered Pakistan from India. Similarly, the 1951 Indian Census showed 7,295,870 displaced people, apparently Hindus and Sikhs who had moved to India from Pakistan. Both numbers add up to 14.5 million. Other people came from China to take advantage of the open border.

The newly formed governments were unable to deal with the forced migration of such huge numbers. Massive violence occurred on both sides of the new border.^[1]^[2]^[3] Hundreds of thousands died; some estimates are in the millions.

The partition caused a lot of uncertainty in many parts of the new nations, especially in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, parts of which went to both countries, which went to war several times to try to take the whole region.

Partition Of India Media

British Indian Empire in The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909. British India is shaded pink, the princely states yellow.
Indian medical orderlies attending to wounded soldiers with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia during World War I
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (seated in the carriage, on the right, eyes downcast, with black flat-top hat) receives a big welcome in Karachi in 1916 after his return to India from South Africa
Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan at a pro-independence rally in Peshawar, 1938
Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and Maulana Azad at the 1940 Ramgarh session of the Congress in which Azad was elected president for the second time
Chaudhari Khaliquzzaman (left) seconding the 1940 Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League with Jinnah (right) presiding, and Liaquat Ali Khan centre
Colonial India in 1947, before the partition, covering the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
Map speculating on a possible division of India from the Daily Herald newspaper, 4th June 1947.
The partition of India: green regions were all part of Pakistan by 1948, and orange ones part of India. The darker-shaded regions represent the Punjab and Bengal provinces partitioned by the Radcliffe Line. The grey areas represent some of the key princely states that were eventually integrated into India or Pakistan.
Video of refugees on train roof during the Partition of India.
Refugees on train roof during partition