History Documentary: India-Pakistan Partition 1947, History of India and Pakistan, Partition of India, Full Documentary

History Documentary: India-Pakistan Partition 1947, History of India and Pakistan, Partition of India, Full Documentary.

The British Indian Empire, from the 1909 edition of The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Areas directly governed by the British are shaded pink; the princely states under British suzerainty are in yellow.

 

The Partition of India was the partition of the British Indian Empire that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (which later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India) on 15 August 1947. "Partition" here refers not only to the division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India), and the similar partition of the Punjab Province into West Punjab (West Pakistan) and East Punjab (now Punjab), but also to the respective divisions of other assets, including the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service and other administrative services, the railways, and the central treasury.

In the riots which preceded the partition in the Punjab Province, it is believed that between 200,000 and 2,000,000 people were killed in the retributive genocide between the religions.UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition; it was the largest mass migration in human history.

The term partition of India does not cover the later secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, nor the earlier separation of Burma (now known as Myanmar) from the administration of British India, nor the separation of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The coastal area of Ceylon was part of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1795 until 1798, when it became a separate Crown Colony of the Empire. Burma, gradually annexed by the British during 1826–86 and governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, was directly administered thereafter. Burma was granted independence on 4 January 1948 and Ceylon on 4 February 1948.

Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives, the remaining present-day countries of South Asia, were unaffected by the partition. The first two, Bhutan and Nepal, although earlier being regarded as de facto princely states, later signed treaties with the British designating them as independent states before partition, and therefore their borders were unaffected by the partition of India. The Maldives, which had become a protectorate of the British crown in 1887 and gained its independence in 1965, was also unaffected by the partition.

Credits: Wikipedia