How this border transformed a subcontinent | India & Pakistan

Going Back to Pakistan: 70 Years After Partition

Mr Khanna returns to Pakistan for the first time since he was forced to flee when India was split apart in 1947.

"Before I die, I want to go back to where I was born." 

Krishan Kumar Khanna grew up just outside Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city. After a childhood he remembers fondly, his life changed dramatically in August 1947. 

As Britain left the Indian subcontinent, colonial planners hastily split it into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

How this border transformed a subcontinent

The British tasked Cyril Radcliffe with the job of drawing a line to separate Punjab and Bengal provinces from India into East and West Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus weren’t the only ones being separated from each other. Sikhs and people from other faiths were affected as well. A Sikh pilgrimage was divided because of the new border, Punjabi people of all faiths were separated from each other, and a culture was ultimately divided.

How the British failed India and Pakistan

For nearly 200 years, India was ruled by the British. The large nation was home to three dominant religious groups — Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In order to discourage unified Indian campaigns for independence, the British reinforced divisions along religious lines. By 1947, the British were finally ready to turn India over to Indian rule. But the seeds of discontent had been sowed. And the handover of power would be more bloody than anyone could have imagined.

🇮🇳 🇵🇰 The Kashmir conflict, explained | Al Jazeera English

Partition: Borders of Blood

In the second part of this two-part special, 101 East investigates the wounds of partition 70 years on.

In 1947, the Indian subcontinent was divided by its British imperial rulers into two nation states India and Pakistan.

It sparked three wars, the birth of Bangladesh, and transformed Kashmir into one of the world’s most militarised zones.

Partition: Borders of Blood

Seventy years after the partition of India, we examine the troubled legacy of the event that shaped the subcontinent.

On August 15, 1947, the partition of the Indian subcontinent created two nation states - India and Pakistan.  

In this two-part special, 101 East traces the events and conflicting politics that led to the greatest migration of people in human history, and unleashed a wave of communal violence that claimed more than a million lives.  

The partition sparked three wars, the birth of Bangladesh, and transformed Kashmir into the world's most militarised zone. 

As tensions between India and Pakistan persist, 101 East explores the partition's troubled legacy and the unresolved geopolitics between the two nuclear powers.