graynold:Muslim refugees from East Punjab and the United Provinces climb atop trains at Amritsar Rai
graynold:Muslim refugees from East Punjab and the United Provinces climb atop trains at Amritsar Railway Station to head towards Lahore. — Excerpted with permission from Witness to Life and Freedom, Roli Books, DelhiToday marks 70 years since partition and the creation of Pakistan and India, in retrospect a horrifically awful decision to divide the Indian subcontinent on the basis of religion. A million or more refugees on trains were slaughtered as Muslim refugees passed through Hindu areas and vice versa. Many of those who survived lost their land and all of their possessions, meagre as those may have been, and were driven from homes where they and their ancestors had lived for countless generations. The end result was the creation of the utterly dysfunctional, theocratic state of Pakistan and India. India, despite the religious cleansing of partition, remains one the largest Muslim countries even though that religion is a minority one. India has been a much more successful state in which democratic institutions have persisted. Meanwhile there is much animosity and frequent conflict between India and the rump of Pakistan (after Bangladesh broke away), now nuclear armed, states.Read Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children as a memorial to the partition. -- source link