Wars, politics & history

Partition of India

15 August 1947

The Partition of India took place in August 1947, when British rule in the subcontinent ended and British India was divided into two independent states, the Dominion of Pakistan, which became independent on 14 August, and the Union of India, on 15 August. The border was drawn in haste by a commission led by the British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe, and it split the provinces of Punjab and Bengal along religious lines, between mainly Muslim and mainly Hindu or Sikh districts. The division set off one of the largest migrations in history, with millions of people crossing the new border, and widespread communal violence in which estimates of the dead range from hundreds of thousands to about two million. The unresolved status of Kashmir led to continuing conflict between India and Pakistan.

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This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.