If we were in India now, there would be servants standing in the corners of this room and I wouldn’t notice them. That is what my society is like, that is what the divide is like. Aravind Adiga, interview The Guardian 2008
An ideology that divides the world into those who are worth more and those who are worth less, into superior and inferior beings, does not have to reach the dimensions of the German genocide to be wrong. Amir Hass, Israeli journalist
Miners: it was a showdown that divided the nation ... The miners raised the stakes as their overtime ban became an all-out strike. Dominic Sandbrook, The 70s II: Doomwatch 73-74, BBC 2013
This is one of the world’s most dangerous borders holding neighbours India and Pakistan apart. 2,000 miles long it slices through extraordinary landscapes and divides millions of people who once lived alongside each other. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan I, BBC 2017
Karachi: a vibrant metropolis of over 20 million people. ibid.
These African Pakistanis have been on the Indian subcontinent for hundreds of years. ibid.
There’s only three places on the entire border between India and Pakistan where you can cross. ibid.
There has been frequent conflict along this border. To this day very few can cross. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan II
This [solar park] is just one part of a huge collaboration between Pakistan and China. ibid.
We’re in the beating heart of the Punjab: Lahore. ibid.
It’s estimated that up to two million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus died, and over fourteen million people were forced to move during partition. ibid.
70% of Pakistanis are under the age of 20. ibid.
I plan to explore Pakistan’s remote north heading to the city of Gilgit, passing through the Hunza valley and ending my journey in Thalay, just twenty-five miles from the disputed border with India where troops face each other in a bitter stand-off. The two countries have fought four wars since partition: In 1947, ’65, ’71 & ’99. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan III
Jammu & Kashmir: I’m three hundred miles away … Here they are just as battle ready. ibid.
28 people were killed last year by cross-border shooting and shelling. ibid.
Last year during four months of mass protest against the India army more than 100 Kashmiri civilians were killed and 17,000 were injured. ibid.
On 15th August 1947 Britain gave up its Indian empire partitioned into two newly independent created countries – India and Pakistan. The seven days leading up to the handover of power were some of the most tumultuous of the twentieth century. By the end of the week one of the biggest migrations in human history had begun. Seven Days in Summer: Countdown to Partition, BBC 2017
But the Muslim League, a political party led by British trained barrister Mohammad Ali Jinnah, demanded a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. ibid.
When Lord Mountbatten announced back in June that partition would take place in just 61 days he shocked everyone including his own advisers. ibid.
An event that’s had a huge impact on all our lives – the Partition of India. In 1947 the British divided India in two creating a newly independent India and a new country – Pakistan. People of different faiths turned on each other: seventy million people became refugees overnight and over a million lost their lives. India’s Partition: The Forgotten Story, BBC 2017
The answer depends on who gets to tell it. ibid.
Pakistan itself means Land of the Pure. ibid.
Divide and Rule … The vast majority of Muslims did not prescribe to this … so what changed? ibid.
Jinnah … remained adamant that the Muslim League will represent all Muslims. ibid.
The violence was allowed to go on unchecked. ibid.
Mountbatten oversaw the negotiations for the final end of British rule … Nobody was happy with the Mountbatten plan. ibid.
It’s a region that’s been at war for more than 70 years: Kashmir, a place rich in culture and tradition, home to Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. A state which has for decades fomented hate and fanaticism, driving apart two countries who were once one. Secret Wars Uncovered s1e5: Kashmir Powder Keg, History 2020
Each nation secretly seeks to assert its control over the region. But with every clandestine confrontation the stakes get higher. ibid.
In 2019 Indian prime minister Narendra Modi revoked Kashmir’s special status in India’s constitution, taking away its autonomy. ibid.
What dark deals have been done by world leaders to prolong the conflict in Kashmir? ibid.
‘The conflict between India and Pakistan goes back to 1947: Partition was a sudden and fairly brutal process, and the problem was that Kashmir which is both Muslim and Hindu was made into a special territory.’ ibid. Michael Clarke, military specialist
Bigger battles were yet to come between these fierce and ultimately nuclear rivals. ibid.
Pakistan launched a series of air strikes against Indian airbases in Kashmir. India responded with force. Its army [December 1971] captured some 90,000 Pakistani troops in Eastern Pakistan … On 16th December 1971 Eastern Pakistan became the new sovereign state of Bangladesh. ibid.
Pakistan became the third largest recipient of American aid. ibid.
In Kashmir the Islamic insurgency ramped up the pressure on India. ibid.
After decades of conflict, Kashmir still remains an open sore between these two nuclear giants … A wound that doesn’t look like it will be healing any time soon. ibid.
Germany was split into two countries, east and west, a legacy of the Second World War that had left the continent divided. The Fall of the Berlin Wall with John Simpson, BBC 2021
From a young age we’re taught fidelity to the system and to the state … In almost every industrialised country in the world socialist parties have huge representations … but in America everyone knows that being called a socialist or a communist carried an immediate negative connotation. Abby Martin: The Empire Files: America’s Unofficial Religion: The War on an Idea, Youtube 2015
In the late 1800s there was an intense battle between organised labour and the country’s industrial capitalists. ibid.
It’s been a real battle with real weapons. ibid.
Repression … was reinforced by hired gangs and lynch-mobs. ibid.
But with the new law every single union officer was required to sign an affidavit pledging that they did not believe in socialism. If you did not sign, you lost your job. ibid.
Under the Smith Act it was deemed illegal for anyone to be a member of the communist party. ibid.
The old guard will use every weapon in its arsenal. ibid.
August 15th 1947 New Delhi: India is born in blood. More than a million people die in the ethnic and religious disturbances which accompany the creation of the separate states of India and Pakistan. Infamous Assassinations: Indira Gandhi & Rajiv Gandhi: India 1984/89
This is the Wagah border crossing between India and Pakistan. Every evening the flags of these two great nations are lowered in a hugely popular display of national pride. But just seventy years ago this border didn’t even exist. In 1947, 200 years of British rule came to an abrupt end and this vast sub-continent was divided between an independent India and the new Muslim homeland of Pakistan. My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947, BBC 2017
The first outbreak of Partition violence occurred in the summer of 1946 in Calcutta. Reports of atrocities against Muslims spread throughout Bengal, and in Noakhali district roaming gangs … began a campaign of terror against Muslims. (India & Pakistan) ibid.
Known around the world as the Great Calcutta Killings: they set the pattern for the Partition violence that was to engulf India for the next two years. ibid.
The worst violence of all took place in Punjab. ibid.
This is the north Indian city of Amritsar. And a few miles in that direction is the Pakistani border. But just seventy years ago that border didn’t even exist. My Family, Partition and Me II: India 1947
West Bengal – ten months after they fled, the line of partition divided the state, and their village Mandari became part of the new Muslim homeland of East Pakistan. 1,500 miles to the west, Partition also split my Sikh family’s home of Punjab down the middle. ibid.
Lahore A Blazing Inferno: Life Completely Paralysed. ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika 23rd June 1947 headline