Partition of India

The partition of India was the process by which British dependencies and treaty states in the Indian subcontinent were granted independence in the 1940s. The divisions resulted in the creation of four new independent states—India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Pakistan (including modern-day Bangladesh)—and sowed the seeds for later conflicts between India and Pakistan.

Aftermath

Violence between Hindus and Muslims, or between India and Pakistan,

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did not end with the Partition. India has been riven by communal riots, while Pakistan is riven by sectarian strife against its minority Shi'ite population.

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Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. The Muslims who migrated to Pakistan -- called "Muhajirs" -- complained of being treated as second-class citizens. Municipal politics in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, often turned on immigrant/native conflict. Immigrant Sindhis and Punjabis in India also experienced poverty and discrimination. However, fifty years after the Partition such conflicts have largely subsided.

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India and Pakistan have also gone to war four times:

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• 1947
• 1965
• 1971
• 1999 Kargil Conflict

They have also engaged in a nuclear arms race which has at times threatened to erupt into nuclear war.

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The British-Tibetan border, winding as it did through the Himalayas, had never been definitively surveyed or marked. India, as the inheritor of a long stretch of the British borders, and the People's Republic of China, as the conqueror of Tibet, eventually clashed, leading to the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Related Topics:
People's Republic of China - 1962 - Sino-Indian War

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All of the four nations resulting from the Partition of the British Raj have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. These include:

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• in 1971, Bangladesh Liberation War between Bangladesh and Pakistan (called the Pakistani Civil War by Pakistan) earned independence for the new country of People's Republic of Bangladesh
• the Sikh separatist movement in the Punjab, resulting in the Golden Temple Raid in 1984 and the Punjab insurgency
• Insurgency in Kashmir
• the Mohajir movement in Pakistan and riots in Karachi
• civil conflict in Sri Lanka between Sinhalese and Tamils
• civil conflict between the Burmese central government and hill tribes such as the Karen

Some political scientists, like Ernest Gellner, would argue that this is due to an imported Western political theory, nationalism. The same theory that justified Indian rebellion against the British could also justify minority rebellion against the four new governments formed from the Raj -- particularly as they were new and lacked the legitimacy of custom and antiquity.

Related Topics:
Ernest Gellner - Nationalism

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