The book is a comprehensive study of border-related issues arising from the 1947 Partition of India. It looks at various cases of border disputes and affrays such as disputes related to the incorporation of princely states like Kashmir and Jaunpur, the agitation for the creation of new political entities, post-partition reconstruction of Punjab and old pre-partition Punjabi leaders losing their relevance, the Kamtapuri movement, Khasi and Mizo and Chin dissatisfactions, as well as the secession of East Pakistan in 1971. An important contribution to the study of borders, the volume will be useful for students and researchers of modern Indian history, colonial India, Partition studies, borderland studies, refugee studies, minority studies, political science, film studies, postcolonial studies, and South Asian studies.

A reappraisal of the tumultuous Partition and how it ignited long-standing animosities between India and Pakistan This new edition of Yasmin Khan’s reappraisal of the tumultuous India-Pakistan Partition features an introduction reflecting on the latest research and on ways in which commemoration of the Partition has changed, and considers the Partition in light of the current refugee crisis. Reviews of the first edition: “A riveting book on this terrible story.”—Economist “Unsparing. . . . Provocative and painful.”—Times (London) “Many histories of Partition focus solely on the elite policy makers. Yasmin Khan’s empathetic account gives a great insight into the hopes, dreams, and fears of the millions affected by it.”—Owen Bennett Jones, BBC

Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays on Memory, Culture, and Politics brings together scholars from across the globe to provide diverse perspectives on the continuing impact of the 1947 division of India on the eve of independence from the British Empire. The Partition caused a million deaths and displaced well over 10 million people. The trauma of brutal violence and displacement still haunts the survivors as well as their children and grandchildren. Nearly 70 years after this cataclysmic event, Revisiting India’s Partition explores the impact of the “Long Partition,” a concept developed by Vazira Zamindar to underscore the ongoing effects of the 1947 Partition upon all South Asian nations. In our collection, we extend and expand Zamindar’s notion of the Long Partition to examine the cultural, political, economic, and psychological impact the Partition continues to have on communities throughout the South Asian diaspora. The nineteen interdisciplinary essays in this book provide a multi-vocal, multi-focal, transnational commentary on the Partition in relation to motifs, communities, and regions in South Asia that have received scant attention in previous scholarship. In their individual essays, contributors offer new engagements on South Asia in relation to several topics, including decolonization and post-colony, economic development and nation-building, cross-border skirmishes and terrorism, and nationalism. This book is dedicated to covering areas beyond Punjab and Bengal and includes analyses of how Sindh and Kashmir, Hyderabad, and more broadly South India, the Northeast, and Burma call for special attention in coming to terms with memory, culture and politics surrounding the Partition.

A few bloody months in South Asia during the summer of 1947 explain the world that troubles us today.

Was the Partition of India inevitable? Was it a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs of the Indian subcontinent? Was the Partition a momentous event or a long-drawn-out messy process? Were the experiences of uprooting, violence, and rehabilitation in the divided provinces of Bengal and Punjab the same? What are the multiple legacies and memories of the Partition? More than 70 years have passed since this upheaval, yet we continue to grapple with such questions. The Partition remains in the memories of those families and individuals who lived through the trauma of violence and uprooting, the loss of life, and the travails of survival. This short introduction provides a comprehensive account of the causes, experience, and aftermath of this division and acquaints its readers with major debates in a succinct manner. It situates the history and politics of the division within the broader histories of colonial and postcolonial South Asia and draws attention to the multiplicity of meanings of 1947 and their relevance in framing and understanding contemporary challenges in South Asia.

*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts of the partition *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Beyond its obvious influence in areas like trade and commerce, the East India Company also served as a point of cultural contact between Western Europeans, South Asians, and East Asians. Quintessentially British practices such as tea drinking were made possible by East India Company trade. The products and cultural practices traveling back and forth on East India Company ships from one continent to another also reconfigured the way societies around the globe viewed sexuality, gender, class, and labor. On a much darker level, the East India Company fueled white supremacy and European concepts of Orientalism. Ultimately, the company's activity across the Indian subcontinent led to further British involvement there, and the British Raj, a period of British dominance and rule over India that formally began in 1857 and lasted until 1947, remains a highly debated topic amongst historians, political scientists, the British people, and the people of modern India. Thanks to its commercial complexion and the power invested in a board of directors, British rule in India was characterized by economic monopolies, aggressive trade practices, punitive taxation, and the impoverishment of vast regions of India. Much of the Company's industry was based on a policy of producing and exporting raw materials from India and importing manufactured goods to satisfy an almost unlimited local market. Home industries and the domestic cottage textile industry, in particular, were heavily impacted by this, and with the addition of land taxes and a general regime of economic exploitation, the British East India Company grew to be a heavy burden on the shoulders of ordinary Indians. British India ultimately covered some 54 percent of the landmass and 77 percent of the population. By the time the British began to contemplate a withdrawal from India, 565 princely states were officially recognized, in addition to thousands of zamindaris and jagirs, which were in effect feudal estates. The stature of each Princely State was defined by the number of guns fired in salute upon a ceremonial occasion honoring one or other of the princes. These ranged from nine-gun to twenty-one-gun salutes and, in a great many cases, no salute at all. The Princely States were reasonably evenly spread between ancient Muslim and Hindu dynasties, but bearing in mind the minority status of Muslims in India, Muslims were disproportionately represented. This tended to grant Muslims an equally disproportionate share of what power was devolved to local leaderships, and it positioned powerful Muslim leaders to exert a similarly unequal influence on British policy. It stands to reason, therefore, as India began the countdown to independence after World War II, that the Indian Muslim leadership would begin to express anxiety over the prospect of universal suffrage and majority rule. At less than 20 percent of the population, Indian Muslims would inevitably find themselves overwhelmed by the Hindu majority, and as the British prepared to divest themselves of India, ancient enmities between Hindu and Muslim, long papered over by the secular and remote government of Britain, began once again to surface. The Partition of British India: The History and Legacy of the Division of the British Raj into India and Pakistan looks at the complicated process by which the British partitioned British India. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the partition like never before.