Remembering the violence that gave birth to India and Pakistan | DW News

DW News published this video item, entitled “Remembering the violence that gave birth to India and Pakistan | DW News” – below is their description.

Pakistan is celebrating 75 years of its independence, with India to follow a day later. But behind these celebrations lie countless stories of pain and tragedy – arising from what is known in the sub-continent as the ‘Partition of India’. The border determining this was finalized 75 years ago.

These are the lines a British Lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew across the map of British India to create India and Pakistan. Pakistan itself divided into East and West Pakistan.

In creating Hindu majority India and Islamic Pakistan, conditions were set for mass migration and religious pogroms. Some 12 million people found themselves on the wrong side of a line that divided nations along religious lines. Hindus in newly created Pakistan fled to India and Muslims in the opposite direction. Up to a million people were massacred in the ensuing violence.

It is a story of shared violence, among Pakistanis and Indians. As both countries head into independence day celebrations, its worth hearing from those who witnessed these new nations being born – amidst the carnage, as well as the promise of a better future.

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In This Story: India

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the second-most populous country, the seventh-largest country by land area, and the most populous democracy in the world. New Delhi is the capital.

It has an exceptionally diverse population, with Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and other religions speaking over 21 recognised languages.

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Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It has a population exceeding 212.2 million, including the world’s second-largest Muslim population. It has an area of 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles).

Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman.

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