Seven Days in Summer: Countdown to Partition


Seven Days in Summer: Countdown to Partition

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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

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On 15 August 1947, Britain gave up its Indian empire, partitioning it

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into two, newly-created independent countries, India and Pakistan.

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The seven days leading up to the handover of power

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were some of the most tumultuous of the 20th century.

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One of the really dark mysteries at the heart of partition

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is why ordinary people could turn into killers.

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By the end of the week,

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one of the biggest migrations in human history had begun.

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This is the story of eight ordinary people, told in their own words,

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as they took part in an epic event that changed the world forever.

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And, somehow, all these leaders have convinced themselves

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that this enormous, nation-breaking, continent-splitting project

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could be managed without vast loss of life, without vast crisis

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and, of course, they were wrong.

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By 1947, India had been ruled by Britain for almost 200 years.

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It was known as the Jewel in the Crown,

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supplying raw materials, a workforce,

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taxes and brave soldiers.

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But Britain's dominion in India, the once beloved Raj,

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was about to dramatically end.

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Today, responsible citizens of the world, concerned with global

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politics are watching with intense interest the land of

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India, most difficult administrative problem of the British Empire and

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home of one of the oldest and most complex of existing civilisations.

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For decades, Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi had been

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calling for independence but Britain had always resisted.

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Now, World War II had left Britain bankrupt.

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The British are in a real rush to leave India by this week.

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There's no money any more to invest in this empire

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and it's a waning asset.

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It's not actually paying for itself any more as a colony.

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In fact, it's costing the British money to keep it going.

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Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Queen's uncle,

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was sent to Delhi as the last Viceroy.

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Mountbatten was sent out

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to effect a peaceful and rapid transfer of power.

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But, in reality, it wasn't like that at all because, on the ground,

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there was already quite a lot of violence occurring

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between the main religious communities.

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Mountbatten was known in the Admiralty as the master of disaster

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because he was so good at wrecking ships.

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The fact is, they sent him to India

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because he seemed like a man who was incredibly good at PR.

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He was very good at doing a job where Britain would look good

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at the end of it and so his task was to get Britain out and

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still looking as clean as possible.

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For centuries, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had shared the country,

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but with British rule weakening, conflict had erupted

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between the Hindus and the Sikhs on one side and the

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minority Muslims on the other.

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Mountbatten tried in vain to broker a deal that would keep

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India united but the Muslim League, a political party led

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by British-trained barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah,

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demanded a separate homeland for Indian Muslims.

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Fearing civil war as tensions grew,

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Mountbatten reluctantly drew up a plan for partition

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that would carve two new nations out of one.

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In just seven days, Jinnah will become leader of the world's

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first Muslim country, Pakistan,

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and Jawaharlal Nehru will become the first Prime Minister

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of an independent India.

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Imagine being an Indian the week before independence.

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You've been waiting 20 or 30 years, your whole life,

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you've been dreaming of it,

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fantasising about what that might mean

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and now independence, this week, is actually going to happen.

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For people on the ground, it looks completely different.

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They are dealing with bloodshed, uncertainty, rumours, anxiety.

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So there's a real disconnect between what's happening in Delhi

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and what people are actually experiencing.

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In just one week's time, everything will come to a head.

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As ever, the powerful stand to profit but ordinary people

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will find their lives thrown into turmoil...

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..as millions will have to choose

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which country they want to call home.

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With just seven days to go until partition, the British still

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haven't announced where the border will be drawn

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but it's clear that Punjab,

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a region in India's north where Muslim, Sikhs and Hindus live

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alongside each other will be divided between the two new countries.

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Riaz Khan, a young Muslim schoolboy, knows nothing about the power games

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being played out hundreds of miles to the south in Delhi.

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I was a young boy. Early one morning, my parents' voices echoed

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through our home. "Get out quickly, move."

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Something of great significance seemed to be happening,

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though I did not understand what.

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I was told we were going to what would be Pakistan.

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I didn't know what this meant or why we had to go.

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The Punjab is a very large region.

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The United Punjab was slightly larger than the United Kingdom

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and Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs

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were really peppered all the way through it.

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They weren't split into specific communities,

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so the idea of carving it up,

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even between those interests, is extremely difficult.

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Riaz Khan's family are Muslims.

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They have heard a rumour that the area around their home may be in

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India rather than the new Pakistan.

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Ordinary people had no clue as to what was going on.

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Imagine being in the village, where your access to news is so limited.

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What would come to you would be by word-of-mouth, hearsay, rumour.

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And there were so many decisions to make.

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Would they stay where they are, would they be travelling?

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Where would they be travelling to?

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Riaz Khan's parents have heard rumours

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about a tax on Muslims in nearby villages.

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They don't want to leave their home but are afraid for their lives.

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My grandfather refused to leave.

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He owned the land and felt comfortable there.

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I mean, it's really hard to imagine now

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what it must be like to say to somebody,

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"You've got to go and leave everything, leave your house,

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"your property, your friends, your community, everything.

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Older people, especially, are quite often digging their heels in

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and they say, "Well, I've been here all my life, why should I leave?

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"My ancestors are buried here. This is the land that I have tilled.

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"I'm not going to move."

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But others are leaving, because of anticipation of violence

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and because of sheer uncertainty

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about what's happening and what's going on.

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It's heartbreaking for people to be making these decisions.

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They had to leave property behind, they had to leave families behind

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and just embark on an unknown journey.

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It must have been absolutely traumatic.

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My grandfather, he believed he would see us all in a couple of days,

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because everything would return to normal and we would return home.

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Many people imagined they would come back,

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so they left their keys with their neighbours,

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buried things in their courtyards and they said,

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"Right, I will come back. I'm just going temporarily, for safety."

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But, of course, they didn't. They never came back.

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I never saw my grandfather again.

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Riaz and his family have distant relatives

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in a Muslim area about 120 miles north-west.

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They have decided to head in that direction.

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I remember seeing a stream of people moving out of the village.

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We joined them and started walking.

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-NEWSREEL:

-Millions of natives left their homes

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to move to an area where their religion was honoured.

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Muslims poured into Pakistan and Hindus caught within the borders

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of the new Muslim nation migrated to the new India.

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For many, the move meant uprooting their lives.

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But no sacrifice was too great to make for their religious freedom.

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Nobody had a clue that there would be this exodus.

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Somebody said, "Well,

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"there'll be a few thousands moving here and there."

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Mountbatten said some of the educated might leave.

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But the scale of the movement was absolutely unforeseen

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by everyone involved in the partition.

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There are 12 to 15 million people on the move.

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It's one of the biggest refugee migrations of the 20th century.

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More and more families joined that caravan.

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Riaz and his family can only hope there will be safety in numbers.

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We believe men were lying in wait to attack us.

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Any noise frightened me.

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Imagine what it's like to be one of these refugees.

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They're trudging miles and miles

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along those hard, dusty roads.

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There are rumours that the wells have been poisoned,

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so it's hard to get water.

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People are giving birth along the road,

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people are dying along the road

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and, constantly, over everything, is this fear

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that the other side are going to swoop down and attack

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while you're passing through their territory.

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Mountbatten had promised the Indian leaders that he would provide

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security on the ground in the run-up to independence.

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But the Punjab Boundary Force,

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the British-led contingent dispatched to maintain law and order

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for a population of over 12 million, consists of just 15,000 men.

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The boundary force goes out and it does try and stem and quell

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violence where it occurs and when it shows up, it is effective in

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stemming the violence, but it's just too little, too late.

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At the same time, there are thousands of soldiers in India

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kept behind barracks and the reason is the British fear

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that if they put too many troops into this situation, they won't be

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able to get them back out again.

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The British are not saying anything. They're not interested.

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They're ready to get on to their boats and planes

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and be back in Britain.

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There is absolutely no instruction,

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no orders, no directions coming down from the British.

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They have washed their hands of India.

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I saw the body of a dead man.

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It was the first thing like that I ever saw. I couldn't stop looking.

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Some people are moving literally

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because they're running for their lives.

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Their friends have been attacked, so they're really on the run.

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But others are far more moving along ideological lines.

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People are thinking, "Do I believe in this new state enough to go

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"and risk moving there? Am I really going to have a better job there?

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"Are things really going to be as bright

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"as the propaganda is suggesting?"

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Riaz Khan and his family walk all day.

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As night approaches, they reach a riverside,

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hoping to catch a boat to what would soon be Pakistan.

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By the time a boat arrived for us, it was quite dark.

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There were dozens of people shoving and pushing.

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I was almost thrown in.

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Suddenly, the boat started to move.

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My family could not get in.

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I was alone. I started crying.

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I thought it was my fault that I had lost them.

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Who would have thought that independence, which is such

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a positive thing that people were waiting for, would have come

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along with this kind of experience?

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The political solution was what they were pushing for but they

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had not, absolutely not, anticipated the human costs that were to follow.

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With six days to go before independence,

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refugees are still trying to get to the country they want to belong to.

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The man responsible for drawing the boundary

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has only been in India for a month.

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Cyril Radcliffe, a wealthy British establishment lawyer,

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is running out of time.

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Sir Cyril Radcliffe was actually a barrister who had no previous

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knowledge of India and no previous knowledge of drawing

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boundaries or borders in any context whatsoever.

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And, in his own words, he spent almost his entire time

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sweating it out in India, not enjoying the Indian food, but having

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to decide one of the most important,

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momentous boundaries in world history.

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Cyril Radcliffe is given this huge responsibility

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and actually has no experience of India.

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But, interestingly, this is precisely why he is chosen, because

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he doesn't know anything about India and therefore is seen to be neutral.

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One of his first jobs is to actually get on a plane and see the country

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that he is actually going to divide

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and say, "Well, this is where the line should go down."

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But of course, is not as simple as that.

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Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the man who had spent 40 days in Delhi

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drawing up this petition, knew there was a problem.

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He wrote, a few days before independence,

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"There will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance

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"looking for me. I do not intend them to find me."

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And, a couple of days after partition, he was on a plane

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back to England and he was never seen in India again.

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Today, Lahore, ancient capital of Punjab, is almost exclusively

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Muslim and one of Pakistan's wealthiest cities.

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Back in 1947, the city was one of the most contentious

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decisions facing Cyril Radcliffe.

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When he divided Punjab, who would get Lahore?

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Lahore was the Paris of the East.

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It was a beautiful, culturally mixed and impressive city that has

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been celebrated by poets for generations, but the whole

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place has Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs threaded throughout it, everywhere.

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Often, they describe each other as brothers and people can't

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even imagine how you might take apart this mixed,

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hybrid population and segregate it out on religious lines.

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The uncertainty over the boundary is setting different religions

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against each other in Lahore.

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Watching the chaos unfold in the city he's always loved

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is the Hindu writer, Fikr Taunsvi.

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Last evening, a bomb exploded in a cinema house.

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Crimson red flames and flying sparks helped to illuminate the darkness.

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All the dead, 50 people, were Muslim so, indisputably,

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the man who threw that bomb must have been a Hindu.

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Lahore is in a state of civil war. It's absolutely ravaged.

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There are random stabbings happening in the streets,

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so people would just be knifed in the back unexpectedly.

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And people are losing, not only their property

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and their livelihoods, but they're also losing a whole way of life.

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The fear and tension of the past days still infected the atmosphere.

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The air was full of suspicion and terror that made you think

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that everyone had a dagger or a bomb hidden on their person.

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At one point, I saw a man lying in the corner with his eyes open.

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The policeman was muttering, "These people have been warned

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"so many times not to go through the localities where there is danger,

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"but they don't listen."

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There had been very little preparation for the amount

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of trouble there would be in Lahore.

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It's actually very close to where the border was going to be,

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not that anyone knew precisely where the border was going to be, so,

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as you came up to independence, there became a situation where you

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had 100,000 people trapped in the old city of Lahore and the

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only people to defend them were a group of around 200 Gurkhas,

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with one British captain in charge of them who was 20 years old.

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So the rioting began in that city

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and really nobody could do anything to contain it.

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Punjab has a highly mixed population, with large numbers

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of Hindus and Muslims in every town and district.

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But Punjab is also the birthplace of the Sikh religion and Sikhs

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make up 15% of the population.

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As a minority group, the Sikhs are not being given their own

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state and now some Sikh extremists

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are embarking on a mission to derail partition.

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The most dangerous community in this whole mix was the Sikhs.

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Because the Sikhs were the most vulnerable.

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Any border you drew was going to divide their community in half.

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For them, the division of Punjab is a tragedy of epic proportions.

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They feel they've been really let down and cheated on by the British.

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And so there are some people who are just not going to accept it

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and they fight it tooth and nail.

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This morning, the Sikhs are targeting one of a series of

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special trains leaving Delhi.

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Pakistan does not have enough civil servants to run a government.

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Six days before they start running their new country, a train packed

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with hundreds of Muslim bureaucrats and their families

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is on its way to what will be the new Pakistani capital, Karachi.

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The Pakistan Special's route passes straight through the Punjab,

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the ancient Sikh homeland.

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The Sikh bombing of the Pakistan Special kills four people,

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but its significance far outweighs the death toll.

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The attack on that train really symbolises an attack

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on the whole of the new Pakistani state and it was the first time

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that a train has been derailed and blown up

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and it really ratchets up the situation.

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It really creates even more tension

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in an already terrible situation.

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In Lahore, there are just five days left

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before the last British governor of Punjab, Sir Evan Jenkins,

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hands over control to the two new independent governments.

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He's spent much of his career

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administering a largely peaceful Punjab.

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Now, with time running out,

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he sends a telegram to Mountbatten pleading for help.

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The situation now is most serious.

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Rural areas reporting organised raids that cannot be checked

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except by display of force on massive scale.

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Our rural area reports about 100 Hindus missing,

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believed murdered and thrown into canal...

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I think it was probably very difficult for a lot of the

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British on the ground at this time.

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A lot of them could see that this was going quite badly wrong.

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Not only are the British leaving but those who remain

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are increasingly not being listened to because nobody's really sure

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who's going to be in charge of any particular part of India or

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which part of India's going to be India or Pakistan or what is

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going to happen, so authority is really not very clear at this point.

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Prakashvanti and her husband are Hindus from western Punjab

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who are looking forward to independence.

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They never imagined the violence that would come with it.

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All the locals left their houses saying the Muslims were coming.

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So we left our home. We were scared.

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Prakashvanti's husband decides

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that they should hide and wait for help in a factory.

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I said to my husband, "I don't want to stay here."

0:20:420:20:46

My husband reassured me

0:20:460:20:48

the trucks from India would arrive to rescue us very soon.

0:20:480:20:53

The common understanding of the violence in the villages is

0:20:540:20:57

that suddenly Hindus and Muslims picked up pitchforks and

0:20:570:21:01

started attacking one another, even neighbours who'd lived

0:21:010:21:03

side-by-side for generations.

0:21:030:21:05

But that was only a small part of the violence.

0:21:050:21:07

Really, what made the violence take off and expand and grow

0:21:070:21:10

so large, was that it was organised.

0:21:100:21:13

There are small groups of militia bands, oftentimes ex-soldiers

0:21:130:21:17

armed with weapons, that would go round from village to village,

0:21:170:21:21

gather up other supporters, so a band of 50

0:21:210:21:23

might become 500, might become 5,000,

0:21:230:21:25

then they would attack and they would wipe out entire villages.

0:21:250:21:29

There's a lot of arson, a lot of things being set on fire.

0:21:290:21:32

Villages are ablaze.

0:21:320:21:34

It's really about establishing facts on the ground, because,

0:21:340:21:37

if you can lay claim to an area

0:21:370:21:39

and say it's been cleansed of one community, or the other,

0:21:390:21:42

then you're, in a way, making a de facto stake to that territory.

0:21:420:21:47

Prakashvanti does what her husband says.

0:21:480:21:51

She sits and waits for the authorities to rescue them.

0:21:510:21:54

The trucks never came. A Muslim policeman came to the door.

0:21:570:22:05

The police really fall apart at this time and they collapse, often

0:22:050:22:09

turning a blind eye when their own community is involved in instigating

0:22:090:22:13

violence, or they are, even worse, actually taking part in violence.

0:22:130:22:17

He said to give him whatever possesions we had and he would

0:22:180:22:24

let us go. We gave him all our money and gold.

0:22:240:22:29

My husband returned to the room and said,

0:22:290:22:31

"They are taking the young girls away."

0:22:310:22:34

"They are going to dishonour you."

0:22:350:22:37

For woman, the partition is a tragedy of epic proportions,

0:22:370:22:43

because tens of thousands of women

0:22:430:22:45

are raped and there's terrible sexual violence against women.

0:22:450:22:48

Women have really hard lives in India before independence.

0:22:530:22:57

They are like property in many ways.

0:22:570:22:59

But they're also the upholders of the family honour.

0:22:590:23:02

And if women are raped or violated,

0:23:020:23:05

that's seen as bringing not just shame on them

0:23:050:23:08

but on the whole community, on their whole society.

0:23:080:23:11

And so it becomes a weapon of war,

0:23:110:23:13

used by both sides very extensively,

0:23:130:23:15

because the women themselves are seen almost somehow as symbols

0:23:150:23:20

of these new nation states, and so it's a horrific situation

0:23:200:23:22

where women's bodies are actually being used

0:23:220:23:25

to kind of mark out and create the new states.

0:23:250:23:27

My husband said, "Now they will dishonour you."

0:23:290:23:32

"If you agree, I will kill you myself."

0:23:330:23:37

He didn't wait for my response.

0:23:410:23:43

The feeling that you might actually risk your women falling

0:23:450:23:50

into the hands of the enemy, to the other, was so shameful, such

0:23:500:23:54

a taboo, that some men would rather kill their daughters or their

0:23:540:23:57

wives than actually have them fall into the hands of the other.

0:23:570:24:00

There was a sense, a really profoundly misogynist sense,

0:24:020:24:05

that a woman's chastity was worth more than her life.

0:24:050:24:07

Sometime later, Prakashvanti wakes up.

0:24:110:24:15

She is wounded but her husband had failed to kill her.

0:24:150:24:18

The killers had moved on.

0:24:200:24:22

They must have thought I was already dead.

0:24:230:24:26

Just outside the building, Prakashvanti finds her family.

0:24:290:24:32

The Muslims had killed my husband and son.

0:24:350:24:38

Only a short time ago, Prakashvanti had been looking

0:24:400:24:43

forward to independence. Now it has cost her her family.

0:24:430:24:47

She is not alone.

0:24:480:24:50

The death and destruction

0:24:500:24:51

in the week leading up to partition is spreading,

0:24:510:24:54

dividing and destroying hundreds of thousands of families across Punjab.

0:24:540:24:58

I don't think the British had any idea

0:24:580:25:01

about the scale of violence that was going to take place in 1947.

0:25:010:25:04

So, in that sense, the British really didn't understand,

0:25:040:25:07

I don't think, the nature of the implications of what they

0:25:070:25:10

were proposing in the partition of India.

0:25:100:25:13

Terrified that the killers will return, Prakashvanti has to leave

0:25:150:25:18

the bodies of her murdered family behind and seek safety.

0:25:180:25:22

I went into another building.

0:25:240:25:27

There were lots of people hiding.

0:25:270:25:29

The refugees of Punjab can look to no-one for help.

0:25:340:25:38

All they can do is wait and hope that the violence will somehow pass.

0:25:380:25:43

The fact is that some people did foresee this violence but

0:25:430:25:45

they weren't really in positions of power

0:25:450:25:47

and they weren't really being listened to,

0:25:470:25:49

nor were the resources available for them to do much about it.

0:25:490:25:52

In five days, a new government will take over.

0:25:520:25:55

Until then, the refugees have to rely on themselves.

0:25:550:25:59

Hiding in a corner, Prakashvanti finds two girls who,

0:26:000:26:03

like her, have lost their family.

0:26:030:26:06

They had no father or mother or uncles.

0:26:080:26:12

I couldn't leave him.

0:26:120:26:15

Later, when my wounds were being treated in the hospital,

0:26:150:26:19

I was asked if the girls were mine.

0:26:190:26:25

I said, yes, they were mine.

0:26:250:26:28

Located on the banks of the Arabian Sea, Karachi is today

0:26:380:26:41

one of the biggest and fastest growing cities in the world.

0:26:410:26:44

Pakistan's leading financial and industrial centre.

0:26:440:26:47

Back in 1947, it was a very different place.

0:26:470:26:52

The one-time fishing village turned port

0:26:520:26:54

had just been named Pakistan's new capital.

0:26:540:26:57

But it wasn't ready for independence.

0:26:570:26:59

Nor was the rest of the soon-to-be former Raj.

0:27:010:27:04

When Lord Mountbatten announced back in June

0:27:040:27:07

that partition would take place in just 61 days,

0:27:070:27:10

he shocked everyone, including his own advisers.

0:27:100:27:13

Now, with the clock running out, thousands of details,

0:27:130:27:17

large and small, are still up in the air.

0:27:170:27:19

Nobody's ever done anything like this before

0:27:220:27:25

and it's absolutely astonishing in its recklessness.

0:27:250:27:29

There is no sense of how this is going to be done.

0:27:300:27:33

This whole process is a good example of just how difficult it is to split

0:27:330:27:38

any political entity, this big, that has been held together for so long.

0:27:380:27:43

It involved everything from the big questions of who is going to

0:27:430:27:47

get how many fighter planes from the Indian army, of currency,

0:27:470:27:51

who is going to print it and how, to the smallest things,

0:27:510:27:54

the police band, who is going to get which instruments from it.

0:27:540:27:58

We see the division of the army, we see some of the great treasures of

0:27:580:28:02

archaeological India being divided

0:28:020:28:04

down to the actual beads on necklaces.

0:28:040:28:06

We see the encyclopaedias being divided,

0:28:060:28:09

sometimes, by letter in the alphabet.

0:28:090:28:11

The pettiness is astonishing.

0:28:140:28:17

I mean, rugs, ceiling fans, cutlery,

0:28:170:28:21

pieces of stationery, boxes of paper clips.

0:28:210:28:26

I mean, things were being counted out with forensic detail.

0:28:260:28:29

There was a ratio of 4:1, India-Pakistan,

0:28:290:28:31

because of the respective size of the countries,

0:28:310:28:34

and so these things were being kind of carved out.

0:28:340:28:38

One of the most poignant elements of this moment is,

0:28:380:28:42

where are the so-called insane going to go?

0:28:420:28:45

There is a very major insane asylum in Lahore.

0:28:450:28:48

It has Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

0:28:480:28:50

And it opens up this absurd bureaucratic debate -

0:28:500:28:54

do the mad, who have been certified

0:28:540:28:56

as people who do not belong to society,

0:28:560:28:59

should they also be now divided up as Indians or Pakistanis?

0:28:590:29:02

With four days to go until independence, Muslim extremists

0:29:120:29:15

begin a series of attacks on Sikhs and Hindus in Lahore.

0:29:150:29:19

Revenge, for the bombing of the Pakistan Special.

0:29:190:29:23

Punjab's British governor sends his daily telegram to Mountbatten.

0:29:250:29:28

Jenkins to Mountbatten, 11th August.

0:29:310:29:34

Today, train attack outside Lahore Station.

0:29:340:29:36

Six or seven non-Muslims murdered.

0:29:360:29:39

Outrage, doubtless retaliation for derailment of Pakistan Special.

0:29:410:29:45

Situation out of control.

0:29:470:29:50

During last day, Lahore reports 18 Hindus stabbed,

0:29:500:29:53

two fatal, one identified corpse.

0:29:530:29:55

Situation seriously disturbed and likely to deteriorate.

0:29:570:30:00

News of the outbreak of revenge attacks on innocents is spreading.

0:30:010:30:05

Even to the furthest reaches of the country.

0:30:050:30:08

Some 600 miles west of Lahore,

0:30:110:30:13

on the border with Afghanistan, is Quetta.

0:30:130:30:16

This quiet backwater of the Raj is largely populated by Muslims.

0:30:170:30:21

Sunderdas Lalwani is a Hindu civil engineer,

0:30:230:30:26

sent there by the British to build a bridge.

0:30:260:30:28

But trouble is on the way.

0:30:320:30:34

A mob is scouring the area, looking for Hindus to kill.

0:30:350:30:39

A gang of Muslims came banging on the front door.

0:30:440:30:47

They heard there was a Hindu inside.

0:30:470:30:49

You know, when I heard about partition,

0:30:530:30:55

I'd sent my family away to Delhi.

0:30:550:30:57

When I heard the mob that day, I thought I'd never see them again.

0:30:580:31:02

What is so peculiar and unique for this time is the fact that

0:31:040:31:09

almost everyone is drawn into this macabre narrative of violence.

0:31:090:31:14

The ordinary householder going about their business,

0:31:140:31:17

the regular professional man, everyone is baying for blood,

0:31:170:31:21

everyone's out there on the streets

0:31:210:31:23

and ready to attack the rival community.

0:31:230:31:25

I had a Muslim servant who looked after my house. He opened the door.

0:31:270:31:31

How do you know how you will react under this kind of pressure?

0:31:360:31:40

At a time of such great chaos,

0:31:400:31:42

where there's a total breakdown of law and order?

0:31:420:31:45

You may never envisage that you could be someone who kills someone

0:31:490:31:53

and yet that is what happened.

0:31:530:31:55

The gang wanted to come in to look for me.

0:31:570:31:59

But then I realised the servant wouldn't let them.

0:32:020:32:04

But, equally, there are stories at this time of extreme bravery,

0:32:060:32:10

where people really put themselves on the line to protect people.

0:32:100:32:13

Eventually, the Muslim servant boy persuades the mob

0:32:140:32:17

that there are no Hindus heading inside.

0:32:170:32:20

He said Lalwani, his master, had already fled Quetta, that morning.

0:32:200:32:23

I never really spoke to him before then, except maybe an order,

0:32:280:32:32

but now that Muslim boy had saved my life.

0:32:320:32:34

He guided me to a place he knew in the forest.

0:32:410:32:44

He said the mobs wouldn't find me there.

0:32:440:32:46

He told me to wait there for the night and then he left.

0:32:480:32:51

I started to worry that he'd changed his mind

0:32:540:32:57

and he'd come back with some Muslims to kill me.

0:32:570:32:59

-NEWSREEL:

-With hordes seeking escape from the danger areas, the railroad

0:33:110:33:14

system of the Indian Northwest proved inadequate to the strain.

0:33:140:33:17

There's only three days to go until independence.

0:33:200:33:23

Refugees converge on railway stations, desperate not to be caught

0:33:230:33:27

on the wrong side of the border when the country is divided.

0:33:270:33:31

Partition, when it became inevitable,

0:33:310:33:33

could have happened in a different way.

0:33:330:33:35

It could have been more organised, it could have been dragged

0:33:350:33:38

over time and people could have moved in a manner that was

0:33:380:33:41

more safe and secure, over a period of months or maybe even a year.

0:33:410:33:46

It was the rush of partition that created the tragedy,

0:33:460:33:49

not just the partition itself.

0:33:490:33:51

600 miles away from his family, who have already escaped to Delhi,

0:33:540:33:58

Sunderdas Lalwani wakes up in the forest.

0:33:580:34:01

I don't know how but I managed to get some sleep.

0:34:040:34:07

Thanks to his Muslim servant, Lalwani has managed to avoid

0:34:080:34:12

being captured by mobs out for revenge against Hindus.

0:34:120:34:17

But now he must escape them once more

0:34:170:34:19

if he is to get to a train that will carry him to safety.

0:34:190:34:22

I had no idea what I was going to do.

0:34:240:34:26

I couldn't believe it when my Muslim servant came back.

0:34:280:34:31

He told me I needed to get to the train station and he said the

0:34:330:34:37

only way I could get their safely was to pretend I was a Muslim.

0:34:370:34:40

It was hard for anyone, if you were faced with the mob

0:34:430:34:46

from your own community, to resist that.

0:34:460:34:49

Even if you didn't want to participate in the killing yourself,

0:34:490:34:52

for individuals to try and stand against this

0:34:520:34:55

was virtually impossible, so the best they could do - and many,

0:34:550:34:59

many people did do this - was to shelter friends

0:34:590:35:02

or neighbours, individually try and get them away to safety.

0:35:020:35:06

I owed him my life. He said, "Good luck".

0:35:110:35:14

I find it very moving, when I think about those individual acts

0:35:160:35:19

of courage, because so much is being risked at that time

0:35:190:35:23

if you decide to try and protect someone from the other side.

0:35:230:35:27

Dressed as a Muslim, Lalwani is able to survive the long journey south

0:35:280:35:32

to reunite with his family.

0:35:320:35:34

I, myself, wouldn't be sat here in front of you right now if it wasn't

0:35:350:35:40

for the fact that my grandfather, Sunderdas Lalwani,

0:35:400:35:44

was saved by a Muslim boy, who really risked his life

0:35:440:35:48

in order to get my grandfather out of the country.

0:35:480:35:52

I don't know why he did it, but it's an incredible act of bravery

0:35:520:35:57

and it's humbling, whenever I think about it.

0:35:570:36:00

The rail network has always been seen as one of the great successes

0:36:030:36:07

of Britain's Indian Empire.

0:36:070:36:08

But now, with only three days before the Raj is finally over,

0:36:080:36:13

trains are becoming the dark symbol of its chaotic end.

0:36:130:36:17

This is when killers on all sides begin to discover that they

0:36:170:36:20

provide the perfect means to identify and destroy the enemy.

0:36:200:36:25

The direction that you're travelling in gave off your ethnic identity,

0:36:250:36:28

because if you're travelling towards Pakistan, you must be Muslim.

0:36:280:36:31

If you're travelling from Pakistan towards India,

0:36:310:36:34

you must be either a Hindu or Sikh.

0:36:340:36:35

And this week leading up to independence is when train

0:36:350:36:38

massacres really start in earnest.

0:36:380:36:41

Trains become the centre of violence in this period.

0:36:430:36:46

Targeting people who are moving from one part of the country

0:36:460:36:51

to another in the hope of safety,

0:36:510:36:54

in the hope of being with their co-religionists,

0:36:540:36:56

but this becomes the most perilous journey of their lives

0:36:560:36:59

and the carnage is excessive and complete and bloody.

0:36:590:37:02

The violence on the trains is absolutely horrific.

0:37:040:37:07

These are contained spaces

0:37:070:37:09

and people can't run out, as they're attacked.

0:37:090:37:11

The perpetrators just move from carriage to carriage,

0:37:110:37:14

hacking people to death as they move along.

0:37:140:37:16

And, as the train pulled into its destination, almost

0:37:180:37:22

completely, the entire train would be full of corpses.

0:37:220:37:27

As the massacre spread, whether your train is attacked or reaches

0:37:280:37:32

its destination safely is just a question of fate.

0:37:320:37:36

Harbhajan Singh Puri is a young Sikh government engineer,

0:37:410:37:45

one of the lucky ones who makes it to safety.

0:37:450:37:48

I left Lahore by train. The violence had started.

0:37:480:37:51

Stabbings, bombings. I got too scared to go out there.

0:37:510:37:56

Even though my Muslim friend said

0:37:560:37:58

they'd have to kill him to get to me.

0:37:580:38:00

When Harbhajan's train made it safely out of Lahore,

0:38:000:38:03

and beyond the reach of Muslim militias, he was relieved.

0:38:030:38:06

But Ludhiana Station, north of Delhi,

0:38:070:38:09

the violence of partition catches up with him.

0:38:090:38:12

Harbhajan is forced to face the truth

0:38:120:38:14

of how this week is changing people he thought he knew.

0:38:140:38:17

Some people started shouting, "Clear the train. Everyone out."

0:38:180:38:22

They were looking for Muslims

0:38:220:38:24

who might have been hiding in amongst us on the journey.

0:38:240:38:27

In the space of the train carriage,

0:38:280:38:30

what happens is your identity became reduced, largely to your religion.

0:38:300:38:34

You might be a civil servant, you might be a teacher,

0:38:340:38:37

you might be a gardener,

0:38:370:38:39

but at that moment you become a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh, a Christian

0:38:390:38:43

and I think that is a really important facet of the violence

0:38:430:38:47

because it reduced people's identities to that of religion

0:38:470:38:50

and it meant that they became targets

0:38:500:38:52

for systematic religious violence.

0:38:520:38:55

I saw one young man, they questioned him and asked him, "Who are you?"

0:38:570:39:02

He give some Hindu name and they searched him.

0:39:020:39:05

They found some papers which showed that he was actually a Muslim.

0:39:070:39:10

There are some people who don't agree that their identity

0:39:120:39:15

is just about being Hindu, Sikh or Muslim

0:39:150:39:17

and there are people who are trying to bring peace,

0:39:170:39:20

who are trying to bring people together

0:39:200:39:22

and they are just sort of drowned out, really,

0:39:220:39:27

by the wave of hostility and violence that takes place.

0:39:270:39:32

He raised his arms to protect himself.

0:39:330:39:35

His arm was all cut and then they killed him.

0:39:350:39:40

I hadn't seen such a sight before. It was shocking.

0:39:400:39:44

I felt so sorry for him. But I couldn't help him.

0:39:440:39:47

I just couldn't understand it. They were Sikhs like me.

0:39:480:39:52

It was the madness that was around the people, religious

0:39:520:39:56

fanaticism and then it's a vicious circle. It's a very sad thing.

0:39:560:40:00

The partition of this country was a misfortune for humanity.

0:40:010:40:04

While many refugees were seeking sanctuary with family and friends,

0:40:080:40:12

others had simply run away from danger and were now

0:40:120:40:15

forming part of a rapidly escalating refugee crisis.

0:40:150:40:19

-NEWSREEL:

-Hungry and homeless refugees set up housekeeping

0:40:190:40:22

in the streets of the major cities.

0:40:220:40:23

Bewildered, they waited helplessly for someone to take care of them.

0:40:230:40:27

With nowhere else to go, refugees across the country are being forced

0:40:270:40:31

to live in makeshift camps that are struggling to cope with the influx.

0:40:310:40:36

The state of the refugee camps was really an example of how the British

0:40:360:40:39

hadn't prepared for petition but nor had the independence leaders.

0:40:390:40:42

Nobody had really prepared for the level of disaster that was

0:40:420:40:46

going to occur and so the provision for refugees was incredibly basic.

0:40:460:40:51

Quite frequently, there was no food, no water, certainly no

0:40:510:40:55

medical supplies and no security so people found themselves still in

0:40:550:40:59

immense danger of violence because there was nobody to protect them.

0:40:590:41:02

Somehow, all these leaders had convinced themselves

0:41:030:41:06

that it was not going to be as big a deal as it was.

0:41:060:41:09

That it could be managed.

0:41:090:41:11

This kind of enormous, nation-breaking,

0:41:110:41:14

continent-splitting project could be managed without vast loss of life,

0:41:140:41:18

without vast crisis and, of course, they were wrong.

0:41:180:41:22

1,000 miles from Punjab in India's east

0:41:250:41:27

is the other region that will be partitioned, Bengal.

0:41:270:41:31

Today, the capital of India's half of Bengal is known as Kolkata.

0:41:340:41:37

But back in 1947, the British called it Calcutta.

0:41:370:41:41

The days before leaving India,

0:41:410:41:43

they still have not announced who the city would belong to.

0:41:430:41:46

Fuelled by the uncertainty,

0:41:490:41:50

Calcutta's Muslims and Hindus are preparing for all-out war.

0:41:500:41:54

One of the leaders on the Hindu side

0:41:550:41:57

is a wrestling coach named Jugal Chandra Ghosh.

0:41:570:42:00

I was a goonda, a thug.

0:42:000:42:03

People were terrorised by me but they used to love me as well.

0:42:030:42:08

Jugal Chandra Ghosh is a goonda, a gangster, who uses his wrestlers

0:42:080:42:12

as muscle in the protection racket he runs in central Calcutta.

0:42:120:42:15

Just one year ago, in August 1946,

0:42:150:42:19

he took part in one of the most violent riots in Indian history.

0:42:190:42:23

What began as a peaceful Muslim protest turned into four days

0:42:260:42:30

of murderous street battles.

0:42:300:42:32

Chandra Ghosh used his men as a Hindu killing force.

0:42:330:42:36

When I saw Hindu shops burnt

0:42:400:42:42

and scattered Hindu dead bodies all around,

0:42:420:42:45

I went down to the Rattray's.

0:42:450:42:48

I asked for money from them.

0:42:480:42:50

They paid up.

0:42:500:42:52

Then I declared to my boys, "For one murder you get 10 rupees."

0:42:520:42:57

On my order, all of my boys began the counter attacks.

0:42:580:43:03

So Calcutta was full of these goonda groups, both Hindu and Muslim

0:43:050:43:09

and until this point they had really operated more as an

0:43:090:43:11

underworld Mafia, rather than as ethnic partisans, but this

0:43:110:43:16

was the first time that they were used specifically as almost

0:43:160:43:19

an ethnic militia and you had sort of pitched battles

0:43:190:43:23

in the streets between these two armed Mafia groups.

0:43:230:43:27

I paid for at least 150 to 200 murderers.

0:43:270:43:31

Back in 1946, at the end

0:43:320:43:34

of what became known as the great Calcutta killings, 5,000 were dead.

0:43:340:43:39

Now, with just two days to go before partition, Calcutta's

0:43:400:43:44

newspapers are reporting that goonda gangs on both sides

0:43:440:43:48

are getting ready to kill each other again.

0:43:480:43:51

When the police arrived,

0:43:530:43:54

there was an exchange of shots between the two parties.

0:43:540:43:56

Two armed constables were killed in this goonda-police clash.

0:43:580:44:01

The casualties among the miscreants is not known.

0:44:040:44:06

The entire area was searched and about 24 bombs were recovered.

0:44:090:44:12

In this week, there is a fear that what happened in 1946 might happen

0:44:160:44:20

again, that thousands of people might die again in Calcutta

0:44:200:44:23

and so people are on a knife edge, they're really feeling very, very

0:44:230:44:27

tense and there's the fear that one killing or one episode of

0:44:270:44:31

violence might spark something that can't be brought back under control.

0:44:310:44:35

-NEWSREEL:

-The fate of 400 million Indians

0:44:380:44:40

rests on these men's shoulders.

0:44:400:44:41

Iron-willed Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

0:44:410:44:44

Here is silver-tongued Pandit Nehru.

0:44:440:44:47

It's only two days before the British hand over power

0:44:470:44:50

to India's Nehru and Pakistan's Jinnah but they can only watch

0:44:500:44:53

events in Bengal and Punjab from afar, powerless.

0:44:530:44:56

Nehru and Jinnah are about to become leaders of these new

0:44:560:44:59

countries and to have control over them but, actually,

0:44:590:45:02

they're worried about the states they are going to inherit.

0:45:020:45:05

Everything that these men had fought for their whole adult lives

0:45:050:45:08

was now coming apart at the seams, so they are really traumatised,

0:45:080:45:11

these leaders, by what's happening, but they just keep going,

0:45:110:45:15

really because what else can they do?

0:45:150:45:17

The agreement has been made with the British, independence is coming,

0:45:170:45:20

come what may, and they have to just keep ploughing ahead.

0:45:200:45:23

Fearful that Calcutta will explode once again in civil war,

0:45:240:45:28

the Chief Minister of Bengal turns in desperation

0:45:280:45:31

to the only man he believes can help...

0:45:310:45:33

..77-year-old Mahatma Gandhi.

0:45:340:45:36

Gandhi decides that goonda leaders like Jugal Chandra Ghosh will

0:45:370:45:41

be the key to stopping the cycle of violence in the city.

0:45:410:45:45

I was not a Gandhian at that point in time.

0:45:450:45:48

But Gandhi's secretary came to see me.

0:45:480:45:51

He said Gandhi would like to meet

0:45:510:45:53

some of the influential people of the area,

0:45:530:45:56

later that afternoon.

0:45:560:45:58

Gandhi's technique of nonviolence

0:45:580:45:59

had never really worked against the British

0:45:590:46:01

and really had fallen out of favour in the previous few years.

0:46:010:46:04

Gandhi had fallen out of favour.

0:46:040:46:05

By 1947, he really was rather a sidelined figure.

0:46:050:46:09

But he still did believe in nonviolence.

0:46:090:46:11

I went to see Gandhi.

0:46:110:46:13

When he started speaking, there was pin-drop silence all around.

0:46:130:46:17

By this stage, that older, Gandhian story of using nonviolence

0:46:170:46:21

as a powerful tool is no longer washing with people.

0:46:210:46:25

They're no longer really buying it.

0:46:250:46:27

Gandhi started telling how we should stop killing.

0:46:270:46:30

Some of us would die but the riots would stop.

0:46:300:46:33

He said if we keep thinking that we must repay murder with murder,

0:46:330:46:37

then this would never stop.

0:46:370:46:39

At this point, he's really having a dialogue.

0:46:390:46:41

He's having a debate with some of the goonda leaders

0:46:410:46:43

about what the right course of action should be.

0:46:430:46:46

And they are saying,

0:46:460:46:47

"Come on, we have to fight. It's our duty to fight.

0:46:470:46:49

But Gandhi, as always, is absolutely adamant

0:46:490:46:52

that nonviolence and peace is the only way.

0:46:520:46:55

A few did not listen. They cursed Gandhi but he kept standing there.

0:46:550:46:59

Not everybody saw him as a great hero.

0:46:590:47:01

You know, he was attacked, he had brickbats thrown at him,

0:47:010:47:04

then there were people who actually did start listening to him.

0:47:040:47:07

He still had this kind of moral power and, amazingly, some of these

0:47:070:47:10

gangster guys did start to sit down

0:47:100:47:12

and listen to him and even lay down their arms.

0:47:120:47:14

Jugal Chandra Ghosh's life would be changed by Gandhi's words.

0:47:140:47:19

I was convinced.

0:47:200:47:22

I took to the streets to spread the teachings of Gandhi.

0:47:220:47:25

Such is the power of his words that some actually come over and

0:47:260:47:30

lay down their arms in front of him.

0:47:300:47:33

There are others, of course, who don't listen,

0:47:330:47:35

but he does have a terrific impact on the city,

0:47:350:47:38

where he's able to stall the violence that could have happened.

0:47:380:47:42

And that's quite unique.

0:47:420:47:44

That's quite amazing.

0:47:440:47:46

But 1,000 miles west of Bengal, in Punjab's ancient capital,

0:47:470:47:51

Lahore, there's no-one working to bring calm to the streets.

0:47:510:47:54

Neighbourhoods are being barricaded along religious lines.

0:47:540:47:57

Ordinary people are being turned into soldiers.

0:47:570:48:00

One of them is a baker

0:48:030:48:04

who has been recruited by a local police officer gone rogue.

0:48:040:48:08

His name is Taj Din.

0:48:080:48:10

He's a well-known character in his neighbourhood,

0:48:130:48:15

who runs a popular naan stall.

0:48:150:48:17

But, this week, he has been caught up in the religious hatred

0:48:190:48:22

that's spread throughout Lahore.

0:48:220:48:24

The policeman told us that our Muslim brothers and sisters

0:48:300:48:34

were being killed.

0:48:340:48:36

He told us that if we died fighting against non-Muslims,

0:48:360:48:39

we would be markers.

0:48:390:48:41

And if we survived, we'd be soldiers of Allah.

0:48:410:48:44

Why would somebody just carrying on

0:48:480:48:50

a normal profession in their daily lives be suddenly eager to kill

0:48:500:48:54

as many members of the other community as they wished to?

0:48:540:48:57

That, in a sense, for us, seems like madness.

0:48:570:49:02

But the main objectives of our training

0:49:020:49:04

were to protect Muslims and to take revenge.

0:49:040:49:08

It's one of the really dark mysteries at the heart of partition,

0:49:090:49:13

is why ordinary people could turn into killers.

0:49:130:49:16

I think the best answer that we have is that people were just so

0:49:160:49:20

whipped up through demonisation of the other and the sense that you

0:49:200:49:25

have to kill or be killed, that they were fulling themselves

0:49:250:49:29

into thinking they were killing in self-defence.

0:49:290:49:31

During this week, Taj Din has been transformed

0:49:310:49:34

from a baker into a killer.

0:49:340:49:36

He's leading an attack on a local Sikh temple,

0:49:360:49:39

hoping to kill as many of the enemy as he can.

0:49:390:49:42

It was pitch dark when we stormed the Sikh temple.

0:49:430:49:46

I led the advance party.

0:49:460:49:49

We give a battle cry, shouting, "Long live Pakistan."

0:49:490:49:52

Suddenly, one of them appeared. He struck me with a blow.

0:49:520:49:57

But in hand-to-hand combat, I managed to kill him.

0:49:570:50:01

Partition turns just regular people into killers

0:50:040:50:07

and that's a chilling thing to think of.

0:50:070:50:09

There were 20 to 36 hiding out in the temple, men, women and children.

0:50:090:50:15

If you're caught up in those times, that is the only way in which

0:50:160:50:20

you can defend your communities.

0:50:200:50:22

Attack becomes the only form of defence.

0:50:220:50:26

All of them perished.

0:50:260:50:27

I think I killed four.

0:50:270:50:30

This is not to justify, of course, what went on,

0:50:300:50:32

but this is what was going through people's minds.

0:50:320:50:35

At the end of today,

0:50:380:50:40

Britain's 200-year-long rule of India will be over.

0:50:400:50:43

-NEWSREEL:

-Pakistan have claimed the transfer of British power

0:50:480:50:51

as Mr Jinnah, the governor general of the new dominion

0:50:510:50:54

arrives at the constituent assembly in Karachi.

0:50:540:50:57

On the morning of August 14th, 1947,

0:50:570:50:59

just hours before partition is official,

0:50:590:51:02

Lord Mountbatten celebrates

0:51:020:51:04

the birth of the world's first Muslim state, Pakistan.

0:51:040:51:07

-NEWSREEL:

-Addressing the assembly,

0:51:070:51:09

Lord Mountbatten first read a message from the King.

0:51:090:51:12

"I send you my greetings and warmest wishes."

0:51:120:51:14

Jinnah is happy that he's achieved a separate state,

0:51:170:51:20

but, at the same time, there's this lingering doubt,

0:51:200:51:23

because Pakistan is really trying to rise from the ashes at this time.

0:51:230:51:26

I mean, it's not actually a fully functioning state.

0:51:260:51:29

One in five people is a refugee in West Pakistan.

0:51:290:51:32

So, there's a paradox there, because, on one hand,

0:51:320:51:35

people want to celebrate independence but, at the same time,

0:51:350:51:38

it's starting them in the face

0:51:380:51:39

that millions have been moved and this terrible death and

0:51:390:51:43

destruction and it's not just been done to them, they've also

0:51:430:51:48

been acting out and involved in that violence themselves.

0:51:480:51:51

At midnight, India will become independent.

0:51:510:51:55

-NEWSREEL:

-People are rejoicing,

0:51:550:51:57

ready to welcome their long-awaited liberty.

0:51:570:52:00

There was unbounded joy...

0:52:000:52:02

After decades of doing everything they could to make sure this day

0:52:020:52:06

would never come, the British have planned

0:52:060:52:08

an elaborate handover ceremony tomorrow, in Delhi.

0:52:080:52:11

But, for the 100,000 refugees crowding into camps

0:52:110:52:14

around the capital, there is little to celebrate.

0:52:140:52:18

These refugees, who've lost so much in the run-up to independence,

0:52:180:52:22

don't fit in with the upbeat narrative of the day.

0:52:220:52:25

The British, were, of course, keen to orchestrate these images

0:52:260:52:29

of a smooth transfer of power.

0:52:290:52:31

You know, the whole thing

0:52:310:52:32

was so well orchestrated, it was a spectacle.

0:52:320:52:34

But, in reality, these smooth narratives

0:52:340:52:37

of the transfer of power really need to be placed alongside

0:52:370:52:40

these individual stories of trauma,

0:52:400:52:43

of uprootment, of migration and violence, of killings and murder.

0:52:430:52:48

And this was the reality of what was going on in some parts of India.

0:52:480:52:51

Among those taking shelter

0:52:530:52:55

in Delhi's main refugee camp at Purana Qila is Arghwani Begum.

0:52:550:52:59

She is nine months pregnant with her third child.

0:52:590:53:03

Arghwani had grown up in luxury in the north-east of India,

0:53:030:53:06

a Muslim, waited on by a staff of loyal Hindu servants.

0:53:060:53:09

Our house was built in the old style,

0:53:100:53:13

we even had stuffed tigers on the wall.

0:53:130:53:16

We had Hindus working on our farm and their wives were always

0:53:170:53:20

around the house. There was never any tension between any of us.

0:53:200:53:25

Those were the days.

0:53:260:53:27

But, this week, she had to flee after hearing that a gang

0:53:270:53:31

was coming to ransack her home.

0:53:310:53:33

Escaping to Pakistan,

0:53:330:53:34

Arghwani is forced to witness the horrors of partition.

0:53:340:53:38

They were killing people on our train.

0:53:400:53:42

The killings spree lasted for a while.

0:53:440:53:46

I heard screams and cries of panic. It was horrifying.

0:53:470:53:53

There were a lot of people, especially children, killed.

0:53:540:53:57

I saw their bloodied bodies with my own eyes.

0:53:590:54:01

But our compartment was safe, thanks to Allah.

0:54:030:54:06

Arghwani and her family have to stop in Delhi

0:54:090:54:11

and take refuge at the camp in Purana Qila.

0:54:110:54:14

We arrived at the Fort.

0:54:160:54:18

There was panic, pandemonium. No food or water.

0:54:180:54:23

You could hear the screams from the families when someone died.

0:54:240:54:27

There were no coffins. It was terrible.

0:54:270:54:30

I wasn't supposed to give birth for a couple of weeks.

0:54:350:54:38

But I suppose that the trauma of being in that camp

0:54:410:54:44

made me go into labour.

0:54:440:54:46

I gave birth to my third child at the camp.

0:54:480:54:51

It was a boy. There were no clothes for the baby.

0:54:580:55:02

He had to be draped in one of my daughter's frocks.

0:55:020:55:05

-NEWSREEL:

-It is the night of August 14th, 1947.

0:55:070:55:12

The auspicious moment is on its way.

0:55:120:55:15

In every house, throughout the land, the lamps of good fortune

0:55:160:55:20

are lighted to illumine the path to freedom.

0:55:200:55:22

At midnight, Jawaharlal Nehru prepares to address his new nation.

0:55:250:55:29

In Lahore, a city under curfew,

0:55:290:55:32

the Hindu writer Fikr Taunsvi listens to Nehru on the radio.

0:55:320:55:36

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps,

0:55:380:55:43

India will awake to light and freedom.

0:55:430:55:46

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny.

0:55:460:55:51

The whole night, the rages screamed freedom.

0:55:510:55:55

Freedom. Today, we're free of white's imperialism.

0:55:550:55:59

My friend said, "Are you unhappy at getting freedom?"

0:55:590:56:03

I said, "Yes.

0:56:030:56:05

"We should welcome this. We're greeted with the piles

0:56:050:56:08

"of dead bodies of Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs

0:56:080:56:11

"with the burning buildings and murderer's bombs."

0:56:110:56:15

On 15th August, 1947, Britain's Indian Empire was over.

0:56:290:56:35

India and Pakistan were now independent,

0:56:350:56:37

although the border between them, the Radcliffe Line,

0:56:370:56:40

would still not be announced for another two days.

0:56:400:56:43

Britain proclaimed to the world that the handover of power

0:56:450:56:49

had been a great success.

0:56:490:56:51

-NEWSREEL:

-Tumultuous crowds fill the streets,

0:56:510:56:53

celebrating, singing and laughing.

0:56:530:56:54

Police were called out many times to restore order

0:56:540:56:57

where everyone ran wild with joy.

0:56:570:56:59

Independence meant different things for different people.

0:57:000:57:04

For the Indian elite, independence was a great moment of celebration.

0:57:040:57:07

But, for the poverty stricken man who's been uprooted and has

0:57:070:57:10

migrated over miles, who has lost his means of livelihood, lost

0:57:100:57:14

property, what does independence mean? It means absolutely nothing.

0:57:140:57:18

One of the legacies of partition was the way in which violence

0:57:190:57:21

scaled up from being about individuals, but families,

0:57:210:57:25

about conflict between communities and religions, into something

0:57:250:57:28

much bigger, violence between armies, violence between nations.

0:57:280:57:32

This one week transformed the world we live in today.

0:57:320:57:36

If you look at Pakistan and India right now, this border that

0:57:360:57:39

was created in this week is the most dangerous border in the world.

0:57:390:57:43

In 1847, even though some people foresaw violence and foresaw

0:57:430:57:47

difficulty, I don't think really very many people foresaw how

0:57:470:57:51

bad relations between India and Pakistan would continue to be.

0:57:510:57:54

I think a lot of people thought

0:57:540:57:56

that actually it would all blow over and they would be friends again.

0:57:560:57:59

As we can see, tragically, that has not happened.

0:57:590:58:01

For me, the tragedy is that the war has never ended.

0:58:010:58:04

It's really become a cold war, at times it's been a hot war,

0:58:040:58:07

there have been three wars between the countries.

0:58:070:58:10

So, really, we're still seeing that fight that went on in 1947,

0:58:100:58:13

replayed and replayed. It's never really come to an end.

0:58:130:58:17

Memories of that time still echo and rebound now,

0:58:170:58:20

in that relationship between the two countries.

0:58:200:58:24

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