Welcome back to Origin Story, where we’re concluding the story of the partition of India and Pakistan. We resume in March 1947 with the arrival of the last viceroy of the Raj, Lord Mountbatten, and his formidable wife Edwina. They find a country on the precipice of civil war, with the Punjab consumed by ethnic violence between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi and the British haggle over the details of partition as the deadline draws near and tensions rise. After independence is declared on 15 August, the leaders struggle to bring peace to the new nations of India and Pakistan and avert all-out war over Kashmir.

When did partition become truly inevitable? Was British incompetence to blame for the bloodshed? What, or who, brought an end to the violence? How does the legacy of partition continue to shape the subcontinent’s politics? And what can we learn about the dangers of identity-based politics today?

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Reading list

• John Bew, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (2016)

• William Dalrymple, ‘The Great Divide’, The New Yorker (2015)

• Patrick French, ‘The Brutal “Great Migration” That Followed India’s Independence and Partition’, Life.com (2016)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume One: 1889-1947 (1975)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume Two: 1947-1965 (1979)

• Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World 1915-1948 (2018)

• Gandhi, written by John Briley and directed by Richard Attenborough (1982)

• Nisid Hajari, Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition (2015)

• Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (1985)

• George Orwell, ‘Reflections on Gandhi’, Partisan Review (1949)

• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981)

• Alex von Tunzelmann, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007)

Audio

• Empire: Mahatma Gandhi (2022)

• Empire: Muhammad Ali Jinnah (2022)

• Empire: The Last Viceroy of India (2022)

• Empire: Partition (2022)

• Jawaharlal Nehru, Independence Day speech (1947)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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