As India and Pakistan celebrate 70 years of independence this week, the legacy of the August 1947 Partition of British-ruled India that resulted in the birth of these two nations is something both are still coming to terms with.

It's been 70 years since India and Pakistan became two independent nations, ending British rule in the Indian subcontinent.

Gaining independence from Britain took almost 30 years of effort.
The British created and perpetrated a religious antagonism in the Indian subcontinent, just like they did in the Middle East.
This was part of their colonial strategy that is known as "divide and rule."
Until that times, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were used to live together in the same territories for hundreds of years.

During World War I, the British promised to leave India if Indians fought on their side as allies.
Indians did do so for their colonizers, but independence was elusive.

The British again made the same promise during World War II. Some Indians, led by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, refused to fight for them this time.
However, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, initially concerned for the protection of minorities and a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity, convinced Indian Muslims to fight for the British.
This move was interpreted as Jinnah wanting British support for a future Muslim state.


After World War II ended, British rule in India was marred by communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.
Hindu Indians were angry at Muslims for their desire to break up India, while Muslims feared their treatment as a minority.
Tensions escalated further after the Great Calcutta Killings in 1946, which killed thousands of people.

The British decided to exit what had become a mess, and left the continent one year earlier than planned.
Mass migration followed, marred by violence and bloodshed, as about 15 million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, fearing discrimination, swapped countries in a political upheaval that cost more than a million lives.

While around 7 million Hindus and Sikhs fled towards India, around 7 million Muslims made their way towards Pakistan, their newly created homeland.


But the boundaries were arbitrary; the division of the Punjab, Bengal and Kashmir paying no attention to existing ethnic and tribal communities.
The enmity between India and Pakistan continues on to this day.
Since 1947, the two have fought three wars. And they still haven’t agreed a border.

Two of the three wars were for Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between the rivals and claimed by both.
This territory is still locked in a state of conflict with near daily clashes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC), the official name of the disputed frontier.
Tens of thousands, mainly civilians, have died in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir in the past 30 years while demanding independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan.

Another fall out from the borders had catastrophic consequences. In 1971, Pakistan and India went to war, this time over East Pakistan, which later became the independent state known as Bangladesh.

