The great migration and partition of India

This story map shows the 1947 Partition of India into two separate countries, Pakistan and India.

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How It all began

This partition and huge migration story involves three sides, The British, Hindus, and Muslims. After the British took control of the subcontinent in 1858 through trading, they eventually implemented their divide and conquer policy. What entailed afterward was one of the greatest migrations in history. My grandparents were involved in this great migration.

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Strategic importance

The subcontinent was and is well known for its agricultural output in spices and crops because of its outstanding irrigational system. An example of this is the Indus river which is displayed on the following base map. It follows straight through Pakistan for about 1,976 miles. It is fed by glaciers in the Himalayan ranges. This would later peak British interest in the region.

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Another Example

Another example of this is the Ganga river system in India which is also fed by the Himalayan mountain ranges. It is about 1,560 miles long and it irrigates multiple rivers and farmlands along the way. examples of other river systems in India are the Narmada, Tapi, and the Godavari river.

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Enter the British

The British landed in the Indian subcontinent on August 24, 1608, at the port of Surat as shown on the following Basemap. They came solely for the purpose of trading spices, a very important commodity in Europe as it was used to preserve meat. Apart from that, they also traded in silk, cotton, indigo dye, tea, and opium.

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East India Trading company

The British grew their influence in India mainly through trade and through establishing economic and military influence. The British established a trading company known as the East India Company in Bombay, Surat, and Madras. The EIC company in Bombay is displayed on this basemap.

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Divide and rule

In 1857, the 'Great Mutiny' broke out in which the Hindus, Muslims, sikhs, Christians, and other minority groups jointly fought against the British. This shocked the British government so much that after suppressing the Mutiny, they decided to start the divide and rule policy in which they divided many areas of India into princely states with Muslims and Hindu population majorities being separate from each other.

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The British Retreat

Due to world war 2, the British began to retreat back from India to Burma in China during 1942 where they were currently in the Burma campaign which was fought primarily by  British Commonwealth  Chinese  and  United States  forces against the imperial forces of Japan. 

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Merging of the Princely States

While the retreat, the British Merged the British run Princely states into two separate countries based on Hindu and Muslim majority. This was executed in the worst way possible geographically, politically, and socially since the only precursor used for this division was religion.

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The massacre (we were friends then we started killing each other)

Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted together for almost a millennium, attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. It was a mutual genocide as unexpected as it was unprecedented. Large scale violence was experienced during the partition of the subcontinent and post-partition. As many as 2 million people were brutally massacred.

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Amritsar massacre

One of the most notable massacres was the Amritsar massacre that took place on 13 April 1919 as indicated on the map.

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The Great Migration

14.5 million of people migrated to the two countries and my grandparents were amongst them. My Grandparents specifically migrated through India and into Pakistan from it's northern disputed territory which is now formally known as Kashmir. This territory is shown on the following Basemap.

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Kashmir to Karachi

My grandparents later migrated from Kashmir to a more densely populated city, Karachi. Karachi is where my Parents and I were also born.

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My Migration

I moved to America in 2018 when I was 19 years old to pursue my bachelor of science in Environmental science.

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