Migration – Darwin College Lecture Series 2018

The Partition of India and Migration

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent 70 years ago along religious lines, saw the largest migration in human history, outside war and famine. Millions were on the move in both directions. Muslims fled to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs to India, as communal hatred erupted and people feared being a minority in a new country. Many thousands of those who lived through this violent birth of two new nations migrated to post-war Britain. But many are only just talking of their experiences seven decades on. In this lecture Kavita Puri reflects on why silence was kept in Britain among that generation and why people are speaking of this traumatic time now. She discusses how even though many fled homes 70 years ago the loss endures, and so too does a connection to the homeland that was left. It is a complex legacy that lives on in the second and third generations living in Britain today.