Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Nicholas Gordon
Episode: Sam Dalrymple, "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia" (William Collins, 2025)
Release Date: September 4, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Nicholas Gordon interviews Sam Dalrymple about his book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia. The conversation reframes South Asian history by focusing not just on the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan but on five major partitions that took place between 1937 and 1971, each radically redrawing borders and identities in Asia. Dalrymple discusses how these partitions—of Burma, South Arabia, British India, the princely states, and East Pakistan/Bangladesh—broke up the vast expanse of British India and fundamentally shaped the region's modern landscape, identities, and lingering conflicts.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Partition: The Five Divisions

• Origin of the Book’s Frame

  • The impetus was the realization that people across the subcontinent reference various partitions, not just the famous 1947 one.

    "I was surprised. When I asked people about how partition affected the region, they tended to say, oh, which partition are you talking about?" — Sam Dalrymple [02:59]

  • Dalrymple’s research during COVID expanded to these other, often overlooked partitions.

• Defining the Scope

  • At its greatest extent, British India included regions from Yemen to Burma, a quarter of the world's population.

    “The Raj, as you said, stretched all the way from Aden in what's now Yemen all the way to Burma...” — Sam Dalrymple [04:18]

  • Over five decades, five major partitions transformed this ‘supercolony’ into 12, often rival, nation states.

• List of the Five Partitions:

  1. Burma from British India (1937)
  2. Southern Arabia (Aden) from British India (1937–1947)
  3. India-Pakistan (1947)
  4. Princely States (1947-onward)
  5. Bangladesh from Pakistan (1971)

2. The Forgotten Indian Empires: Governing Aden and Burma

• Varied Governance & Identity

  • Regions like Aden and Burma were governed as part of British India, often overshadowing the princely states of India itself.
  • Notions of Indian identity among Arabs and Burmese: In the 1920s, some people in Aden saw themselves as Indian, while later shifting toward Arab nationalism.

    "For him, Arab is an Indian ethnicity. And yet in the course of his life you can see a gradual alienation." — Sam Dalrymple [07:02]

• Burma’s Anti-Separation Movement

  • The idea of Burma’s partition is often seen as inevitable today, but at the time, it was highly controversial and widely opposed.

3. Mechanisms of Partition: British Policy, Nationalism, and Local Agency

• Why Burma and Arabia Were Separated

  • British support for separation often converged with Indian nationalist visions, especially those rooted in the Hindu idea of ‘Bharat Varsh’ (India’s sacred geography), which excluded Burma and Arabia.

    “Gandhi's actively campaigning against these regions remaining part of India because they don't form part of this Hindu holy land of Bharat.” — Sam Dalrymple [10:25]

• Independence from India, Not Britain

  • Separation from the Raj did not coincide with independence—these regions became separate British colonies, not free nations.

4. The Run-Up to Indian Independence

• Jinnah’s Evolving Role

  • Jinnah, often vilified or mythologized, was originally a promoter of Hindu-Muslim unity. Political shifts and fears for Muslim representation led to his evolution as Pakistan's founder.

    “He's the person who... dreams of a nation called Pakistan and then brings it through brute force into reality in a matter of a single decade.” — Sam Dalrymple [13:38]

• World War II as a Turning Point

  • The Congress Party’s imprisonment during WWII allowed Jinnah's Muslim League to rise, fundamentally changing postwar politics.
  • Britain emerged from the war weakened and eager to “just get rid of India altogether.” — [18:11]

• Mountbatten’s Deadline and Hasty Partition

  • Lord Mountbatten executed a rapid transfer of power, ensuring few British casualties but massive South Asian suffering.

    “There are very few British casualties in the course of 1947, and yet there is something like, you know, 10 to 12 million Indians and Pakistanis who are forced from their homes.” — Sam Dalrymple [20:35]

5. Assimilation of the Princely States

• Agency of the Princes
  • The fate of 30+ borderland states was not drawn by the British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe, but by the choices of these rulers, often based on realpolitik rather than religion.

    “Almost all of the border states shopped around for the best deal they could get. They weren't making their decision on the basis of religion.” — Sam Dalrymple [24:18]

  • Forgotten states: Some, like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, survived independently; others like Balochistan and Manipur were forcibly annexed, planting seeds for contemporary conflicts.

6. Decolonization of Southern Arabia and the Gulf

• Aden and Yemen’s Path
  • After separation from British India, these states were ruled as British protectorates, until decolonization, local revolutions, and geopolitical shifts (especially oil and Arab nationalism) forced Britain out (1971).

    "...if you went to the early 1960s, Aden was a far more important city than Dubai was..." — Sam Dalrymple [32:17]

  • The Arabian Raj outlived the Indian Raj by two decades and left a legacy of fragmented monarchies and republics.

7. Partition of Pakistan: The Birth of Bangladesh (1971)

• A Tale of East and West
  • Bengali majorities vs. the dominance of West Pakistani military and politics led to marginalization, culminating in military crackdowns, mass atrocities, and eventual Bangladeshi independence.

    “The military coup, in a sense, that makes East Pakistan feel like a colony...” — Sam Dalrymple [34:58]

  • The 1971 war caused one of the greatest single-year mass displacements in the world.

8. Human Costs of Partition: Mass Displacement and Enduring Trauma

• Staggering Migrations
  • Each partition induced massive, often forgotten waves of forced migration (e.g., 366,000 from Burma to India; 12 million in 1947’s India/Pakistan).

    “...the number of people displaced in the course of Hyderabad's attempt to remain independent...is three times the number of refugees generated by the Palestinian nakba the same year.” — Sam Dalrymple [39:42]

  • These traumas seeded long-term conflicts (Kashmir, Balochistan, Rohingya, Northeast India) and shaped the militarized borders of today.

9. Contingency vs. Inevitability

• Were the Partitions Avoidable?
  • Dalrymple stresses how late many “inevitable” nations (like Pakistan) arose, and how political missteps made unity collapse.

    “As late as one year before its independence, Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, is willing for Pakistan to be a federal unit within a united India.” — Sam Dalrymple [43:03]

10. Echoes of the United Raj in the Present

• Lingering Cultural and Economic Connections
  • Evidence of the old union—culinary traditions, shared architecture, family memories—remains prominent amid hard borders.

    “Anyone I know from Delhi who's ever gone to visit Lahore in what's now Pakistan is constantly shocked that this is a city more like Delhi than any other.” — Sam Dalrymple [46:13]

  • New generations are often more antagonistic, having no memory of coexistence.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Overlooked Partitions:

  “The origin of the book really began out of a conversation ... people ... tended to say, oh, which partition are you talking about?” — Sam Dalrymple [02:59]

• On World War II’s Impact:

  “Britain just doesn't have the money to keep things on the road in India... At the same time ... soldiers have been at war for six years. The idea of putting down any rebellions in India just seems like nonsense.” — Sam Dalrymple [17:36]

• On the Human Costs:

  “Compare that to the migration of Hindus and Muslims in 1947, which was roughly 12 million people... the number of people displaced in the course of Hyderabad's attempt to remain independent... is three times the ... Palestinian nakba...” — Sam Dalrymple [39:22]

• On Avoidability:

  “None of these were inevitable... so much of the history of this region is done with the hindsight that Pakistan will eventually emerge, Bangladesh will eventually emerge, etc.” — Sam Dalrymple [43:30]

• On Living Connections:

  “You can go to bits of Gujarat today and ... people will still be eating Khao Swey because of their time living in Burma. It’s often in food, in architecture, in family memory that these relationships are still remembered.” — Sam Dalrymple [48:20]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:39] Why Five Partitions?
• [05:57] Defining British India: Geography and Governance
• [09:51] Separation of Burma and South Arabia
• [13:26] Jinnah’s Central, Misunderstood Role
• [17:10] World War II and Acceleration of Independence
• [21:51] Integrating the Princely States
• [28:04] Aden, Yemen, and the Arabian Raj
• [33:19] The 1971 Bangladesh War and East/West Pakistan
• [38:48] Human Costs and Aftermath
• [41:08] Were these Partitions Inevitable?
• [44:48] Surviving Connections of the Imperial Past
• [49:17] Sam Dalrymple’s Future Work

Closing

Nicholas Gordon thanks Sam Dalrymple for his deep insights and for shedding light on the overlooked complexities, consequences, and ongoing legacies of Asia's partitions. Dalrymple shares information about his ongoing projects and research interests.

To Learn More:

• Find Sam Dalrymple’s writing online at @travelsofsamwise
• Weekly Substack: Travels of Samwise
• Regular features: Architectural Digest
• Future work may probe the breakup of French Indochina or the search for a lost Indian city.