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Partition Voices

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The untold stories of British Asians and Colonial British who witnessed India's partition.

Partition Voices: Series 1: Legacy

Legacy

Series 1

BBC Radio 4 - Partition Voices, Series 1, Legacy

Partition's legacy on those who lived through it and subsequent generations in Britain.

The legacy of Partition on those who lived through it and subsequent generations in Britain.

First-hand accounts of the turmoil and violence in the immediate weeks after India's partition and their continuing legacy in Britain. On the 70th anniversary of partition, Kavita Puri hears remarkable testimonies from both British Asians and the Colonial British. The division of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan resulted in one of the largest forced migrations the world has ever seen. Over 10 million people sought refuge in one or other of the new dominions. Unspeakable violence accompanied the displacement, claiming up to a million lives, while tens of thousands of women suffered rape and abduction. Many of those who experienced the chaos have kept their silence ever since, such was their trauma. Yet those taking part in this series speak with remarkable clarity about the tumultuous events, whose legacy endures to this day within Britain's South Asian communities.

Programme 3 hears about the reverberations of Partition in Britain for those who lived through it and the subsequent generations. It is a story of loss and what endures. We hear of emotional pilgrimages back to the place that people fled; why many of the partition generation kept their silence for 70 years; how the second and third generation are trying to piece together their family history; and how the memory of shared existence and traditions is what many survivors want remembered. 

Producers: Michael Gallagher, Tim Smith and Ant Adeane

Radio 4's Partition Voices recordings will be archived in full in the British Library Sound Archive.

Partition Voices: Series 1

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