The 1947 Partition of British India remains the largest instance of forced migration in the recorded human history. Over 75 years on, the partition continues to be central to modern identity in the Indian subcontinent. Etched painfully onto regional consciousness, it influences how the people and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their past, present, and future.
In “The 1947 Partition of British India: Forced Migration and Its Reverberations,” faculty members from Harvard University under the aegis of Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University brought together researchers from various disciplines from the three impacted countries — India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — to develop a nuanced understanding of the consequences of Partition and its impact on the people of the region. This discussion will mark the release of this book on Partition and provides an opportunity to reflect on how this massive event has shaped the subcontinent’s cultural, economic, political and social dimensions including architecture, art, demographics, language, and music.
Panelists:
Jennifer Leaning, co-editor of the book and Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and retired Professor of the Practice at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health,
Yasmin Khan, Associate Professor of Modern History, Kellogg College, University of Oxford
Ali Raza, Associate Professor, Lahore University of Management Studies
Ian Talbot, Scholar in Residence at The Mittal Institute, and Emeritus Professor in History of Modern South Asia, University of Southampton, moderator
