mandag 21. august 2017

India-Pakistan partition 70 years on: Wrenched apart by history

From barbed grins in a carefully synchronised daily flag ceremony to murderous exchanges across barbed wire in Kashmir, the India-Pakistan border is a 70-year-old scar that will not heal. Thousands will cheer at the Wagah border crossing this week as the two countries celebrate the anniversaries of their independence, when British India was carved into two nations. The separation based on border lines created by the British at the end of their colonial rule came into effect at the stroke of midnight on the eve of Aug 14, 1947. The upheaval that followed left at least one million dead in a brutal migration that took millions of Muslims to Pakistan and millions of Hindus to India.