1st Independence Day flaghosting in India
15 August is celebrated across India as Independence Day. On this day India gained independence from the British Empire and British imperialists transferred power to Indian hands. But we had to pay huge price of our nation’s freedom as a form of partition. It is also the same time when British Indian Empire was divided into two separate countries along religious lines into the Dominions of India and Pakistan.
The partition was accompanied by violent riots and mass casualties, and the displacement of nearly 15 million people due to sectarian violence. About 1 percent of the world population was uprooted and became refugees due to Partition, millions lost their lives and countless thousands were abandoned or fell prey to human trafficking and sexual violence.
A large evil loomed over the population that was shifting to a new country once the borders were drawn. Religious riots along with acts of oppression and cruelty marked this huge event as a dark blot on the history of the two countries. An entire civilization had gone into unfathomable disarray.
The horror and the magnitude of suffering was unimaginable, but here are a few extremely rare photos of India-Pakistan Partition that depict the dismay of the people who crossed borders and the horrible state it left both the countries in.
A family of Sikh refugees from Lahore.
A lake of blood and tears.
A makeshift drip for a makeshift life.
A Man carrying his 5-yr. old son and belongings with balancing pole to escape anti-moslem Sikhs.
A moslem refugees camp near to Humayun’s Tomb.
A mother lost in thought with an infant on her lap.
A room full of tears.
A Sikh carrying his wife on his shoulders.
A view at Purano Qila fortress with Moslems refugees.
Burdened with life on their shoulders.
Countless bodies being buried.
The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on.
Family partitioned from their son.
Frontier guards truck checking refugees, those who on their way to Pakistan.
Emaciated Indian woman breast feeds her child despite being on the brink of death herself.
Journey to a new land.
Making do with what they have.
Mass migration.
Millions on a journey to restart their lives.
Moslems waiting to leave for Pakistan as they seek protected transport to Dot Purana Qila, an ancient fort in Pakistan.
Shelter homes.
Carrying what’s left of their lives.
Time went on but the tracks ran out.
Mass migration of families.
Wreck carts and belongings Indian refugees who had been camped there before the Beas River flooded.
A family migrating to India from Pakistan.
Land Resettlement, Indian Punjab.
Land Resettlement, Indian Punjab.
Refugees on the move.
Bridges were flooded by people.
Refugees in refugee camp.
Mass migration on train.
View from Purana Qila (Old Fortress) refugee camp.
A view at Purana Qila fortress refugee camp.
An expression that perfectly describes the chaos of the partition.
View at Purana Qila (Old Fortress) refugee camp.
Doctors treating Refugees.
Sikh family migrating to India.
Mass migration into Pakistan.
Punjab Mass migration 1947.
Massacre at Beas Station.
Souls turn to dust as others pass by.
The living dead.
The North Western Railways carries hopes of millions.
The other side of life.
The residue of riots plague the streets.
The weak carrying the weaker.
Thousands board the Uncertainty Express.
Vultures feed off the dead.
When life gives up on you.
Wreckage left after millions were uprooted.
Almost all of these India-Pakistan partition photographs were taken by famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White.
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