The Partition of British India in 1947, which created the two independent states of India and Pakistan, was followed by one of the cruelest and bloodiest migrations and ethnic cleansings in history. The religious fury and violence that it unleashed caused the deaths of some 2 million Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. An estimated 12 to 15 million people were forcibly transferred between the two countries. At least 75,000 women were raped. The trauma incurred in the process has been profound.

What happened after partition ?

Anything divided is a cause of tragic end be it just a single home or an entire country. That's what happened to India. Some brave men were able to unbind their motherland by the chains of British but they were unaware of the internal bleeding within her body that could perish one million and leave twelve million homeless (According to Richard Symonds).

It left behind a trail of unforgivable crime. In a couple of months, a millions of people were slaughtered on both sides in the religious rioting. Men, women and children who died in the rioting were cremated on a mass scale. Oil and kerosene were used by villagers to burn the dead bodies when wood was scarce. There was nothing called law and order in the country, many died in riots, massacre or just from the hardships of their flight to safety.

BBC in one of its documentary reports that over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland. They traveled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home, which was pictured as the most perfect place to breathe in a new life.

About 14.5 million refuges poured across the borders. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. Estimates of the number of deaths range around 1,000,000, with low estimates at 500,000 and high estimates at 1,500,000. One of the pictures taken by BBC during the partition shows a street filled with dead bodies, where vultures were having their feast. Looking at the tragic scene Bourke-White's biographer Vicki Goldberg, writes “The street was short and narrow. Lying like the garbage across the street and in its open gutters were bodies of the dead,"

In the March 1947 riots, the Sikhs or Rawalpindi faced annihilation and large number of them left the district. Within a few weeks almost the entire Sikh population had migrated from the district. Rioting in Punjab started in first week of December in the district of Hazara. A Holy war was declared on Hindus and Sikhs. Sikh habitations were wiped out, Gurdwaras were desecrated. Rioting in Lahore was started in March 4 1947, it started out as stabbing and small incidents and spread out to become arson and murder. Soon after Muslims in Amritsar (muslims were about 40-50% of population before partition) went rioting, a mob tried to attack Golden Temple and were repulsed with a pitched battle fought between handful of Sikhs under Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke. Same day Muslims of Sharifpura (a suburb of Amristar), stopped a train full of refugees from Pakistan for slaughter. After this incident, Sikhs and Hindus in Amritsar were furious and many innocent Muslims had to bear the fury of anger. Soon after Amritsar was empty of Muslims. While total number of casualties were about same on both sides, about 100-150 million refugees were exchanged between both countries. There were large number of atrocities inflicted on women, many were abducted and raped. In village Thoh Khalsa (now in Pakistan), 1000 Sikh and Hindu women jumped into well to save their honor after their menfolks were killed by Muslim mobs. It is estimated that about 1 million Hindus/Sikhs/Muslims were murdered and 10-50 millions were injured. Property lost was in trillion of dollars.

A research states that the partition of India ranks, one of the 10 greatest tragedies in human history. It could have been an evitable event. India got its freedom at the prize of a divide country.

There is no word to describe the atrocities that happened in the Punjab in the summer and fall of 1947. It is amongst the most horrible ones of the 20th century. It is considered for some as ethnic cleansing. Entire Hindu quarters from Lahore were set to flames, trains carrying Muslims were attacked, Sikhs ambushed Muslim villages near Amritsar. 1 million people died from flames, knives, sabers, rapes, decapitations, wounds, dismemberments, gun shots, hayforks...

Manhattan has 1.4M inhabitants: imagine that in just a few weeks, two out of three of its inhabitants would be killed, one by one. That is what happened in one of the most beautiful regions on earth in the summer and fall of 1947.