Trends - Partition

Among the Quaid’s men — Mahmud Husain and the Pakistan that could have been

His brother became India’s first Muslim president. Mahmud Husain chose Pakistan. The rest, as they say, is history.

Updated 28 May, 2025 01:14pm

The two partitions: Polemics, purges and Pakistan’s first opposition party

Tracing the first decade's events leading from one Partition — that created Pakistan — to the next — that created Bangladesh — and the role of Pakistan's first opposition party.

Updated 22 Feb, 2025 01:00pm

Separated by Partition, brothers reconnect at Faisalabad village

Village residents warmly welcome 78-year-old Sikka Khan.

Updated 28 Mar, 2022 09:52am

'Publicity stunt': Pakistan slams Modi for 'distorting history' in tweets about Partition

FO's condemnation comes after Modi government declares August 14 "Partition Horrors Remembrance Day".

Updated 14 Aug, 2021 08:56pm

Hindus in India think Partition was good for relations with Muslims: survey

The study is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews conducted between late 2019 and early 2020.

Updated 05 Jul, 2021 10:40am

Loss of East Pakistan, lessons learnt recalled

“Pakistan, East and West, was a dream state, which became a nightmare,” says Javed Jabbar.

Updated 25 Dec, 2019 09:32am

Project Dastaan takes partition witnesses back home

According to co-founder Sparsh Ahuja, the project highlights how deep-rooted the partition sentiment is.

Updated 14 Aug, 2019 12:53pm

The Hindu woman who found her freedom in the sound of the azan

Mai was a Sufi soul. She was one with the infinite beyond borders, time, religion and all that can be divided.

Updated 29 Aug, 2017 09:55am

In the heart of Rawalpindi, Indians and Pakistanis remember their pre-Partition homes

Not many know that Rawalpindi was one of the starting points of the massacres during Partition.

Updated 15 Aug, 2017 03:09pm

70 years on, India and Pakistan have successfully dehumanised each other in popular imagination

The Gujarat riots, lynchings of Muslims, attacks on Hindu temples and forced conversions are all residues of Partition.

Updated 01 Mar, 2019 07:53pm

Whatever happened to Pakistan?

From our 1990 archives, the late M B Naqvi reflects on how far Pakistan has deviated from the Pakistan Resolution, 1940

Published 13 Aug, 2017 01:19pm

SEVENTY + SEVENTY: SHORT STORY: A PAKISTANI HOMECOMING

We ask some celebrated fiction writers to imagine what things might be like 70 years into the future.

Updated 15 Aug, 2017 12:17pm

Family bonds survive India-Pakistan split, but for how long?

When the British finally departed the Indian subcontinent in 1947, after nearly 200 years, they left it split in two.

Updated 28 Aug, 2017 12:43am

Tales of Partition: survivors across the border recall their journey

For several years now, organisations on both sides of the border have been hurrying to record the stories of survivors.

Updated 28 Jul, 2017 07:54am

FESTIVAL: Reminiscing about the Partition

The book launch of Train to Pakistan led to some interesting discussions on history

Updated 14 Feb, 2016 04:35pm

COVER: The great divide: Dilip Hiro's The Longest August

Dilip Hiro’s The Longest August is a comprehensive but unilluminating account of Indo-Pak relations

Published 22 Nov, 2015 07:20am

REVIEW: The Footprints of Partition by Anam Zakaria

A compilation of oral histories brings to light the stories of Pakistan’s Partition generation

Published 09 Aug, 2015 07:55am

ESSAY: The many stories of Partition

The tragedies and devastating impact of 1947 as captured in literature

Published 09 Aug, 2015 07:55am

COVER:Furies past and present: Midnight’s Furies by Nisid Hajari

Nisid Hajari writes a fast-paced albeit unbalanced account of the Partition

Published 09 Aug, 2015 07:55am

COLUMN:Post-Partition tales

What the compilation of Zulmat-e-Neem Roz tells us about literary history

Published 11 May, 2015 07:20am

ILF: Searching for identity

Pakistani literature veers between a post-Partition identity and a reality fraught with violence

Published 03 May, 2015 07:33am