{"id":33727,"date":"2021-07-05T02:25:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T17:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/04\/lessons-about-the-legacy-of-indian-partition-need-to-be-taught"},"modified":"2021-07-05T02:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T17:25:31","slug":"lessons-about-the-legacy-of-indian-partition-need-to-be-taught-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=33727","title":{"rendered":"Lessons about the legacy of Indian partition need to be taught | Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The events of 1947 and their impact are clearly part and parcel of British history, writes <strong>Professor Sarah Ansari <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In view of the forthcoming 74th anniversary of the partition that accompanied independence in British-controlled South Asia, the call for a better understanding of what the end of empire there entailed is very timely and welcome (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/01\/british-rule-in-india-an-abusive-relationship\" title=\"\">Letters<\/a>, 1 July). But we should note that there was no state of \u201cBengal\u201d created in August 1947 , though East Pakistan did later become Bangladesh, in 1971, following a bloody liberation war. And estimates of the number of people displaced thanks to partition now stand at around 12 to 14 million (precise figures will never be known) rather than 3 million, making it the 20th century\u2019s largest such migration with long-lasting political and human legacies in the region and beyond. Moreover, the suggestion that communal violence only happened because the restraining hand of the Raj had been lifted is to ignore how far the Raj\u2019s policies were directly responsible for the deadly breakdown in intra-community relations. The events of 1947 and their impact are clearly part and parcel of British history \u2013 losing its so-called \u201cjewel in the crown\u201d reshaped the UK\u2019s global position after the second world war \u2013 and help to explain subsequent South Asian migration to this country.<\/p>\n<p>As initiatives such as the Partition History Project and its successor the Partition Education Group have highlighted, and as a <a href=\"https:\/\/hansard.parliament.uk\/Commons\/2021-06-28\/debates\/21062855000001\/BlackHistoryAndCulturalDiversityInTheCurriculum\" title=\"\">parliamentary debate<\/a> on 28 June flagged up, much more engagement with this country\u2019s complex past is needed in UK schools, together with support for the history teachers who would be providing it.<br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><strong>Sarah Ansari<\/strong><br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><em>Professor of history, Royal Holloway, University of London<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/04\/lessons-about-the-legacy-of-indian-partition-need-to-be-taught\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The events of 1947 and their impact are clearly part and parcel of British history, writes Professor Sarah Ansari In view of the forthcoming 74th anniversary of the partition that accompanied independence in British-controlled South Asia, the call for &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[327,749,615,614,62,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bangladesh","category-colonialism","category-education","category-history","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33728,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33727\/revisions\/33728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}