Partition

In this episode, Dr. Tharoor and RT’s Runjhun Sharma explore the trauma of the Partition, the split between India and Pakistan that claimed over a million lives and left tens of millions displaced, with the pain of that division still lingering. Dr. Tharoor argues that nearly every problem between India and Pakistan since 1947 can be traced back to that disaster. He calls it both the British Empire’s greatest disservice and in a sense its “achievement” - the creation of a perpetual conflict. It was the culmination of the divide-and-rule policy: they divided, but could no longer rule. The British exit from India was rushed and chaotic, but that was only part of the problem. As Dr. Tharoor explains, Britain had long cultivated a separate consciousness within the Muslim community, funding and encouraging that division as a means of control. By the time they left, unity had become impossible. And when they finally did depart, in haste, it was, as Dr. Tharoor puts it “the first Brexit.”