Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday declared August 14 will be observed as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ to acknowledge the pain undergone by Indians due to the partition of India in 1947.
In a notification, the Home Ministry said the people of India, while celebrating “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”, will salute those sons and daughters of the country who had to sacrifice their lives during the partition of India. The announcement comes on the eve of India’s 75th Independence anniversary.
“Partition’s pains can never be forgotten. Millions of our sisters and brothers were displaced and many lost their lives due to mindless hate and violence. In memory of the struggles and sacrifices of our people, 14th August will be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day,” tweeted PM Modi.
“May the #PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay keep reminding us of the need to remove the poison of social divisions, disharmony and further strengthen the spirit of oneness, social harmony and human empowerment,” the PM said in his second tweet.
About 14 million people are thought to have abandoned their homes in 1947, when colonial British administrators began dismantling the empire in southern Asia. The Partition resulted mainly in the division of two provinces in the country – Punjab and Bengal, based on the Hindu and Muslim population in the districts.
Pakistan was carved out as a Muslim country after the division of India, and estimates of the number of people killed in those months range between 200,000 and 2 million.
Bungalows and mansions were burned and looted, women were raped, children were killed in front of their siblings. Trains carrying refugees between the two new nations arrived full of corpses; their passengers had been killed by mobs en route. These were called “blood trains”: “All too often they crossed the border in funereal silence, blood seeping from under their carriage doors,” wrote Nisid Hajari, the author of “Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition.”
