2 million dead. 3 nations created. 20 million refugees.

 

The Partition of 1947 in the Indian subcontinent was a traumatic event and its impact goes beyond these numbers, living on in the memories of countless families impacted by it. 

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Why should today's teenagers bother about something that happened over 75 years ago?

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As George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". While the Partition happened long ago, it still casts a shadow on the people of the Indian subcontinent, as seen in sectarian tensions and intolerance. The youth of India is sometimes called its 'demographic dividend', a pool of youthful vigor that will power our economy into the future, but to truly create a brighter future, we need to shed some of the baggage of the past, to ensure that we do not give into the intolerance and hatred that led to the Partition.​ The first step towards this is to develop a deeper understanding of the Partition beyond the sometimes superficial treatment in textbooks.

 

Partition Perspectives is a digital repository of the Partition of 1947 created by a teenager for fellow teenagers. We feature interviews with historians, experts, and authors whose families were directly impacted by the Partition. Part expert analysis, part oral history, these interviews seek to generate critical thinking and empathy among today's teens to both the historical context and human cost of the Partition. These are supplemented by resources to help teens learn more about the Partition.

 

The mission of Partition Perspectives is to generate  critical thinking among today's teens about the Partition and the lessons we should learn from it, so we don't repeat mistakes of the past that led to such a cataclysmic event for our nation.