19 May 2026 – Prof. Yasmin Khan, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford – The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.
Professor Khan, a specialist in the history of modern South Asia, will discuss the momentous and traumatic event of the 1947 Partition of British India. Her lecture will explore the complex political negotiations that led to the creation of two independent nations, India and Pakistan, and the devastating human cost of this division. She will delve into the violence, mass migrations, and social upheaval that accompanied the partition, providing a nuanced and deeply human perspective on an event that continues to shape the geopolitics of the region today.
The Partition of India in 1947 promised its people both political and religious freedom―through the liberation of India from British rule, and the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. Instead, the geographical divide brought displacement and death, and it benefited the few at the expense of the very many. Thousands of women were raped, at least one million people were killed, and ten to fifteen million were forced to leave their homes as refugees. One of the first events of decolonization in the twentieth century, Partition was also one of the most bloody. In this book Yasmin Khan examines the context, execution, and aftermath of Partition, weaving together local politics and ordinary lives with the larger political forces at play. She exposes the widespread obliviousness to what Partition would entail in practice and how it would affect the populace. Drawing together fresh information from an array of sources, Khan underscores the catastrophic human cost and shows why the repercussions of Partition resound even now, some sixty years later. The book is an intelligent and timely analysis of Partition, the haste and recklessness with which it was completed, and the damaging legacy left in its wake. [Publishers description of The Great Partition]