# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Written by: Arnold Adoff   Illustrated by: Emily Arnold McCully 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With its cheerful, kid-friendly, and vibrant illustrations and enticing storyline, Eid and the Moon Bangles teaches young readers about the significance of Ramadan and Eid; the importance of giving, even if it means sacrificing something we really want; and never giving up, especially when we wish good for others.

It is the night before Eid or 'Night of the Moon.' Zoya is shopping with her mother for bangles to wear with her Eid outfit, as she does every year. This year, however, an unexpected encounter at the bangle shop sends Zoya on a journey to discover the value of giving to others and the true meaning of Eid.

Young readers will love this gripping story of discovery, compassion, and a new friendship.

About the Author

Sara Khan is a teacher and author of Eid and the Moon Bangles. While pregnant, Sara started to write her first children's book in hopes of promoting cultural awareness and making the world a more compassionate and accepting place for future generations. Sara believes teaching diversity and inclusion must start at a young age, which is why her books are aimed at young readers.
Sara lives in Minnesota with her husband, Sulmaan, and super curious and energetic one year old daughter, Zoya, also the main character in her book. When she isn't teaching or singing nursery rhymes out of tune, Sara enjoys vacationing by the ocean, making others laugh, and playing Monopoly Deal.

You can connect with Sara on Instagram at instagram.com/sarakhancreations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Eid and the Moon Bangles: 9781736635803: Khan, Sara: Books

# data[].attributes.body
Such a greatly written book! This was a book full of trauma, emotion and love. There was so much to take in as a reader that I could not put down the book! This book is definitely something I would recommend to grades 5 and up. I think this is something may students may enjoy as it displays full emotions of all the characters and even has the reader wondering how such a young girl went through all this. This book also highlights multiculturalism within families and how that changes the way the world may be perceived. Very excellent read, and great for discussion amongst small groups and large groups.

# data[].attributes.body
“Mataji” which means grandma shows an old woman who has a lot of pain and grief enduring displacement and loss during the partition.

# data[].attributes.body
Video describing how the British ended up conquering India for all those years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How did Britain Conquer India? | Animated History

# data[].attributes.body
Map before and after the partition of India.

# data[].attributes.body
Is called Refugee's and shows the pain and struggles people went through during the partition.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Students will be introduced to three different religions within this story. As a class we will try to interpret the art work on the front cover. The front cover represents Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu people on the cover based on the color and type of bracelet which in in their hand. Students will discuss what the artwork represents, and any inferences they may have about what the book will be about and the representation of culture throughout this book. Students will create an inference card that they will keep and refer bak to correct after the completion of the story.

2. Students will be able to use the glossary in the back of the book and in groups of 4 will become experts on 3-4 words. After they have understood the meaning of the word, they will create a picture to go along with it, and present the material they found to the class. These pictures will hang onto the wall where students will be able to references back to it when they see the word in the book as they read.

# data[].attributes.body
“Nobody ever mentions the fact that you were Muslim, Mama. It’s like everyone forgot. But I don’t want to forget. I guess we’re Hindu because Papa and Dadi are. But you’re still a part of me, Mama. ” (Page 21)

# data[].attributes.body
(Three Week Project)

Since Nisha was given her diary she has wrote to express her feelings about things she didn’t want to speak about. Sometimes she wrote just to write, and other times she wrote to her mama. Using any of the entries she wrote to her mama as examples, write a diary, and add entries 4 times a week to someone of your liking. Write to them about how things are in your life or how you may miss them. This is completely up to you to choose how you write your diary entry. Make sure to include who you are writing to with “Dear ____” and close off with your name. Each entry should consist of 6-12 sentences, and should be about current events that have happened or are happing now. These journals will be yours to keep, and I will only read them to grade. These are private, and if you don’t want to share any to the entire class, feel free to let me know, and you won’t have to. Get to writing, I can’t wait to see how your diaries will turn out. [There should be a minimum of 12 diary entries or more if you choose to write more. Use Nisha’s entries as examples when writing your own.]

(Four Week Project)

Over the course of reading this book, students will create their personal dictionaries. In these dictionaries students will write down words they are unfamiliar with as they see them while they read, and conduct research to find a definition for the word. With each word you will find the definition, write a sentence to understand the word, create a piece of art to understand the word, and finally add all three things to your dictionary. At the conclusion of reading this book, students will create an informative paragraph where they will explain which words they learned, how they understood the meaning of each word, and how each word is significant to the book. Students will be required to include 5 sentences minimum for 5 words they choose from their entire dictionary. These paragraphs will be graded to assess students knowledge of vocabulary and comprehension of the text.

# data[].attributes.body
1.  Why did Britain choose to invade India back in 1757? What was the purpose of choosing a country like India? Trading/resources that were in India. *before reading*
2. The implementation of the British East India Company and how that started British rule in India.  *before reading*
3. The build-up to the partition of India. The want for independence from Britain's rule.  *before reading*
4. 6 Signpost (annotation and self-reflection while reading a novel)  *while reading*
5. The partition of India in 1947. What happened to the people * after page 43*

# data[].attributes.body
After the partition occurred and how the borders look.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Students will learn about borders in countries. Start with borders in the US and then transition into other borders around the world.

2. Analyze a map and mainly focus on south-east Asia where this book takes place. The class will compare and analyze the borders and the changes that occurred within the past 200 years to today. The different maps will be at different stations and students will be analyzing/comparing. They will add post-it notes of their thoughts and leave them around the map.

# data[].attributes.body
“Wasn’t independence from the British supposed to free us? We’ve never been less free” (pg. 194)

# data[].attributes.body
The impact the Partition is having on the people of India 74 years later.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Seventy years ago this week, Britain granted independence to the Indian subcontinent which was partitioned into two countries - Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The separation was violent and incredibly deadly. Estimates vary, but most say over a million people were killed. This time of year, both Pakistan and India celebrate their national days, holidays that are deeply interrelated, marking an event that a diminishing number of their citizens can actually recall.

Well, NPR's Diaa Hadid and Julie McCarthy are in the two countries, Diaa in Pakistan and Julie in India. And they've been talking to people about the partition of 1947 and join us now. Diaa, hi.

DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Hi there.

SIEGEL: And hello, Julie.

JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Hello, Robert. Hello, Diaa.

SIEGEL: And, Julie, let's start with you. Take us back to 1947 and remind us of what was happening in those countries after partition.

MCCARTHY: Well, partition was this enormous human cyclone, really. Fourteen million would move from one country, Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan into India while in the opposite direction the Muslims were flowing out of India and into the new Islamic state of Pakistan. And Muslims had been agitating for their own state, feeling marginalized. And this whole enterprise becomes a runaway train in the months leading up to the actual formal announcement. I mean, there's killings, there's rapes, abductions, suicides on both sides of the border. But the most significant thing in partition is that it literally carves up the Indian subcontinent. And they live with the repercussions of that today.

SIEGEL: Now, both of you spoke with people who lived through the partition. And, Diaa, tell us first about whom you met.

HADID: Right. So I met Mohammed Qureishi. He's an 83-year-old man who lives in Lahore. Now, Mohammed was actually born in India in a city called Amritsar. It was a Sikh-dominated city. And during the violence of partition, they felt compelled to flee even though they wanted to stay. And so they managed to get on one of the trains that was leaving Amritsar to Lahore. But this in itself was an incredibly dangerous prospect because so many people fleeing on trains either towards India or towards Pakistan were butchered on the way. And these later became known as the ghost trains because of the eerie silence of the corpses that were arriving to these newfound states. So Mohammed got onto one of these trains with his family, and he's been in Lahore ever since. And yet he still yearns for his birthplace.

MOHAMMED QUREISHI: (Through interpreter) We decided almost 40 years ago that if relations normalize, then we would go back our home. And I would directly go to my house. And...

Put my foot at the - before my house.

HADID: Now, you can hear at the end of that - that's the translator. That's my colleague, Abdi Sitad (ph), translating for Mohammed. And Mohammed jumps in because he really wants to make sure that I've understood that he wants to put his feet back in the home where he was born.

SIEGEL: Mohammed, who left his birthplace in Amritsar in India for now Lahore in Pakistan. Diaa, you spoke with him. Julie, whom did you talk to about memories of the partition?

MCCARTHY: You had very similar sort of gushing emotions from old men who have a deep attachment despite what happened to them. They have these vivid memories. D.D. Arora barely made it out of Pakistan alive. He was 16. And he was not there with his family. He was studying. And he talked about how overnight his school became this refugee center for 50,000 people. But his escape was also so harrowing. He boards a train and learns that the one in front of him has been attacked, everyone slaughtered. Now, these trains were like moving cities, Robert. They were so long. And he describes having to get out and walk around the train. Here is D.D. Arora. And we've used a voiceover to help you understand him better here.

D D ARORA: (Through interpreter) The track was full of bodies. We thought we'd be killed if we didn't move from there. We had seen the mob shouting, leave this country, otherwise you will be killed. A mob is a horrible thing. I found that even your friends, Muslim friends - nobody recognizes you. People had become like animals.

MCCARTHY: Arora actually breaks out in sobs remembering all of this. And, you know, there were a lot of people who just refused to talk. It was simply too painful for them.

SIEGEL: You're describing catastrophic stories that affected people right at the beginning of Indian independence, right at the beginning of Pakistan's existence. But it's 70 years ago. How does partition still shape the India and the Pakistan that we see today? Julie, I'll ask you first.

MCCARTHY: Well, you know, in India today and in recent years, it's very much a kind of formative, defining framework. In fact, what we have on this side of the border is a kind of Hindu swagger. And it subtly reminds minorities, especially the Muslims, that India is majority Hindu. And the underlying message there is if you don't like it, you can go next door to Pakistan. And you don't have to search too hard to find this kind of Hindu belligerence.

You find it in this upsurge of lynchings involving outfits that protect cows, an animal that's regarded as sacred by Hindus. There's a crackdown on free speech. You, you know, let a Bollywood star - many of them are Muslim - say something even remotely critical of India and a ton of bricks comes down on them. And it's silenced them. And I have to say, Robert, that I really discovered the Muslims that I spoke with about partition and about what's happened 70 years on really unwilling to go on the record about how they feel about things today. They're afraid. That's what the climate is now.

SIEGEL: And, Diaa Hadid in Pakistan, how would you say partition still shapes that country as we see it today?

HADID: Here the emphasis is on how Muslims were the victims of Hindus and Sikhs. And this also filters down to the very young generations. I was speaking to an oral historian who was working on a project that was meant to build goodwill between Pakistani and Indian children by sending each other postcards. She had two big shocks trying to implement this project.

The first was quite a few schools rejected her because they didn't want their children speaking to Indians. And then when she finally made it into a classroom, she said some of the kids just refused to write postcards to Indians because they hated them so much. These are children who have never met someone from the other side. And what's really interesting about this is that the partition generation, those who experienced the terrifying flight from their homes into Pakistan, are often the people who are the most nuanced.

But you don't hear their voices. And nor do you hear this other thing that I found quite interesting, that many people who survived the horrors of partition survived because they were helped by people who were meant to be their enemies. People took unbelievable personal risks to help each other. And those are stories that we just don't hear today.

SIEGEL: Julie, among young people or children in India, do you sense the same thing, a resistance to any kind of dealings with Pakistan?

MCCARTHY: Well, I think the Indians do tend to have a greater reserve about looking toward Pakistan. But there's also deep curiosity. I mean, a lot of people asked me because I lived there for years, you know, what are their clothes like? I love their soap operas. Tell me more. What's it like over there? So there is certainly a curiosity. But what there is not is the sentimentality that the older generation has for Pakistan.

SIEGEL: That's NPR's Julie McCarthy in New Delhi and Diaa Hadid in Islamabad talking about the 70th anniversary of the partition which created the independent nations of India and Pakistan. Thanks to both of you.

MCCARTHY: Thank you.

HADID: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOPS SONG, "OUTSIDE")

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
70 Years Later, India And Pakistan Still Feel Impact Of Partition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Seventy years after the partition of India and Pakistan, both countries are still shaped by the turmoil of that time. Most estimates say that more than a million people were killed during one of the largest mass migrations in history.

# data[].attributes.body
This song is about a husband and wife who have to separate to be safe. The husband who resides in India takes his wife to the Pakistani border to keep both of their lives safe from those who where killing people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gadar - Musafir Jaane Wale - Full Video | Sunny Deol , Ameesha Patel | Udit Narayan , Preeti Uttam

# data[].attributes.body
This picture is of many people being forced out of india to head to PAkistan. They all cram onto this train as it leaves from New Delhi heading towards Pakistan in 1947.

# data[].attributes.body
Nisha writes diary entries throughout the entire book to her mother. Now write a diary entry as Kazi. The diary entries could be towards himself, Nisha's mother, his family, an old friend. Talk about Kazi's perspective from the first talks of the partition and during and after he reunites with Nisha and her family. Students will have 2 weeks to write the journal entries as it correlates to the story. They would be writing from a different point of view and talk about Kazi's experience.

Since Amil struggles with reading he tends to rely on art as a form of expression just like his mother. Students will create their own paintings of at least 4 challenges that occurred in the novel. Each paint will have a short summary as to what and why they painted what they did.

# data[].attributes.body
The current state of Pakistan and India around 70 years after they separated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

# data[].attributes.body
How and why the British Empire took over and created the British East India Company.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela - The 1857 Indian Uprising Against The British Empire

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The East India Company’s abuse of India’s native people led to rebellion against British power.

# data[].attributes.body
How the British have impacted India to be the country it is today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In May 2015, Shashi Tharoor, a former undersecretary general of the United Nations and a current member of India's parliament, gave a stirring speech at a debate in the Oxford Union. He was speaking for the proposition that "Britain owes reparations to her former colonies." The speech went viral, and Tharoor was perplexed.

"Though I had spoken well enough for my side to win the debate by a two-thirds majority, I knew I had made better speeches that had not acquired a tenth of the fan following," Tharoor recalls in his latest book Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India published in India in late 2016 and the rest of the world in early 2017. "I honestly did not think I had said anything terribly new."

What he may not have realised then is that he had managed to provide not just very succinct and persuasive arguments against the empire but also quantify the scale of its ills. Following which, in a world where nearly two-thirds of Britons believe that the empire was "something to be proud of" and where many Indians seem to think that its overall effect on their country may have been positive, Tharoor felt he could not turn down the "moral urgency of explaining why colonialism was the horror it turned out to be."

The speech, thus, evolved into Inglorious Empire, in which Tharoor dissects most of the arguments made by apologists for the empire with hard facts and deft writing. On India's 70th Independence Day, we have selected four of those arguments to remind the world of the cruelty unleashed by British greed. For a detailed read, we highly recommend Tharoor's book.

1️⃣ Without British rule, there wouldn't have been a political union called India.

The East India Company was created in 1600 to cash in on trading with India, which at the time accounted for more than a quarter of all the trade in the world. It soon realised, however, that its ambitions would be better served with a permanent presence in the country, and from then on the trade took off. As the company's men grew prosperous, they began dreaming of expanding their territory and found little opposition. In some 100 or so years, through a series of conquests and some clever politicking, the company created a rival empire on the subcontinent among the already warring ones (such as the Maratha, Mughal, and Awadh regimes). Today, the argument goes that, had it not been for the British, those rival factions would not have coalesced into a single entity.

This argument stands on two pillars. First, that the British created the idea of a political union called India. Second, that they provided Indians the tools and institutions needed to hold the union together and run it.

The first one falls when you consider history. Indian epics, such as the Ramayana, whichculminates in prince Ram's battle with the demon-king of Lanka, describe India as a single cultural entity. Even in reality, under emperor Ashoka, about 300 BCE,large parts of the subcontinent enjoyed cultural and administrative unity. When people of the region traveled to foreign lands, like those performing the Haj, the hosts considered the travelers, regardless of their religion, to be "Hindi"-Hind being the Persian/Arabic name for River Sindhu or Indus.

The second pillar collapses when you consider what the British did to India.

In their entire 200-year rule, they made up no more than 0.05% of the population. And, yet, for most of that period, no Indian was allowed to join the Indian Civil Service, in part because the British could not bear to take orders from a brown man. When they were finally admitted, more direct racism was in store. High scorers in the civil service examinations were accused of cheating, for how else could brown men do so well. The few who survived the cheating charge, then faced discrimination back home by being barred from the gentlemen's clubs of the districts they governed.

In fact, Britain's policy was not to unite but to divide and rule. Under the British, Tharoor shows that, the Hindu caste system became more rigid, and communal lines, particularly those between Hindus and Muslims, deepened. Nowhere was the application of that singular ethos clearer than when, on their way out, the colonialists partitioned the subcontinent into India and Pakistan.

2️⃣ The British gave India democracy, a free press, and the rule of law

"However strongly they denied to Indians, as they had to Americans before 1776, 'the rights of Englishmen'-the British did instill sufficient dose of the ethos of democracy into their former colonies that it outlived their tutelage," Tharoor writes. "But the actual history of British rule does not suggest this was either policy or practice."

A democracy cannot function without a free press and just law. Neither truly existed under the Raj.

The British were the first to establish newspapers in India, catering to a small English-educated elite first, and large audiences in the vernacular languages later. However, alarmed by their proliferation, the East Indian Company passed the Censorship of the Press Act in 1799, subjecting all newspapers to scrutiny before publication. In 1807, all other kinds of publication, too, were brought under this rule.

Once bitten by the bug and with strict adherence to the law not being insisted on over time, Indians continued with the enterprise. By 1875, there were some 475 newspapers in the subcontinent, mostly owned and edited by Indians. Alarm bells rang again, bringing another round of censorship in the form of the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 and the revised Press Act of 1910. Under the latter, publishers were required to provide a hefty security deposit, which they would forfeit if the publication carried inflammatory or abusive articles. The racism of the British-owned press was not subject to the same restrictions.

"The press was free, but some newspapers were freer than others," Tharoor concludes.

The justice system in India was even more discriminatory. For instance, an Englishman who shot dead his Indian servant got six months in jail and a modest fine. But an Indian convicted of the attempted rape of an Englishwoman was sentenced to 20 years. "The death of an Indian at British hands was always an accident, and that of a Briton because of an Indian's actions always a capital crime," Tharoor writes. "The imperial system of law was, pure and simple, an instrument of colonial control."

Worse still, the legacy of the British legal system has left India with an unenviable judicial backlog. There are still cases pending that were filed during the days of the Raj. "The court system, the penal code, the respect for jurisprudence, and the value system of justice-even if they were not applied fairly to Indians in the colonial era-are all worthy legacies," Tharoor writes. "But in the process Britain has saddled us with an adversarial legal system, excessively bogged down in procedural formalities, which is far removed from India's traditional systems of justice."

Indeed, if a pluralist democracy were a British legacy, how is it that neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh have pulled off a similar feat?

3️⃣ British rule was no better or worse than the despots of earlier empires

Few kings ever rule to benefit their people. And, yet, what the British did to India was decidedly worse.

Consider, for instance, India's famines during the Raj: Between 1770 and 1947, the oppressed suffered at least 11 major ones and many minor ones, resulting in 35 million deaths. For comparison, Stalin's purge killed 25 million, Mao's Cultural Revolution killed 45 million, and World War II killed 55 million.

How can we be sure that the British were to blame for those hunger deaths? Simple. There's been no major famine in India since independence. Worse still, the British notion at the time was that governmental interference to prevent a famine was a bad idea. The Economist, for instance, attacked an official for letting Indians think "it is the duty of the government to keep them alive." (The Canadian author, Malcolm Gladwell, has a great episode of his podcast Revisionist History looking at how the worst Indian famine, between 1943 and 1945, was precipitated by British prime minister Winston Churchill.)

The empire's record of forced migration is no better. On one route, between Kolkata to Trinidad, the proportion of deaths of indentured labourers on ships reached appalling levels: 12.5% of all males, 18.5% of females, 28% of boys, 36% of girls, and 55% of infants. "To make an admittedly invidious comparison, the death of slaves on the notorious 'Middle Passage' [the Atlantic slave trade route] was estimated at 12.5%" writes Tharoor. "To be an indentured Indian labourer was to enter a life-and-death lottery in which your chances of survival were significantly worse than those of a shackled African slave."

Finally, there's the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre. If you were to believe official figures, the British troops fired 1,650 bullets at innocent civilians, killing 379 and wounding 1,137. "Barely a bullet was wasted, Dyer noted with satisfaction," Tharoor writes. Those who were killed had no idea that suddenly their gathering was suddenly deemed illegal and they received no warning to disperse.

Worse still, Dyer was only found guilty of "grave error" and relieved of his command to retire with a handsome pension. Rudyard Kipling, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, hailed him as "The Man Who Saved India." Britons ran a public campaign to honour his cruelty and gave him the equivalent of £250,000 in today's money (about $325,000). The victims of the massacre received £1,500 in today's money for each human life.

"It was no longer possible to claim that Dyer did not represent the British in India," Tharoor writes. "They had claimed him as one of their own-their saviour."

4️⃣ Surely, though, you can't deny that the British gave us railways, tea, cricket, and the English language

Yes they did, but as you've guessed the theme, they were all unintended gifts.

Railways. The British built the railways primarily for themselves, using their own technology and forcing Indians to buy British equipment. Each mile of the Indian railway constructed cost nine times as much as the same in the US, and twice that in difficult and less populated Canada and Australia. The bills were footed by Indian taxpayers and British investors received a guaranteed return on their capital. Freight charges were dirt cheap, and Indians who traveled 3rd class paid for expensive tickets.

Tea. The British desire to end their dependence on Chinese tea prompted them to set up plantations in India. Following many failed attempts, they managed to find a local version that worked. For this, the British felled vast forests, stripped the tribals who lived there of their rights, and then paid Indian labourers poorly to cultivate the cleared areas. Once the tea was ready, it was shipped off to Britain or sold internationally. The little bit left in India was too expensive, until the Great Depression when weak global demand finally let Indians enjoy the delights of the drink.

Cricket. "Yes, the British brought it to us," Tharoor writes. "But they did not do so in the expectation that we would defeat them one day at their own game, or that our film-makers would win an Oscar nomination for an improbable tale about a motley bunch of illiterate villagers besting their colonial overlords at a fictional 19th-century match (, 2001)."

English language. The British made it absolutely clear that it was only taught to serve their own purpose. Lord Macaulay wrote: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." (This is the same Macaulay who also said, "A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.")

"That Indians seized the English language and turned it into an instrument for our own liberation was to their credit, not by British design," Tharoor writes.

The upshot of the empire, as Tharoor , was that "What had once been one of the richest and most industrialised economies of the world, which together with China accounted for almost 75% of world industrial output in 1750, had been reduced by the depredations of imperial rule to one of the poorest, most backward, illiterate and diseased societies on Earth by the time of independence in 1947."

Inglorious Empire shows in full glory how the British systematically purged India's riches, destroyed its institutions, and created divisions among its peoples. Worse still, there has been no formal apology for what the empire wreaked on its subjects. Instead, there is rising nostalgia for the empire as nationalism surges in a country that is now three ranks below India in the size of its economy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The lies Brits tell themselves about how they left behind a better India

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In May 2015, Shashi Tharoor, a former undersecretary general of the United Nations and a current member of India's parliament, gave a stirring speech at a debate in the Oxford Union. He was speaking for the proposition that "Britain owes reparations to her former colonies." The speech went viral, and Tharoor was perplexed.

# data[].attributes.body
The influence the partition has had on the people of both India and Pakistan and the effects of the largest mass migration in human history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A recent escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan has put a spotlight on the violent history of the two countries' independence that Stanford scholar Priya Satia says continues to haunt the Indian subcontinent to this day.

The two nations have co-existed uneasily since the 1947 partition of India, which ended almost two centuries of British rule in the region and led to the largest mass migration in human history. The partition created the independent nations of Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India, separating the provinces of Bengal and Punjab along religious lines, despite the fact that Muslims and Hindus lived in mixed communities throughout the area, Satia said. Although the agreement required no relocation, about 15 million people moved or were forced to move, and between half a million to 2 million died in the ensuing violence.

Satia, a professor of British history in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has studied the partition as part of her work, focusing on the personal stories of its victims. Her current project examines the work of poets who wrote about partition and its aftermath.

A daughter of immigrants shaped by the event, Satia explains how this historical event unfolded and its continuing effects today.
Why did the 1947 partition of India unfold the way it did?
The context of World War II and the transfer of power were critical in shaping the violence. During the war, the British jailed much of the Congress Party in India. In the meantime, more violently inclined nationalist movements flourished, some bearing an imprint of fascism. Indians who fought in the war came home with violent experiences. They and their arms were recruited into new defense groups and paramilitary volunteer bodies attached to these violent movements, such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the Muslim League National Guard. Some Indian politicians in provincial governments began to use such groups for policing as they shifted from being the opposition to being the government.

Meanwhile, having secured their aim of having both newly independent countries in the Commonwealth, British officials hurried events at every turn. The hasty dismantling of the imperial state not only made it harder to address the violence, it also made much of the violence possible in the first place. The imperial state shed its law and order capacity and sense of responsibility, offering little support to administrators trying to deal with routine local politics. The British Army began to depart just when India's own army was being divided and could not be relied on to control violence. In Punjab, confidential instructions insisted that British army units had no operational functions except in emergency to save British lives. Bureaucracies became dysfunctional as officers thought of migrating or tried to please new masters or gave into anxiety themselves. Officials were openly partisan or not at their posts. The evident breakdown of law and order produced paranoia and fear in everyday life. Whatever religious justifications may have been at play in the violence, many actions emerged from a sense of desperate need for survival in a harrowing environment.

All the ingredients for ethnic cleansing were there: a feeble, polarized police force, absence of troops and an armed and terrified population. The violence marked the crumbling of an old order and abdication of responsibility for minorities by all those with any kind of power.
You have studied the partition for many years. What are some key takeaways from your research?
First, high-level negotiations between political elites do not shed much light on why partition unfolded the way it did, involving the flight and death of millions. Stanford Libraries have partnered with the 1947 Partition Archive, an organization collecting oral histories that can finally help us understand that history.

Oral histories

The stories of 51 survivors of the partition can be explored in an online exhibition Stanford Libraries created in 2017 as part of its partnership with the 1947 Partition Archive, a nonprofit that has collected thousands of videos of people recollecting their memories of the event. Click here to read more about the partnership.

Second, the idea of Pakistan emerged initially out of an imaginative effort to think outside the box of nationalism after World War I's demonstration of the violence nationalism caused. It was a way of imagining a polity anchored by something other than nationality or ethnicity.

Third, the idea of partition was on the table in the first place because the British had applied it already in the process of decolonizing Ireland and were discussing using it in Palestine. They thought of it as an acceptable compromise for ensuring all territory wound up within the British Commonwealth after devolution, even if in fragments, so that they might maintain old imperial ties in some form after the granting of formal independence.

Fourth, the history of partition haunts the subcontinent, just like in Ireland, where Brexit has made the separation between Ireland and Northern Ireland a live issue all over again. It did not solve any problem it purported to solve between different communities.
Your research has focused on the personal stories of people living through the partition, and your own family was affected by the event. What was it like to live through that turbulent time?
It was deeply scarring and traumatic, changing their lives dramatically, uprooting them from places and communities where they had lived for generations. They lost languages, ways of life, property, heirlooms, people. It shaped their attitudes toward government, minorities and the concept of home.

Trauma like this has lasting consequences - it affects what is shared with and what is concealed from future generations. Habits formed through trauma are also passed on - I was not there but still many of my habits have been shaped by my mother's and grandmother's experiences after 1947.
Some of your research has also analyzed the work of poets who wrote about the partition. How did poetry help shape the meaning of what happened?
Poetry helped people express other ways of being that continued to resist the national identities of "Indian" and "Pakistani." It helped express the still-open possibilities for the relationship between India and Pakistan - it was not clear that the border would be hard and impassable, and that relations would be wholly inimical until the 1965 war.
What could be learned from this history?
Partition is not a solution for allegedly intractable conflict between communities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Partition of 1947 continues to haunt India, Pakistan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A recent escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan has put a spotlight on the violent history of the two countries' independence that Stanford scholar Priya Satia says continues to haunt the Indian subcontinent to this day.

# data[].attributes.body
6 important facts that are not talked about when the India-Pakaistan partition is discussed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Infographics: Independence Day Infographics Photos: HD Images, Pictures, News Pics - Oneindia Photos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Check out the photo gallery of Infographics: Independence Day Infographics.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Why is it easier for Nisha to communicate her feelings through a diary rather than talking to people about how she feels? Do you think this is something you would do, or not? Why?

2. Why does Nisha write letters to her mom? Is there a bigger reason other than the fact that she misses her?

3. Who does Nisha rely on to provide her everything her mother would have? What are their roles in her life? How is her relationship with these people?

4. Although Amil has always been a trouble maker, Nisha always believed in him. Amil had a shaky relationship with his dad throughout the entire novel. Over the course of the story how did their relationship change? Did it grow? How?

5. Although Nisha and Amil had one parent present in their lives, They relied on one other person for many things. Who was this person and how did the relationship they had with Nisha and Amil differ from the relation they had with their father?

6. The beginning of the story talked about how whenever they tried to ditch school they got in trouble, but it was done a lot by other students as well. In "The Night Diary" is there something that can help draw a conclusion of the importance of an education? Explain.

7. What is one theme you think is important in this entire book that is shown throughout the book. What evidence is available to support this theme?

8. How do you think Nisha's mom would respond to the letter she wrote to her? Write a short reply to any entry of your choice and write your response as you think her mom would reply.

9. Since Nisha's family was both Muslim and Hindu, In parts of the story there is times where her and her family keep that a secret. Why do you think that is?

10. When does papa quote Gandhi in the story saying, " An eye for and eye makes the whole world blind"? Why is this such a worrisome moment in the book for us readers?

# data[].attributes.body
1. This book has many greatly written entries. Find a section or 2-3 sentences that you find significant and write about why they are significant to the story, and to you as well.

2. Amil grew as a character throughout the entirety of the book. Explain how he grew, and how his growth was reflected onto the people around him as well.

3. Finding your identity can be very challenging, especially if you come from two very different religions. Do you think Nisha found her identity or is there more searching to be done? Cite quotes when she in put into situations where she gets a better idea of who she is as a person.

# data[].attributes.body
This video goes into details what the reasoning behind the partition and how/why the British Raj was established.

# data[].attributes.body
Wow! This book is an emotional roller-coaster that I would recommend to upper elementary, middle school, young adults, and adults. The emotional and traumatic story that readers engage in during this book will have you in tears at some points. Gives perspective of a time that many may not be aware of and shows the conflict that many interfaith marriages/families of Muslim's and Hindu's went through during that time.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Monoculture versus Multi-culture (before reading)

2. Gandhi and his influences on the world. (before reading)

3. What happened to the people of India after the separation of Pakistan and India? The affect is had on people and how it continues to cause issues.

4. How was the invasion of British influenced on the way India is today?

5. What is a Refugee? How can relate to different books we have read about being a refugee in a new country.

# data[].attributes.body
1. After reading page six, what does the relationship between the father and Amil look like? Do they get along? Is there tension amongst the father and son?
2. On page 12, Nisha mentions she was meant to write in a diary rather than talking to people. Why do you think she is writing and why is it a form of expression for her? How is this different from her twin Amil and how he expresses himself?
3. Kazi seems to have known Nisha and Amil's mother so he shares stories with them about her. Nisha expresses on page 23 that she loves hearing those stories but she does not want them to run out so she does not ask to hear them often. Obviously, we know Kazi works for the family but what other inferences can we make about the potential relation between Kazi and their mother?
4. On page 23, Kazi tells Nisha how her mother would rather spend her day painting than cooking. Nisha expresses concerns as to why her mother's paintings are not hung up around the house. Why do you think they do not have her mother's paintings up?
5. On page 25 Kazi mentions how brave Nisha and Amil's parents are because their families did not approve of their marriage. Kazi even mentioned how it was nothing he has ever seen before. Why would their marriage not be approved by others? How do you think this affected how the family dynamic was when she was alive and now that she is gone. How could this explain why the painting their mother use to make to not be hung up?
6. On page 28, Amil tells Nisha about the partition that is occurring in their country. He mentions how those of different religions such as Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs will separate into their own countries. How could this be a problem in Nisha's family? How has religion affected their family?
7. On page 93, Nisha finds out Kazi is not able to go with them. The unsafe conditions mean that the family must separate from him. How has Kazi become more than just a cook to them? How has Kazi helped Nisha grieving process of losing her mother?
8. On page 74 we learn more about Nisha's mother's family. How did they feel about the marriage? How has this affected what Nisha knows about her mother's family throughout the years?
9. On page 162, Nisha talks explicitly about her feelings about being neither Hindu nor Muslim. Why would keeping her Islamic roots be important to her? Why would she feel conflicted? She also mentioned that Gandhiji believes they are "everything anyway" who is Gandhiji and what did he stand for during the partition?
10. On page 194 Nisha writes “Wasn’t independence from the British supposed to free us? We’ve never been less free.” What does independence mean? How has this move for the family proven to them that they are in fact not free?

# data[].attributes.body
1. On page 194 Nisha writes “Wasn’t independence from the British supposed to free us? We’ve never been less free”. Write a diary entry as Nisha that would elaborate on this thought she made. What would her world look like if they truly did have independence?
2. Amil and Nisha are twins and obviously grew up in the same environment. In what ways are they different from each other? How are those differences similar to the traits they know their mother had by what stories people have told them? Are there parts of Nisha that