How the British creation of two nations in 1947 led to six decades of strife!

As the 60th anniversary of Indian Partition approaches, the BBC's Andrew Whitehead looks back at how and why independence from Britain meant the creation of two separate countries, India and Pakistan.

Poor relations between Nehru (left) and Jinnah boded ill


"There can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one community has a majority to live against their will under a government in which another community has a majority. And the only alternative to coercion is partition."

With those words, the last Viceroy of British India, Lord Mountbatten, announced that Britain would be granting independence not to one nation, but to two. All Britain's attempts to devise a constitutional formula which preserved India's unity while offering safeguards for the large Muslim minority had failed.

Mountbatten's speech was made on 3 June 1947. Just 10 weeks later, he was presiding at twin independence ceremonies.

In Karachi on 14 August, he witnessed the birth of a nation with an explicit Muslim identity, Pakistan. The following day, he was in Delhi for India's independence ceremonies - a country more than three times the population of Pakistan and with a large Hindu majority.

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