We’re the kind of Punjabi family you hear before you see - loud laughs, louder debates, and perfectly spiced, home cooked food on the dinner table, enough to feed both our family and yours.

But we have a lot more in common with Punjabis, both in India and Pakistan, than just our exuberance. 

My grandfather was born in Lyallpur, now known as Faisalabad, in Pakistan. My grandmother was born in Jhelum, also in Pakistan. In August of 1947, my grandfather was thirteen years old, and my grandmother was just eight. As Hindus living in what was then designated as the new predominantly Muslim country of Pakistan, they were forced to flee overnight and make their way to India. 

They walked 20 kilometres on foot to reach military camps, and were ushered onto trains headed to Amritsar. Though this train journey typically took one day, it took nine days this time around. The train was stopped repeatedly, with militants coming in and massacring innocent civilians. 

My grandfather had stuck with about 20 people from his village. By the time they got to Amritsar, nine had been killed. 

Between August 17 and September 8 1947, It is estimated that 700,000 refugees travelled between India and Pakistan via train. It is estimated that within this period, 15 million people were displaced and between one and two million people died.

Despite being the largest mass migration in history, Partition is rarely taught in school curriculums across the United States and United Kingdom. Many South Asian Americans are often unaware of the history of Partition and its lasting impact on us today. 

What caused Partition?

After two centuries of colonial rule in South Asia, tensions were rising within the Indian subcontinent. 

Aside from increasing pressure for the end of the British Raj, the Muslim population (approximately 25% of the nation) began to worry about their future being ruled by a Hindu majority (approximately 70% of the population) in India.

The British had previously come to the conclusion that they would leave India in 1948. As tensions continued to bubble up between both the Muslim and Hindu factions within the country, the British decided to depart a year early in 1947.

In June of 1947, two months before Partition, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, announced an incoherent plan over radio. He gave an overview of both British withdrawal and the partition of India and Pakistan (including East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) to the entire populations. The two months between the announcement and Partition saw escalating social disruption and violence. 

The border was carelessly drawn by Sir Syril Radcliffe, a lawyer who had never been to India and had no experience drawing borders. He was given five weeks to draw the borders, and was unsure where cities such as Lahore should end up on the map. 

Pakistan declared independence on August 14, and India on August 15. Two days later, the new borders for the new Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority countries were announced. 

Those who fled were Hindus and Sikhs now stuck on the Muslim-side of the border, or Muslims stuck on the Hindu-side of the border. Many were given mere hours to leave their homes, often hurried by violent mobs going door-to-door.

How does Partition impact the diaspora today? 

Though the violence of Partition itself slowed down by 1948, its trauma lingers even today, generations later. 

Farah Qureshi, Supriya Misra, and Asma Poshni cite in their research paper the “disproportionately high rates of cardiometabolic diseases and some mental conditions among South Asian immigrants across diverse settings.” They point out that a majority of the research on South Asian health conditions have “limited engagement with the historical forces that shape the South Asian diasporic experience.” 

Many South Asians today are one or two generations away from Partition, which means the trauma is not in the too distant past. Violence, loss, and displacement all result in deep psychological wounds, and this may have manifested into depression, anxiety, and PTSD for survivors of Partition. 

Trauma impacts the way our brains process information. Due to the normalization of suffering and lack of conversation around the effects of psychological conditions in the South Asian community, the trauma itself not only passes down between generations in how we treat each other, but also manifests in co-dependent relationships and guilt around family.

The effects of Partition can manifest in physical health conditions too. Cardiovascular disease is the top cause of mortality among South Asian immigrants. Meanwhile, the presence of type 2 diabetes among South Asians in the US are double that of white individuals, and approximately one in four South Asian adults in the US have type 2 diabetes.

Research indicates that stress-related pathways triggered by mass trauma experiences may play an important role in the development of both cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Meanwhile, both are also tied to “ongoing and intergenerational experiences of psychosocial and psychological stress, disruption to food systems and health care provision, and cycles of poverty”, all results of Partition (Qureshi et. al.). 

Even outside of the individual South Asian, ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan continue to disrupt families even today. 2025 itself saw a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir on April 22, with ongoing conflict between the countries in early May. 

Though Partition may seem far off in history, the reality is that it still impacts South Asians today physically, mentally, and politically. As we learn more about the stories that define us, it’s essential that both the colonization of the subcontinent and the Partition of India are included.