Recall of Indo-Pak partition, on Gandhi Jayanthi

Today is the birthday of Mahathma Gandhiji, on this day I would like to recall the partition of India and Pakistan.



Millions left for their promised new homeland with smiles on their faces as trains left both India and Pakistan.



The massive exchange of population that took place in the summer of 1947 was unprecedented.



This is a train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off.
In 1947, the border between India and its new neighbour Pakistan became a river of blood, as the exodus erupted into rioting.



These pictures are by Margaret Bourke-White from Khushwant Singh's book Train to Pakistan, Roli Books.Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home.



An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.



It left behind a trail of death and destruction. The Indian map was slashed to make way for a new country - Pakistan.



In a couple of months in the summer of 1947, a million people were slaughtered on both sides in the religious rioting.



The street was short and narrow. Lying like the garbage across the street and in its open gutters were bodies of the dead. Here, bodies of the victims of rioting are picked up from a city street.



With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi.



Men, women and children who died in the rioting were cremated on a mass scale.
Villagers even used oil and kerosene when wood was scarce.



The migration