In honor of the recent publication in paperback of Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar’s book The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia, we re-post here an interview with the author on the 60th anniversary of the partition of the Indian subcontinent which took place August 14-15, 1947.

Here the author explains what the title of Long Partition means:

By the long partition my purpose is to emphasize that 1947 was only the beginning of what was necessarily a long, drawn-out process of dividing a territory and its people into two distinct nation-states. Although there has been a lot of argument over why partition took place, we have not paid enough attention to understanding the historical process of partitioning itself.

We’ve posted the introduction to the book here if you would like to read more.