Our Mission

Collecting and preserving testimony from the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.

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Pieces of Partition was originally started when founder Ayesha Iqbal realized the importance of her own grandparent's’ story about the effect partition had on them. Realizing that these stories are not seldom told yet vital to better understanding the Partition, Pieces of Partition was born. Pieces of Partition aims to create a library of testimony and information about the 1947 Partition of India. We focus on providing this data to the English speaker for a more globalized audience. Our team is currently concentrating on recoding and editing testimony for our first launch in July 2024.

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Why is this work important?

The British left India in 1947 divided into two dominions: Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan. The partition created the largest forced migration to date. On paper, we have the statistics; the number of deaths, murders, rapes, abduction, injuries, arson and separation. But our library of testimony comes nowhere close to comprehensive. Stories left unaccounted for; scars left untouched from over 7 decades. Without this information, we build our future on an ambiguous and faulty foundation. Pieces of Partition aims to help collect and preserve testimony and other forms of history (like newspapers and photographs) to bridge the gap of information about the Partition and use this information to analyze the effects of identity based hatred.