Editor’s note: At midnight on Aug. 14, 1947, India achieved independence from British colonial rule and Pakistan was created as a separate homeland for Muslims. More than 200 years of British rule had come to an end – a painful process in which some 15 million people were displaced and another million or more killed. The trauma of the Partition is seared in the collective memory of the two countries to this day.

For the 75th anniversary of this momentous day, The Conversation asked scholars from the U.S., Canada, France, U.K. and Australia to provide a list of the best Partition films, literature or art. Here are some recommendations:

1. ‘My Name is Radha: The Essential Manto’

Recommended by professor Madhur Anand, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Partition in South Asia refers to that horrific year when an arbitrary red line was drawn across a map by British colonial rulers – namely, the last viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, and Cyril Radcliffe, a barrister from England who was given five weeks to draw the line that severed India and created Pakistan. The violence of that crooked line has traumatized an uncountable number of people. I know some of this history through the lives of my own parents.

While writing my memoir based in part on the Partition and my parents’ childhood, I hunted for nonfiction books and memoirs written by witnesses, but when I found little, I turned to fiction and poetry. One of the most influential books for me was Saadat Hasan Manto’s “My Name is Radha,” a collection of translated short stories.

A former journalist and screenwriter, Manto was one among the millions who were displaced: Manto moved to Pakistan and wrote fiction about the lives of marginalized people. He wrote about Partition from the perspective of insane asylum residents and prostitutes and, in so doing, powerfully illustrated the unimaginable horrors and absurdities of Partition. He was tried in India for obscenity in his writing, but never convicted. He said, “With my stories, I only expose the truth.”

Read more: https://theconversation.com/5-books-and-films-that-tell-the-story-of-the-trauma-of-the-partition-of-india-and-its-aftermath-187340