The tragedy of India's partition, 70 years later

Hindus and Muslims weren't destined to fight, despite their bloody history on the Indian subcontinen

In the middle of World War II, with the US pressuring Britain to loosen its colonial grip on India, Winston Churchill issued a bitter prophecy. “Take India if that was what you want! Take it, by all means!” the British prime minister raged to a US diplomat in Washington. But, he argued, only British rule kept the subcontinent’s Hindus and Muslims from each other’s throats: “I warn you that if I open the door a crack, there will be the greatest bloodbath in all history; yes, bloodbath in all history.”
 
Events would exceed Churchill’s worst imaginings. Exactly 70 years