Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it.
As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia ― India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait ― were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj.
It was the British Empire’s crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet. Its people used the Indian rupee, were issued passports stamped ‘Indian Empire’, and were guarded by armies garrisoned forts from the Bab el-Mandab to the Himalayas
And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile, and division.
Shattered Lands, for the first time, presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches.
Its legacies include civil wars in Burma and Sri Lanka, ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan and north-east India and the Rohingya genocide. It is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire. And, above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made.
Sam Dalrymple’s stunning debut is based on deep archival research, previously untranslated private memoirs, and interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Konyak, Arabic and Burmese. From portraits of the key political players to accounts of those swept up in these wars and mass migrations, Shattered Lands is vivid, compelling, thought-provoking history at its best.
Praise For Shattered Lands
“This richly researched and vividly written book tells the
story of how a colossal and powerful Empire was broken up into many distinct
nation-states. The narrative is peopled by a wide range of characters: arrogant
imperialists, ambitious nationalists, self-absorbed princes, passionate
dissidents, suffering refugees. Through these individual lives Sam
Dalrymple deftly explores the persisting fault-lines of language,
ethnicity, religion, and nation. An impressive debut by a gifted
and very energetic young writer.”
- Ramachandra Guha, author
of Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World
“This book is a revelation. Sam Dalrymple’s charting of these five moments is both original and important, adding a valuable layer to our understanding of a vast region of the world. A revelation. An original and important charting of the unmaking of Empire.”
- Mishal Husain, BBC Radio 4
" It is astonishing that this story has not been told before. Both essential and irresistible reading – an unputdownable book."
- Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans
“Shattered
Lands is a vivid, unputdownable account of the collapse of the Indian Empire.
With clarity and narrative flair, Sam Dalrymple reimagines ‘Partition’ as a
series of upheavals, far more layered than commonly acknowledged — tracing its
unique implications on geography, language, citizenship, economy, daily life
and the aspect of belonging. From monarchs and soldiers to ordinary citizens,
he brings to life the many protagonists of this colossal rupture with nuance
and intimacy. Both expansive and incisive, this is history recovered and
restored to public memory.”
- Aanchal Malhotra, author of
Remnants of a Separation
“A vivid account that
is meticulous and memorable in detail and authoritative in its ambitious sweep.
This is a stunning and assured debut, by an important new voice in narrative
history and a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the making of modern
Asia.”
- Kavita Puri, author of Partition Voices
“A stunning achievement. Shattered Lands reframes the story
of South Asia with rare empathy and elegance, breathing life into the legacies
of the partitions that shape a quarter of our world today.”
- Thant Myint U, author of The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma
“With
masterly detail, grand vision and moral clarity, Sam Dalrymple takes the
breaking up of Britain’s Indian Empire and recreates an intricate and highly
animate drama – brilliant storytelling, exemplary history.”
- Philip Marsden, author of The Summer Isles
“Expansive, exhilarating, and heartbreaking, Shattered
Lands is an eye-opening account of South Asia's turbulent twentieth
century. With aplomb, empathy, and great wit, Sam Dalrymple navigates the
palatial boardrooms of the Raj as fluently as the chaos and confusion of war
and exodus. This period, so often imagined as a neat parcelling out of
nation-states, emerges as something altogether more raw and challenging: a time
of political churn, of anxiety and terror... Dry archival documents transform into deeply human stories;
nationalist heroes into flawed and complex beings; refugee families into
determined, remarkable figures; simple binaries into mosaics of truth and
colour. There can be no better introduction to these decades that determined
the fates of billions.”
- Anirudh Kanisetti, author of Lords of the Deccan