Lord Mountbatten’s division of India into two countries was a disaster in which a million died. Using newly colourised archive footage, this documentary explores those brutal events
How many documentaries about the brutal partition of India have opened with an RP-accent uttering a variation of the nostalgia-scented sentiment: “India was the jewel in the crown …”? India 1947: Partition in Colour (Channel 4) begins with these words, too. But the tone of this taut and enraging two-parter is different, and not just because the archive footage has been colourised for the first time. More than colour, it’s saturated with clear-eyed truth – particularly the dignified rage born out of 75 years of seeing one’s painful history co-opted, misrepresented and silenced.
Using film, photos, oral testimony that will break your heart, private documents that will fill it with anger, and stellar contributors – as well as some unnecessary reconstructions – India 1947: Partition in Colour tears through the year leading up to one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century. On 20 February 1947, six months before partition, we see Britain appoint Lord Mountbatten as last viceroy of India. On 6 May 1947, with three months to go, Mountbatten’s Plan Balkan is approved in London, despite not being discussed with any Indian leaders (namely Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah). The on-screen countdown is claustrophobic and stressful. Rightly so. We are talking about a tiny band of men who carved up one of the most diverse parts of the world in weeks – a roll of the dice that unleashed a tragedy in which a million Indians were killed, and about 15 million were uprooted (although many estimates are closer to 17, even 20 million).
