The 1947 Partition Archive

A global digital archive built by and for everyone.

Welcome to The 1947 Partition Archive

We are dedicated to documenting the people's history of the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition, a globally disruptive event that created one of the largest mass refugee crises of the last century. Through an innovative crowdsourcing approach developed in 2010, The 1947 Partition Archive has democratized historical documentation, bringing forth voices from communities previously underrepresented and histories previously unknown.



Today, nearly 9,500 witness oral histories recorded from 12 countries in over 36 languages and dialects have been preserved in The 1947 Partition Archive, including digital copies of antiquated photographs, documents and images of personal objects of historical value, gathered from personal collections. The collections have been compiled by over 600 Citizen Historian volunteers, over 150 Story Scholars, 200 community based digital archivists and other volunteers.

The 1947 Partition Archive is built together by all of us, for all of us. Our work is not purely academic but is public history with humanitarian undertones. We are devoting our lives to serving witnesses and to creating a more empathetic world.

Learn more by visiting the Mission & Activities page. Join the effort by volunteering to document oral histories in your community as a citizen historian or learning while giving back as an intern.



Learn more...

Watch on New York Times :









Watch on YouTube:



Oral History Snippets

See more snippets on Youtube and Facebook.



Video: Ali Shan migrated from East to West Punjab (full interview coming soon)



Video: Kazi Shamsuzzaman migrated from West to East Bengal (full interview coming soon).



Video: Ajit Cour migrated from West to East Punjab (full interview coming soon).





