On August 15, 1947, at the stroke of midnight, India and Pakistan achieved independence from British rule – signalling the beginning of the end of the largest empire in history.

Their freedom had been hard fought and came at a huge cost. Contrary to legend, the British had not been keen to devolve power gradually. This struggle for sovereignty took many forms: violent and non-violent, elite and popular, religious and secular, plural and separatist.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Independence, Cambridge’s Centre of South Asian Studies is staging a unique exhibition over four floors of the Alison Richard Building – drawing on the Centre’s unparalleled collection of more than 100,000 photographs, 600 written collections, 900 maps and thousands of hours of film footage.

While the exhibition’s primary focus is on partition and independence, the collection covers more than 200 years of life under The Raj and the early decades of post-colonial India.

Featuring first-hand photographs of Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah – and highlighting female assassins, refugees and the personal stories of those affected by the British withdrawal, Freedom and Fragmentation: Images of Independence, Decolonisation and Partition runs until October 27, 2017.

Exhibition poster Exhibition poster

Co-curator Dr Edward Anderson, Smuts Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies, said: “Partition was a painful, traumatic experience for tens of millions of people. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives and up to 14 million people were displaced in the single largest migration in human history.

“We are not saying this is the definitive story of partition and independence – it’s the one drawn from our collections. We want people to learn more about the way in which India and Pakistan gained their freedom – and the colonial state from which they achieved it.

“Everyone knows about Gandhi, but there was lots of violence and revolutionary movements with competing images of what an independent India should be like. Each floor of the exhibition explores one of four themes: Repression and Resistance, Ideas of Independence, Partition, and The Raj.”

Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies Professor Joya Chaterji said: “This exhibition explores what freedom meant to people on the ground as power was transferred not to one, but to two nations – India and Pakistan – and euphoria mingled with the agony of refugees, and relief with horror at the brutality of partition.

“We need to be conscious that our archive is an elite archive, primarily seen through the eyes of elite, white men which can obscure and silence many other versions of what was happening at that point. That’s what archives do, not just this one. Despite this caveat, we believe that the images and texts on display provide a rare insight into a pivotal moment in history.”