India's Partition - Part One

The partition of India led to millions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fleeing their homes amid horrific violence. This is the first of two programmes remembering that time.Listen to the story of Saleem, who was only five-years-old when his family tried to escape to the new Muslim country of Pakistan. This programme was first broadcast in 2010.Photo: Wrecked buildings after communal riots in Amritsar, Punjab, during the Partition of British India, March 1947 Credit: Keystone Features / Stringer

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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.