Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia

As recently as 1928 India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait were bound together as the Indian Empire. 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 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.

In this lecture Sam Dalrymple presents the 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.

Sam Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and film-maker who grew up in Delhi. He graduated from the University of Oxford as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar. His first book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia (2025), was an international bestseller.

General Admission: £5.00

Please contact the organiser if you would like to attend the lecture but are experiencing financial hardship. Or if you have any queries.

This lecture is presented in association with the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia.