The untold story of the role of aeroplanes

The untold story of the role of aeroplanes

This Article First Appeared In The BBC.Com On August 14, 2023

In his 1974 novel Tamas (Darkness), a vivid portrayal of the bloody partition of India, author Bhisham Sahni vividly depicts the atmosphere changing in a violence-wracked village as a plane circles above it thrice.

“People ventured out. The fighting seemed to have stopped and dead bodies were being disposed. People went back to their houses to assess their losses in terms of clothes and armaments.”

Sahni wrote a fictional account of the carnage that accompanied the partition as it split the subcontinent into the new independent nations of India and Pakistan. Religious violence erupted, displacing some 12 million people, and claiming the lives of up to one million people.

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