Mapping Partition: The Cartographic Construction of Pakistan

Abstract

In the summer of 1947, a British barrister who had never before set foot in India used paper maps to sketch out the lines that would lead to its partition. Today, the border he designed is one of the most militarized and surveilled spaces on earth. Thousands of floodlights installed along its perimeter render it visible from space in a bright orange hue, underscoring the power of pencil lines drawn decades ago. In this thesis, I investigate how British and Muslim political interests used cartography to construct, reinforce, and contest ideas of nationhood and statehood during India’s partition; and show how maps can at once be used as tools of colonial intervention and decolonial struggle.