As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait—were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the “Indian Empire,” or more simply as the British Raj. And then, in 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.

A new book the author Sam Dalrymple, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, presents the unknown back story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. Sam is a historian and award-winning filmmaker who grew up in Delhi. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar. In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and he runs the history Substack @ travelsofsamwise.

To talk more about his new book, Sam joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Sam’s personal journey with the Partition of the subcontinent, the forgotten separation of Burma from the Indian Empire, and Delhi’s dismissiveness of its Gulf outposts. Plus, the two talk about the creation of Pakistan, the twin genocides of 1971, and the special resonance of the princely state of Junagadh in modern-day Gujarat.

Episode notes:

1. Sam Dalrymple, “The Gujarati Kingdom That Almost Joined Pakistan,” Travels of Samwise (Substack), July 5, 2025.

2. Nishad Sanzagiri, “Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple review – the many partitions of southern Asia,” The Guardian, July 1, 2025.

3. “Ramachandra Guha Revisits India After Gandhi,” Grand Tamasha, April 19, 2023.

4. Preeti Zacharia, “Interview with historian Sam Dalrymple, author of Shattered Lands,” Hindu, July 8, 2025.

5. Sam Dalrymple, “The Lingering Shadow of India’s Painful Partition,” TIME, July 14, 2025.