I'm not sure about Africa, but when it comes to India, the British Empire bears significant responsibility for the horrors of Partition.
While local political tensions were certainly a factor, the British played a central role in creating, fuelling, and then disastrously mishandling the transition to independence.
The borders they drew led directly to one of the largest mass migrations in human history. Sir Cyril Radcliffe—a British lawyer who had never been to India and had no real understanding of the region—was given just five weeks to divide a vast and diverse land.
The result was arbitrary lines that split communities, villages, and families.
An estimated two million people were killed, many in brutal communal riots. Women were especially vulnerable—tens of thousands were raped, abducted, or forced into marriage. Families were shattered, and countless people lost their homes, their loved ones, and their sense of belonging.
The hasty British withdrawal, combined with poor planning and a lack of accountability, divide-and-rule policies, created the perfect conditions for a humanitarian disaster.
Partition may have produced two independent nations, but it also left behind a legacy of pain, violence, and deep division that still echoes nearly 80 years later.