Religious violence in India borders to ensure their safety in an increasingly lawless and communal environment. With British authority gone, the newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border along communal lines. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at one million. Large-scale religious violence and riots have periodically occurred in India since its independence from British colonial rule. The aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947 to create a separate Islamic state of
Political warfare in British colonial India that indirect rule allowed for social development through gradual change from within rather than shattering the social fabric, producing opposition from the local populace. Indirect rule is less confrontational and more collaborative, therefore a better means for domination. The colonial administration recognised around 600 semi-autonomous princely states, nominally advised by a British resident; the states possessed one quarter of the country’s population. British administrators also employed tax collectors and landlords even in the more "directly" ruled regions of the country and paid for the landlord’s loyalty with large tracts of land and some power to collect taxes for personal use.