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Wednesday 9 August BBC ONE When Anita Rani appeared in WDYTYA? in 2015, part of her research involved tracing the tragedy that beset her maternal grandfather, Sant Singh, in 1947. This was the year of the Partition of India into two countries, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, following the end of British colonial rule.

It was a time of terrible violence as millions of Muslims headed for West and East Pakistan (modernday Bangladesh), and millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. During these terrible days of forced migrations, Sant Singh’s first wife, children and grandfather lost their lives.

As Anita discovers in a two-part documentary, such tragedies were all too common. Not only does Anita, along with her mother, return to the small village in Pakistan where her grandfather lived until 1947, but she follows the children and grandchildren of those caught up in Partition as they journey for the first time to homes from which their families fled in terror. The travellers represent all the communities caught up in the violence – Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and British colonial – and each discovers stories of courage amid the horror.

“This is a deeply personal project,” says Rani. “I realised there’s a generation growing up in Britain who know very little about their own history. Partition seems to be a forgotten moment in time, a shameful stain that no one wants to talk about. However, 70 years on, it’s almost the last chance to hear from the Partition survivors.”