Question about commas

[Aniza Butt]

Hi everyone. I am not an English speaker and I have problems punctuating the sentences. Right now, I am writing a review and a sentence I wrote is a bit complex and am confused commas. The sentence is:

"After colonizing for decades, the British left India in August 1947, and the region was divided into two independent states, India and Pakistan, for Hindus and Muslims respectively."

I wanted to ask whether the comma before "India" and the comma after "Pakistan" is correct or not.

[BookPower9]

For me no need of comma after Pakistan. Because it's continuing sentence.

[Juliet+1]

I think those two commas are correct; they mark off what I believe is called an "appositive." That means that "India and Pakistan" provides additional information about the "two independent states," but the sentence would still be fine without that information. If it was necessary information, then you would not use the commas. That's my best understanding of how it works, and if I were writing that sentence, I would punctuate it exactly as you did. Hope this helps.