History · The 20th century

Indian independence and Partition

14–15 August 1947

Decolonisation — the end of the British Raj and the division of the subcontinent

The end of British rule in the subcontinent and its division into two dominions. After decades of campaigning by the Indian National Congress under Gandhi and Nehru, and by the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah for a separate Muslim state, the Attlee government sent Lord Mountbatten as the last Viceroy with instructions to transfer power. The Indian Independence Act 1947 brought the date forward to August; Pakistan became independent on 14 August and India at midnight on 15 August 1947, when Nehru gave his Tryst with Destiny speech. Provincial boundaries in Punjab and Bengal were drawn in five weeks by Cyril Radcliffe, who had never been to the region, and the lines were published only after independence. Between ten and twenty million people were displaced and estimates of the dead range from several hundred thousand to two million.

How to spot them

▸Two dominions created on consecutive days in August 1947
▸A boundary drawn in five weeks by a lawyer who had never visited the region
▸A midnight speech about a tryst with destiny
▸The largest mass migration in human history, of ten to twenty million people
▸The last Viceroy stayed on as the first Governor-General of one of the new states

What happened

The midnight speech about a nation redeeming a long-made pledge as the world sleeps (1947)

Jawaharlal Nehru to the Constituent Assembly in Delhi, the night of 14–15 August 1947

A boundary commission chaired by a British lawyer who had never been east of Suez (1947)

Cyril Radcliffe divided Punjab and Bengal in five weeks; the awards were published on 17 August

Direct Action Day in Calcutta and the killings that followed (1946)

16 August 1946; several thousand died in four days and communal violence spread across Bengal and Bihar

Trains arriving at their destinations carrying only the dead (1947)

Attacks on refugee columns and trains in Punjab in the weeks around independence

A fast in Calcutta by a 77-year-old that did more than a division of troops (1947)

Mountbatten called him a one-man boundary force; Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948

Kashmir's accession in October 1947 and the first war between the new states (1947–48)

Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India after a tribal incursion; the ceasefire line still divides the territory

Quick-fire facts

•Pakistan became independent on 14 August 1947 and India at midnight on 15 August 1947
•Lord Louis Mountbatten was the last Viceroy and became independent India's first Governor-General; Jinnah became Pakistan's
•The Indian Independence Act 1947 received royal assent on 18 July 1947
•The boundary between the two states in Punjab and Bengal is known as the Radcliffe Line
•Some 560 princely states had to accede to one dominion or the other; Hyderabad and Junagadh were absorbed by force or plebiscite, Kashmir became disputed
•Muhammad Ali Jinnah died in September 1948, barely a year after independence, and is titled Quaid-e-Azam
•Gandhi did not attend the independence celebrations; he was in Calcutta working to stop communal killing
•India adopted its constitution and became a republic on 26 January 1950, with B. R. Ambedkar chairing the drafting committee
•East Pakistan seceded after the 1971 war to become Bangladesh
•There was no treaty: the transfer of power was effected by an Act of the British Parliament

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources

The National Archives (UK), education resources — Indian Independence
Yasmin Khan — The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
Ramachandra Guha — India After Gandhi