War alongside 2.5 million Indian troops, promised to grant India independence after the war. Following the Battle of Britain, Gandhi said he would not push for India’ s self-rule out of the ashes of a destroyed Britain.
However, it soon dawned on the leaders of both countries that the hope and optimism of that night would quickly turn to the harsh realities of how to handle one of the largest mass migrations in modern history and the ensuing communal violence.
As India and Pakistan celebrate 70 years of independence, we look back at how two nations were formed- and the years of bloodshed that followed.
Indian Independence and Partition prologue:
The Indian independence movement began in 1857. The early proponents led militant uprisings against British rule, but the leaders of
the Indian National Congress, which was founded in 1885, pushed for more rights for Indians in terms of the vast civil service and land ownership.
From the 1920s onwards, Mahatma Gandhi was established as the leader of the Indian independence movement. His belief in civil rights and non-violent struggle inspired a generation. Many inspirational activists came to the fore, such as B. R. Ambedkar, who championed greater rights for the lower castes, that had been treated despicably under British colonial rule.
In 1942, Congress launched the“ Quit India” movement. Britain, leading the fight against Nazism in the Second World
However, by the end of the war and with its empire weakened, Britain was unable to resist the overwhelming demand for independence. Both Congress and the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, dominated elections. Further, Clement Attlee, by now Britain’ s prime minister, was a supporter of independence.
In a climate of growing communal tensions and pressure from Jinnah, who argued that Muslims should have their own state, the Mountbatten Plan was hastily conceived. It divided British India along broad religious lines. The problem being that there were millions of Muslims living in what would become Hindu-majority India and huge numbers of Hindus and Sikhs living in what would be Muslimmajority Pakistan.
Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who led
JANUARY 2018 | WWW. WISHESH. COM