Indian Independence 1947: How the British Raj Came to an End

Indian independence came at midnight on 14–15 August 1947, when nearly two centuries of British rule in South Asia ended and power passed to two new states, India and Pakistan. Independence followed a long nationalist struggle led by the Indian National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi, and it was carried out under the Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament in July 1947.

The transfer of power was one of the largest acts of decolonisation in history, affecting around 400 million people. It was also overshadowed by the partition of the subcontinent and the violence and mass migration that came with it.

Background: the long road to freedom

The British Crown took over the government of India from the East India Company in 1858, creating the British Raj. The Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, began as a forum for educated Indians seeking a greater share in government and grew into a mass movement. The All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906.

After the First World War, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi transformed the movement through campaigns of non-violent non-cooperation and civil disobedience, such as the Salt March of 1930. Britain conceded provincial self-government under the Government of India Act 1935, and Congress won most provinces in the elections of 1937.

The Second World War brought a crisis. In September 1939 the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India at war without consulting Indian leaders, and the Congress provincial ministries resigned. In March 1940 the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, adopted the Lahore Resolution, calling for independent states in the Muslim-majority areas, an idea that became the demand for Pakistan. The Cripps Mission of 1942 offered dominion status after the war but failed, and in August 1942 Congress launched the Quit India Movement. Its leaders were imprisoned for most of the rest of the war.

Why Britain decided to go

By 1945 British power in India was much weaker. Britain was deeply in debt, and the Labour government of Clement Attlee, elected in July 1945, was committed to Indian self-government. The Bengal famine of 1943, in which an estimated two to three million people died, had badly damaged British prestige.

Unrest spread within the institutions that held the Raj together. The trials of officers of the Indian National Army, which had fought alongside Japan, at the Red Fort in late 1945 provoked nationwide protests. In February 1946 sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutinied in Bombay and other ports. Officials increasingly doubted whether Indian troops and police could be relied upon to put down a mass rising. The Indian Civil Service, the small elite corps of officials that ran the country, was also shrinking, since few new British recruits had joined during the war. Many in London concluded that withdrawal on negotiated terms was better than being forced out amid chaos.

In the elections of 1945–1946 Congress won most general seats, while the Muslim League won almost all the seats reserved for Muslims, strengthening Jinnah’s claim to speak for India’s Muslims.

Negotiations and the decision to divide

A British Cabinet Mission visited India in 1946 and proposed a loose federal union with strong provinces, intended to keep India united. The plan broke down amid mutual suspicion between Congress and the League. On 16 August 1946 the League’s “Direct Action Day” was followed by mass killings in Calcutta in which several thousand people died, and violence spread to Noakhali in Bengal, to Bihar and to other regions.

An interim government led by Jawaharlal Nehru took office in September 1946, and the League joined it in October, but cooperation was minimal. On 20 February 1947 Attlee announced that Britain would leave India no later than June 1948 and appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten as viceroy to manage the handover.

Mountbatten arrived in March 1947 and soon concluded that a united India could not be preserved. On 3 June 1947 he announced a plan for partition, accepted by Congress, the League and Sikh leaders, and brought the date of independence forward to 15 August 1947. The haste of the timetable remains one of the most debated aspects of the transfer of power. Supporters argued that a quick departure forced Indian leaders to take responsibility and prevented Britain being drawn into a civil war; critics argued that it left no time to prepare for the movement of people or to police the new borders.

The Indian Independence Act

The British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act, which received royal assent on 18 July 1947. It created two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, from 15 August 1947, ended the authority of the British government over them and allowed each to draft its own constitution. The British monarch gave up the title Emperor of India. Paramountcy over the roughly 560 princely states lapsed, leaving their rulers to accede to one dominion or the other. Assets and liabilities also had to be divided, from the army and the railways to government files, typewriters and library books, a process overseen by a Partition Council in the weeks before independence.

The boundaries in Punjab and Bengal were drawn by commissions chaired by the British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Their awards were not published until 17 August, two days after independence, a decision that contributed to the chaos of the Partition of India.

Independence Day, 15 August 1947

Pakistan’s independence was celebrated on 14 August in Karachi, where Jinnah became governor-general. In New Delhi the Constituent Assembly met late on 14 August. Just before midnight Nehru delivered his “Tryst with Destiny” speech, saying that “at the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”

On 15 August Nehru was sworn in as India’s first prime minister and Mountbatten as governor-general. Crowds filled the streets of Delhi, and on 16 August Nehru raised the national flag at the Red Fort. Similar ceremonies took place in provincial capitals across the country, and the tricolour flag of saffron, white and green with the Ashoka wheel at its centre, adopted by the Constituent Assembly in July 1947, was raised on public buildings. Gandhi, the movement’s most famous leader, took no part in the celebrations. He spent the day in Calcutta, fasting and working to prevent violence between Hindus and Muslims.

Key people

• Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964): Congress leader and India’s first prime minister, from 1947 to 1964.
• Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948): leader of the non-violent independence movement, assassinated in January 1948.
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948): leader of the Muslim League and founder of Pakistan.
• Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950): deputy prime minister who, with the civil servant V. P. Menon, brought most princely states into India.
• Lord Mountbatten (1900–1979): last viceroy and first governor-general of independent India.
• Clement Attlee (1883–1967): British prime minister whose government decided to leave India.

Consequences

Independence was accompanied by the partition of Punjab and Bengal, the displacement of an estimated 10 to 20 million people and communal violence in which hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, died. The two new states soon fought over Kashmir, and Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist on 30 January 1948.

Most of the princely states joined India before or soon after 15 August, but Junagadh, Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir became the subject of disputes, military action and, in Kashmir’s case, a lasting conflict. India adopted its constitution on 26 November 1949 and became a republic on 26 January 1950, while remaining in the Commonwealth. Its decision to stay in the Commonwealth as a republic, agreed in the London Declaration of April 1949, changed the nature of that organisation, which no longer required members to owe allegiance to the Crown. The first general elections under universal adult suffrage were held in 1951–1952.

Legacy

Indian independence encouraged nationalist movements across Asia and Africa and showed that a large colonial empire could be dismantled through mass politics. Britain’s departure from India is often seen as the beginning of the end of the British Empire as a whole.

Independence Day, 15 August, is India’s national day, marked each year by the prime minister raising the flag and speaking from the Red Fort in Delhi. Historians continue to debate the British role in partition, the speed of the withdrawal, and the choices made by Congress and League leaders in 1946 and 1947.

Timeline

• 1942, 8 August: Congress launches the Quit India Movement.
• 1945, July: Labour wins the British general election; Attlee becomes prime minister.
• 1946, 16 August: Direct Action Day is followed by mass killings in Calcutta.
• 1947, 20 February: Attlee announces Britain will leave India by June 1948.
• 1947, 3 June: Mountbatten announces the plan for partition and independence.
• 1947, 18 July: The Indian Independence Act receives royal assent.
• 1947, 14 August: Pakistan becomes independent.
• 1947, 15 August: India becomes independent; Nehru becomes prime minister.
• 1950, 26 January: India becomes a republic.

Why it matters

The independence of India in 1947 ended British rule over the largest part of its empire and created the world’s most populous democracy. It reshaped the map of Asia, inspired decolonisation elsewhere and, through partition, left legacies of division that still influence relations between India and Pakistan.