Towards Independence — Quit India to Partition 1939–1947 — Complete UPSC Notes

1. Second World War & the Resignation of Congress Ministries (1939)

1.1 The Trigger

On 1 September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. The same day, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India a belligerent in the war — without any consultation with elected Indian leaders or the Central Legislative Assembly. This single act of imperial arrogance lit the fuse of the final phase of the freedom struggle.

1.2 Congress Response

• Congress Working Committee, Wardha, 14 September 1939: condemned the unilateral declaration; demanded that Britain state its war aims, and clarify whether the war was being fought for democracy and self-determination — and whether those principles applied to India.
• Linlithgow's reply (October 1939) was evasive — offered only consultative committees and post-war "Dominion Status".
• The CWC, on 22–23 October 1939, directed Congress ministries in the provinces to resign. By 15 November 1939 all eight Congress ministries had resigned (Bombay, Madras, Central Provinces, United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, NWFP, Assam).

1.3 The Muslim League Response — "Deliverance Day"

Jinnah seized the moment. On 22 December 1939, he asked Muslims to celebrate the resignations as "Day of Deliverance" from the alleged tyranny of Congress majority rule (1937–39). Speeches across India denounced the so-called "Congress atrocities" against Muslims — preparing the psychological ground for the Pakistan demand within three months.

1.4 The Three Strategic Positions Inside Congress

2. Lahore Resolution / Pakistan Resolution (23 March 1940)

2.1 Context

By early 1940, the Muslim League had moved from safeguards within a united India to a separate homeland. The intellectual ground had been laid earlier by Allama Iqbal in his 1930 Allahabad presidential address (proposing a consolidated Muslim state in the north-west), and by Chaudhry Rahmat Ali's 1933 pamphlet Now or Never coining the name Pakistan (Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, Baluchistan).

2.2 The Session

• 22–24 March 1940: Muslim League annual session at Minto Park (now Iqbal Park), Lahore, presided over by M.A. Jinnah.
• On 23 March 1940, the resolution was moved by A.K. Fazlul Haq (Premier of Bengal) and seconded by Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman.
• Operative clause: areas in which Muslims are numerically in a majority — north-western and eastern zones of India — should be grouped into "Independent States" in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
• Note: the resolution used the plural "states" — not the singular "Pakistan". The name Pakistan was applied to the resolution by the Hindu press; the League adopted it later.

2.3 The Two-Nation Theory — Articulated

In his presidential address on 22 March 1940, Jinnah formally articulated the Two-Nation Theory: "Hindus and Mussalmans belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literatures … to yoke together two such nations under a single state … must lead to growing discontent and final destruction." Pakistan Day is observed in Pakistan on 23 March in commemoration.

2.4 Congress & Other Reactions

• Gandhi: called it "an untruth"; vivisection of India would be vivisection of his own body.
• Nehru: "fantastic nonsense" — economically and politically unsustainable.
• Maulana Azad: rejected the very concept of Indian Muslims as a separate nation; defended composite nationalism in his presidential address at the Ramgarh Congress (March 1940).
• Hindu Mahasabha (Savarkar): had already articulated the Hindu-Muslim-as-two-nations idea in 1937 Ahmedabad address — Jinnah inverted it.

3. August Offer & Individual Satyagraha (1940)

3.1 August Offer — 8 August 1940

Confronted with French defeat (June 1940), British vulnerability, and the need for Indian war cooperation, Linlithgow announced the August Offer:

• Dominion Status as the objective for India — but only after the war.
• Expansion of the Viceroy's Executive Council to give Indians a majority.
• Setting up of a War Advisory Council.
• Most controversially — "no constitutional change without the consent of minorities": a tacit veto for the Muslim League.

Congress rejected the Offer (CWC, Wardha, August 1940). Jinnah and the Muslim League also rejected — but for opposite reasons: not enough recognition of the Pakistan demand. The Offer was thus a strategic gift to the League — it gained an effective veto power.

3.2 Individual Satyagraha — October 1940

Gandhi did not want a mass movement during a war that would embarrass the Allies further; nor could he sit silent. Solution — Individual Satyagraha launched 17 October 1940:

• Selected individuals would publicly proclaim anti-war slogans; expected arrest.
• Vinoba Bhave was chosen as the first individual satyagrahi (Pavnar Ashram, 17 October 1940).
• Jawaharlal Nehru was the second satyagrahi (arrested 31 October 1940).
• The slogan: "It is wrong to help the British war effort with men or money."
• By May 1941, ~25,000 satyagrahis had been arrested. Movement called off December 1941 after Japan entered the war and most prisoners were released.

4. Cripps Mission (March–April 1942)

4.1 Context

By early 1942, Japan had taken Singapore (15 February), Rangoon (8 March), the Andaman Islands (23 March), and threatened Indian shores. Pressure from the USA (Roosevelt), China (Chiang Kai-shek), and the British Labour Party forced Churchill — reluctantly — to send Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour cabinet minister, to negotiate with Indian leaders.

4.2 The Cripps Proposals (Draft Declaration, 30 March 1942)

• Dominion Status with right to secede from the Commonwealth — after the war.
• A Constituent Assembly to be set up after the war, elected partly by provincial legislatures and partly nominated by princely states.
• Any province unwilling to accept the new constitution could retain its existing position or negotiate a separate constitution — opening the door to partition.
• During the war, Defence and external affairs would remain with Britain.

4.3 Why Both Sides Rejected

4.4 Famous Verdicts

• Gandhi: "A post-dated cheque on a crashing bank." (The first half is reliably attributed; the "crashing bank" extension is variously cited.)
• Nehru: on the right to secede, observed the proposal carried "the seeds of disintegration".
• Maulana Azad (then Congress President) led the formal negotiations.

5. Quit India Movement (August 1942 — "Do or Die")

5.1 Build-up

The failure of the Cripps Mission, the Japanese threat, food shortages, conscription, requisitioning of boats in Bengal, and the news of British retreat in Burma created a climate of desperation. Gandhi, who had until then opposed any movement during the war, now changed his mind: "Leave India in God's hands; in modern parlance, to anarchy."

5.2 The Resolutions

• CWC, Wardha, 14 July 1942: approved the draft Quit India Resolution.
• AICC, Bombay (Gowalia Tank Maidan, now August Kranti Maidan), 8 August 1942: ratified the Quit India Resolution — demanded immediate withdrawal of British power.
• Gandhi's closing speech, the same night, gave the immortal mantra: "Do or Die — Karenge ya Marenge" — "We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery."

5.3 Operation Zero Hour — 9 August 1942

Before sunrise on 9 August 1942, the entire Congress leadership was arrested under Operation Zero Hour:

• Gandhi — Aga Khan Palace, Pune (Kasturba died here, 22 February 1944).
• Nehru, Patel, Azad — Ahmednagar Fort.
• The Working Committee was decapitated within hours.

The movement therefore became leaderless and spontaneous — both its glory and its limitation.

5.4 Three Phases of the Movement

1. Phase I — Urban (9–14 August 1942): hartals, strikes, processions in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Kanpur, Ahmedabad; brutal lathi charges and firing.
2. Phase II — Rural (mid-August to end-September 1942): attacks on symbols of British authority — railway stations, telegraph wires, police thanas, post offices, treasuries — especially in Bihar, eastern UP, Bengal.
3. Phase III — Underground (1943–44): guerrilla activity by socialist and revolutionary cadres — Jayaprakash Narayan (escaped from Hazaribagh jail 9 November 1942), Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali (hoisted tricolour at Gowalia Tank 9 Aug 1942 — "Heroine of Quit India"), Usha Mehta (ran a clandestine Congress Radio from Bombay, 14 August – 12 November 1942, transmitting from secret locations).

5.5 Parallel Governments

5.6 Repression & Statistics

• By December 1942: ~1,028 killed in police firing (official); ~3,200 wounded; over 60,000 arrested.
• Mass flogging, collective fines on entire villages, machine-gunning from low-flying RAF aircraft (in Bihar & eastern UP).
• Linlithgow called it "the most serious rebellion since 1857".

5.7 Significance & Critique

• Significance: First time the demand was for immediate withdrawal — no half-measures; established that British rule could not continue without sustained Indian cooperation; broke the spirit of imperial confidence.
• Critique: Spontaneous; lacked Muslim League and Communist Party participation (CPI under "People's War" line supported British war effort after Hitler attacked USSR in June 1941); short-lived as organised movement; suppressed by November 1942.
• R.C. Majumdar: "perhaps the greatest mass upheaval since 1857".

6. Subhas Chandra Bose — Forward Bloc, the Great Escape, INA Phase I

6.1 Background — Why Bose Broke with Congress

• 1938 (Haripura) and 1939 (Tripuri) — Bose elected Congress President. At Tripuri (March 1939) he defeated Gandhi's candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya by 1,580 to 1,377 votes. Gandhi famously said: "Pattabhi's defeat is my defeat."
• Faced with non-cooperation from the Working Committee dominated by Gandhians, Bose resigned the presidency on 29 April 1939; Rajendra Prasad took over.
• On 22 June 1939, Bose founded the All India Forward Bloc within Congress — a left-wing platform calling for an uncompromising anti-imperialist programme.
• Expelled from Congress's elected positions in August 1939; jailed in July 1940 for fomenting anti-British agitation around the Holwell Monument removal.

6.2 The Great Escape (January 1941)

• Released in December 1940 after a hunger strike; placed under house arrest at his Elgin Road residence, Calcutta.
• On the night of 16–17 January 1941, disguised as Maulvi Mohammad Ziauddin, Bose slipped out, driven by his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose; reached Peshawar, then Kabul via the Frontier; from Kabul travelled (with Italian passport as "Orlando Mazzotta") via Moscow to Berlin, reaching 2 April 1941.
• In Berlin: founded the Free India Centre and the Azad Hind Radio (broadcasts began 7 January 1942); raised the Indian Legion (Tiger Legion) from Indian POWs of the Afrika Korps.
• Title "Netaji" ("respected leader") was first used here.

6.3 INA Phase I — Mohan Singh

• Even before Bose's arrival in the East, the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) had been raised in Singapore by Captain Mohan Singh of the 1/14 Punjab Regiment, with help from Major Fujiwara of Japanese intelligence and the Indian Independence League of Rash Behari Bose.
• Tokyo Conference, March 1942; Bangkok Conference, June 1942 — formalised the IIL and INA structure.
• By September 1942: ~40,000 men, mostly Indian POWs from Singapore and Malaya.
• December 1942: Mohan Singh disbanded INA Phase I after a dispute with the Japanese over command authority and was arrested.

7. INA Phase II — Azad Hind Government & the Imphal-Kohima Campaign

7.1 Bose Takes Over — Singapore, 4 July 1943

• At a mass rally on 4 July 1943, Rash Behari Bose handed over the leadership of the Indian Independence League and the INA to Subhas Bose.
• On 5 July 1943, Bose reviewed the INA at the Singapore Town Hall (now Padang) and gave his most famous call: "Chalo Delhi!" and "Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azadi doonga" ("Give me blood, I will give you freedom").

7.2 Provisional Government of Azad Hind — 21 October 1943

• Declared at the Cathay Cinema Hall, Singapore.
• Bose: Head of State, Prime Minister, Minister of War and Foreign Affairs.
• Recognised by nine Axis-aligned states: Japan, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Manchukuo, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, and Nationalist China (Wang Jingwei).
• 23 October 1943: Azad Hind declared war on Britain and the USA.
• Japan transferred administration of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands to Azad Hind in December 1943; Bose renamed them Shaheed (Andaman) and Swaraj (Nicobar) on 30 December 1943, hoisting the tricolour at Port Blair.

7.3 Structure of the INA

7.4 Imphal-Kohima Campaign — Operation U-Go (March–July 1944)

• March 1944: joint Japanese-INA offensive across the Chindwin into Manipur and Nagaland.
• 14 April 1944: INA Lt. Col. Shaukat Hayat Malik raised the tricolour at Moirang in Manipur.
• Kohima (4 April – 22 June 1944): the "Stalingrad of the East" — vicious siege held by the British 2nd Division and Royal West Kent Regiment.
• Imphal: three-month British defence under General Slim's Fourteenth Army.
• By July 1944, monsoon, disease, collapsing supplies and air superiority forced retreat. Of about 85,000 Japanese-INA troops engaged, ~60,000 became casualties — the worst Japanese land defeat to that point.

7.5 Disappearance of Bose

• After Japan's surrender (15 August 1945), Bose flew from Saigon on 17 August 1945.
• Plane crashed at Taihoku (Taipei) airfield, Formosa (Taiwan), on 18 August 1945; Bose was reported to have died of third-degree burns the same evening.
• Three official inquiries — Shah Nawaz Committee (1956), Khosla Commission (1970–74), Mukherjee Commission (1999–2005) — the first two confirmed death in the crash; the third dissented. Mystery persists, though scholarly consensus accepts the air crash.

8. Bengal Famine 1943 & the C.R. Formula (1944)

8.1 The Bengal Famine — 1943

• Worst manmade famine of 20th-century India; estimated 2–3 million deaths (Famine Inquiry Commission 1945: 1.5 million; later scholarship: 2.1–3.0 million).
• Causes: failure of the Burma rice supply after Japanese conquest (1942); cyclone October 1942 wiped out the aman crop in Midnapore; "Denial Policy" — British removed all boats from coastal Bengal and rice stocks above local needs to deny them to a feared Japanese invasion; war-time inflation; Churchill's refusal to divert grain shipments.
• Amartya Sen — Poverty and Famines (1981) — pioneered the entitlement approach: famine caused not by food unavailability but by collapse of exchange entitlements of rural workers and artisans.
• Compelled the British to set up the Famine Inquiry Commission (Sir John Woodhead, 1944); reported 1945; laid the basis for post-1947 PDS & FCI thinking.

8.2 C.R. Formula — July 1944

C. Rajagopalachari (then a Congressman in his individual capacity) drafted a formula in March 1944 and made it public in July 1944, to break the constitutional deadlock with the Muslim League:

• League would endorse the Congress demand for independence and cooperate in a provisional interim government.
• After the war, a plebiscite in Muslim-majority districts of the north-west and east would decide whether they wished to form a separate state.
• If separation was voted, mutual agreements would cover defence, communications, commerce.
• The formula was effectively a conceded principle of partition based on adult suffrage of the affected areas.

8.3 Gandhi-Jinnah Talks — Bombay, September 1944

• 14 meetings at Jinnah's house on Malabar Hill, 9–27 September 1944, based on the C.R. Formula.
• Jinnah rejected — wanted the principle of Pakistan conceded before the war, not subjected to a post-war plebiscite of doubtful suffrage; insisted only Muslims (not all residents) vote in the plebiscite.
• Talks broke down. The formula damaged Gandhi's standing — Hindu Mahasabha denounced him; League extracted the propaganda victory of having forced Gandhi to negotiate on Pakistan.

8.4 Desai-Liaquat Pact — January 1945

• Bhulabhai Desai (Congress leader in the Central Legislative Assembly) and Liaquat Ali Khan (Deputy Leader of the League in the Assembly) drew up a private formula in January 1945.
• Proposed an Interim Government with equal Congress and League members at the centre + 20% reserved for minorities — a precursor of the 1946 power-sharing template.
• Repudiated by Jinnah and shelved; but it foreshadowed the 5+5+2 idea of the Interim Government of September 1946.

9. Wavell Plan & the Shimla Conference (June–July 1945)

9.1 Context

Allied victory in Europe (8 May 1945), Labour winning the British general election (5 July 1945), Indian leaders released from jail (14 June 1945 for the CWC members), and the war in the Pacific still on — set the stage for Lord Wavell (Viceroy since October 1943) to attempt a constitutional restart.

9.2 The Plan (June 1945)

• Reconstitute the Viceroy's Executive Council with Indians in all portfolios except the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief.
• Parity between "caste Hindus" and Muslims in the new Executive Council — Wavell's most controversial element.
• Defence to remain with British until a new constitution was made.
• The plan would have effectively given the League veto over Muslim representation — accepting it would have endorsed League's exclusive claim to speak for Indian Muslims.

9.3 Shimla Conference — 25 June – 14 July 1945

• 21 leaders invited to Viceregal Lodge, Shimla, including Gandhi (in informal capacity), Maulana Azad (Congress President), Jinnah (Muslim League), Master Tara Singh (Sikhs), Ambedkar.
• Congress submitted a list including Maulana Azad as a Muslim nominee — Jinnah refused, demanding all five Muslim seats for the Muslim League and the right to veto Muslim nominations from any other party (including a Unionist Punjabi Muslim like Khizr Hyat Khan).
• Wavell refused to override Jinnah; the Conference collapsed on 14 July 1945.
• Maulana Azad later wrote: "The Wavell Plan was killed by Jinnah's veto, and the Viceroy's surrender to that veto."

10. INA Trials & the RIN Mutiny (1945–46)

10.1 INA Trials — Red Fort, November 1945

• About 11,000 captured INA personnel were brought back; the British decided to prosecute selected officers for treason and murder.
• First trial (5 November 1945 – 31 December 1945) at the Red Fort, Delhi: Colonels Prem Sahgal (Hindu), Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon (Sikh), and Shah Nawaz Khan (Muslim) — chosen deliberately for the multi-religious composition to test reaction.
• Congress set up the INA Defence Committee; lawyers included Bhulabhai Desai (lead counsel), Jawaharlal Nehru (donned the lawyer's gown for the first time in 25 years), Tej Bahadur Sapru, K.N. Katju, Asaf Ali.
• Court martial convicted all three; sentenced to transportation for life — but a tidal wave of mass agitation across India forced Commander-in-Chief Auchinleck to commute the sentences and release them on 3 January 1946. The acquittal-by-pressure was a political earthquake.
• Slogans: "Lal Quile se aayi awaaz — Sahgal, Dhillon, Shah Nawaz!"; "INA Zindabad".

10.2 Calcutta (November 1945) & the Wider Unrest

• 21 November 1945: students of Calcutta took out a procession; police fired; 33 killed over three days of clashes.
• Striking feature — Hindu, Muslim and Sikh students marched together; League's Muslim Students Federation joined Congress & CPI student wings — a brief inter-communal solidarity around the INA cause.
• Similar protests in Bombay, Madras, Karachi, Patna, Allahabad.

10.3 Royal Indian Navy Mutiny — 18–23 February 1946

• Trigger: bad food, racial insults, and a graffiti incident on HMIS Talwar (signals training ship, Bombay).
• 18 February 1946: 1,100 ratings on Talwar struck work and hoisted Congress, League and Red flags together.
• Spread to 78 ships and 20 shore establishments; ~20,000 ratings; centres at Karachi (HMIS Hindustan), Bombay, Vishakhapatnam, Calcutta, Madras, Cochin.
• 22 February 1946: Bombay general strike in support; 300,000 workers struck; ~250 killed in firing across the city.
• Naval Central Strike Committee led by M.S. Khan and Madan Singh; demanded release of INA & political prisoners, withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia, parity with Royal Navy pay, removal of British officers.
• Surrender: on the appeals of Sardar Patel (Bombay) and M.A. Jinnah (Karachi), the strike committee surrendered on 23 February 1946 with the assurance that there would be no victimisation — an assurance not fully honoured.
• Reactions: Patel and Nehru worried about anarchy and indiscipline in the armed forces; Gandhi disapproved of the mutiny ("a thoughtless and unprovoked"). The British, however, were shaken — Attlee later cited the mutiny as a factor in deciding to transfer power.

10.4 Other Service Revolts

• RIAF strike, Jabalpur (January 1946) and various ground crew strikes.
• Police strike, Bihar (February 1946); mutiny in Royal Indian Army Signal Corps Jabalpur (27 February – 1 March 1946).

11. Elections of 1945–46 & the Mood of the Country

11.1 Why Elections Were Held

The Labour Government under Clement Attlee (in office from 26 July 1945) wanted to test the political map of India before launching a constitutional settlement. Elections to the Central Legislative Assembly were held in December 1945; to the eleven provincial assemblies in January–February 1946. Suffrage remained narrow (~28% of adults, on property and education qualifications inherited from the 1935 Act).

11.2 Results — Central Assembly (Dec 1945)

• Congress: 59 of 102 elected seats — captured all 11 general (non-Muslim) seats.
• Muslim League: swept all 30 reserved Muslim seats — secured ~86.6% of the Muslim vote (up from 4.4% in 1937).
• This was the most striking result — the League had transformed from a marginal force into the unrivalled voice of the Muslim electorate.

11.3 Results — Provincial Assemblies (Jan–Feb 1946)

11.4 Political Consequence

The League's massive Muslim mandate gave Jinnah an irrefutable claim that he was the "sole spokesman" (the phrase Ayesha Jalal later borrowed for her thesis) of Indian Muslims. Conversely, Congress's sweep of general seats validated its claim to represent the broader nation. Both claims were true; their combination made compromise excruciating.

12. Cabinet Mission (March–June 1946)

12.1 Composition & Mandate

• Announced by Attlee on 19 February 1946; arrived Delhi 24 March 1946.
• Three British Cabinet Ministers: Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State for India — chair), Sir Stafford Cripps (President of the Board of Trade), A.V. Alexander (First Lord of the Admiralty).
• Mandate: discuss with Indian leaders (a) the framework of a constitution; (b) the formation of an interim government; (c) the transfer of power.

12.2 Negotiations

• Shimla Tripartite Conference, 5 May 1946 — Congress (Maulana Azad as President, Patel, Nehru, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) and League (Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan) failed to agree.
• Mission therefore issued its own award on 16 May 1946 — the famous Cabinet Mission Plan.

12.3 The 16 May Plan — The Three-Tier Scheme

• Rejected the Muslim League's demand for a sovereign Pakistan — said a small Pakistan (north-west + east only the Muslim districts) would be too small to be viable; a big Pakistan (whole provinces) would include too many non-Muslims.
• Proposed a three-tier federation:
  1. Union of India — limited to Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communications.
  2. Three Groups of provinces — each free to write its own group constitution:
     • Group A: Madras, Bombay, UP, Bihar, CP, Orissa (Hindu-majority).
     • Group B: Punjab, NWFP, Sindh (Muslim-majority north-west).
     • Group C: Bengal, Assam (Muslim-majority east).
  3. Provinces with all residuary powers.
• A Constituent Assembly to be elected by provincial assemblies on the basis of one member per million population — total ~389 (296 from British India + 93 from princely states).
• Any province could opt out of its group after the first general elections under the new constitution.

12.4 The 16 June Plan — Interim Government

• A 14-member Interim Government: 6 Congress + 5 League + 3 minorities.
• Vexed point: Congress insisted on the right to include a Muslim member (Maulana Azad / Asaf Ali); League refused to share the Muslim quota.

12.5 Acceptance & the "Grouping" Crisis

• Muslim League: accepted the 16 May Plan on 6 June 1946 — read the grouping as compulsory, the embryo of Pakistan.
• Congress: accepted on 24 June 1946 — but with the interpretation that grouping was optional; reserved for the Constituent Assembly to decide.
• Nehru's press conference, Bombay, 10 July 1946: declared Congress was not bound by anything beyond entering the Constituent Assembly; provinces would be free of any compulsory groupings. This statement — though constitutionally defensible — gave Jinnah the pretext he sought.
• 27 July 1946: Muslim League Council, Bombay, withdrew acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan; declared Direct Action Day for 16 August 1946.

13. Direct Action Day & the Great Calcutta Killings (August 1946)

13.1 The Call

• Jinnah's Council resolution, 29 July 1946: "What we have done today is the most historic act of our history. … Today we have forged a pistol and are in a position to use it."
• 16 August 1946 declared Direct Action Day to demonstrate Muslim power for a separate Pakistan.

13.2 The Great Calcutta Killings — 16–19 August 1946

• Bengal had a League ministry under H.S. Suhrawardy. The day was declared a public holiday in Bengal alone — exceptional administrative behaviour.
• The League's processions, counter-mobilisation by Hindu and Sikh groups, withdrawal of police, and absence of immediate military deployment turned Calcutta into a four-day inferno.
• Official toll: ~4,000 dead, ~10,000 wounded, ~100,000 made homeless (some scholars place the dead at 5,000–10,000).
• For the first time, communal violence acquired industrial scale in a major Indian city — and showed civil administration had abdicated.

13.3 The Chain Reaction — Noakhali, Bihar, Garhmukteshwar

• Noakhali & Tipperah (East Bengal), October 1946: systematic anti-Hindu rioting; forced conversions and abductions. Gandhi, age 77, set out on 7 November 1946 on his famous Noakhali padayatra — barefoot, 47 villages, 4 months, "do or die, but go alone".
• Bihar, October–November 1946: retaliatory anti-Muslim violence in Patna, Saran, Gaya — ~7,000–8,000 dead (official); higher unofficial.
• Garhmukteshwar fair (UP), November 1946: several hundred Muslims killed.
• Punjab, March 1947: with Khizr Tiwana's resignation (2 March 1947), Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Attock erupted; targeted killings of Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab; precursor to August 1947's mass cleansing.

14. Interim Government (September 1946)

14.1 Sworn-In — 2 September 1946

• Jawaharlal Nehru as de facto Prime Minister (designated "Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council"); 12 members initially, all Congress and Congress-nominated minorities.
• League boycotted.
• Gandhi greeted the formation as a "first step to independence".

14.2 Composition (2 September 1946)

14.3 League Joins — 26 October 1946

• Under Wavell's persuasion, the League joined the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 — but to obstruct, not to cooperate.
• Liaquat Ali Khan received the crucial Finance portfolio (after Patel had asked for and was denied Home from a League nominee). This gave Liaquat veto power over every other ministry's budget — used to paralyse Patel's Home Ministry and Nehru's External Affairs.
• Liaquat's "Poor Man's Budget" (28 February 1947) — proposing 25% tax on business profits over ₹100,000 — was framed by Congress critics as a deliberate attempt to alienate Congress's Hindu business backers.
• The League sat in cabinet meetings, refused to enter the Constituent Assembly (whose work began 9 December 1946), and continued to demand Pakistan — making government from within impossible.

15. Constituent Assembly — First Sitting (9 December 1946)

15.1 Composition

• Elected indirectly by provincial legislatures (July–August 1946); 296 seats for British India + 93 nominated by princely states = 389.
• Of the 296 British-India seats: Congress 208, League 73, others 15.
• League boycotted the Assembly entirely; princely states largely abstained at the start.

15.2 First Sitting — 9 December 1946

• Constitution Hall (now Central Hall, Sansad Bhavan), New Delhi.
• 211 members present; League seats empty.
• Sachchidananda Sinha (oldest member, Bihar) elected temporary chairman on French parliamentary practice.
• 11 December 1946: Dr Rajendra Prasad elected permanent President; H.C. Mookherjee Vice-President.
• 13 December 1946: Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution — declaring India an Independent Sovereign Republic, with justice, equality, fraternity, and adequate safeguards for minorities. Adopted unanimously on 22 January 1947; later became the preamble of the Constitution.

15.3 Key Committees

16. Attlee's Announcement & Mountbatten's Arrival (February–March 1947)

16.1 Attlee's Statement — 20 February 1947

Speaking in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Clement Attlee made three momentous declarations:

• Britain would transfer power to Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948.
• If by then the Indian parties could not agree on a constitution, power would be handed over either to the existing Central Government or to "such other form of government as may seem most reasonable" — possibly to the provinces.
• Lord Mountbatten would replace Wavell as the new — and last — Viceroy.

16.2 Why this Statement Was Decisive

• For the first time, Britain committed to a firm deadline. Indian leaders could no longer assume infinite time; the price of disagreement became partition by default.
• The reference to handing power to "provinces" was a tacit acknowledgement that partition was a real outcome — bringing it forward as a credible British option.
• Jinnah had every incentive to hold out; Congress had every incentive to settle.

16.3 Mountbatten Arrives — 22 March 1947

• Sworn in as Viceroy on 24 March 1947.
• Brought a personal mandate to "get out of India by the earliest possible date" and considerable executive freedom from London.
• Staff: Lord Ismay (Chief of Staff), V.P. Menon (Reforms Commissioner — the most consequential Indian official of these months, having served four viceroys).
• Conducted 133 interviews in his first six weeks; concluded that partition was unavoidable and that the June 1948 deadline was far too late given the disintegrating law-and-order situation (Punjab burning since March 1947).

17. Mountbatten Plan / 3 June Plan (1947)

17.1 The Plan Announced — 3 June 1947

After consultations with Indian leaders and a quick flight to London (mid-May 1947) where Mountbatten secured Cabinet approval, the plan was announced simultaneously over All India Radio by Mountbatten, Nehru (for Congress), Jinnah (for League) and Baldev Singh (for the Sikhs) on the evening of 3 June 1947.

17.2 Key Provisions

• Partition of British India into two Dominions — India and Pakistan.
• Punjab & Bengal: separate vote of Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority members of each provincial legislature — if either group voted for partition, the province would be partitioned. (Both did.)
• Sindh: the provincial assembly to decide its accession.
• NWFP: a referendum (held 6–17 July 1947) — opted for Pakistan; Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars protested ("You have thrown us to the wolves") and boycotted the referendum.
• Sylhet District (Assam): referendum (6–7 July 1947) — opted to join East Bengal (Pakistan).
• Baluchistan: Shahi Jirga + Quetta Municipality to decide — chose Pakistan.
• Princely States: lapse of Crown paramountcy; states free to accede to either Dominion or remain independent (technically — pressured to accede).
• Boundary Commissions for Punjab & Bengal — one each, both chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, an English barrister who had never been to India.
• Date of transfer: brought forward dramatically from June 1948 to 15 August 1947.

17.3 Acceptance & the Mood

• AICC, 14 June 1947: ratified the plan by 157 to 29. Gandhi reluctantly acquiesced; said it was a partition of hearts, not just land.
• Jinnah accepted on 9 June 1947 (Muslim League Council); Baldev Singh on behalf of the Sikhs.
• Nehru: "It is with no joy in my heart that I commend these proposals … but I believe that we have acted wisely."
• Patel: privately a strong advocate of partition by early 1947 — saw a "moth-eaten" Pakistan as preferable to a paralysed centre.
• Maulana Azad: opposed throughout; later wrote India Wins Freedom as a brief against partition and Nehru's role.
• Gandhi: "May God forgive me … I was unable to convince either party."

18. Indian Independence Act & Partition Mechanics (1947)

18.1 The Act — 18 July 1947

The Indian Independence Act, 1947, received royal assent on 18 July 1947; introduced into the British Parliament 4 July, passed in just two weeks. Its core provisions:

• Created two independent Dominions — India and Pakistan — effective from 15 August 1947 (India); 14 August 1947 for Pakistan (Mountbatten attended the Karachi ceremony on the 14th, then flew to Delhi).
• Abolished the office of the Secretary of State for India.
• The two Constituent Assemblies acquired full legislative sovereignty for their Dominions.
• Lapsed paramountcy over princely states — leaving them legally free.
• Governor-General to function as constitutional head until a new constitution was made.
• Mountbatten continued as the first Governor-General of free India; Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan (he refused the offer of having Mountbatten as joint Governor-General).

18.2 Radcliffe Award — 17 August 1947

• Sir Cyril Radcliffe arrived in India on 8 July 1947; given five weeks to demarcate the boundaries of Punjab and Bengal.
• Two Boundary Commissions — each with two Congress and two League nominees, plus Radcliffe as chair (with decisive vote). The communal-symmetry composition guaranteed deadlock; Radcliffe's solo opinion was the award.
• The Award was completed on 13 August 1947; Mountbatten withheld publication until 17 August 1947 — two days after Independence — to prevent the Independence Day ceremonies being overshadowed and to escape British responsibility for the dislocation.
• Punjab: 17 districts of West Punjab went to Pakistan; 13 to India. Lahore awarded to Pakistan; Amritsar (the Sikh holy city) to India. Sikh community split — neither East nor West Punjab.
• Bengal: Khulna (Hindu-majority) awarded to Pakistan; Murshidabad (Muslim-majority) to India — illustrating that Radcliffe used canal-system and infrastructure logic alongside crude headcount.
• Radcliffe destroyed his working papers and refused his fee; never returned to India.

18.3 Partition Violence & the Refugee Crisis

• Estimated ~14.5 million displaced (largest peacetime migration in human history); estimates of dead range from 200,000 (low) to over a million (high).
• Punjab worst-affected — virtually every Hindu/Sikh out of West Punjab, every Muslim out of East Punjab, by late 1947.
• Bengal saw less murderous (though continuing) population movement.
• Punjab Boundary Force (50,000 troops under Maj. Gen. T.W. Rees) was overwhelmed; disbanded 1 September 1947.
• Gandhi stayed away from Delhi's Independence celebrations; spent 15 August 1947 fasting at Beliaghata, Calcutta, working to keep the peace — his presence (Suhrawardy with him) credited with sparing Bengal a repeat of Punjab.
• Gandhi's 1948 fast (13–18 January 1948), Delhi: to force communal peace; assassinated by Nathuram Godse on 30 January 1948 at Birla House.

18.4 Other Partition Mechanics

• Partition Council: (Patel + Rajendra Prasad on Indian side; Liaquat + Abdur Rab Nishtar on Pakistan side) supervised division of assets — civil services, army, currency, railways. Initial split was 80:20 (assets and personnel) before adjustments.
• Army: split via the Armed Forces Reconstitution Committee; Indian Army ~2/3, Pakistan Army ~1/3.
• Sterling Balances: ~£1,160 million owed by Britain to India in 1947 — substantial part of which was later released to India in tranches.

19. Integration of Princely States — Patel & V.P. Menon

19.1 The Problem

• ~565 princely states covered 40% of the subcontinent's area and 23% of its population.
• With the lapse of paramountcy on 15 August 1947 (Section 7, Indian Independence Act), they were legally free to (a) accede to India, (b) accede to Pakistan, or (c) attempt independence.
• States Ministry set up 27 June 1947 under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, with V.P. Menon as Secretary — together they orchestrated the integration.

19.2 The Instrument of Accession

• Drafted by V.P. Menon — a remarkably brief document under which states ceded only three subjects — Defence, External Affairs, Communications — to the Dominion, keeping all other powers.
• This minimal-cession formula was politically masterful: it lowered the entry cost for princes while constitutionally locking them into the Indian Union.
• By 15 August 1947, all but three of the states geographically contiguous to India had signed the Instrument: Junagadh, Hyderabad, and Jammu & Kashmir.

19.3 Junagadh

• Kathiawar state; Muslim Nawab (Mahabat Khan) ruling a Hindu-majority population (~80%); geographically embedded in India.
• 15 September 1947: Nawab announced accession to Pakistan; Pakistan accepted 13 September.
• India organised an Arzi Hukumat (provisional government) under Samaldas Gandhi; Indian troops moved in; Nawab fled to Pakistan.
• Plebiscite, 20 February 1948: 91% voted to join India.

19.4 Hyderabad

• Largest princely state; Muslim Nizam (Mir Osman Ali Khan) over an 86% Hindu population.
• Nizam declared he would remain independent; signed a Standstill Agreement with India on 29 November 1947.
• Razakar militia under Qasim Razvi (Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen) terrorised the Hindu population through 1947–48.
• Operation Polo, 13–17 September 1948: Indian Army "Police Action" under Maj. Gen. J.N. Chaudhuri; Hyderabad capitulated in 108 hours.
• Acceded to India on 17 September 1948; Nizam continued as Rajpramukh till 1956.

19.5 Jammu & Kashmir

• Hindu Maharaja (Hari Singh) over a Muslim-majority population; signed a Standstill Agreement with Pakistan (15 August 1947), wanted independence from both.
• 22 October 1947: Pashtun tribal lashkars (with active Pakistani Army logistical backing — Operation Gulmarg) crossed into Kashmir from Muzaffarabad; reached Baramulla 26 October, looted; advanced on Srinagar.
• 26 October 1947: Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to India at Jammu; accepted by Mountbatten on 27 October 1947.
• Indian Army airlifted to Srinagar at dawn on 27 October 1947 (1 Sikh under Lt. Col. Dewan Ranjit Rai, who was killed defending Baramulla); halted the tribal advance.
• War continued through 1948; Nehru referred to the UN on 1 January 1948 (UN Security Council Resolutions 39 of 20 Jan 1948 and 47 of 21 Apr 1948).
• Ceasefire 1 January 1949; Karachi Agreement 27 July 1949 demarcated the Ceasefire Line.

19.6 Final Integration — the Four Phases

1. Phase 1 (Aug–Dec 1947): Instruments of Accession on Defence/Foreign/Communications.
2. Phase 2 (1948–49): mergers of small states into adjoining provinces (Saurashtra, Kathiawar, Vindhya Pradesh, Madhya Bharat, PEPSU, Rajasthan formed by merging 22 Rajput states).
3. Phase 3: Centrally Administered Areas — Himachal, Bilaspur, Manipur, Tripura, Bhopal, Kutch.
4. Phase 4 (States Reorganisation Act 1956): abolition of Rajpramukh category; uniform statehood on linguistic lines.

20. Historiography of Partition & Independence

20.1 Imperialist / Whig School

• Sees the British transfer of power as a planned, orderly culmination of British liberal tutelage. Authors: Reginald Coupland (The Indian Problem, 1942–43), Penderel Moon, Hugh Tinker, Philip Mason.
• Partition is presented as inevitable given irreducible Hindu-Muslim antagonism — Britain merely accepted reality.

20.2 Nationalist School

• Argues that Indian nationalism, working through Congress, drove the British out; partition was a tragic but secondary outcome of imperialist divide-and-rule and Muslim League intransigence. Authors: Bipan Chandra et al. (India's Struggle for Independence), Sumit Sarkar (Modern India 1885–1947), R.C. Majumdar.
• Holds Congress responsible for blunders (Quit India's spontaneity, Nehru's 10 July 1946 press conference) but not for partition itself.

20.3 Cambridge School

• Anil Seal, John Gallagher, D.A. Low: argue that Indian politics was largely local elite-driven; "nation" and "nationalism" were rhetorical structures used to gain access to colonial patronage; partition arose from competition between rival regional elites for post-imperial spoils.

20.4 Subaltern / Marxist School

• Ranajit Guha (founding editor, Subaltern Studies, 1982): peasants, tribals, workers had their own autonomous politics that the elite Congress-League narratives erased. Gyanendra Pandey (The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, 1990; Remembering Partition, 2001): "communalism" is itself a colonial construction.
• R.P. Dutt (India Today, 1940): classical Marxist reading — partition served bourgeois interests on both sides.

20.5 Revisionist — Ayesha Jalal

• Ayesha Jalal (The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, 1985): argues Jinnah's Pakistan demand was a bargaining counter — Jinnah wanted parity within a united India, not a separate state; partition resulted from Congress's refusal to share power with the League at the centre.
• This thesis transformed Pakistani and South Asian historiography; remains contested.

20.6 Feminist & Memory Studies

• Urvashi Butalia (The Other Side of Silence, 1998), Ritu Menon & Kamla Bhasin (Borders & Boundaries, 1998): recover women's testimonies of abduction, forced conversion, family-honour killings; centre Partition as gendered violence.
• Yasmin Khan (The Great Partition, 2007): integrates social history, oral testimony, and high politics.

20.7 Liberal-Constitutionalist

• Granville Austin (The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, 1966): the Constituent Assembly's deliberations produced one of the world's most successful constitutional bargains, channelling diversity into democratic federalism.
• Ramachandra Guha (India After Gandhi, 2007): a synthesis emphasising the improbable success of Indian democracy.

20.8 The "Was Partition Avoidable?" Debate — A Map

Previous Year Questions — Towards Independence (1939–1947)

Prelims-style

Mains GS-I (150–250 words)

Mains GS-I (Long, 250 words)