Liberation and the end of Colonialism: India

Midnight, 15 August 1947. Incoming Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, declares that India is now two independent countries: India and Pakistan. After 89 years, British rule here is over. But the transition brings turmoil and violence to the region. To understand why, we must go back in time.

For much of history, the Indian subcontinent is a patchwork of regional kingdoms populated by various religious groups – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, and Parsis, among others. Starting in the 1500s, a series of European powers take control of different parts of India; in 1858, Britain becomes the official ruler. Soon after, Britain categorises Indians by religious identity. They call Hindus the ‘majority’ and all other religious communities separate ‘minorities’ – the largest of these being Muslims. The British decide that, in elections, people can only vote for candidates of their own religion.

But the British categories are too simplistic. For example, the British count Sikhs as part of the Hindu community, but Sikhs themselves do not. Now different religious groups are pitted against each other, especially in politics. In the late 1800s, a number of riots break out between Muslims and Hindus. Yet Britain’s policies also lead some to unite – against the British.

One of India’s major political parties, the Indian National Congress (or INC), turns its attention to getting rid of religious and ethnic divisions. It gains many votes in doing so. In 1920, a lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi becomes leader of the INC. Gandhi calls on Indians to unite against British rule by refusing to go to British schools, use its law courts, or pay taxes. Gandhi’s tactics do not immediately lead to independence, but they do place pressure on the British.

Then, in the early 1940s, Britain spends a lot of money fighting in World War II. The country nears bankruptcy. It can no longer afford to rule abroad, in India. Shortly after the war, Britain announces that India will become two independent countries: the mainly Hindu India, and the mainly Muslim Pakistan. Some groups, like the INC and its supporters, are against the division.

Other groups support it, especially as a way to give Muslims their own land. Tensions across the region rise. A British judge, Cyril Radcliffe, chairs a committee that is to decide where the border between India and Pakistan will run based on the areas’ histories and populations. The committee has just five weeks for this incredibly complex task. Radcliffe himself has never been to India.

On 14 and 15 August, independence takes effect, and shortly after, the new map is revealed. Mainly Hindu and Sikh areas become India, and mainly Muslim areas, Pakistan. Two mainly Muslim provinces, Punjab and Bengal, are split. The division of India into two countries, known as Partition, leaves many people on the ‘wrong’ side of the border, that is, among a religious majority different from their own. Fighting between religious groups gets worse.

In an attempt to reach safety among their own people, millions of Hindus and Sikhs living in Pakistan leave for India and Muslims in India flee to Pakistan. But the massive population movement worsens the unrest and violence. On both sides of the border, newcomers and locals are raped, injured, and killed. In Punjab and Bengal alone, an estimated one million people die. The problems created by the Partition go beyond this immediate bloodshed.

In the coming years and decades, violence in border regions erupts into wars. Many families who made ‘temporary’ moves become permanently displaced. And disputes over the borders of the Indian subcontinent continue today.