Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. This was followed by mass protest by the All-India Congress Committee. The power to rule from British was fully and finally transferred to the two dominions. One of the prominent freedom fighters of India, Lala Lajpat Rai, who remained leader of Hindu Mahasabha, which was formed to protect rights of the Hindu community in British Raj after forming of All India Muslim League, remained among the first Hindu proponents to back the two-nation theory. Others including Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs and B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community also approved the plan.The then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon asked Queen Victoria to separate Bengal. The Congress Working Committee later (in October 1937) adopted the first two verses of the song as the National Song of India. By dividing Bengal in this manner, the British not only thrived in restraining the Bengali influence in India’s freedom struggle but also reduced the Bengalis into a minority in the Hindu western areas of Bengal with around 37 million Oriya and Hindi speaking people compared to 17 million Bengalis.Image Credit : https://www.dkfindout.com/us/history/modern-india/partition-india/Meanwhile a joint session was held by the Muslim League and Congress in December 1916 in Lucknow where an agreement famously known as the Lucknow Pact was reached. In protest of such rejection, a general strike was planned by Muslim League on August 16, 1946, called the ‘Direct Action Day’ to display resolute of the Muslims to both Congress and the British. Jawaharlal Nehru took ever thc responsibility of the government as the first Prime Minister in 1950. Jinnah interpreted this success of the Muslim League as a popular demand of the Muslims for a separate state.In August 1940 Linlithgow proposed that Dominian status be given to India following the Second World War. In one such incident the newly formed provincial administration of UP promulgated protection of cow as also the use of Hindi. The civil disobedience movement was again revived by the Congress.Image credit : https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/425590233511929986/?lp=trueContribution of the British Indian Army during the First World War (July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918) was immense which included involvement of huge number of independent brigades and divisions in major military activity areas in Europe, the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Patel and Nehru also went on to select the Indian council of ministers. A study made on data provided by the 1931 and 1951 Census revealed that around 2.23 million people went missing during mass transfer along the Punjab border which included 1.26 million missing Muslims who did not reach Pakistan after leaving western India and likewise 0.84 million missing Hindus/Sikhs.Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed by Clement Attlee as the last Viceroy of India on February 20, 1947, and was delegated the responsibility of supervising transition of British India into independent India by June 30, 1948. People boycotted British products, leaders of the anti-partition movement resolved to use Indian goods, foreign goods shops were picketed, western products including clothes were thrown on bonfires and imported sugar was also boycotted. People in millions were uprooted from their homeland and had to leave behind literally all their properties and belongings overnight and travel on foot, bullock carts trains and whatever means available to the new land that promised them a new life and home.
During the winter of 1936-37, provincial elections were held in British India when Indian National Congress came to power in eight provinces out of eleven while the All-India Muslim League were unsuccessful in forming government in any province. However only partial transfer of power was provided to the ministers responsible to the provinces and control over money in such areas were still in the hands of the British officialdom.On August 8, 1942, in the midst of the Second World War, prominent Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement or the India August Movement at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee and demanded an end of the British Raj in India. Although shocked by such turn of events, a Congress-led interim government was installed in September that year with Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister of united India. Pakistan thereafter applied for United Nations (UN) membership which was accepted on September 30 that year by the General Assembly.
East Pakistan later seceded from the union in 1971 to become Bangladesh.Image Credit :https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4238978/partition-of-india-1947-pakistan-border/Image Credit : http://kuow.org/post/giving-voice-memories-1947-partition-and-birth-india-and-pakistanAs Congress and Muslim League failed to come to an agreement, a Cabinet Mission Plan was devised by the British to transfer power from the British Raj to the Indian leadership. The anti-partition movement leaders used the title of a Bengali poem written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee ‘Vande Mataram’ meaning “I praise thee, Mother” as their slogan. As accounted by eyewitnesses the nightmarish and barbaric incidents of violence with palpable tendencies of genocide included mutilation of victims including chopping off their limbs and genitalia; eviscerating pregnant women; hitting the heads of babies against brick walls; and exhibiting heads and dead bodies.A three-day annual session from March 22 to March 24 in 1940 was held by the Muslim League.