Volta
Politics15 August 1947

Partition of India

British India became independent as two states, India and Pakistan. Mass migration and violence followed.

After the First World War the Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi, demanded independence through non-violent non-cooperation. The All-India Muslim League, uneasy about the Hindu-majority Congress, demanded a Muslim state, Pakistan, under Jinnah’s leadership in 1940. Weakened by the Second World War, Britain decided to leave India quickly.

On 14 and 15 August 1947 the Muslim-majority west (western Punjab and other areas) and east (eastern Bengal) became independent as Pakistan, and the rest as India. The new borders were announced only after independence, and a vast exchange of population followed, with Hindus and Sikhs moving to India and Muslims to Pakistan. More than ten million people left their homes, and communal massacres are estimated to have killed anywhere from several hundred thousand to two million.

The next year Gandhi, who urged reconciliation with Muslims, was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. The two countries went to war over Kashmir immediately after independence, a conflict that continues today. East Pakistan, separated from the west by India, became independent as Bangladesh in 1971.

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States at the time
British Raj · partitioned
India · independence
Pakistan · independence
Great Britain

Before and after

Earlier
1942 Quit India Movement

Themes that include this event

  • National Movements in Asia and Africa1915 – 1948

    From the Hussein–McMahon correspondence to the founding of Israel — three decades in which India, West Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, swept up in the tide of self-determination after the First World War, pressed toward independence and modernization