Towards Independence: Acts and Partition

Why this matters for CAPF

This note closes the freedom struggle and is among the densest static-fact topics in Paper I: the constitutional Acts of 1909, 1919, and 1935 and exactly what each introduced, the wartime missions (August Offer, Cripps, Cabinet Mission) and their fate, the Indian National Army and the RIN mutiny, the Mountbatten Plan and the Indian Independence Act 1947, the Radcliffe Line, and the partition facts. It is also a recurring Paper II essay anchor (see theme freedom struggle) and the bridge to the polity syllabus, because the Government of India Act 1935 supplied most of the Constitution's administrative framework (see making of the constitution) and the lapse of paramountcy in 1947 created the integration challenge that built the Indian Union. The security and nation-building content here, the INA trials, the RIN mutiny, the integration of over 560 princely states, and the partition's humanitarian and border crisis, is exactly the dimension CAPF emphasises. The examiner tests Act-to-provision matching, mission-to-year sequence, partition dates, and revolutionary-event-to-person matching.

This account follows the NCERT modern-India coverage and the standard reference treatment in Spectrum's "A Brief History of Modern India."

Core narrative

The constitutional ladder

The British conceded self-government in measured steps through three major Acts, the "constitutional ladder" of 1909, 1919, and 1935.

• Indian Councils Act 1909 (Morley-Minto Reforms): enlarged the legislative councils (central and provincial) and, most significantly, introduced separate electorates for Muslims, by which Muslims voted only for Muslim candidates. This institutionalised communal representation, and Lord Minto is called the "father of the communal electorate". The reforms allowed Indians to be associated with the executive councils for the first time (Satyendra Prasad Sinha became the first Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1909).
• Government of India Act 1919 (Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms): introduced dyarchy in the provinces, dividing provincial subjects into "transferred" (such as education, health, local government, run by ministers responsible to the legislature) and "reserved" (such as finance, law and order, police, run by the Governor and his executive council). It created a bicameral central legislature (Council of State and Legislative Assembly), separated central and provincial subject lists, extended a limited and communal franchise, set up the office of the High Commissioner for India in London, and provided for a statutory commission to review progress after ten years (the Simon Commission of 1928). The preamble declared the aim of "responsible government" by stages.
• Government of India Act 1935: the longest Act ever passed by the British Parliament. It provided for an All-India Federation of provinces and princely states (never realised, because the princely states did not accede), introduced provincial autonomy (abolishing dyarchy in the provinces and giving fully responsible government there), proposed dyarchy at the Centre (also never implemented), extended the franchise to about 35 million, and created the Federal Court (1937) and provided the basis for the Reserve Bank of India. The 1937 provincial elections were held under it. Most of the administrative scaffolding of the Constitution of India, the federal structure, the office of the Governor, the emergency provisions, the Public Service Commissions, derives from this Act.

The wartime missions and the road to transfer of power

• August Offer (1940): the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow offered dominion status after the War, an expansion of the Executive Council, and a constitution-making body, with an assurance that no future settlement would be imposed against the will of minorities (a concession to the League). The Congress rejected it.
• Cripps Mission (1942): Sir Stafford Cripps offered dominion status with the right of provinces to opt out of the Union after the War, and a constitution-making body. The Congress rejected the offer (Gandhi called it "a post-dated cheque"), objecting to the opt-out (which conceded the principle of partition) and the absence of immediate self-government. Its failure precipitated the Quit India Movement (see gandhian era and mass movements).
• Indian National Army (INA / Azad Hind Fauj): the INA was first organised in 1942 under Captain Mohan Singh from Indian prisoners of war in South-East Asia. Subhas Chandra Bose, having escaped from India to Germany and then to East Asia, took over the INA in 1943, proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) at Singapore in October 1943, and led the INA alongside the Japanese towards the Indian frontier (Imphal and Kohima, 1944), where it was halted. Its slogans were "Dilli Chalo" and "Jai Hind"; its women's regiment was the Rani of Jhansi Regiment under Captain Lakshmi Sahgal. The INA trials at the Red Fort (1945 to 1946), at which the Congress organised the defence of officers such as Shah Nawaz Khan, P. K. Sahgal, and G. S. Dhillon, roused intense public feeling and unrest in the armed forces.
• Royal Indian Navy (RIN) Mutiny (February 1946): Indian naval ratings at Bombay struck and revolted over pay, food, and racial discrimination, with sympathy strikes elsewhere; it convinced the British that the loyalty of the armed forces could no longer be assumed.
• Cabinet Mission (1946): a three-member British mission (Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps, A. V. Alexander) rejected the demand for a separate sovereign Pakistan but proposed a loose three-tier federation with a weak Centre and the grouping of provinces, an interim government, and a Constituent Assembly to frame the Constitution (elected mid-1946). The Congress and the League both accepted at first with reservations; the League later withdrew its acceptance and, on 16 August 1946, observed "Direct Action Day", which triggered the Great Calcutta Killings and widespread communal violence.
• Interim Government (September 1946): formed under Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council; the League joined belatedly in October 1946 and obstructed from within.
• Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947): Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, proposed the partition of British India, the division of Punjab and Bengal between the two dominions, a referendum in the North-West Frontier Province and in Sylhet, and a swift transfer of power.
• Indian Independence Act 1947: passed by the British Parliament in July 1947, it provided for two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, from 15 August 1947; ended British paramountcy over the princely states, which were left free to accede to either dominion or remain independent; gave each dominion's Constituent Assembly full sovereign legislative power; and ended the use of "Emperor of India" in the British Crown's titles. The boundary was drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe (the Radcliffe Line, announced after independence). Pakistan became independent on 14 August and India on 15 August 1947. Partition was accompanied by enormous communal violence and one of the largest mass migrations in recorded history.

Integration of the princely states

The lapse of paramountcy left over 560 princely states free to accede or stay out. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for States, with the civil servant V. P. Menon, secured the accession of almost all of them by 15 August 1947 through the Instrument of Accession (covering defence, external affairs, and communications). Three states resisted: Junagadh (whose Nawab acceded to Pakistan but whose Hindu-majority people opted for India through a plebiscite), Hyderabad (integrated by the police action "Operation Polo" in September 1948), and Jammu and Kashmir (whose ruler acceded to India in October 1947 after a Pakistani tribal invasion).

Revolutionary nationalism (survey)

Alongside the Gandhian mainstream, revolutionaries pursued armed action.

• Early phase (Bengal and abroad): the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar in Bengal; the attempt by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki at Muzaffarpur (1908); V. D. Savarkar and the Abhinav Bharat; the Delhi Conspiracy bomb attempt on Viceroy Hardinge (1912) by Rash Behari Bose; the Ghadar Party (founded 1913 in San Francisco by Lala Har Dayal, Sohan Singh Bhakna, and others), which planned a mutiny during the First World War.
• The Kakori conspiracy (the Kakori train robbery, 9 August 1925), by the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), with Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Rajendra Lahiri, and Roshan Singh, several of whom were hanged in 1927.
• The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA, 1928), reorganised under Chandrashekhar Azad, with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly (8 April 1929) to "make the deaf hear". Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were hanged on 23 March 1931 for the killing of the police officer J. P. Saunders at Lahore (in mistaken revenge for Lala Lajpat Rai). Chandrashekhar Azad died in a shoot-out at Alfred Park, Allahabad, in 1931.
• Surya Sen (Masterda) led the Chittagong Armoury Raid (April 1930). Women revolutionaries such as Pritilata Waddedar and Kalpana Dutt took part in the Chittagong group.

Static facts to memorise

Security and nation-building angle

This chapter is the heart of the security and nation-building story. The INA and its Red Fort trials, and the RIN mutiny of 1946, showed that the loyalty of the Indian armed forces, the bedrock of the Raj since the army's reorganisation after 1857 (see revolt of 1857), could no longer be relied upon, and they hastened the British decision to quit. The Government of India Act 1935 supplied the administrative and federal machinery on which the Constitution was built (see making of the constitution), including the emergency provisions and the office of the Governor. The lapse of paramountcy under the Indian Independence Act 1947 created the single greatest internal task of the new state, the integration of over 560 princely states, achieved by Patel and Menon through the Instrument of Accession and, where resisted, by police action (Hyderabad) and accession under attack (Jammu and Kashmir), the latter the origin of a lasting border-security challenge. Partition itself produced a vast humanitarian and security crisis, mass migration and communal massacre, that shaped the new state's internal-security and border priorities from its first days (see citizenship and emergency provisions).

How CAPF asks it

Common formats: Act-to-provision matching (1909, 1919, 1935); mission-to-year-and-outcome; the date of independence and the Act that effected it; who drew the boundary and who chaired the Cabinet Mission; revolutionary-event-to-person; the integration of a named princely state.

Authored practice:

Common confusion

• Government of India Act 1858 (Crown takes over, Viceroy created) versus the constitutional Acts of 1909, 1919, 1935; the 1858 Act belongs with the Revolt.
• 1909 (separate electorates) versus 1919 (dyarchy) versus 1935 (provincial autonomy): the three rungs of the ladder, the most-asked matching.
• Cripps Mission (1942, individual, rejected) versus Cabinet Mission (1946, three members, accepted then unravelled).
• August Offer (1940, Linlithgow) versus Cripps (1942) versus Wavell Plan (1945, Simla Conference): wartime offers in sequence.
• Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947, the proposal) versus the Indian Independence Act 1947 (July, the statute that enacted it).
• Pakistan independent 14 August, India 15 August 1947: the dates differ by a day.
• Mohan Singh (first organised the INA, 1942) versus Subhas Chandra Bose (took it over and led it, 1943).

Memory hook

• Acts ladder: "09 communal, 19 dyarchy, 35 autonomy" (separate electorates, dyarchy, provincial autonomy).
• Missions order: "Offer (40), Cripps (42), Wavell (45), Cabinet (46)."
• INA slogans: "Dilli Chalo, Jai Hind."
• Independence dates: "Pakistan 14, India 15" (14 and 15 August 1947).
• Resisting states: "Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir" (plebiscite, police action, accession under attack).

Night before

• 1909 Morley-Minto: separate electorates (Minto the "father of communal electorate").
• 1919 Montagu-Chelmsford: dyarchy in the provinces; bicameral Centre; Simon Commission promised.
• 1935 Act: provincial autonomy; all-India federation (unrealised); Federal Court; underlies the Constitution.
• August Offer 1940; Cripps Mission 1942 ("post-dated cheque", rejected, led to Quit India).
• INA: Mohan Singh organised it (1942), Bose took over and proclaimed Azad Hind at Singapore (1943); Red Fort trials 1945 to 1946; RIN Mutiny February 1946.
• Cabinet Mission 1946: no Pakistan, grouping, Constituent Assembly; Direct Action Day 16 August 1946.
• Mountbatten Plan 3 June 1947; Indian Independence Act 1947; Radcliffe Line; Pakistan 14, India 15 August 1947.
• Patel and V. P. Menon integrated over 560 states; Junagadh (plebiscite), Hyderabad (Operation Polo 1948), Kashmir (accession October 1947).
• Revolutionaries: Ghadar (1913, Har Dayal); Kakori (1925, Bismil); Assembly bomb (1929, Bhagat Singh); Chittagong (1930, Surya Sen); Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru hanged 23 March 1931.

Glossary

• Separate electorate: a system in which Muslims (and later others) voted only for candidates of their own community.
• Dyarchy: the 1919 division of provincial subjects into "transferred" (ministers) and "reserved" (Governor).
• Provincial autonomy: the 1935 grant of fully responsible self-government in the provinces.
• All-India Federation: the 1935 scheme to unite provinces and princely states, never realised.
• August Offer: Linlithgow's 1940 proposal of post-war dominion status, rejected by the Congress.
• Cripps Mission: the 1942 offer of post-war dominion status with a provincial opt-out, rejected.
• INA (Azad Hind Fauj): the Indian National Army led by Subhas Chandra Bose against the British.
• RIN Mutiny: the February 1946 revolt of Royal Indian Navy ratings at Bombay.
• Cabinet Mission: the 1946 mission that rejected Pakistan and proposed a loose federation and a Constituent Assembly.
• Direct Action Day: 16 August 1946, the League's protest that triggered the Calcutta killings.
• Mountbatten Plan: the 3 June 1947 plan for partition and a rapid transfer of power.
• Indian Independence Act 1947: the statute creating the dominions of India and Pakistan.
• Radcliffe Line: the partition boundary drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
• Paramountcy: the supreme British authority over the princely states, which lapsed in 1947.
• Instrument of Accession: the document by which a princely state acceded to India or Pakistan.
• HSRA: the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad.

Related notes

• gandhian era and mass movements
• rise of nationalism moderates and extremists
• revolt of 1857
• making of the constitution
• citizenship and emergency provisions
• theme freedom struggle
• Index
• syllabus index