Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

India Wins Freedom

India Wins Freedom

Lord Mountbatten assumed office as the last viceroy of India on 24 March 1947. He had a one-point programme: to pull his country out of India before June 1948. It did not take him long to realise that there was no meeting ground between the Muslim League and the Congress. The Muslim League was determined to have a sovereign state of Pakistan; the Congress was for one united country. Though the Muslim League had been persuaded to join the interim government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, the League ministers would not co-operate and obstructed the smooth functioning of the government. They were out to demonstrate that such a government would not work. The League also refused to participate in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly formed to frame the constitution for the country. While the leaders were wrestling with the knotty problem of transfer of power, misguided Hindus and Muslims in various parts of the country had drawn the battle lines and were at each other's throats. With the killings, burning and looting continuing unabated in the country, Mountbatten placed two options before Mohammad Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League � stay within an India in which the Muslim majority provinces would be grouped together and given autonomy so that they would be virtually self-governing with the centre holding only some portfolios like Defence and Foreign Affairs or form a separate, sovereign, nation outside India made up of Muslim majority provinces minus the areas in these provinces in which Hindus and Sikhs were in greater numbers. These parts would remain with India. Jinnah opted for a sovereign state outside India though he was not satisfied with the boundaries designated for it, complaining that he had been given 'a moth-eaten Pakistan'. Neither Gandhiji nor the Congress party was in favour of partition. But as Acharya Kripalani, the then president of the Congress pointed out, no way had been found to defuse the tension in the Hindu-Muslim relationship and the Congress leadership came round to the view that partition was unavoidable. In the country, in general, there were those who opposed partition � and these included both Hindus and a section of the Muslims � because they refused to accept that the two communities could not live together in peace and harmony in the same country. They believed that Muslims who wished to separate could be persuaded to give up their demand for a separate state through love and understanding.

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There was also a section of Hindus which vehemently opposed partition because it would result in loss of territory. These anti-partitionists were in favour of bludgeoning the Muslims into submission.
A couple from Maharashtra began a fast in Delhi and said they would not break their fast until the idea of Pakistan was given up. Gandhiji referring to their fast at a prayer meeting, asked: "Are you fasting against Pakistan out of love or hatred for Muslims? If you hate Muslims your fast is not right. If you love Muslims, you should go and teach other Hindus to love them." The couple gave up their fast.
Mountbatten set 15 August 1947 as the deadline for the transfer of power. This announcement failed to restore peace between the communities. On the contrary the situation worsened and communal riots broke out on a large scale.
Gandhiji had conceded the demand for partition though he was personally against it. Now fearing a bloodbath he set out to douse the flames of communal passion. On 9 August 1947 he rushed to Calcutta to try to restore peace to the riot-torn city. His mere presence had a calming effect on the people. On Id day he greeted the people who had come to listen to him with 'Id Mubarak'. The crowd responded enthusiastically, and Hindus and Muslims embraced each other.
Gandhiji later went on a fast to persuade people to give up hatred and he made such an impact on the people that communal violence ceased not only in Calcutta but in the whole of Bengal.
The sovereign state of Pakistan came into being on 14 August 1947. That same evening, members of the Indian Constituent Assembly gathered in Delhi to wait for zero hour. As the clock struck twelve, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, rose to speak to the nation:
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes which comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity."