The End of Empire
Indian independence on 15 August 1947 was one of the most significant events of the 20th century — not only because it freed one of the world's largest populations from colonial rule, but because the manner of its achievement, the violence of partition, and the precedent it set shaped the course of decolonisation across Asia and Africa for the following three decades.
The Independence Movement
The Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, had been pursuing independence through political means for decades. Mahatma Gandhi's adoption of non-violent civil disobedience — satyagraha — transformed the movement into a mass phenomenon. The Salt March of 1930, the Quit India movement of 1942 and the growing cost and political impossibility of maintaining empire after World War II all converged to make independence inevitable by the mid-1940s.
Partition
The decision to partition British India into two independent states — India (predominantly Hindu) and Pakistan (predominantly Muslim) — was made in haste and implemented with catastrophic speed. The Radcliffe Line, drawn by a British lawyer who had never visited India, divided Punjab and Bengal along religious lines. In the communal violence that followed, between 200,000 and 2 million people were killed and 10–20 million were displaced in one of the largest forced migrations in human history.
Legacy
Indian independence triggered a wave of decolonisation across Asia and Africa over the following two decades. India's constitution, adopted in 1950, established the world's largest democracy. The unresolved issues of partition — particularly over the disputed territory of Kashmir — continue to shape relations between India and Pakistan to this day and have produced three major wars and decades of ongoing conflict.