India Flashcards
Cripps Mission
April 1942
Promised India dominion status ‘upon the cessation of hostilities’
How much did the British owe India at the end of WWII?
£1.3 billion
Needed to stay on good terms after the war in order to negotiate favourable terms for repayment
General elections after WWII
December 1945 and January 1946
Muslim League in elections after WWII
Won 80% of all Muslim-reserved seats
Took office in Sind and Bengal
Showed that they had a clear mandate for Pakistan
Cabinet Mission Scheme
May 1946
Stated that Muslim Pakistan would not be economically viable
Proposed a system in which provinces would be able to form almost autonomous groups but still within a united India
Muslim League Council voted to agree to the CMS
June 1946
Nehru stated that CMS would be seen as a transitional stage
11 June 1946
Angered Muslim League
Jinnah called for Direct Action Day
16 August 1946
‘But now…we bid goodbye to constitutional methods’
Violence following Direct Action Day spread to Bombay
September 1946
Violence following Direct Action Day spread to Dacca, east Bengal and Bihar
October 1946
Violence following Direct Action Day spread to Punjab, Lahore and Gujurat Lord
1947
Mountbatten arrived in India
March 1947
Mountbatten Plan
3 June 1947
All party leaders announced that they had agreed on the nature of the transfer of power
Terms of the Mountbatten Plan
London barrister, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, would lead a boundary commission to decide the line between Pakistan and India (known as the Radcliffe line)
NWFP – had a plebiscite (50.99% of people voted in favour of Pakistan)
Bengal and the Punjab – if a majority in either provincial legislature voted for partition of these areas, it would go ahead (Congress had been told to vote in favour of partition)
Princely states were able to decide which to join
Attlee had announced that the British would withdraw in June 1948
20 February 1947
Mountbatten brought the date of withdrawal forward
June 1947 he brought it forward to 15 August 1947
Indian Independence Day
15 August 1947
What were jathas?
30 men strong groups of Sikhs in the Punjab
Boundary force in the Punjab
20,000 men but they could not protect over 17,000 villages
Number of refugees who arrived in Indian Punjab
More than 1/2 million
Bankrupted the province
Sikhs were knifed to death at a train station waiting to leave what was about to become Pakistan
14 August 1947
38 Sikhs killed
Temple was set on fire in Lahore
14 August 1947
Hundreds more Sikhs killed
Muslim women in the Punjab were raped and murdered
15 August 1947
Muslims were shot by the Punjabi boundary force
20 August 1947
84 Muslims
Punjabi boundary force turned on each other
24 August 1947
Number of Muslims massacred on a train
4000
Number of people killed overall in the aftermath of partition
1 million people
All but three princely states had decided to become part of the Indian Union by…
1950
Junagadh (princely state)
Wanted to join Pakistan but Indian army ‘invaded’
Hyberbad (princely state)
Wanted to remain independent but Indian army invaded and the area was militarily annexed in September 1948
Kashmir (princely state)
Large Muslim population but Hindu leadership so highly contested
Caused Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-48 after which Kashmir became part of India
