The independence of India was achieved on August 15, 1947, led by Mahatma Gandhi, drawing up a constitution in the course of 1948-1949.
The post-war period generated a series of national liberation movements, that is, the right of colonized peoples to dispose of themselves was revealed. These movements appeared with greater force in the continents of Asia such as India, Africa, changing the prevailing situation. Important political-social processes took place in America, as is the case of the Mexican Revolution , the Cuban Revolution , the claim of sovereignty over the Panama Canal and others.
1. Background.
India is one of the largest nations in South Asia. It is located on the Hindustan Peninsula. A great civilization had once developed there. Subsequently, it was successively conquered by different emerging empires up to contemporary times, such as the Persians, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Arabs, the Afghans, the Mongols, the Portuguese, the Dutch and, finally, the English, who through the English East India Company, came to conquer and exercise almost absolute dominance over India.
Around 1857 the sepoys revolted against the power and abuse of the company . As a consequence, the company was abolished and its power transferred to the crown in 1858.
In 1876, Queen Victoria of England conferred the title of Empress of the Indies . Since then, the English colonial authorities have developed a policy of respect for Hindu uses and customs and, at the same time, practiced the hateful system of racial segregation and, fundamentally, exploitation.
2. Passive Resistance and Mahatma Gandhi.
In the First World War (1914-1918) the Indian troops participated in favor of England. The triumph of England and the Socialist Revolution in Russia had a decisive influence on the emergence of the Indian emancipatory nationalist movement, led by the leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948).
Around 1885, several Hindu leaders came together to create the Indian National Congress , for claim purposes. England had promised to recognize after the war the freedom rights of the Hindu people. However, forgetting this promise and the Wilsonian principle of self-determination of peoples, she responded to the Hindu demands for freedom with a bloody and martial repression. Faced with this situation, the peoples of Hindustan, both Hindus and Muslims, Parsis, Siks and Christians, agreed to avoid clashes of a religious nature, mainly between Hindus and Muslims. The latter had been organized in the Muslim League (1906).
After a series of repressive actions by the British, against Hindu nationalism, the visible leader, Mahatma Gandhi, adopted a resolution, in which the non-cooperation of the people with the colonial government was proposed (September 1920 to 1922 ) . This decision considered non-participation in the elections; boycott of foreign products; renounces all British titles; refusal to attend government schools and not paying taxes. All these actions should be carried out without violence. On the other hand, the growth of Muslim separatism was developing. Years later these events triggered the development of a modern and successful policy, unprecedented (1930-1934), with hunger strikes, boycotts and other measures. Calls for nonviolent action were thus effective and exemplary methods.
3. Independence of India.
At the outbreak of the Second World War (1939), the Indian leaders of talent and ambition refused their cooperation in the National Congress, because the British government refused to grant them a greater degree of independence, in exchange for their support in the war. Around 1942 Mahatma Gandhi announced the beginning of anti-imperialist actions, through a new day of civil disobedience with the aim of the British withdrawing from India . The English responded with a bloody repression, imprisoning many leaders until the end of the war (1945). Passive resistance often became violent, until the English empire realized that it could no longer hold India under its domination.
The British colonial government, at the beginning of 1947, decided to divide India into two domains:India, in the Hindustan Peninsula, with a Hindu population, and Pakistan, in Punjab and Bengal, with a Muslim population. This division generated a series of confrontations, with a balance of more than 500,000 dead.
India's independence process came into force on August 15, 1947, drawing up a constitution in the course of 1948-1949 . Gandhi was assassinated by a Muslim fanatic in 1948, his body was cremated and his ashes thrown into the Ganges. His disciple Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru emerged as an important figure. India achieved full independence on January 26, 1950, becoming a sovereign and democratic republic .
Pakistan had remained an independent Muslim state and as of March 1956, it included West Pakistan (Penjab) and East Pakistan (Bengal). In the territory of East Pakistan, as of 1971 a struggle was developed against the Western Pakistani administration, giving rise to the birth of a new state called Bangladesh .