Elections, commissions, protest and strife

The years 1945 to 1947 were marked by intense struggle in the subcontinent. What the Second World War established, and the end of the war only underlined, was the changed military, political and economic position of Britain in the world and the radical transformation of the political temper in India. All this lent unprecedented urgency to the question of the transfer of power and the establishment of national government(s) in the subcontinent. It was in this situation that the Indian National Congress leadership was released from jail, efforts at mobilisation of different sections of the society were actively renewed, large-scale urban demonstrations and rural uprisings occurred, new elections were held and sustained high-level constitutional negotiations took place after 1945.

Much of the politics of the previous three or four decades had been about national liberation. It was a serious complication that the call for Indian self-government was now joined by the call for Muslim self-government in a new country to be named Pakistan. Talk of independence was rife. However, while the Congress and those in sympathy with it expected the independence of a united India, the Muslim League slogan became ‘Pakistan for Independence’. There were two nations in India, it was argued, and the acceptance of the Pakistan demand was the only road to the genuine independence of all Indians, the Muslims in a free Pakistan and the Hindus in a free Hindustan.