âAt 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.â â Jawaharlal Nehru, August 14, 1947
This chapter captures the paradox at the heart of Indian independence: the moment of greatest triumph was simultaneously shadowed by partitionâs violence and, six months later, by the assassination of the man most responsible for achieving freedomâMahatma Gandhi.
At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, India awoke to freedom. In the Constituent Assembly, Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his famous âTryst with Destinyâ speech, while outside, millions celebrated the end of nearly two centuries of British rule.
Yet even as leaders celebrated in Delhi, violence was engulfing Punjab and Bengal. The joy of independence was inseparable from the horror of partition. An estimated one million people died in the communal carnage, and some 15 million were displacedâthe largest mass migration in human history.
While the nation celebrated, Gandhi was notably absent from the festivities. He spent August 15 in Calcutta, fasting and praying for peace between Hindus and Muslims. For Gandhi, independence without Hindu-Muslim unity was a hollow victory.
Gandhi worked tirelessly to stop communal violence, walking through riot-torn areas of Bengal and Bihar. His presence in Calcuttaâwhere he undertook a fast unto deathâhelped prevent the city from descending into the chaos that engulfed Punjab. His methods were described as a âone-man boundary force.â
In January 1948, Gandhi began a fast in Delhi to pressure the Indian government to release funds owed to Pakistan and to stop anti-Muslim violence in the capital. The fast succeeded, but it made him a target for Hindu extremists who saw his efforts to protect Muslims as a betrayal.
On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist from Pune, shot Gandhi three times at point-blank range during a prayer meeting at Birla House in Delhi. Gandhi died with the words âHe Ramâ (Oh God) on his lips.
The assassination shocked the nation. There were fears of civil warânot between Hindus and Muslims, but between Maharashtrian Brahmins (Godseâs community) and the rest. Nehruâs radio address announcing Gandhiâs deathââThe light has gone out of our livesââhelped calm the nation. The RSS was temporarily banned, and the Hindu Mahasabha was discredited.
Paradoxically, Gandhiâs death may have saved the secular, democratic vision he had championed. The backlash against his assassination marginalized Hindu nationalism for decades, giving the Congressâs vision of a pluralistic India space to take root.
The British departure was remarkably swift. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, had advanced the date of independence by almost a year, giving the new nations barely two months to prepare. This haste contributed to the chaos of partition.
Timeline:
The first cabinet of independent India was a remarkable collection of talent. Nehru as Prime Minister, Sardar Patel as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Maulana Azad as Education Minister, B.R. Ambedkar as Law Minister, and others representing different regions, religions, and ideologies.
The new government faced an almost impossible set of challenges: communal violence, refugee rehabilitation, integrating 562 princely states, feeding a population of 350 million, and building democratic institutions from scratch. That they succeeded at all is remarkable; that India survived is near-miraculous.