"How August 15 was chosen as India's Independence Day date"
Indian Independence Act, 1947
British legislation creating the Dominions of India and Pakistan, effective August 15, 1947.
Dominion Status
self-governing membership of the British Commonwealth, retaining the Crown as head of state.
India's Independence Day on August 15 is among the most recognised dates in the country's national calendar, yet the specific choice of that date was neither symbolic of India's own history nor the product of careful deliberation. It emerged from a combination of imperial expediency, a deteriorating political situation on the subcontinent, and the personal associations of the last Viceroy. The broader context was the Indian Independence Act, 1947, passed by the British Parliament, which formally specified August 15, 1947 as the date on which two new Dominions — India and Pakistan — would be established, ending over 150 years of British colonial rule.
The years immediately preceding independence were, as the NCERT frames them, 'exceptionally tumultuous.' The Congress and the Muslim League had repeatedly failed to arrive at a workable power-sharing arrangement within the Interim Government. Communal violence — including the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946 — had already claimed thousands of lives, and the demand for a separate Pakistan had hardened irreversibly. It was against this backdrop that the last Viceroy concluded that the original British timeline was untenable and that an accelerated transfer of power was the only way to prevent a complete collapse of order.
When the last Viceroy arrived in India in March 1947, Britain had authorised him until June 1948 to complete the transfer of power. Within weeks, he concluded that waiting until that date would allow the political situation to disintegrate entirely. He brought the transfer forward by over a year, compressing an extraordinarily complex constitutional and administrative process into a matter of months. The Indian Independence Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1947, and within a fortnight it had been passed into law — one of the fastest pieces of major imperial legislation in British parliamentary history.
The choice of August 15 as the specific date was personal rather than symbolic for India. The Viceroy himself acknowledged that he chose it as the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II — an event of profound significance to him personally, since he had served as Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command (SEAC) from October 1943 to June 1946, directing Allied operations against Japanese forces in Burma and the surrounding theatre. …
The Radcliffe Committee was appointed to
What was the exact constitutional status of India on 26th January, 1950?
The Partition of Bengal made by Lord Curzon in 1905 lasted until
With reference to the Indian Independence Act, 1947, consider the following statements:
1.It specified August 15, 1947 as the date for the establishment of the two new Dominions.
2.It dissolved the paramountcy of the British Crown over the Princely States.
3.The Act was introduced in the British Parliament in August 1947.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The last Viceroy of India chose August 15 as the date for the transfer of power primarily because it was the anniversary of which of the following events?
Consider the following assertion and reason:
Assertion (A): Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day on August 14, one day before India.
Reason (R): The Indian Independence Act, 1947 specified August 14 as the date of Pakistan's independence.
Which one of the following is correct?
The Radcliffe Commission, appointed in connection with the Partition of India, was primarily tasked with which of the following?
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