India: history 1858-1947

For Indian history before 1858, see India: history to 1526 and India: history 1526-1858.

Imperial expansion After the Indian Mutiny there followed a period of peace broken only by the constant British suspicion of Russian activities in Afghanistan. This led in 1878 to the Second Afghan War. The emir (ruler of Afghanistan) was deposed and his successor promised to accept a British resident (representing British interests), who was shortly afterwards murdered with his escort. This resulted in British military intervention, with Gen Roberts marching a force from Kabul to Kandahar, and eventually an emir who was favorable to the British was installed. Quetta and the southeastern districts of Afghanistan were annexed after this, and in 1885 Upper Burma was annexed as a result of the Third Burmese War. Britain's Indian Empire was practically complete.

Constitutional developments Lord George Curzon was viceroy 1899-1905, and was succeeded by Lord Minto (viceroy 1905-10). With John Morley (secretary of state for India), Minto introduced the so-called Morley-Minto reforms, embodied in the Councils Act of 1909. These increased Indian representation in government at provincial level, but also created separate Hindu and Muslim electorates, which, it was believed, helped the British in their policy of divide and rule. The reforms did give Indians a direct share in administration by admitting an Indian member to the executive council in each of the provinces, and also at the centre. The British regarded India as too heterogeneous for the establishment of democratic institutions, and Morley did not intend that these reforms should lead to a parliamentary system in India. After his coronation in 1911 George V visited India and held a Coronation ‘Durbar’ (state reception) at the beginning of 1912. This was the first visit of a British sovereign to India, and during it the ‘king-emperor’ announced that Delhi would replace Calcutta (now Kolkata) as the capital of India.

The emergence of Indian nationalism From the time of the Morley-Minto reforms to independence in 1947, the history of the Indian subcontinent is a history of political conflict between the nationalist politicians and the British government. The main nationalist party, the Indian National Congress (see Congress Party), had been founded in 1885, and was moderate in its demands until World War I, when it became radicalized under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The history of this period is also one of gradual constitutional development, as the British brought in reforms under pressure from the nationalists. There is also the additional feature, as the prospect of independence became more real, of the fears among the minority Muslim community that they would be swamped and disregarded by the Hindu majority, fears that led to the ultimate demand for the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Although there was also considerable economic, industrial and social development in the decades prior to independence, the rate of such development was constantly under severe criticism by those seeking an independent solution to the country's problems. Indeed, however fast it had been, it could never have made development at foreign hands acceptable in a climate of rapidly growing nationalist sentiment.

The Government of India Act 1919 The 1919 Government of India Act followed the Montagu-Chelmsford Report drawn up by Edwin Montagu and Lord Chelmsford, respectively secretary of state for India and viceroy. The preamble to the act incorporated a declaration made in 1917 by the British government that their policy was to increase the involvement of Indians in every branch of the administration, and that their ultimate goal was ‘responsible government in British India as an integral part of the British Empire’. This statement was regarded at the time in Britain as marking a noteworthy advance in political thinking. Needless to say, it was not so regarded in the subcontinent. The nationalists took particular note of the phrase ‘British India’, which by definition excluded the Princely States (states still ruled by native princes, under British guidance; see India of the Princes). They also noted the words ‘an integral part of the British Empire’; whether or not India remained a part of the British Empire was in their view a matter to be decided by an independent Indian government. The main provisions of the act were designed to produce a curious halfway house towards a fully parliamentary government on the British model. The act also called for another full inquiry in not more than ten years' time. In provincial government a system was established by which certain subjects, such as finance and law and order, were ‘reserved’ to the British governor and his council, while other subjects, for example education and agriculture, were ‘transferred’ to ministers appointed by the governor from among the elected members of the Legislative Councils (the provincial parliaments). In the selection of individuals as ministers, and also as members of his council, the governor was not confined to the majority party, and he had power to authorize an act or a budget or other demand for money that the Legislative Council rejected. In central government the act stipulated that three members of the Viceroy's Council of seven should be Indians. Two central legislative chambers were established, the lower the Legislative Assembly, the upper the Council of State. In both the majority of members were elected and non-official. The viceroy retained overriding powers similar to those possessed by the provincial governors. The viceroy was also head of the Chamber of Princes (including the rulers of the Princely States), and relations between the rulers and the British government were not allowed to be discussed in the legislature.

The nationalist reaction Although the act of 1919 can be said from the British perspective to have worked with varying degrees of success in different parts of India, it was never acceptable to the Indian National Congress. Nationalist dissatisfaction with the act was compounded by outrage at the Amritsar Massacre, in which British troops fired on a large crowd of unarmed Indian protesters, resulting in 379 deaths. Gandhi embarked on his noncooperation movement in 1920, in which techniques of civil disobedience were employed to bring the act into disrepute and to render it unworkable. Many of the Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, spent periods in prison. In November 1927, in anticipation of the review specified by the 1919 act, the Simon Commission (chaired by Sir John Simon) was appointed, and later visited India. Its brief was to report on ‘whether and to what extent it is desirable to establish in British India the principle of responsible government or to extend, modify or restrict the degree of responsible government now existing’. The commission, which included no Indians, was boycotted in India by Congress and certain other organizations. In 1928, in response to British charges that the Indians could never agree among themselves, Nehru assembled an all-party committee that drafted a new constitution for India, and demanded free dominion status.

The Government of India Act 1935 The report of the Simon Commission was presented in 1930 and considered at three Round Table conferences in London (1931, 1932, and 1933) in an attempt to find the greatest possible measure of agreement. These conferences were held at a time when Congress itself was declared an illegal organization (1932-34). Finally a White Paper was presented to the British Parliament and exhaustively discussed by a joint committee of both houses. The Government of India Act was passed in August 1935. Apart from a considerable extension of the franchise, which even so embraced only 14% of the population of British India, the two major features of the act were autonomy for the provincial governments (now increased to 11 by the separation of Sind from Bombay (now Mumbai) and Orissa from Bihar) and a federal government at the centre. Emergency and special powers were reserved for the provincial governors and the viceroy. Aden, previously governed from India, became a crown colony. While the 1935 act came into force in the provinces in 1937, it never came into force at all in the central government. For ten years two widely differing constitutions coexisted in India, the 1919 act at the centre and the 1935 act in the provinces - although in practice this caused few difficulties. The main reason for the two parallel systems was that the princes, who at the London conferences had broadly supported the idea of a federal central government, had second thoughts, and since the act stipulated that federation could not occur until half the princes had agreed, it was not possible to proceed. Attempts to persuade the princes stopped with the outbreak of war in 1939, and the British introduced government under emergency powers.

Congress participation in government Congress had considerable misgivings about participating in the provincial governments. They mistrusted the special powers reserved by the governors, and suspected the permanent civil servants of hostility towards them. They also had doubts whether the new constitution represented a step towards their goal of complete independence. However, in mid-1937 Congress took office in those provinces (the majority) where they had achieved a clear mandate from the electorate. As it happened, participation in government showed that Congress, hitherto a party of opposition, could achieve much when in power. In the larger provinces in particular, Congress leaders began to lay sound foundations for much of the social progress that subsequently took place in India.

The emergence of Muslim-Hindu tensions Congress, dominated as it was by Hindus, gravely underestimated the mistrust of the Muslim minority towards the Hindu majority. There had at various times been theoretical discussions of Muslim areas and partition schemes - all of them anathema to the Indian nationalist ideal of ‘All-India’. It was between 1937 and 1939, owing largely to Congress's failure to satisfy Muslim susceptibilities, that the idea of a Muslim state finally crystallized. In 1940 the Muslim League, under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, demanded the creation of a separate, independent Muslim state - Pakistan.

India in World War II The main preoccupations of India during World War II were political. Public opinion at the outbreak of war, and indeed throughout its course, was divided as to what attitude India should adopt. On 3 September 1939 the viceroy unilaterally declared that India was at war with Germany. Furious at the lack of consultation, in October 1939 the central executive of Congress issued instructions to all Congress ministers to resign. The instructions were obeyed, though in some cases without enthusiasm. Thereafter, throughout the war, the provinces were directly ruled by their governors, except for those provinces where Muslim League ministries were in power. Indian forces served with the Allies in Europe throughout the war. The entry of Japan into the war in 1941 brought the conflict much closer to home, and by 1942 the Japanese, having overrun Burma, posed an immediate threat to British India. Many Indian soldiers had been captured by the Japanese, and some of the more extreme nationalists among them formed the anti-British Indian National Army. In the circumstances, with many Indians abstaining from supporting Britain, and some actively ranged against them, the British government sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India to offer complete self-government when the war was over. It was made clear that Indians were to frame their own constitution and that thereafter Indian independence would be complete, even to the extent of leaving the Commonwealth if desired. The offer was rejected for differing reasons by both Congress and the Muslim League. It seems clear that some Indians at least did not foresee the defeat of the Japanese, and Gandhi described the offer as ‘a postdated cheque on a failing bank’. In August 1942 Congress launched what was virtually an India-wide rebellion against continued British rule. The ‘Quit India’ noncooperation campaign called on the British to leave India immediately. The British rounded up tens of thousands of Congress members and imprisoned them, and used considerable force in crushing active attempts to undermine the British war effort.

The Cabinet Mission of 1946 In 1946 the new Labour government in Britain made another attempt to provide self-government for India. There was a growing opinion in Britain - particularly after the immense cost of fighting a world war - that Britain could no longer afford a colonial empire, and also that it was morally unjustifiable to impose British rule on other peoples. The upshot was a visit to India by the so-called Cabinet Mission, consisting of three cabinet ministers led by Lord Pethick-Lawrence. Once again long negotiations failed to produce a result. Although the mission produced an ingenious and probably over-complex scheme for a federal centre, with both groups of provinces and individual provinces adhering, it wholly rejected the Muslim claim for partition. By this time the position taken by Jinnah, in which he was supported by most Muslims, had hardened to such an extent that compromise was no longer possible. Communal violence between Hindus and Muslims had increased dramatically since the end of the war. No scheme that did not include the creation of a separate Muslim state stood any chance of acceptance. The mission's proposals were rejected out of hand by both Congress and the Muslim League.

The end of British rule The position of the British government in 1946-47 was difficult. Having proclaimed their intention to hand over authority, they found there was nobody they could transfer it to - or that at least is how the problem appeared in London. With the increasing tensions between the two parties inside the interim central government of India, and the further deterioration of Hindu-Muslim relations throughout the country, it quickly became clear that matters could not be left as they were without risking a major disaster. In February 1947, therefore, the British government announced that British rule would end in June 1948, whether any future constitution had been agreed or not, and in March 1947 Lord Mountbatten was sent as viceroy to organize preparations for the transfer of power. Although this announcement came as a shock to the parties in India, it did not bring about a greater readiness to compromise. Lord Mountbatten quickly came to the conclusion that partition was inevitable. He also believed that to wait until June 1948 would offer no greater chance of a compromise, and would in fact - in the climate of rapidly spreading communal violence and uncertainty about the future - result in the complete breakdown of order. He finally persuaded the Congress leaders that, however much they might declare their opposition to it in principle, partition in practice offered the only road to independence. The British government accepted Lord Mountbatten's views, and in June 1947 announced that the Indian Independence Act would be passed through all stages in the following month. This was done, and at midnight on the night of 14-15 August 1947 India as a unit disappeared and the two new dominions of India and Pakistan came into existence. Both were completely self-governing, fully free from any form of control by the British government (though the governor general would continue to represent the crown), free to frame their own constitutions, and free, if they so wished, to leave the Commonwealth. The act also annulled all treaties between the crown and the Princely States, each state being left to decide whether to accede to India or to Pakistan, or, in theory, to remain independent. By 1950 all had joined either India or Pakistan. However, with partition came mass movements of refugees, with Muslims fleeing to Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs to India. These movements were accompanied by widescale massacres, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed. For subsequent events see India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.