The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy, in favour of the British. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947. This same Act also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan, which was composed of the two regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India was also referred to as "India" in common parlance, but it differed from British India in that it was now independent and geographically smaller: large swathes of the former territory now formed the also newly created but now distinct Dominion of Pakistan. Under the Act, the King remained the monarch in right of new dominions, but the British government relinquished all responsibility for the governing of its former territories. The British Government also revoked its treaty rights and obligations with the rulers of the more than 500 princely states within the region, and instead advised them to join in a political union with either India or Pakistan. Accordingly, the use of one of the British monarch's regnal titles, "Emperor of India", was abandoned.
The Dominion of India came into existence upon the partition of India, a process under and legal act of the Government and Crown of the United Kingdom. Its creation was preceded, however, by a pioneering and influential anti-colonial nationalist movement which became a major factor in ending the broader British Raj. The first government of the new Union was formed under Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister with Vallabhbhai Patel as deputy prime minister, both members of the Indian National Congress. Lord Mountbatten, who had served as the last Viceroy of India, stayed on from August 1947 until June 1948 as independent India's first governor-general; he was replaced by C. Rajagopalachari.
The religious violence occasioned by the partition was soon reduced, in large part through the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi; resentment of him grew though amongst Hindu fundamentalists, eventually costing him his life. To Patel fell the responsibility for integrating the princely states of the British Indian Empire into the new India. Lasting through the remainder of 1947 and the better part of 1948, integration was accomplished by means of inducements, and on occasion threats. It went smoothly except in the cases of Junagadh State, Hyderabad State, and, especially, Kashmir and Jammu, the last leading to a war between India and Pakistan and to a dispute that has lasted until today.
During the existence of the Union/Dominion, the new constitution of the Republic of India was drafted. It was based in large part on the Government of India Act 1935, the last constitution of British India, but also reflected some elements of the Constitution of the United States as well as the Constitution of Ireland. The new constitution disavowed some aspects of India's past by abolishing untouchability and derecognising caste distinctions.
A major effort was made during this period to document the demographic changes accompanying the partition of British India. According to most demographers, between 14 and 18 million people moved between India and Pakistan as refugees of the partition, and upwards of one million people were killed. A major effort was also made to document the poverty prevalent in India. A committee appointed by the government in 1949, estimated the average annual income of an Indian to be Rs. 260 (or $55; perhaps ), with many earning well below that amount. The government faced low levels of literacy among its population: it was estimated at 23.54% for men and just 7.62% for women in the 1951 Census of India. The Union Government also began work to improve the status of women, which bore some fruit eventually in the mid-1950s passage of the Hindu code bills, outlawing patrilineality, marital desertion and child marriages (though evasion of these bans continued for years thereafter). The Dominion of India lasted until 1950, at which time India became a republic within the Commonwealth with a president as head of state.
History Background: 1946
By the early 1920s, the Indian National Congress had become the principal leader of Indian nationalism. Led by Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress was to lead India to independence from the United Kingdom, and powerfully influence other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire. The Congress's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism, led by the All-India Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which demanded a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India. Quote: "the Muslim League had only caught on among South Asian Muslims during the Second World War. ... By the late 1940s, the League and the Congress had impressed in the British their own visions of a free future for Indian people. ... one, articulated by the Congress, rested on the idea of a united, plural India as a home for all Indians and the other, spelt out by the League, rested on the foundation of Muslim nationalism and the carving out of a separate Muslim homeland." (p. 18)
In the 1945 general elections in Britain, Labour Party won. A government headed by Clement Attlee, with Stafford Cripps and Lord Pethick-Lawrence in the Cabinet, was sworn in. Many in the new government, including Attlee, had a long history of supporting the decolonization of India. Late in 1946, the Labour government, its exchequer, and population, moreover, exhausted by the Second World War, decided to end British rule in India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.
Earlier in 1946, elections had been called in India. The Congress had won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces. The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stalled over the issue of a division of India. Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946 "Direct Action Day" with the stated goal of peacefully highlighting the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, a Congress-led interim government was installed in September, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India's prime minister.
Independence: 1947
By March 1947 when the new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal had not abated. With the British Army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, Mountbatten wanted to advance the date for independence and the transfer of power. In June 1947 the nationalist leaders, including Nehru representing the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, and Baldev Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country and Mountbatten was able to rush the British withdrawal forward. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.
On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, the Dominion of India (officially the Union of India), became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General.
Mountbatten's decision to hasten the transfer of power has been both praised and criticised over the years. Supporters feel that an early transfer forced Indian politicians into abandoning petty quarrels and accepting their obligations in stopping an outrage that Great Britain was no longer able to control. Critics feel that if the British had stayed on for another year, had institutions in place for a transition, had the army readied in troublesome areas, a less violent transfer might have resulted.
Partition: 1947
The Radcliffe Commission, tasked with assigning each district to either Pakistan or India, announced its award on 17 August 1947, two days after the transfer of power. It divided the Sikh-dominated regions of the Punjab in equal proportion between the two dominions. Sikh groups, which had feared the worst, had been preparing to mount a vigorous opposition to the award. To counter the expected violence, the British Raj government had formed a 50,000-strong Indian Boundary Force. When the violence began, the Force proved ineffectual. Most units, which had been recruited locally, had stronger ties to one or other of Punjab's three religious groups, rendering them unable to maintain neutrality under stress. In a matter of days, Sikhs and Hindus of the East Punjab were suddenly and unexpectedly attacking the Muslims there, and in the West Punjab, Muslims were returning the violence and the ferocity on the Sikhs. Trains taking the refugees to their new lands were stopped, their occupants slaughtered regardless of age and gender. Long lines of humans and oxcarts travelling East and West to their new dominions were intercepted and overwhelmed.
The Hindu refugees from the west Punjab arriving in Delhi ended up tearing away the Muslim community there from their established cultural patterns and values, and temporarily destabilized the new government. The death toll in the partition violence may never be known, but Judge G. D. Khosla, in Stern Reckoning thought it to be about 500,000. In addition, there was what historian Percival Spear has called "an involuntary exchange of population," which might be of the order of five and a half million travelling each way across the new border. From Sind, some 400,000 Hindus migrated to India, as did a million Hindus from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to West Bengal province in India. Migrations coming in the wake of the massacres severely taxed the strength of the new government.
Settling the refugees
The religious killings had abated by the Autumn of 1947, but the government was weighed down with the responsibility of settling the refugees. In the Punjab, there was land available recently vacated by the Muslims; in Delhi, there was a glut of incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees: many more were arriving there than were Muslims departing for Pakistan. The refugees were settled in several enclosed areas on the outskirts of Delhi. But they had soon overflowed into the streets and even occupied mosques. They attempted to take possession the Purana Qila, or Old Fort—ruins from the Delhi Sultanate—which were milling with Muslims waiting to be expatriated to Pakistan. Religious passions were running high; a pogrom of the remaining Muslims in Delhi was feared.