Indian independence movement

The Indian independence movement was the long campaign to end British rule in the Indian subcontinent, usually dated from the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to independence in 1947. It grew from moderate petitioning into mass non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi, alongside revolutionary and armed currents, and ended with the division of British India into the independent states of India and Pakistan.

The East India Company became a major power in India after the Battle of Plassey and, following the Battle of Buxar in 1764, gained the right to administer Bengal and Bihar. It later defeated Mysore and the Marathas and annexed much of Punjab in 1849. The Indian Rebellion of 1857, a widespread revolt across the north and centre of India fuelled by grievances among the Company's Indian soldiers, was the gravest early challenge to its rule.

Political associations followed, among them Dadabhai Naoroji's East India Association of 1866 and Surendranath Banerjee's Indian National Association of 1876. In 1885, on the suggestion of the retired Scottish civil servant A. O. Hume, 72 Indian delegates met in Bombay and founded the Indian National Congress. Its early members, mostly Western-educated professionals, professed loyalty to Britain and sought modest reforms. Naoroji later became the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons.

Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal in 1905 provoked mass protest and the swadeshi movement, which boycotted British goods, especially cloth, in favour of Indian-made products. In 1907 the Congress split between moderates such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale and radicals led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, whose slogan was "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it". Revolutionary groups in Bengal and Maharashtra turned to bombings and assassinations. The All-India Muslim League was founded at Dacca in 1906, and Indians in North America and East Asia formed the Ghadar Party in 1913.

Gandhi returned from South Africa on 9 January 1915. In 1919 the Rowlatt Act extended wartime powers of detention without trial, provoking a nationwide strike. On 13 April 1919 troops under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired on a crowd in Amritsar; in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 379 people were killed according to an official British inquiry, while Indian estimates ran as high as 1,499. Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920–1922 urged Indians to boycott British courts, schools and goods and to wear homespun cloth, but he called it off after a crowd killed 22 policemen at Chauri Chaura. Under him the Congress became a mass party.

At its Lahore session in December 1929 the Congress adopted complete independence, Purna Swaraj, as its goal and set 26 January 1930 as a day to proclaim it across India. A civil disobedience campaign followed, including Gandhi's Salt March of 1930, until the Gandhi–Irwin Pact of March 1931 freed many political prisoners. Under the Government of India Act 1935, provincial elections were held in 1937, and the Congress formed governments in seven of the eleven provinces.

When the viceroy declared India at war in 1939 without consulting Indian leaders, the Congress ministries resigned. In 1940 the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah adopted the Lahore Resolution, calling for separate states for Muslims and Hindus. After the Cripps Mission failed, the Congress launched the Quit India Movement on 8 August 1942, with Gandhi's call to "Do or Die"; nearly the whole leadership was jailed within a day, and more than 100,000 arrests followed. Subhas Chandra Bose, meanwhile, sought German and Japanese support and led the Indian National Army against British forces in Burma and Assam.

After the war a naval mutiny that began at Bombay in February 1946 spread to 78 ships. On 3 June 1947 the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, announced partition. Pakistan became independent on 14 August and India on 15 August 1947, amid violence between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims during the Partition of India. India became a republic on 26 January 1950.

Our 1900, 1914 and 1938 maps show the British Raj, and our 1960 map shows independent India and Pakistan.