A DIVIDED DAWN

At midnight on August 15, 1947, India became independent. The end of the beginning came on June 3 of that year when Lord Mountbatten announced the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. It was a bitter tryst with destiny, with M.A. Jinnah, the “man with an angora cap”, standing between India and Independence and the visceral violence was accompanied by varying degrees of acceptance from rulers of 565 princely states to the idea of India. In a prescient November interview to Time, Mahatma Gandhi said, “The fear haunts me that India must yet go through a deeper blood bath.”

MUTUAL GENOCIDE

India became free, but paid a heavy price. Between 7,00,000 and 20,00,000 people lost their lives in the violence that followed the division—the exact figure remains uncertain. There was a mass exodus, perhaps the first of its kind as people left their homes and lands. It was initially believed that the new boundaries were permeable. But that remained a dream as hostilities mounted between the two countries.

FIRST CUT

Actor Pramila became the first Miss India. Bombay’s Home Minister Morarji Desai presented her the title. Also known as Esther Victoria Abraham, Pramila starred and worked behind-the-scenes in Ardeshir Irani’s Mother India that became the first Indian film to be screened at Buckingham Palace.

Prem Mathur became the first woman with commercial pilot licence.

DID YOU KNOW

Edwina Mountbatten called Jawaharlal Nehru ‘Jawa’ and visited him every year in February, after Independence, according to Patrick French’s book Liberty or Death.

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ in his poem Subh-e-Azadi (Freedom’s Dawn)
“This leprous daybreak, dawn night’s fangs have manged, This is not that long-looked for break of day.”

Looking For A New Home

Jawaharlal Nehru at the Kurukshetra refugee camp. This was the largest of the nearly 200 camps set up to house refugees from Pakistan. Planned for 1,00,000 people, it came to accommodate thrice that number.

“YOU ARE FREE, YOU ARE FREE TO GO TO YOUR TEMPLES. YOU ARE FREE TO GO TO YOUR MOSQUES.”

Mohammad Ali Jinnah

So said Jinnah in his Independence Day speech. Biographer Stanley Wolpert described him as the man who “conjured” Pakistan “by the force of his indomitable will”. Jinnah started out with supporting Muslim-Hindu unity. But pushed for a separate nation in 1940. During his presidential address to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly he said, “On both sides, there are people who may not agree with it, but in my judgement there was no other solution and I am sure history will record its verdict in favour of it.”

ELSEWHERE...

The un General Assembly passed a resolution for the partition of Palestine.

Chester Carlson, signed an agreement to develop a copy machine. This was the beginning of Xerox.

The International Monetary Fund began operations.

Gangster Al Capone (below) died of syphilis in Miami.

The House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) scoured Hollywood for Communists.

A NEW ERA

Temples in South India opened their doors to Harijans, starting with The Tyagaraja-swami Temple in Tiruvarur. Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram later addressed the devotees in front of the mandapam.

1948: INDIA AT 60

THE LIGHT DIES

REWIND

On the evening of January 30, as he was walking to his prayer meeting, Gandhi was stopped by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who took out a Beretta and shot him thrice. Twenty-eight minutes later, Gandhi was dead. “The light has gone out of our lives,” a broken Nehru said that night.

THE K FACTOR

The first Indo-Pak war over Kashmir broke out and the highest tank battle in the world took place at Zojila Pass. On Nehru’s request UN intervened and ordered a ceasefire. It then suggested a plebiscite in the Valley.

FIRST CUT

The first Indian motor car rolled off Hindustan Motors Limited’s assembly line.

Jala Usha, the first India-built modern vessel, took to the sea.

The first stage of the Damodar power project, costing approximately Rs 12 crore, kicked off.

DID YOU KNOW

The dewan of Junagarh who advised its Nawab to accede to Pakistan was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, father of Zulfikar Bhutto.

A handful of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes was deposited at the State Bank of India in Orissa. It was released only in 1997.

GOLD DRIBBLE

The Indian hockey team won the gold medal the Olympic Games in London, the first of its three consecutive wins.

“WE DON’T WRITE HISTORY, WE MAKE HISTORY.”

Vallabhbhai Patel

The big boss of Indian politics, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (seen on the left, with Lord Mountbatten) was the man of the moment the year after Independence. He has been called the “Iron Man,” but Patel described himself as one of “Bapu’s soldiers”. He was responsible for bringing together 565 states and integrating them into the country. Patel was also credited with bringing “order out of the nightmare of chaos” as his powerhouse secretary V.P. Menon called the process. These included the troublesome states of Junagarh and Hyderabad. After much diplomatic negotiation, Hyderabad was brought under control in September during Operation Polo. Within four days, Hyderabad became a part of India.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel while talking to G.D. Birla

“We are having a grudging time, both with the weather and other problems; Kashmir, in particular, is giving us a headache .”

Ms MELODY

Among Carnatic singer M.S. Subbulakshmi’s admirers were Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who called her the Queen of Song. As singer and actor, she took classical music everywhere in India, her career managed with great skill by her entrepreneur husband T. Sadashivam. She was the first musician to be conferred Bharat Ratna.

ELSEWHERE...

The island nation of Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

T.S. Eliot (above) won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah died at 71.

The World Health Organisation was founded by the UN.

The new state of Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon.

11,500 acres, spread across 35 villages in Gujranwala and Sialkot districts, that refugee Vidyawati lost during the Partition. In compensation, she was allotted 835 acres in a village in Karnal.

Past march

The First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry passed through the Gateway of India in Bombay, the last of the British troops to leave India. Seen here is the first batch to leave in 1947. The battalion was presented a silver replica of the Gateway of India.

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