BACKGROUND HISTORY OF INDO PAKISTAN WAR

The 1947 Indian Independence Act

- is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the
two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan.
- The Act received the royal assent on 18 July 1947, and thus India and Pakistan,
comprising West (modern day Pakistan) and East (modern day Bangladesh) regions,
came into being on 15 August.
- The legislature representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and
the Sikh community came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten on what has come to
be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan. This plan was the last plan for
independence.
o 3 June plan was also known as the Mountbatten Plan. The British government
proposed a plan announced on 3 June 1947 that included these principles:
 Principle of the Partition of British India was accepted by the British
Government
 Successor governments would be given dominion status
 autonomy and sovereignty to both countries
 can make their own constitution
Partition of British India
- The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent
states, India and Pakistan.
- The Union of India is today the Republic of India and Dominion of Pakistan, the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan.
- The Partition was based on district-wise Hinduism and Muslim (Islam) majorities.
- It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian
Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions.
- The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the
dissolution of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of
India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947.
- The partition displaced between 10–12 million people along religious lines, creating
overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale
violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed
and varying between several hundred thousand and two million. The violent nature of
the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and
Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.
Two Nation Theory
- Basis of creation of Republic of India and Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
- It states that Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations by every definition; therefore,
Muslims should be able to have their own separate homeland in the Muslim majority
areas of British India, in which Islam can be practiced as the dominant religion.
- The ideology that religion is the determining factor in defining the nationality of Indian
Muslims and Hindus was postulated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who termed it as the
awakening of Muslims for the creation of Pakistan.
o It is also a source of inspiration to several Hindu nationalist organisations, with
causes as varied as the establishment of a legally Hindu state in India,
prohibition of conversions to Islam, and the promotion of conversions or
reconversions of Indian Muslims to Hinduism
Varying interpretations of Two Nation Theory:
- Whether the two can coexist in one territory or not.
- Without transfer of Population: Hindus and Muslims would continue to live together.
- Transfer of Population: Hindus and Muslims constitute two distinct, and frequently
antagonistic ways of life, and that therefore they cannot coexist in one nation."
o (i.e. the total removal of Hindus from Muslim-majority areas and the total removal
of Muslims from Hindu-majority areas) is a desirable step towards a complete
separation of two incompatible nations that "cannot coexist in a harmonious
relationship"