Who divided india int region at first time?
Answers
World War II sparked a crisis in relations between the British, the INC and the Muslim League. The British expected India once again to provide much-needed soldiers and materiel for the war effort, but the INC opposed sending Indians to fight and die in Britain's war. After the betrayal following World War I, the INC saw no benefit for India in such a sacrifice. The Muslim League, however, decided to back Britain's call for volunteers, in an effort to curry British favor in support of a Muslim nation in post-independence northern India.
Before the war had even ended, public opinion in Britain had swung against the distraction and expense of empire. Winston Churchill's party was voted out of office, and the pro-independence Labour Party was voted in during 1945. Labour called for almost immediate independence for India, as well as more gradual freedom for Britain's other colonial holdings.
The Muslim League's leader, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, began a public campaign in favor of a separate Muslim state, while Jawaharlal Nehru of the INC called for a unified India.
(This is not surprising, given the fact that Hindus like Nehru would have formed the vast majority, and would have been in control of any democratic form of government.)
As independence neared, the country began to descend towards a sectarian civil war. Although Gandhi implored the Indian people to unite in peaceful opposition to British rule, the Muslim League sponsored a "Direct Action Day" on August 16, 1946, which resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Calcutta (Kolkata). This touched off the "Week of the Long Knives," an orgy of sectarian violence that resulted in hundreds of deaths on both sides in various cities across the country.
In February of 1947, the British government announced that India would be granted independence by June 1948. Viceroy for India Lord Louis Mountbatten pleaded with the Hindu and Muslim leadership to agree to form a united country, but they could not.
Only Gandhi supported Mountbatten's position. With the country descending further into chaos, Mountbatten reluctantly agreed to the formation of two separate states and moved the independence date up to August 15, 1947.
With the decision in favor of partition made, the parties next faced this nearly impossible task of fixing a border between the new states. The Muslims occupied two main regions in the north on opposite sides of the country, separated by a majority-Hindu section. In addition, throughout most of northern India members of the two religions were mixed together - not to mention populations of Sikhs, Christians, and other minority faiths. The Sikhs campaigned for a nation of their own, but their appeal was denied.
In the wealthy and fertile region of the Punjab, the problem was extreme with a nearly-even mixture of Hindus and Muslims. Neither side wanted to relinquish this valuable land, and sectarian hatred ran high. The border was drawn right down the middle of the province, between Lahore and Amritsar. On both sides, people scrambled to get onto the "right" side of the border or were driven from their homes by their erstwhile neighbors. At least 10 million people fled north or south, depending on their faith, and more than 500,000 were killed in the melee. Trains full of refugees were set upon by militants from both sides, and all the passengers massacred.
On August 14, 1947, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was founded. The following day, the Republic of India was established to the south.