For more than a century, India had been the crown jewel of the British Empire, but on the last stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, it became an independent nation. In India’s Constituent Assembly, Delhi, a special midnight gathering of parliament was convened. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, rose to his feet to declare India’s freedom. However, this independence also opened a social and geographic wound that has yet to heal.

The new Indian state was split into two independent nation states: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Pakistan itself was split between northwest and northeast, because both wings had a Muslim majority. Immediately, millions of Muslims trekked to West and East Pakistan (the latter now known as Bangladesh), while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed towards the newly independent India. Thousands never reached it, and many died from malnutrition and disease. Across India there were outbreaks of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other.

By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than 15 million people had been uprooted, and between 1 million and 2 million were dead. India was independent and India’s Muslims had their own independent state, but freedom came at a great cost.

The road to independence

The spirit of nationalism in India gained ground in the mid-19th century and was strengthened in 1885 by the formation of the Indian National Congress (INC). During World War I, expectations for greater self-governance were raised when Britain promised to deliver self-rule in return for India’s contribution to the war effort. But Britain envisaged a gradual progress toward self-government, beginning with the Government of India Act (1919), which created an Indian parliament where power was shared between Indians and British officials. This did not satisfy Indian nationalists, and the British responded to their protests with sometimes brutal repression.

The push for independence from the 1920s to the 1940s was galvanized by the work of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi not only launched the Satyagraha campaign, promoting non-violent protest, but also became an influential figure for millions of followers. In 1942 Gandhi led the “Quit India” campaign, calling for civil disobedience to disrupt Britain’s efforts in World War II. The British immediately jailed Gandhi and other nationalist leaders.

By the end of World War II, it was clear that Britain lacked the means to defeat the nationalist campaign. Britain’s officials in India were utterly exhausted, and Britain itself was almost bankrupt. Britain agreed to a fully independent India. While Gandhi and Nehru advocated Indian unity, the Muslim League, founded in 1906 to safeguard the rights of Muslims, demanded a completely separate Muslim state. Its leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, feared that Muslims could not protect their minority rights if left to live under Hindu rule. Congress rejected the proposal and violence on the streets between Hindus and Muslims began to escalate.

"Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence."

-Mohandas Gandhi

Pakistan is born

In 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten flew into Delhi as Britain’s final Viceroy of India. Faced with irreconcilable differences over the demand for a separate state for India’s Muslims, he persuaded all parties to agree to partitioning the country into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. From its birth, Pakistan faced many challenges. It had limited resources and a huge refugee problem. There were different traditions, cultures, and languages, and Jinnah, its first governor general, died the following year. In 1948, India and Pakistan fought over Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority area to remain within India.

Colonies gain freedom

After World War II, the European colonial powers—mainly Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal—recognized that change was inevitable. Some colonies won independence by peaceful means, such as in Burma and Ceylon (1948), but often, European powers tried to hold on to their colonies. During World War II, Japan, itself a significant imperial power, drove the European powers out of Asia. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, nationalist movements in the former Asian colonies campaigned for independence rather than a return to European colonial rule. Dr. Ahmed Sukarno, leader of Indonesia’s nationalist movement, declared the Independent Republic of Indonesia in 1945. The Dutch sent troops to restore their authority, and in two military campaigns that followed, an estimated 150,000 Indonesians and 5,000 Dutch soldiers died. International pressure eventually forced the Dutch to concede independence in 1949.

The Japanese occupation of Malaya during the war had unified the Malayan people and greatly increased nationalistic feelings. Britain clamped down on protests, which led the militant wing of the Malaysian Communist Party to declare war on the British Empire in 1948. Britain responded by declaring a state of emergency and pursuing a bitter campaign against Chinese “communist terrorists.” Independence was not granted to Malaya until 1957.

Unrest in Africa

In Kenya, the imposition of a state of emergency in 1952, in response to the Mau Mau (rebel) uprising, led to greater insurgency and the British rounding up of tens of thousands of Mau Mau suspects into detention camps. By 1956 the rebellion had been crushed, but the methods used by the British to regain control brought international condemnation. In central Africa, too, decolonization was born in violence. In Rhodesia, savage conflict erupted between the black majority and the fiercely racist white leadership, which had unilaterally declared independence in 1965. The process of decolonization coincided with the new Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The US became concerned that, as the European powers lost their colonies, Soviet-supported communist parties might achieve power in the new states. The US used substantial aid packages to encourage newly independent nations to adopt governments that aligned with the West. The Soviet Union deployed similar tactics in an effort to encourage new nations to join the communist bloc. Many resisted the pressure to be drawn into the Cold War and joined the “non-aligned movement.” This movement began out of a 1955 meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, involving 29 African and Asian countries. Member countries decided they would not be involved in alliances or defense pacts with the main world powers, but focus on internal development instead.

"We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being."

-Patrice Lumumba First prime minister of the Congo (Zaire) (1960)

Terrorism in France

France was determined to maintain its political status in Algeria. When independence was not realized after World War II, war broke out between Algerian nationalists and French settlers. In 1958 the National Liberation Front (FLN), the main nationalist group, led several terrorist attacks, first in Algeria, then in Paris. The crisis led to the return to power of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader of the Free French. In 1960, de Gaulle, to the horror of the French settlers, agreed to emancipate Algeria. After a long and bloody conflict in which an estimated 150,000 died, Algeria gained its independence in 1962.

Independence gained

During the 1960s and 70s, many of the countries that were once held as British colonies became independent states and joined the Commonwealth. The British Commonwealth, formed in 1931, became the successor to Britain’s old empire, preserving Britain’s global economic and political influence. In 1931 Britain extended dominion status to the already self-governing colonies of Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), and Newfoundland (1907). Britain and her dominions shared equal status, and they accepted the British monarch as head of the Commonwealth. In 1949 the British Commonwealth became “The Commonwealth,” a free and equal association of independent states, but the end of the empire was drawing near. Britain fought a war to retain the Falkland Islands in 1982, and Hong Kong continued as a British dependency until 1997.

Gandhi had a profound influence on world politics. Other peaceful resisters—such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Tibet’s Dalai Lama—emulated his methods. Around the world, the struggle for countries to secede from nations they belong to continues, as the likes of Scotland (United Kingdom), Quebec (Canada), and Palestine fight to be seen as nations in their own right.