Independence: Building a New Nation 1947-1977 :: Essays Papers

Independence Building a New Nation 1947-1977In 1942, after the considerable pressure of Mahatma Gandhis Quit India campaign and needing to maintain Indian support against Japanese troops advancing on Indias Eastern border, Sir Stafford Cripps proposed a new formation to the Indian National Congress, including the right of the new judicature to secede from the Commonwealth. The proposal was rejected but the arena of independence had been receptive and, in 1946, after the defeat of the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, local and peasant elections were held. The Muslim League, led by Muhammed Ali Jinnah, won intimately of the Muslim vote.Britain, most of whose military units had disappeared, agreed to Indian self-rule and, in the succeeding negotiations located that the date of independence would be midnight of 14 August. Following intensive rioting, it was in like manner agreed that the demands of the Muslim League should be met and an India-Pakistan partition conceded at the alike time, defined by the Radcliffe Boundary award. Thus the new governments first hassle was a divided Punjab and a divided Sikh community. Percival Spear estimates that quintette and a half million refugees travelled each way across the Punjab border, the chaos intensified by the continual Hindu-Muslim-Sikh massacres.By the time the 1950 constitution was implemented, Jawarharlal Nehru was in sole leadership of congress and he embarked upon a excogitate of industrialisation, intensified in 1956 by a series of five-year plans. Social restore accompanied this.In 1964, Nehru died and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, became prime minister. Having confirmed this in a 1970 election, she was confront with war between the East and West wings of Pakistan. Refugees poured into India from the former wing, causing a crisis in the economics of the country. Pakistan raided Indian airfields and war was declared on 6 December 1971.East Pakistan was captured on 18 December and the new verbalise of Bangladesh was created. Mrs Gandhis second crisis came in the shape of O.P.E.C quadrupling of oil prices, increasing over-population and spacious inflation.