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The year 1947 was a turning point in Indian history, marking the end of the British Raj. On August 15, 1947, India gained independence, leading to the creation of the Dominion of India, which in 1950 would establish the Sovereign, Democratic, Republic of India.

The year also witnessed the Rawalpindi Massacres, Partition of India, Jammu Massacres and violence against women.

This culminated in creation of Pakistan and triggered one of the largest mass migrations in history.

Incumbents

  • Emperor of India – George VI until 15 August
  • King of India – George VI from 15 August
  • Viceroy of India – The Viscount Wavell (until 21 February)
  • Viceroy of India – The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (21 February – 15 August)
  • Governor-General of the Union of India – The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (from 16 August)
  • Prime Minister of India – Jawaharlal Nehru

Events

  • National income - 85,101 million

January - June

  • 20 February – Clement Attlee informs of decision to leave India by 3 June 1948.
  • 2 March – Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana, leader of the Unionist Party (Punjab) and Premier of pre-Partition Punjab, resigns in protest against the Partition.
  • 5 March – On the eve of Hindu festival of Holi, armed Muslim mobs started attacking Hindus and Sikhs in several cities of West Punjab, including the cantonment town of Rawalpindi and Multan, killing close to 200 in the latter with the casualties being mostly Hindu. This marked the beginning of the 1947 Rawalpindi massacres.
  • 15 March – Hindus and Muslims clash in Punjab
  • 22 March – Lord Mountbatten arrives in India.

July - December

  • July - August – 1947 Pakistani Constituent Assembly election
  • 5 July – The Indian Independence Act was passed by the British Parliament.
  • 18 July – The Indian Independence Act received royal assent from the then British monarch, George VI.
  • 22 July – Constituent Assembly of India officially adopted the Tricolour flag as the National Flag.
  • 30 July – Travancore formally accedes Dominion of India. Though it was integrated into India in July 1949.
  • 7 August – The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).
  • 15 August –
  • British India is dissolved and the Dominion of India gains its independence from the United Kingdom. A largely Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan are created by partitions of the subcontinent. Hindu – Muslim riots break out along both the western and eastern borders. Mass transfer of refugees takes place from the successor states of India to Pakistan and vice versa. Mountbatten remains the Governor-general of India as wished by the Indians and Jawaharlal Nehru becomes the first Prime Minister of India. Nehru unfurls the Indian tricolor on the ramparts of the Red Fort, symbolically marking the end of British colonial rule.
  • The Indian princely states, which were earlier under the suzerainty of British India, also technically became independent. However, no country recognized these states as sovereign nations because that would have led to the “Balkanization” of India. It was also impractical to depict numerous tiny territories as independent countries on maps. Therefore, all princely states, whether they had acceded or not, were shown as part of India, including geographically non-contiguous states such as the princely states in Baluchistan, unless they chose to join Pakistan.
  • 17 August – Punjab and Bengal are divided along religious-demographic boundaries between the two.
  • August – October – Thousands massacred & 1 million migrations in Punjab.
  • 13 September – Prime Minister Nehru suggests the transfer of 10 million Hindus and Muslims between India and Pakistan.
  • 26 October – The monarch of Kashmir signs instrument of accession with India, moving the defence, communications and foreign policy under India, in the face of heavy attack from Pakistani tribals.
  • 27 October – Jammu and Kashmir formally accepts to join the Dominion of India. Indian military is airlifted to Kashmir to counter the invasion by tribal militias from Pakistan, in exchange of accession to India and making Sheikh Abdullah as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state. War breaks out between Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir. Pakistani tribal militias temporarily surrendered the area of Azad Kashmir that they had barricaded, as Indian forces pushed them back. With this, India gained de facto control of all the regions Jammu and Kashmir but temporarily. Also, Jammu and Kashmir became the first state of the Dominion of India, as the former directly administered regions were called provinces until 1950, and the title for the indirectly ruled princely regions was simply ‘state’. Although most of the other princely regions acceded earlier, they were not administratively integrated, whereas Jammu and Kashmir was, due to the airlifting of Indian forces.
  • 30 October – Sheikh Abdullah formed the Emergency Government in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to cooperate with the process of administrative integration into India, thereby ending the monarch’s rule.
  • 1 November – Major William Brown of the Gilgit Scouts led a coup against the Maharaja's appointed governor of the Gilgit region of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghansara Singh, taking away the Gilgit region from India's rule and paving the way for its integration into Pakistan. Due to unrest in Gilgit, Indian forces reach there to help but meanwhile the AJK government regained control over Muzaffarabad and other surrounding regions. This was followed by taking control over other regions of Kashmir in the following days, though some of them were taken back by India again before the 1949 ceasefire, except present day Azad Kashmir areas.
  • 9 November – Junagadh joins the Dominion of India
  • 16 November – Pakistan officially took control of Gilgit.

Law

  • 10 August - Boundary Commission under Sir Radcliffe finally partitioned India. of area in Punjab got divided with going to West Pakistan (Only Pakistan since 1971). Remaining joins India as East Punjab. of area in Bengal got divided with going to East Pakistan (Bangladesh since 1971). Remaining joins India as West Bengal. (Later West Bengal lost more area to Bihar, Assam, & Odisha in 1948-53).
  • Indian Independence Act
  • Industrial Disputes Act
  • Gauhati University Act
  • Roorkee University Act
  • Rubber (Production and Marketing) Act
  • Indian Nursing Council Act
  • Foreign Exchange Regulation Act
  • Armed Forces (Emergency Duties) Act
  • United Nations (Security Council) Act
  • United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act

Births

  • 8 January – Harish Naval, international literary journal chief editor.
  • 2 June – Saint Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Sikh theologian and leader (died 1984).
  • 19 June – Salman Rushdie, novelist.
  • 1 July – Sharad Yadav, politician (died 2023)
  • 5 July – Lalji Singh, molecular biologist. (died 2017).
  • 6 August – Srinivasa Prasad, politician (died 2024).
  • 15 August – Raakhee, Bollywood actress.
  • 17 October – Simi Garewal, actress.

Deaths

  • 13 May – Sukanta Bhattacharya, Bengali poet (born 1926).

See also

  • Bollywood films of 1947

References

Bibliography