Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Country Histories
India celebrates its Independence Day on 15 August, commemorating the end of British rule in 1947. The Raj, taken from the Hindi word for 'rule', had lasted for less than ninety years, but British influence on the subcontinent dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Over the course of time this meeting of cultures has involved the movement of millions of people in both directions for a wide variety of reasons, from trade to military action, employment, education, and tourism.
Browser by chapterThe nationalist movement was complicated by Muslim fears that an independent and united India would be dominated by the majority Hindu community. The Muslim League was founded in 1906 to represent the interests of Muslims. Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), who became its leader in 1916, was also a member of Congress at this time and initially advocated Hindu-Muslim unity.
It became increasingly difficult for Muslim and Hindu nationalist movements to cooperate between the two world wars. In the 1930s many Muslims came to believe that the Hindu and Muslim communities were 'two nations' that could not co-exist in one country. Many came to advocate a two-state solution to independence, which would provide for a separate homeland for Southeast Asian Muslims (Pakistan). This was fiercely opposed by Gandhi and by Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the Hindu socialist elected leader of the Congress in 1928.
