Challenges of Nation Building: Partition, Princely States and Reorganisation

1. Independence and the three challenges of nation building

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• The moment: India became independent at midnight on 14-15 August 1947. That night Nehru gave his 'tryst with destiny' speech to a special session of the Constituent Assembly. In Kolkata, Gandhi called the next day "a day of rejoicing as well as of mourning". Three stamps marked the first Republic Day (26 January 1950).
• Shared goals of the national movement: (1) democratic government; (2) government for the good of all, especially the poor and socially disadvantaged.
• Challenges of nation building (the three tasks India faced in 1947):
• Unity with diversity: stay one country without crushing regional identities, and integrate the territory. This chapter deals with this one.
• Democracy: a democratic Constitution is necessary but not enough. Democratic practice had to be built (→ one-party-dominance).

• Development: well-being of the whole society, not just some sections. This means equality, the DPSP's welfare goals and an end to poverty (→ planned-development-politics).

• Why many expected failure: India's continental size and its many languages, cultures and religions. Partition seemed to prove these fears right.

• Exercise 5: Gandhi's "crown of thorns … be more humble and forbearing" stresses duty and restraint. Nehru's "India discovers herself again" stresses opportunity and renewal.
• Guha's comparison with the USSR (exercise 10): both were huge and diverse, and both started with "unpropitious" raw material. India relied on consent, elections and federal adjustment. The USSR relied on force and broke up in 1991.
• "Imagined community" (exercise 9): India is held together by the freedom struggle, the Constitution and shared hopes, not by one language or religion (→ nationalism).

2. The road to Partition: the two-nation theory and the Mountbatten Plan

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• Two-nation theory: the Muslim League's claim that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations, so Muslims needed their own homeland, Pakistan. The Congress rejected it, and so did Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
• NCERT's causes of Partition: political events of the 1940s, the Congress-League rivalry and the British role.
• Milestones (beyond NCERT):
• Lahore Resolution (23 March 1940), Cripps Mission (1942), C. Rajagopalachari formula (1944) and Cabinet Mission (1946).
• Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) and the Great Calcutta Killings.
• The interim government (September 1946) and the League's boycott of the Constituent Assembly.

• Attlee's declaration of 20 February 1947 that Britain would leave by June 1948.

• Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947): British India would be divided by religious majority.

• The Punjab and Bengal legislatures would vote on dividing their provinces.
• Referendums would be held in the NWFP and Sylhet (July 1947).
• Boundary commissions would draw the new lines.
• Independence was brought forward to 15 August 1947.

• Princely states could join either dominion.

• Indian Independence Act 1947 (royal assent 18 July 1947): created two dominions and ended paramountcy. Members from areas going to Pakistan left India's Constituent Assembly, which fell to 299 members (→ constitution-making).

• The paradox: in his speech of 11 August 1947, Jinnah said religion "has nothing to do with the business of the State". Yet Pakistan was created on the two-nation theory.
• Trap (exercise 1): the partition scheme had no plan for moving populations across the border. The migration was unplanned.

3. Drawing the line: the process of Partition

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• Partition of India: British India was divided on 14-15 August 1947 by the principle of religious majorities. Muslim-majority areas went to Pakistan, and the rest stayed with India.
• NCERT's four difficulties:
• There was no single Muslim-majority belt, so Pakistan got two separate wings, West and East. East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 (→ india-external-relations).
• Not every Muslim-majority area wanted Pakistan. The NWFP was merged into Pakistan even though 'Frontier Gandhi' Ghaffar Khan opposed it. His Khudai Khidmatgars boycotted the July 1947 referendum (beyond NCERT).
• Punjab and Bengal also had large non-Muslim-majority areas.

• Minorities were trapped on both sides (Section 4).

• Partition of Punjab and Bengal: both provinces were split by religious majority at district level or lower. These provinces suffered the deepest trauma.

• Radcliffe Line: the boundary drawn by separate Punjab and Bengal boundary commissions.
• Each commission had two Congress-nominated and two League-nominated judges, and both were chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
• Radcliffe had about five weeks and no earlier knowledge of India.

• The award was made public on 17 August 1947, so on Independence Day many people did not know which country they were in.

• Contested awards (verify details): Gurdaspur tehsils went to India, which gave road access to Jammu. The Chittagong Hill Tracts went to East Pakistan. Most of Sylhet went to East Pakistan after its referendum.

• Dividing a state: cash, debts, government and railway staff, and even tables, typewriters, paper-clips and the police band's instruments were divided.
• A Partition Council and an Arbitral Tribunal settled disputes (beyond NCERT).

• Pakistan's cash share was ₹75 crore. India held back ₹55 crore after the fighting in Kashmir began (verify).

• Map exercise: Punjab and West Bengal were the states divided by Partition. Assam was affected through Sylhet.

4. Consequences of Partition: violence, refugees and rehabilitation

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• Partition refugees:
• About 80 lakh people crossed the new border in 1947. Between 5 and 10 lakh were killed.
• NCERT calls it one of history's largest, most sudden, unplanned and tragic population transfers.
• Lahore, Amritsar and Kolkata split into 'communal zones'.
• Refugees lived in camps for months or years, and local officials often did not help them.
• Thousands of women were abducted and forced to convert and marry. Some were killed by their own families for 'honour'. Many children were separated from their parents.

• Survivors called Partition a 'division of hearts'.

• Literature and film:

• Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Subh-e-Azadi ("this is not that dawn").
• Amrita Pritam, Aaj Akhan Waris Shah Nu ("blood fills the Chenab").
• Saadat Hasan Manto, Kasre-Nafsi ('Hospitality Delayed').

• Garam Hawa (1973), directed by M.S. Sathyu, screenplay by Kaifi Azmi. Balraj Sahni plays Salim Mirza, an Agra shoe maker torn between staying and leaving.

• Rehabilitation (beyond NCERT):

• A Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation was set up.
• India and Pakistan signed an agreement to recover abducted women (December 1947), followed by the Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration) Act 1949.
• The Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act 1954 compensated refugees.

• New towns were built: Faridabad, Nilokheri, Rajpura and Delhi colonies such as Lajpat Nagar. Chandigarh became Punjab's new capital.

• East vs West (exercise 7):

• In the west, the exchange of population was near-total and violent, but it was mostly over by 1948.

• In the east, migration was slower and kept coming back for years (it surged after the 1950 riots). Rehabilitation was weaker; refugees were sent as far as Dandakaranya and the Andamans.

• Today: Partition Horrors Remembrance Day falls on 14 August (notified in 2021). The Partition Museum is in Amritsar (verify). Eastern migration later fed citizenship debates (→ citizenship).

5. Minorities, Gandhi's last fasts and the secular choice

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• The question: did a partition on religious lines make India a Hindu nation?
• Muslims were still 10-12% of the population in 1951 (NCERT; Census 1951 about 10%, verify).

• The Muslim League on one side, and groups seeking a Hindu nation on the other, pulled in opposite directions.

• The secular choice: citizens are equal whatever their religion, and there is no religious test for citizenship. This ideal was written into the Constitution (→ secularism).

• Nehru's letter to Chief Ministers (15 October 1947): Muslims "cannot go anywhere else". They must get security and citizens' rights, or a "festering sore" would poison the body politic. Exercise 6 asks whether his reasons were only ethical or also practical (prudential).
• Gandhi's last months:
• He skipped the 15 August celebrations to calm riot-hit Kolkata, after working in Noakhali.
• He fasted in Kolkata from 1 to 4 September 1947. Mountbatten called him a "one-man boundary force" (beyond NCERT).

• His last fast was in Delhi, 13-18 January 1948. He asked for safety for Delhi's Muslims and for Pakistan's dues to be paid. The violence fell, and the government agreed to pay.

• Assassination: Nathuram Vinayak Godse shot Gandhi at his evening prayer on 30 January 1948. The RSS was banned in February 1948, and the ban was lifted in July 1949 (beyond NCERT).

• Nehru-Liaquat Pact (8 April 1950):
• Signed after fresh riots in Bengal.
• It guaranteed minorities in both countries equal citizenship, security and freedom to return home, and set up minority commissions.
• S.P. Mukherjee and K.C. Neogy resigned from the cabinet in protest. Mukherjee later founded the Jana Sangh (1951).
• It is cited in the CAA 2019 debate as a promise Pakistan broke (→ citizenship).

6. Princely states: the problem and the strategy of integration

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• Princely states: about 565 states whose rulers ran their own internal affairs but accepted British supremacy. They covered one-third of the land, and one in four Indians lived under princely rule.
• Paramountcy: the British Crown's supremacy over the princes.
• It lapsed with independence (Indian Independence Act 1947, s.7), so every state became legally free to join India or Pakistan or stay independent.
• The choice lay with the rulers, not the people.

• Travancore declared independence, and Hyderabad did the same the next day. The Nawab of Bhopal did not want to join the Constituent Assembly. India risked breaking into many small countries.

• The government's approach:

• Sardar Patel, as Deputy PM and Home Minister, negotiated "firmly but diplomatically". He also headed the States Ministry (set up 5 July 1947, with V.P. Menon as Secretary; beyond NCERT).
• His 1947 letter warned the rulers that disunity would bring "anarchy and chaos".

• The task was huge. Today's Odisha alone had 26 small states. Saurashtra had 14 big states, 119 small ones and other administrations.

• NCERT's three considerations: most states' people wanted to join India; the government was ready to give some regions flexibility and autonomy; after Partition, keeping the territory together came first.

• Key instruments:

Instrument	What it did
Instrument of Accession	The ruler joined India, usually giving up only defence, external affairs and communications
Standstill Agreement	A temporary deal that kept existing arrangements (customs, posts, railways) running while talks went on
Merger agreement (second stage)	Merged states into unions under Rajpramukhs (Saurashtra, PEPSU, Rajasthan, Travancore-Cochin and others) or into provinces

• Integration of princely states: by 15 August 1947 almost every state bordering India had acceded. The difficult cases were Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir and Manipur.
• Privy purses: rulers got privy purses (yearly allowances) guaranteed by Arts. 291 and 362. The 26th Amendment, 1971 abolished them (→ congress-system-challenges).
• Exercise 4 debate: Bismay says integration extended democracy to the states' people. Inderpreet says force was used. Weigh the praja mandal (people's) movements against the force used in Junagadh and Hyderabad.
• What became of the princes: many entered politics, e.g. Gayatri Devi of Jaipur (Swatantra Party) and Vijaya Raje Scindia of Gwalior (verify).

7. The difficult accessions: Junagadh, Hyderabad and Manipur

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• Accession of Junagadh:
• A Hindu-majority state surrounded by India, whose Nawab acceded to Pakistan in 1947.
• The people revolted and set up a parallel 'Arzi Hukumat' (Samaldas Gandhi), and India took control in November 1947 (beyond NCERT).
• A plebiscite (20 February 1948) confirmed that the people wanted to join India.

• Consistency question: India used the people's will in Junagadh but the ruler's accession in Kashmir.

• Kashmir (pointer only): Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, after the tribal invasion (→ regional-aspirations; the war → india-external-relations).

• Hyderabad:
• It was the largest princely state, surrounded by India, and its Nizam was one of the world's richest men. He wanted independence and signed a one-year Standstill Agreement in November 1947.
• A people's movement led by the Communists and the Hyderabad State Congress rose against him. Telangana peasants and women joined in large numbers.

• Razakars: a communal paramilitary force the Nizam let loose on the people. It was linked to Qasim Razvi's Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (beyond NCERT). Its killings, rapes and looting targeted mainly non-Muslims.

• Operation Polo: the army 'police action' of 13-18 September 1948. After a few days of fighting the Nizam surrendered, and Hyderabad acceded.

• Telangana armed struggle: a Communist-led peasant uprising against feudal oppression (1946-51). The CPI kept fighting after accession until the struggle was crushed and called off in 1951.
• Outdated NCERT: the old state now lies in Telangana, Maharashtra (Marathwada) and Karnataka (Kalyana-Karnataka). NCERT says "Andhra Pradesh".
• Manipur:
• Maharaja Bodhachandra Singh signed the Instrument of Accession just before independence, on a promise of internal autonomy.

• The June 1948 election was the first in India under universal adult franchise (every adult can vote).

• Manipur Merger Agreement: signed on 21 September 1949 and effective from 15 October 1949, without the consent of Manipur's elected Assembly. This remains a lasting grievance (→ regional-aspirations).

8. The language question and the first linguistic state: Andhra

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• Background:
• Colonial boundaries followed administrative convenience or the limits of conquest.
• After the Nagpur session (1920), the Congress organised its own Provincial Congress Committees by language.

• Gandhi (January 1948) said linguistic provinces would help regional languages.

• Postponement: after Partition, leaders feared that language-based states would divide the country. Princely states were still unsettled and Partition was fresh in memory, so the question was put off.

• Linguistic Provinces Commission (S.K. Dhar, 1948): advised against states based on language and preferred administrative convenience.
• JVP Committee (1948-49): Nehru, Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya shelved linguistic states for the time being. They left the door open for Andhra if the dispute over Madras city could be settled.
• Vishalandhra movement: Telugu areas of the multilingual Madras province demanded a separate Andhra. Almost every party in the region backed it, while the Centre kept wavering.
• Potti Sriramulu:
• A Gandhian who took part in the Salt Satyagraha and fasted in 1946 to open Madras temples to Dalits.
• He fasted unto death from 19 October 1952 and died on 15 December 1952. NCERT says 56 days; its own dates give 58.

• Riots, police firing and resignations of legislators followed.

• Formation of Andhra State:

• Nehru announced the state on 19 December 1952.
• Under the Andhra State Act 1953 it was formed on 1 October 1953, with Kurnool as capital. Madras city stayed with the Tamil areas.
• Trap: Andhra was the first linguistic state after independence. Orissa (1936) was the first linguistic province.

9. The States Reorganisation Commission and the 1956 reorganisation

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• Part A, B, C and D states: the original Constitution's four classes of states:
• Part A: former governors' provinces.
• Part B: former princely states and unions under Rajpramukhs, plus Jammu and Kashmir.
• Part C: former chief commissioners' provinces.

• Part D: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

• States Reorganisation Commission:

• Appointed in December 1953 under Fazl Ali, with K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Kunzru. It reported on 30 September 1955.
• Its main recommendation (exercise 8) was that state boundaries should follow language boundaries, but it rejected the idea of 'one language, one state'.
• It weighed four things: national unity and security; linguistic and cultural homogeneity (sameness); financial, economic and administrative viability; and the success of national plans.

• Panikkar dissented and wanted Uttar Pradesh split (verify).

• States Reorganisation Act 1956 (in force 1 November 1956):

• It created 14 states and 6 UTs.
• New states included Kerala, an enlarged Mysore (renamed Karnataka in 1973), Andhra Pradesh (Andhra plus Telangana) and a bilingual Bombay.

• It also set up five Zonal Councils (→ federalism-centre-state).

• 7th Amendment, 1956:

• Abolished Parts A-D.
• Allowed one Governor and one High Court for two or more states.

• Inserted Art. 350A (teaching in the mother tongue at primary level) and Art. 350B (Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities).

• Linguistic reorganisation of states: NCERT's verdict. The fear of separatism proved wrong.

• It opened politics to people outside the small English-speaking elite.
• It gave state boundaries a uniform basis.

• It strengthened national unity and showed that democracy means accepting differences.

• Counterpoints:

• 'Sons of the soil' politics (favouring locals over outsiders) and the problems of linguistic minorities inside states.
• Border disputes such as Belagavi (Mahajan Commission, 1966-67) and river-water disputes.
• Ambedkar's Thoughts on Linguistic States (1955) backed 'one state, one language' but urged that big states be split.

10. Reorganisation continued, 1960-1987: Bombay, Punjab and the North-East

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• Samyukta Maharashtra movement: the demand for a Marathi state with Bombay city as capital. Police firing at Flora Fountain, now Hutatma Chowk, came in 1955-56 (verify). Together with the Mahagujarat movement (Indulal Yagnik), it broke up the bilingual Bombay state.
• Bombay Reorganisation Act 1960: created Maharashtra (with Bombay) and Gujarat on 1 May 1960.
• Punjab: the Akali Dal's Punjabi Suba demand (Master Tara Singh, Sant Fateh Singh) was refused in 1956.
• Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966 (effective 1 November 1966, after the J.C. Shah boundary commission):
• Haryana was carved out for Hindi speakers.
• Hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh.
• Chandigarh became a UT and the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

• Himachal Pradesh became a state on 25 January 1971.

• North-East:

• Nagaland became a state in 1963 (State of Nagaland Act 1962; 13th Amendment, Art. 371A).

• Meghalaya became an autonomous state within Assam in 1970 (22nd Amendment, 1969).

• North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act 1971:

• Made Manipur, Tripura and Meghalaya full states on 21 January 1972.

• Made Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh UTs. Both became states on 20 February 1987 (53rd and 55th Amendments, 1986). Mizoram followed the Mizo Accord of 1986.

• Goa:

• Liberated in 1961 (→ regional-aspirations).
• The January 1967 opinion poll rejected merger with Maharashtra.

• It became a state on 30 May 1987 (56th Amendment, 1987).

• Other additions: Dadra and Nagar Haveli (10th Amendment, 1961); Puducherry (de jure 1962, 14th Amendment); Sikkim (1975, 36th Amendment).

11. New states since 2000, Telangana and the 2019 reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir

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• New basis: language gave way to regional culture, tribal identity and complaints of uneven development (NCERT).
• Creation of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand (2000):
• Chhattisgarh was carved from Madhya Pradesh (1 November).
• Uttaranchal was carved from Uttar Pradesh (9 November) and renamed Uttarakhand in 2007.

• Jharkhand was carved from Bihar (15 November), after a long tribal movement going back to Jaipal Singh's Jharkhand Party.

• Telangana movement:

• The Gentlemen's Agreement (1956) and the Mulki rules were meant to protect Telangana's interests.
• The 1969 'Jai Telangana' agitation was followed by the Six-Point Formula (1973) and Art. 371D (32nd Amendment, 1973).
• The TRS revived the movement in 2001 under K. Chandrasekhar Rao. It was renamed Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in 2022.

• After KCR's fast, the Centre announced the new state on 9 December 2009. The Srikrishna Committee followed in 2010.

• Formation of Telangana:

• The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 created Telangana on 2 June 2014, then India's 29th state.
• Hyderabad was the common capital until 2 June 2024.

• Andhra's capital (Amaravati) and the division of assets are still being settled (verify current).

• Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019:

• From 31 October 2019, the state became two UTs: J&K with a legislature and Ladakh without one.
• It was the first time a state was turned into a UT.
• After Dadra and Nagar Haveli merged with Daman and Diu (26 January 2020), India has 28 states and 8 UTs.

• Art. 370, In re Article 370 (2023) and statehood → special-provisions-scheduled-areas (verify current).

• Demands for smaller states:

• NCERT names Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh (western UP) and northern West Bengal (Gorkhaland, Kamtapur).
• Others: Bodoland (accord 2020), Saurashtra, and the UP Assembly's 2011 resolution to split UP into four.
• The debate weighs better governance against cost, viability and new water and asset disputes. NCERT prompt: "the US has 50 states; why can't India have 100?"

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Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• Chronology:
• Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947) → Indian Independence Act (18 July) → independence (15 August) → Radcliffe award made public (17 August).
• Hyderabad Standstill Agreement (November 1947) → Gandhi killed (30 January 1948) → Junagadh plebiscite (20 February 1948) → Manipur election (June 1948) → Operation Polo (September 1948).

• Manipur merger (September 1949) → Nehru-Liaquat Pact (8 April 1950).

• Commissions: Dhar (1948) rejected language as the basis. JVP (1949) postponed it. SRC (1953-55: Fazl Ali, Panikkar, Kunzru) accepted language but rejected 'one language, one state'.

• Andhra traps: Andhra State (1 October 1953, Kurnool) vs Andhra Pradesh (1 November 1956) vs Orissa province (1936). Sriramulu fasted from 19 October 1952 and died on 15 December 1952.
• Amendment matches:
• 7th (1956): Parts A-D abolished; Arts. 350A-350B inserted.
• 13th (1962): Nagaland, Art. 371A. 22nd (1969): Meghalaya. 26th (1971): privy purses ended.

• 32nd (1973): Art. 371D. 36th (1975): Sikkim. 53rd/55th (1986): Mizoram/Arunachal. 56th (1987): Goa.

• State–year matches:

• Maharashtra and Gujarat 1960; Nagaland 1963; Haryana 1966; Himachal Pradesh 1971; Manipur, Tripura and Meghalaya 1972.

• Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa 1987; Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand 2000; Telangana 2014; J&K and Ladakh UTs 2019.

• Instruments: Instrument of Accession (defence, external affairs, communications) vs Standstill Agreement (status quo during talks) vs merger agreement.

• Statement traps:
• "The partition scheme planned population transfer": FALSE.
• "Andhra was the first linguistic province": FALSE (Orissa, 1936).

• "Old Hyderabad state lies only in Andhra Pradesh": FALSE (now Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka).

• Figures: 565 states; one-third of the area; one in four Indians; about 80 lakh migrants; 5-10 lakh killed; Muslims 10-12% (1951); SR Act gave 14 states and 6 UTs; today 28 states and 8 UTs.

• Author–work matches: Faiz – Subh-e-Azadi; Amrita Pritam – Aaj Akhan Waris Shah Nu; Manto – Kasre-Nafsi; Garam Hawa – M.S. Sathyu (1973).

Mains — GS-I and GS-II themes

1. Integration of the princely states: persuasion, flexibility and selective force; Patel's role; did integration extend democracy or impose it (exercise 4)?
2. Linguistic reorganisation: did it strengthen or weaken unity? NCERT's case (democratic accommodation, a wider political elite) vs sons-of-the-soil politics, linguistic minorities, and border and water disputes.
3. Partition's long shadow: refugees and rehabilitation, minorities and the secular choice (Nehru's ethical vs prudential reasons), India-Pakistan ties.
4. Criteria for new states: language, ethnicity, backwardness, administration; how the 2000 states and Telangana have performed; the case for a second SRC.
5. Parliament's power to redraw states and the 2019 downgrade of J&K: what it means for federalism.
6. India as a nation: unity in diversity, the 'imagined community', Guha's Soviet comparison.

Current-affairs hooks

• Partition Horrors Remembrance Day (14 August); 17 September Hyderabad observances; Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (31 October) and the Statue of Unity.
• Statehood and autonomy demands: Vidarbha, Gorkhaland, the Bodoland accord, Ladakh's demand for statehood and the Sixth Schedule, restoring J&K's statehood (verify current).
• Inter-state border disputes: Belagavi, the Assam-Mizoram clash (2021), the Assam-Meghalaya agreement (2022).
• Unfinished Andhra Pradesh-Telangana issues: assets, institutions, Amaravati (verify current).
• Language rows (the three-language formula, protests over Hindi) that revive the linguistic-state debate.