India's Accelerated Independence: From June 1948 to August 15, 1947

On 15 August, India is going to celebrate its 80th Independence Day, but did you know that the British had set a deadline of June 1948 to withdraw from India. How did the independence that was to come in June 1948 happen only 10 months earlier on 15 August 1947, let's know about that page of history. The date of 15 August was chosen by the last Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, perhaps suddenly so that he could link his wartime victory with the birth of a new country. By early 1947, British rule in India was weakening and the British proposal for transfer of power had failed to achieve agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League in the 1946 Cabinet Mission. On 16 August 1946, Muhammad Ali Jinnah called for a'Direct Action Day ', a mobilisation of the Muslim League to push for a separate Pakistan. This demand sparked communal violence in Calcutta, which went to Noakhali in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), then parts of Bihar and Punjab by March 1947, despite pressure from the British Prime Minister, Lord Attlee, to set a date to prevent a rift between the Muslim League and the Viceroy of India.