India 1942–1984

India 1942–1984 is one of eight National Studies options in Section II. You answer one 25-mark extended response (one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words in roughly 45 minutes. The syllabus key features are: visions for post-independence India; national unity and identity; modernisation; changes in society; the successes and failures of democracy; and foreign policy.

• Survey: the road to independence — Quit India, British withdrawal, the interim government under Nehru, Partition and the role of Jinnah, and Gandhi's ideas, methods and assassination.
• Focus of study: India as a new nation 1947–1964 (Nehru's vision, the Constitution, Congress and Hindu nationalism, integrating the princely states, a national language, Five-Year Plans, agricultural and social reform); India under Indira Gandhi (her role, economic and domestic policy including the Green Revolution, instability and corruption in the early 1970s, the Emergency 1975–1977, opposition including Sikh separatists); foreign policy 1947–1984 (non-alignment, Panchsheel 1954, relations with Pakistan and China).

Gandhi's ideas and methods

Mohandas K. Gandhi's satyagraha (‘truth-force’) combined non-violence (ahimsa), non-cooperation and civil disobedience. He campaigned for Hindu–Muslim unity, against untouchability and for village self-reliance (the spinning wheel, swadeshi).

Key events

• Cripps Mission (March 1942): dominion status after the war, with provinces able to opt out — rejected by Congress.
• Quit India (August 1942): Congress demanded immediate British withdrawal; Gandhi urged ‘do or die’. The leaders were arrested within hours, and the movement was crushed. The Muslim League grew while Congress was in jail.
• Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army with Japanese support; the 1945–46 INA trials and the 1946 naval mutiny showed Britain's weakening hold.
• 1945–46 elections: the League won almost all Muslim seats; Congress dominated the rest.
• Cabinet Mission (1946): a loose federation with groups of provinces; it broke down. Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) led to the Great Calcutta Killings (at least 4,000 dead in the first days) and spreading violence.
• Interim government (September 1946) under Nehru; the League joined in October but cooperation failed.
• Attlee's announcement (February 1947): Britain would leave by June 1948. Mountbatten's 3 June plan divided British India; independence came on 15 August 1947 (Pakistan on 14 August).
• The Radcliffe Line divided Punjab and Bengal and was published two days after independence.

Partition and its human cost

About 10–15 million people were displaced; estimates of deaths range from about 200,000 to 2 million. Women suffered abduction and sexual violence on a large scale. Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued that Muslims were a separate nation (the Lahore Resolution, 1940); historians debate whether he wanted full partition or used the demand to bargain for safeguards (Ayesha Jalal).

Gandhi opposed Partition and worked to stop communal killing in Bengal and Delhi. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist.

Nehru's vision

Jawaharlal Nehru (Prime Minister 1947–64) wanted a democratic, secular, socialist and modern India that was non-aligned abroad.

• The Constitution (in force 26 January 1950): drafting committee chaired by B.R. Ambedkar; universal adult suffrage, fundamental rights, a federal system with a strong centre, abolition of untouchability (Article 17), reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
• Elections: 1951–52 (about 173 million voters), 1957, 1962 — Congress dominated (the ‘Congress system’).
• Princely states: more than 500 were integrated by Sardar Patel and V.P. Menon; Hyderabad was taken by force (1948); Kashmir acceded in October 1947 after a tribal invasion from Pakistan.
• Hindu nationalism: the RSS was banned for a time after Gandhi's murder; the Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1951. Nehru insisted on a secular state.
• Language: Hindi became the official language, with English continuing (confirmed in 1963); after protests (Potti Sriramulu's fatal fast, 1952), the States Reorganisation Act (1956) created linguistic states.

Economy and society

• Planning: the Planning Commission (1950); the First Five-Year Plan (1951–56) stressed agriculture; the Second (1956–61) heavy industry in the public sector (steel at Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur); dams such as Bhakra Nangal — the ‘temples of modern India’.
• Agriculture: the zamindari (landlord) system was abolished, but land ceilings were weakly enforced; output grew slowly, and by the mid-1960s India relied on US food aid.
• Social reform: the Hindu Code Bills (1955–56) gave Hindu women rights to divorce and inheritance; caste discrimination persisted despite legal bans.

• 1966: chosen after Lal Bahadur Shastri's death; expected to be a figurehead.
• 1969: Congress split; 14 banks nationalised. 1971: privy purses abolished; landslide win on ‘Garibi Hatao’ (remove poverty).
• Green Revolution: high-yielding wheat and rice, fertiliser, irrigation (Punjab, Haryana); food self-sufficiency, but greater inequality.
• 1971 war: India backed the liberation of Bangladesh; about 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendered.
• Instability (1973–75): inflation after the oil shock, shortages, corruption, the 1974 railway strike, Jayaprakash Narayan's movement for ‘total revolution’.
• The Emergency (25 June 1975 – March 1977): triggered by the Allahabad High Court verdict; detentions, censorship, the 42nd Amendment (1976, adding ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ to the Preamble), forced sterilisation and slum clearance under Sanjay Gandhi.
• 1977: the Janata Party won; Morarji Desai became Prime Minister. Janata split, and Indira Gandhi returned in 1980.
• Punjab: Sikh militancy under Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale; Operation Blue Star (June 1984) at the Golden Temple; Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards on 31 October 1984; about 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi in the violence that followed.

Worked example (not a bank question). _‘To what extent did Indian society change between 1947 and 1984?’_

1. Thesis: law and politics changed society's rules far more than its everyday realities, which changed unevenly by region, caste and gender.
2. Paragraph 1 — caste: Article 17, reservations, Dalit political mobilisation; continuing discrimination.
3. Paragraph 2 — women: the Hindu Code Bills, voting rights, a woman Prime Minister; limited change for most rural women.
4. Paragraph 3 — economy: urbanisation, the Green Revolution and new rural elites; persistent poverty.
5. Paragraph 4 — religion and region: secularism, linguistic states, Punjab.
6. Conclusion: a clear judgement on the extent of change.

• Treating Partition as caused by a single person or group.
• Confusing India's wars: Pakistan 1947–48, China 1962, Pakistan 1965 and 1971.
• Writing only about the Emergency when a question asks about Indira Gandhi's whole period in office.
• Assuming the Green Revolution helped all farmers equally.
• Using loaded language about religious communities — describe groups and beliefs respectfully and precisely.

• Section II is marked on a sustained, logical and cohesive response, detailed, accurate and relevant historical knowledge, historical terms and concepts and, where relevant, historical interpretations. Naming historians can strengthen an argument but is not required.
• Useful interpretations: Ayesha Jalal on Jinnah; Yasmin Khan on the haste of Partition; debates over whether Nehru's planning helped or held back growth; views of Indira Gandhi as populist or authoritarian.
• Key terms: satyagraha, communalism, Partition, princely state, accession, secularism, linguistic state, Five-Year Plan, non-alignment, Panchsheel, Green Revolution, the Emergency, President's Rule.
• Prepare flexible paragraphs on Partition, Nehru's vision, unity and identity, Indira Gandhi and democracy, and foreign policy.

• The Cold War 1945–1991 gives the context for non-alignment and superpower involvement in South Asia.
• Indonesia 1945–2005 offers a useful comparison of decolonisation and nation-building in Asia.
• The core helps you compare democratic and authoritarian forms of power.