Why was the date '15th August'

This is a mail which i got on the eve of Independence Day from one of our professors...... wanted to share this with everyone out there.......



Why was the date '15th August' chosen for power to be surrendered by the British to India?
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The following account is based on the book by Zakaria, Rafiq
'The Price of Partition' (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 1998)

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Atlee, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, declared on February 20, 1947, that Briton would transfer power by June 1948, by when the Congress and the Muslim League were to resolve their differences and accept some plan. Atlee declared that if no comprehensive plan were put forth, then power would be transferred to one or more governments in different regions (as per their 'divide and quit' policy). Churchill, who always remained India's enemy and would never agree to surrender power to India, condemned the Atlee government for its resolution "to transfer power to India's politicians who were men of straw of whom in a few years no trace would remain". The same day, the British Government recalled Wavell (then Viceroy and Governor General of India), since he was committed to surrendering power to a united India, and replaced him by Mountbatten as India's last Viceroy. Wavell has reported in his diary that Churchill wanted him to divide India "Between Hindustan, Pakistan and Princestan"; hence Churchill's brief to Mountbatten: If the British could not hold India, it was best to divide her.

On February 20, 1947, the British Prime Minister Atlee had declared in the House of Commons that they would quit India no later than June 1948.

Mountbatten advanced this date to August 15th, 1947, and this resulted in the following:

(a) Congress was not left with sufficient time to iron out its differences with the Muslim League and make it see that one nation, rather than two nations, would safeguard the Muslim interests best. The 'two-nation theory' merely fed the power hungry Jinnah, who was neither a practicing Muslim nor a sympathizer of Muslim woes. Favoring these developments was clearly a result of British calculations and myopia, since Britain's economic interests were seen to lie with the Arab world which it thought it could appease by favoring Jinnah's religious cry.

(b) On 15 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally to the Allies bringing an end to the East Asian front of World War II. In Singapore, Japanese troops laid down their arms hence ending three and a half years of Japanese Occupation. The Japanese, led by General Itagaki, formally surrendered to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia on 12 September 1945. Mountbatten, mindless of the welfare of the subcontinent, abused the occasion toward self-glorification. He was the Supreme Allied Commander in the region when Japan surrendered on August 15th, 1945, at the end of World War II. On choosing the date of transfer of power to fall on the second anniversary of Japan's surrender, he wanted, as the last Viceroy, to link two great acts: His personal glory and India's tragedy [Zakaria].

Thus India was partitioned. The sufferings of those who migrated, and of those who could not, will not be recounted here. It was a colossal human tragedy, leaving Jinnah to luxuriate in his new position as the First Governor General of Pakistan. At the mid-night of August 14 and 15, 1947, India regained her freedom, and Pakistan was born.