Nation Building Test-1

According to the two-nation theory advanced by the Muslim League, India consisted of two ‘people’ – Hindu and Muslims. That is why it demanded a separate nation for Muslims – Pakistan. The Congress opposed this theory and the demand for Pakistan.

West and Wast Pakistan were separated by a long expanse of Indian territory. Punjab and Bengal were Muslim majority provinces but also had areas where non-Muslims were in majority. Eventually it was decided that the two provinces would be bifurcated according to religious majority at the district or even lower level.Partition led to the most abrupt, unplanned and tragic transfer of population across the borders.

At the hour of midnight on Aug 14-15, 1947, India had attained independence. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of free India, addressed a special session of Constituent Assembly that night. This was th famous 'tryst with destiny' speech.

British India was divided between British Indian provinces and the Princely states. The British Indian provinces were directly under the control of British government. On the other hand, several small and large states ruled by princes, called the Princely States, enjoyed some form of control over their internal affairs as long as they accepted British supremacy. This was called paramountcy or suzerainty of British crown.c

British India had 17 Provinces and 565 princely states, before 1947. Some of them were princely states of Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir and Manipur.

Ruler of Hyderabad state carried the title, 'Nizam'. He was one of the world's richest men. The Nizam wanted an independent status for Hyderabad 

Jawaharlal Nehru delivered the speech ‘Tryst with destiny’ while addressing special session of constituent Assembly as the midnight of 14-15 August 1947.

There were 565 princely states consisted at the time of independence of India. The British government took the view that all these states were free to join either India or Pakistan or remain independent if they so wished. This decision was left not to the people but to the princely rulers of these states.

Central Government appointed a States Reorganisation Commission in 1953 to look into the question of redrawing of the boundaries of states. The Commission in its report accepted that the boundaries of the state should reflect the boundaries of different languages. The State Reorganisation Act was passed in 1956 which resulted the creation of 14 states and 6 union territories.

The Vishalandhra movement (as the movement for a separate Andhra was called) demanded that the Telugu speaking areas should be separated from the Madras province of which they were a part and be made into a separate Andhra province. Nearly all the political forces in the Andhra region were in favour of linguistic reorganisation of the then Madras province.

In the case of princely states, the British government left the decision of joining to the princely rulers of these states. All of the given states decided to remain independent in place of joining India. In most of these princely states, governments were run in a non-democratic manner and the rulers were unwilling to give democratic rights to their populations.