In this article, we discuss Mountbatten Plan 1947 for various competitive exams such as UPSC, SSC, etc...
On 20th 1947, Britain's Prime Minister Clement Attlee declared in the House of Commons that Britishers will transfer the power to the Indian Politicians before 3 June 1948.
The next day on 21st 1947, the Viceroy of India was changed and the new Viceroy became Lord Mautubatten.
On 3 June 1947, Lord Montbatten proposed a plan which is also known as Montbatten Plan or June 3 Plan.
In this plan, the British Government had taken ten steps to creating two new countries by accepting the partition of India. These two countries were India and Pakistan.
The date of the partition was decided as 15 August 1947. According to the Montbatten Plan, the two provinces of India, Bengal, and Punjab, were divided into two parts.
One part was to become part of India and the other part of Pakistan. These two were divided because they were very large provinces.
Here the majority population was of Muslims but non-Muslim population like Hindus and Sikh community was also there in huge quantity. Both these states were divided in the proportion of the population.
The Boundary Commission was formed under Sir Cyril Radcliffe for the division of these two states. He divided Punjab into two parts, East Punjab and West Punjab and Bengal in East Bengal and West Bengal.
Apart from this, a referendum was done in NWFP and Sylhet. Although Sylhet was a part of Assam, but due to being very close to East Pakistan, they were also given an option to decide this through voting that want to be a part of India or Pakistan.
The referendum of both NWFP and Sylhet came in favor of Pakistan and they become a part of Pakistan.
The biggest leader in NWFP was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He is also known as Frontier Gandhi. Their organization was Khudai Khidmatgar. They are also called red shirts because they used to wear red-colored clothes.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was strongly against the referendum. Due to this, the people of NWFP did not participate in the referendum. Only 15% of the people voted in the referendum.
Balochistan, Sindh, NWFP, East Bengal, West Bengal, Sylhet, all of these together became Pakistan.
There were more than 563 princely states in India, which were freed according to the Montbatten Plan.
Now it was up to them to decide whether they want to remain free or join India or Pakistan.
Of the 563 princely states, 560 signed the Instrument of Accession with India before 15 August 1947.
Junagadh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Hyderabad these three princely states did not sign the Instrument of Accession.
India became independent on 15 August 1947 and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister.
Junagadh is a part of Gujarat today. At that time Muhammad Mahbat Khanji III was the king of Junagadh. They were Muslims, but in the population of Junagadh, the majority belonged to Hindus.
On 15 September 1947, Khanji signed the Instrument of Accession with Jinha. After this, the people here started revolting.
Therefore, on 20 February 1948, a plebiscite had to be conducted in Junagadh. In this plebiscite, 99% of the people voted for India's favor and Junagadh became a part of India.
Hyderabad was the richest, largest, and powerful princely state of India. The ruler here was a Muslim whose name was Osman Ali Khan. Here 80% of the population was Hindu.
The rulers here neither wanted to join India or Pakistan, they wanted to remain independent.
Osman Ali Khan had his own army which was called Razakars. But the Indian government annexed Hyderabad in September 1948 under the leadership of Sardar Patel. It was an army operation named Operation Polo.
Hari Singh was the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. They were Hindus and the majority population here was Muslims. Hari Singh also wanted to remain independent but Pakistan attacked him to annex.
But Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession with India on 26 October 1947. Now India sent its army to Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army stopped the Pakistani forces from advancing.
On the request of the Indian leader, Lord Montbatten, the last Viceroy of India, remained the Governor-General of India till 21 June 1948.
Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India. Jinnah became the Governor General of Pakistan and Liaquat Ali Khan became the Prime Minister.
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