Why India and Pakistan celebrate independence a day apart

Seventy-nine years ago, at the stroke of midnight on August 15, India declared freedom from British rule. Since then, India marks this day (August 15) as Independence Day.

But curiously, India’s neighbour, Pakistan, which was born out of the country, celebrates Independence Day one day earlier on August 14.

How did this happen? We explain.

How was August 15 chosen for India’s I-Day?

After years of fighting and bloodshed, when Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived in India as the last Viceroy in March 1947, he was tasked by the British parliament with transferring power to India by June 30, 1948.

However, India’s many freedom fighters objected to this delay. This resulted in Mountbatten concluding that the process couldn’t wait so long. On June 3, 1947, Mountbatten devised a plan to speed up the process of granting independence to the country. The ‘Mountbatten Plan’, as it was popularly known, came after his ‘Dickie Bird Plan’, which had been rejected by Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Mountbatten Plan announced that India would be divided into two nations – India and Pakistan. It gave both countries autonomy and sovereignty, and also granted them the right to form their own Constitution.

After being accepted by the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, the British House of Commons passed the Indian Independence Bill on July 4, 1947. It made provisions for the end of British rule on August 15, 1947.

But why did Mountbatten zero in on August 15? In his own account documented in the book Freedom at Midnight, Mountbatten said, “The date I chose came out of the blue. I chose it in reply to a question. I was determined to show I was the master of the whole event. When they asked if we had set a date, I knew it had to be soon. I hadn't worked it out exactly then — I thought it had to be about August or September, and I then went out to August 15. Why? Because it was the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender.”

And this has been seconded in the book, In Mountbatten and the Partition of India, Volume 2, by Lapierre Dominique and Collins Larry. In it, the last Viceroy explained, “When I named August 15, I admit I chose the anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese in Singapore but I had to name a date, and it was a good date.”

How does Pakistan have August 14 as its Independence Day?

The answer to this lies in the schedule of Lord Louis Mountbatten. As India decided to hold celebrations at midnight, it would have been impossible for Lord Mountbatten to attend two events to hand over power on the same day.

For this reason, it was suggested that Mountbatten’s visit to Karachi, the former capital of Pakistan, be advanced by a day to August 14, during which he would transfer power to Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, at the Constituent Assembly.

And that’s exactly what happened. As Renowned Pakistani historian Khursheed Kamal Aziz wrote in his book Murder of History, “The power had to be personally transferred to the new countries by the Viceroy, who was the British King’s sole representative in India. Lord Mountbatten could not be present in person in Karachi and New Delhi at the same moment. Nor could he transfer power to India on the morning of 15th August and then rush to Karachi, because by that time, he would have become the Governor General of the new Indian Dominion.

“So the only practical thing was for him to transfer power to Pakistan on 14th August when he was still the Viceroy of India. But that does not mean that Pakistan gained its independence on 14th August. The Indian Independence Act did not provide for it.

Other theories also exist for Pakistan celebrating Independence Day on August 14. An India Today report states that some Pakistan leaders wanted to celebrate Independence Day before India. A group of ministers convened a meeting under the leadership of the then Pakistan prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan towards the end of June 1948.

It was in this meeting that the decision was taken to move Pakistan’s Independence Day forward by a day. The report says Jinnah approved the proposal of advancing Pakistan’s Independence Day to August 14.

However, Yasser Latif Hamdani, the author of Jinnah: Myth and Reality, told PTI in 2013 that Jinnah could not have changed the Independence Day date as he was already on his deathbed by August of 1948.

Some also believe that a religious reason could have been why Pakistan celebrates August 14 as I-Day. The night of August 14-15, 1947 coincided with the 27th night of Ramzan in 1366 Hijri — revered by Muslims as Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Decree, and believed to be the night the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Does this mean Pakistan gained Independence a day earlier?

The short answer to this is no. The Indian Independence Act, 1947, which officially put an end to the British rule in India, clearly states: “As from the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan.”

Moreover, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, addressed the nation on August 15, telling his countrymen that it was the “birthday of the independent and sovereign state of Pakistan”.

“August 15 is the birthday of the independent and sovereign state of Pakistan. It marks the fulfillment of the destiny of the Muslim nation which made great sacrifices in the past few years to have its homeland,” Jinnah said in a radio address.

Moreover, Jinnah and the Pakistan Cabinet took oaths of office on the morning of August 15, 1947, reported The Express Tribune. Pakistan’s first commemorative postage stamps, released in July 1948, also referred to August 15, 1947 as the country’s Independence Day.

However, despite all of this, Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day on August 14 while India marks it a day later on August 15. Today, these two dates hold utmost significance for both nations and are embedded in our joint history.

With inputs from agencies