Lesson video

Hello, year nine.

Welcome back to our fourth and final lesson, looking at how India achieved independence in 1947.

My name is Mr Mastin and I'm hoping that you have kept that piece of paper safe, and you still have it with you today.

We've used three boxes of the four boxes on that piece of paper.

So if you still have that piece of paper, you'll need to go and find that.

If you don't have it, then a new piece of paper will be fine.

You'll need something to write with.

And you'll also need something coloured to write with.

A coloured pen, coloured pencil, or a highlighter.

So three things, a piece of paper, hopefully the piece of paper we've been using, something to write with and something coloured to write with.

You'll need to make sure that there are no distractions as usual, you're in a nice quiet place.

And then I will get out of the way when you're ready, let me know.

Well, I hope you're ready now year nine for the last part of our story.

Of course you'll remember that Vishnu's family have a bookshop in the city of Pune.

But Vishnu's family were originally not from Pune, but from a place called Sind.

You can see that I've circled it on the map of British-ruled India.

Well, some of Vishnu's family stayed in Sind, some aunties and uncles and cousins, and some of his family moved to Pune where Vishnu's father had opened the bookshop.

Well, this tells us quite a lot about how different types of people in India moved around.

It also tells us that Indians were made up of different religions and different languages.

For instance, Vishnu's family spoke a language called Sindhi, because they were from Sind.

But then of course, they moved from Sind and took with them their language of Sindhi when they moved to Pune.

So there were Indians who spoke Sindhi in Pune, and Indians who spoke Sindhi in Sind.

But then there were hundreds of other languages all over this enormous place.

There were also different religions.

By far, the largest religion in India was the religion of Hinduism.

Vishnu's family were Hindus.

There were Hindus who lived in Sind.

And of course there were Hindus who lived in Pune where Vishnu's bookshop was.

The next biggest religion in India was Islam.

Followers of Islam are called Muslims. So the two biggest religions are the Hindu religion, the Muslim religion, but as well as that, that were a very large number of Sikhs who lived in India there were Christians who lived in India and the religion of the Parsis.

Well, India, a land of many languages, a land of many religions, of different foods and different cultures was a land of many different types of people.

Not only that, but not absolutely every Indian thought in exactly the same way about what would happen when the British left and India became independent.

For example, most Indians were Hindu and most Hindus followed Congress.

This was the organisation that was led by Gandhi and a man called Nehru.

Gandhi and Nehru wanted India to remain united with lots of Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and Christians and all those different languages, living side by side.

They wanted the British to leave.

And for Indians from different religions, to rule themselves.

Some Muslim Indians wanted the rights of Muslim Indians to be protected, to be guaranteed in a new independent India.

Some Muslim Indians were worried that because the biggest religion by far was the Hindu religion, that areas of India, where mostly Muslims lived, might feel dominated or threatened by the number of Hindus in the government in a newly independent India.

And so during the Second World War, when quite a lot of Indians who supported Congress like Gandhi didn't support the British in World War II.

There were Muslim Indians who saw an opportunity if they supported the British in World War II, to have the rights of Muslim Indians protected.

Now, there were lots of things that Congress and this Muslim League agreed on.

For example, the Muslim League and Congress cooperated in agreeing to get the British, to leave.

Gandhi's big campaign called Quit India.

Many Muslims supported Quit India and supported the idea of the laws in India being made by Indians, not by the British.

But then when the Second World War occurred, there started to be some disagreements.

The Muslim League was more likely to support the British in World War II than Congress was.

Don't forget that during World War II Gandhi was imprisoned like Vishnu and his father.

They were members of Congress.

Whereas most of the Muslim League was supporting the British in World War II.

So as the Muslim League grew in influence, India was going closer and closer towards independence.

Well, it's at this point, that I need to introduce you to a new word.

The word is partition.

You can see there a group of men sitting around the table in India and I've circled three of them.

The man circled in blue is a man called Lord Mountbatten.

Lord Mountbatten represented the British government in India.

In fact, Lord Mountbatten ruled India on behalf of the king.

In fact, Lord Mountbatten was actually related to the king.

So there's Lord Mountbatten sitting at the table.

He's chairing the meeting.

And he's meeting with the man circled in red and the man circled in green.

The man circled in red is Nehru.

He's from Congress.

He's the leader of Congress.

The man circled in green is called Jinnah and Jinnah leads the Muslim League.

The Muslim League, now much more influential, are beginning to argue for a separate Muslim state.

A separate Muslim state that would be run by Muslims. In fact, Jinnah has a name for this new Muslim state.

He calls it Pakistan.

Nehru, circled in red from Congress wants India to stay together, not to be divided.

Well, this idea that I've been talking about this idea of dividing India into two separate states, a mainly Hindu India and a Muslim state with Muslim Indians.

This idea of dividing it, is called partition.

And the viceroy, the viceroy Lord Mountbatten sitting there in the middle representing the British government is discussing the idea of partition with Congress and with the Muslim League.

Well, Gandhi was horrified by the idea of partition.

Gandhi said, "I would rather be cut in two than to see India divided".

Well, most Muslims in India lived in the west of India and in the east.

what Jinnah was suggesting was a separate state called Pakistan.

And then the big chunk of India in the middle, would still be called India.

Well, as India got closer and closer to independence, it looked like partition would happen.

Vishnu was asked when he was released from prison.

What he thought of the idea of partition.

And this is what Vishnu said.

"India is celebrating, but I am unhappy.

India is being cut into pieces.

I was so furious that I took the Indian flag and tore it up and flung it aside".

Sind where his family were from, "Sind is the land of my ancestors.

Both sets of my grandparents lived there and we spent months there every year.

Sind was our motherland.

Our roots are there in Sind".

Well, from the way that Vishnu was talking about Sind, you can probably work out which side of the partition border Sind is going to be on.

Vishnu has worked out that if these two countries are divided Pakistan and India, then half a Vishnu's family, the half living in Sind will find themselves in Pakistan, not in India.

Gandhi begged the Indians to unite.

He begged the British not to do this.

The Muslim League organised a direct action day, but unfortunately it was not the intention of the Muslim League for there to be any violence.

But over 4,000 Indians died in the city of Culcutta.

In the week that followed, there were hundreds more deaths.

It seemed as if the idea of partition was not just putting Hindus against Muslims and increasing the tension.

It was also increasing the violence just at the moment that India was getting towards independence.

India seem to be tearing itself apart.

Meanwhile, the British decided to give the job to a judge from London, the job of deciding where the border would be between India and Pakistan.

The judge flew out to India.

He was a very clever man.

But what many Indians didn't realise is that this British judge had never been to India before.

He was given 40 days to draw a line on a map that would become the border between Pakistan and India.

And where this British judge drew the border, it put Vishnu's family into Pakistan.

Vishnu and his family in Pune were in India.

So if I show you on a map, this is now a map of India and Pakistan, and you can see where Sind is.

It's now in Pakistan.

Well, there were many families in Sind who were Hindu, but they were surrounded now by a Muslim Pakistan who felt that they wanted to move.

They wanted to be in India.

And so many Indians from Sind crossed the border and started to make their way to where Sindhi families lived.

And so Vishnu's family found that they had many aunties and uncles and cousins making the journey from Sind now in Pakistan to Pune in India.

But it also worked the other way.

There were many Muslims in India who made the decision that they wanted to live in Pakistan.

And so many Muslims in India started to make the journey in the other direction.

They left their homes where they had lived for many, many generations and moved to the new country of Pakistan.

Here are some examples of people now homeless, leaving their homes and going to a place where they have no home.

Where they will have to find a home, where they will have to build a home.

These people we call refugees.

Refugees are people who don't have a home, not through anything that they've decided, not because of any decision that they've made, but because of things that have happened to them.

Often, refugees are created through a war.

And because of the violence and the tension that India was experiencing, as they got closer to partition, many Indians on both sides of the border, decided to switch sides.

They had to make a choice.

Would they become part of Pakistan? Or part of India? Thousands of Indians became refugees when they should have been celebrating the birth of an independent country.

Independent from the British empire.

Vishnu said to a reporter for a newspaper.

He said, "Our home was full of aunts and uncles, cousins, and distant relatives who had fled Sind as one family settled in Pune, more would come." Well in a way, that's the end of the story.

It's estranged into the story, the way that the arguments over partition put pressure on the British and the way that India became independent.

But let's think about that for a moment.

How did the different arguments over partition put pressure on the British? We're in our last box of our page that we've been using over these four lessons.

Now, if you have kept it safe, then you're going to be writing in that last box.

We've called the last box independence and partition, because of course, how India expected to become independent, is not exactly how India achieved independence.

And it was all to do with arguments and tensions over partition.

So can I ask you to make some notes in that fourth box if you still have your page? If you don't have the page, then if you make notes on a separate piece of paper that you have.

So you're looking for examples of how tensions to do with partitions, arguments to do with partition, how this put pressure on the British.

So I'll pause for a moment and let you complete that.

Thinking of lots of ideas about how arguments to do with partition.

How this is putting pressure on the British.

So for the last time, let's think about what types of pressure we're talking about.

So how did the arguments over partition, the different disagreements, the different tensions, How did they put pressure on the British? All the examples that you've written down, are they moral examples of pressure? About doing the right thing? Or are they economic pressures? Are they to do with money? Are they political pressures? To do with power and voting and government, and who's in charge? In fact, anything to do with a border, or to do with, are you part of this country? Or are you part of that country? That would be a political pressure.

And then the fourth option, are they military pressures? So if you want to go through with your coloured, whatever it is, coloured pencil, coloured pen, or highlighter, think about what your key is.

What colour have you used so far for economic? What colour have you used for political or moral? And use that colour to see if you can work out what types of pressure are being put on the British.

So I'll pause when you've done that.

If you come back to the lesson.

So here are some questions for you.

First question.

In what ways could we describe India as a land of many different people? Question two.

What was the idea of partition? Can you explain what partition means in your own words? Third question.

Did Gandhi support the idea of partition or oppose it? Now, rather than just saying he supported it, or he opposed it, Could you give a specific argument or specific example about what Gandhi believed? So not just saying supported or opposed, but what was it that Gandhi believed? Question four.

Partition resulted in there being thousands of refugees.

So why? Why did partition, India becoming independent, but it ending up in partition? Why did this result in lots of refugees? Fifth question.

Can you give a specific example of how partition put political pressure on the British? And the sixth and final question.

This one is a little bit trickier.

You might want to think about question six for a little while.

How did partition put moral pressure on the British? To deal with the right thing, or avoiding doing the wrong thing? There was definitely moral pressure about partition.

Either in favour of partition or against partition.

But there were definitely examples of moral pressure.

What was the right thing to do? And then when you finish those six questions, I have one last thing to tell you.

So if you're ready, we've come to the end of the lesson nearly.

But there's one very sad story.

And that is, that a few months after India was independent and there was the partition of Pakistan and India, Gandhi, the spiritual leader of this fight against the mighty British empire.

This fight for India's independence.

He was shot.

Gandhi was shot and killed.

Not by someone from the British army, but he was shot by an Indian only a few months after Indian independence.

The Indian was a Hindu and the Indian who shot Gandhi was angry that India had been partitioned and that Gandhi had surrendered the unity of India to allow for partition.

Although you could argue that Gandhi didn't have a choice, but it's a sad end the story that the man who had done so much, who had fought in these nonviolent ways, non-cooperation who believed in the unity and in the independence of his country, ends up paying the ultimate price for what he believed in by being shot by someone on his own side.

Well year nine.

We have come to the end of our four lessons.

looking at how India achieved independence in 1947.

And there's one thing that stands out.

And that is that it was not straight forward process.

It was a messy process at times it looked like India was going to achieve independence and then something happened, that thwarted that process, that got in the way of it.

There were obstacles, the process was hard.

The process was difficult.

But in 1947, India did achieve independence.

Although not in the way, that may be you and I were expecting when we started our first lesson.

Thank you very much, for being with me today.

And for being with me for these four lessons, please share anything that you would like me to see via the Oak website.

It's been a pleasure teaching you.

And I hope you do very well, for the rest of your lessons.

Have a very good day year nine.