India gains independence as British India is partitioned into two states

On 15 August 1947, British rule in South Asia formally ended. British India was divided into two new dominions, India and Pakistan, the latter having been created as a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims. Pakistan became independent a day earlier, on 14 August. Jawaharlal Nehru became India's first prime minister, and the Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament set the legal framework for the transfer of power.

The border lines, drawn in great haste by a boundary commission headed by the British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe, cut through Punjab and Bengal. The boundaries were only made public after independence. Millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims then crossed the new frontiers, fearing for their safety in places where they had become a minority.

The migration was accompanied by widespread communal violence, killings and displacement. Estimates of the dead vary widely, commonly running from several hundred thousand to around a million, and some 10 to 15 million people were uprooted. Mohandas Gandhi, a leader of the independence movement, did not take part in the celebrations in Delhi. He spent the day in Calcutta (now Kolkata), fasting and working for peace between communities. The violence of these months shaped the mood of the country's first festivals as an independent nation.