M. K. Gandhi took on the mantle of leading the Indian Independence movement in 1919. As the British Government would not yield and succeeded in suppressing the non-co-operation movement by a policy of repression the Congress at its Lahore session held in December, 1929, resolved that its goal was the attainment of complete iudependence and in order to implement its demand it started in 1930 the Civil Disobedience movement. The Government, as in the past, tried a mixture of severe repression and conciliation and pressure in 1935 a Government of India Act which envisaged a Federal administration for British .and Princely India, introduced a sort of dyarchy at the Centre and conceded autonomy to the provinces. The provincial part of the Act was enforced and provincial autonomy was inaugurated in April, 1937; but before the Federal Part of the Act could be enforced the Second World War broke out in September, 1939, and continued till 1945.

It was a global war and extremely strained the resources of Great Britain. India stood loyally by her and the exploitation of her vast resources in men and money as well as the help of the U.S.A. enabled Great Britain to emerge victorious out of the war. Though the immense influence of Gandhiji over his countrymen and his profound faith in non-violence had kept India loyal to the British connection there was enough to show that India wa.~ not any longer willing to remain a subordinate part of the British Empire. The last sinister effort that was made by some Anglo-Indian officers to prevent the Congress from attaining its goal of independence was to prop up the Muslim demand for a Pakistan to be carved out of India.

It resulted only in the outbreak of bitter and bloody communal riots all over the country in August, 1946 which the Viceroy Lord Wavell with all his military experience and resources, failed to prevent. There are many famous Mahatma Gandhi quotes penned in his books at this time, as he looked at the rift between Hindus and Muslims in India. His books also cover important facts about Hinduism. Continuance of the administration of India by a Government which was predominantly British in its composition was felt to be impossible and Lord Wavell formed in September, 1946, an Interim Government consisting of Indian leaders with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as its leader. The pampered Muslim League joined the Interim Government after keeping away from it for a month and an Indian Constituent Assembly was convened to draw up a Constitution for India. Lord Mountbatten who succeeded Lord Wavell as Viceroy early in 1947, was confronted with severe communal riots in the Panjab engineered by some Anglo-Indian oflicers there. He succeeded in convincing the Government in Great Britain then headed by Attlee as the Prime Minister, that nothing but the grant of independence to India on the basis of the partition of the country into India and Pakistan would restore peace in India and enable Great Britain to preserve her vast commercial interests in India and on June 3, 1947 announced on the authority of the Government of Great Britain that independence would bt: granted to India on the basis of the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. The Parliament of Great Britain passed on August 15 1947 the Independence of India Act and thus India, shorn of the predominantly Muslim provinces of the North Western Frontier, Baluchistan, Sind, Western Panjab and East and part of North Bengal, started on a new career of independence after more than seven centuries of foreign domination.