Pakistan's independence: 14 or 15 August 1947?

Pakistan became independent from British rule in August 1947, when the Indian Independence Act split British India into two dominions, Pakistan and India; Pakistan marks the occasion on 14 August, one day before India’s holiday.

Was Pakistan born on 14 or 15 August?

Legally, on the 15th. The Act, given royal assent on 18 July 1947, created both dominions “as from the fifteenth day of August”, a date it called the appointed day, and the National Army Museum dates independence for both to midnight on 14 to 15 August. The United States recognised the Dominion of Pakistan on 15 August. Britain’s National Archives puts it most carefully: independence was declared on 14 and 15 August. Pakistan celebrates the first of those dates and India the second, so two countries born in the same instant keep different birthdays.

The new state came in two pieces, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, separated by Indian territory. The eastern wing became Bangladesh in 1971.

Did people know where the border was?

No. The boundary commission chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, with four members from the Congress and four from the Muslim League, had its lines announced only on 17 August, two days after independence. Millions celebrated freedom without knowing which country their town would end up in.

The answer set off what the National Army Museum calls the largest population movement in history: about ten million refugees, Muslims heading to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India, and up to a million killed in massacres around the new borders. In Punjab, a 55,000-strong boundary force could not prevent more than 200,000 murders. Even the army was divided, with about 140,000 mainly Muslim soldiers going to Pakistan.

The partition plan had been announced by Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy, on 3 June 1947. For the same night seen from Delhi, read how India awoke to independence at midnight.