Between World War, I and World War II, Indian Nationalism movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi, was gaining strength. Gandhi relied on non-violent resistance by boycotting the British products. When World War II begins, Britain commits Indian troops to fight without asking India's self-rule government, which further led to more protests and renewed calls for the independence.
After the war, Britain is weakened and they granted India 'The Independence' in 1947. India's trouble was far from over. There is an issue which has been a problem for India since independence, Hindus made up the majority of Indian population, and Muslims made up the minority of Indian population. The conflicts between the two religions saw the Muslims feared "Hindus would have too much power in the government". When Britain granted independence in 1947, it drew borders to create two separate nations: Hindu Indian and Muslim Pakistan.
This is known as the Partition of India, the division of India into sperate Hindu and Muslim nations..
The partition was a struggle for both the religions, as it leads to massive migration as Muslim fled India and Hindus fled Pakistan. Millions were killed crossing the border. Gandhi himself was the victim of this violence, assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu extremist who thought he was too welcoming to Muslims. Violence decreased after Gandhi's death, but tension still remains between India and Pakistan, Hindu and Muslims today.
India today is the largest democracy of the world with 1.6 billion of the population.
The caste system is the system of social status that had been in place for more than 2000 years and untouchables were treated horrible and were given the worst works. India Caste system includes Brahmins (Priests), Kshatriyas ( Warriors), Vaishyas (Merchants and Land Owners), Shudras (Servants, Subordinate to Vaishyas) and Untouchables who were given work like toilet cleaning, cleaning the houses of upper society mainly for Brahmins, and were not even given the wages.
Discrimination against lower caste mainly the untouchables were banned in the Constitution of India 1950. Though legally fixed, discrimination is still a big problem mostly in the rural areas of India.
Another minority group before India's independence were women. But the Constitution of India formed under first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, gave women some favorable of rights like the right to vote, to get divorced, or to inherit ancestral property and the women were seen voting soon when the first ever elections happened in India after the establishment of Election Commission of India in 1950.
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