India and Pakistan are commemorating their 78th Independence Day this month. While India celebrates on August 15, Pakistan marks the occasion a day earlier. In August 1947, British rule ended with the partition of India into two independent nations: India and Pakistan. This raises the question of why India and Pakistan observe their independence on different days.
The Indian Independence Act of 1947, enacted on July 18, 1947, established the two nations. According to the Act, “As from the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan.”
Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, also declared August 15 as the nation’s independence day. In his historic radio address, Jinnah said, “August 15 is the birthday of the independent and sovereign state of Pakistan. It marks the fulfillment of the destiny of the Muslim nation which made great sacrifices in the past few years to have its homeland.”
Senior Pakistani journalist Shahida Kazi remarked in 2016, “If we use logic, any kind of logic, August 15 is the day on which we (Pakistan) should celebrate our independence.” Jinnah and the Pakistan cabinet took their oaths of office on the morning of August 15, 1947. Additionally, Pakistan’s first commemorative postage stamps, issued in July 1948, also cited August 15, 1947, as the country’s Independence Day. For Muslims, this date was significant as it was the last Friday of Ramadan.
On August 14, 1947, Viceroy Lord Mountbatten addressed Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly. He was to transfer power to both India and Pakistan at midnight on August 15, but could not be in both New Delhi and Karachi simultaneously. Mountbatten transferred power to Pakistan on August 14 in Karachi before traveling to New Delhi.
Historian Khursheed Kamal Aziz noted in his book Murder of History that, “The power had to be personally transferred to the new countries by the Viceroy. Lord Mountbatten could not be present in both locations at the same time. Hence, he transferred power to Pakistan on August 14, although the Indian Independence Act did not provide for this date.”
In 1948, Pakistan decided to shift its Independence Day to August 14, a year after its formation. The decision was influenced by various factors. According to an India Today report, Pakistani leaders wanted to celebrate their Independence Day before India. A meeting of Pakistani ministers, led by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in late June 1948, resulted in the decision to advance Pakistan’s Independence Day. Jinnah is reported to have approved this change.
Yasser Latif Hamdani, author of Jinnah: Myth and Reality, stated in 2013 that Jinnah could not have personally altered the date as he was ill by August 1948. However, Hamdani suggested that the date change was part of Pakistan’s effort to establish its own identity and distinguish itself from India.