Independence Day (India) interim government. He chose the second anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, 15 August, as the date of power transfer. The British government announced on 3 June 1947 that it had accepted the idea of partitioning British India into two states; the successor governments would be given dominion status and would have an implicit right to secede from the British Commonwealth. The Indian Independence Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo 6 c. 30) of the Parliament of the United Kingdom partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan (including what is now Bangladesh)
Census of India prior to independence Census of India prior to independence The Census of India prior to independence was conducted periodically from 1865 onward to 1947. The censuses were primarily concerned with administration and faced numerous problems in their design and conduct ranging from absence of house numbering in hamlets to cultural objections on various grounds to dangers posed by wild animals to census personnel. The censuses were designed more for social engineering and to further the British agenda for governance rather than to uncover the underlying structure of the population. The historian Michael Mann says that the census exercise was "more telling of the