Dominion of India

The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy, in favour of the British. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947. This same Act also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan, which was composed of the two regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India was also referred to as "India" in common parlance, but it differed from British India in that it was now independent and geographically smaller: large swathes of the former territory now formed the also newly created but now distinct Dominion of Pakistan. Under the Act, the King remained the monarch in right of new dominions, but the British government relinquished all responsibility for the governing of its former territories. The British Government also revoked its treaty rights and obligations with the rulers of the more than 500 princely states within the region, and instead advised them to join in a political union with either India or Pakistan. Accordingly, the use of one of the British monarch's regnal titles, "Emperor of India", was abandoned.

The Dominion of India came into existence upon the partition of India, a process under and legal act of the Government and Crown of the United Kingdom. Its creation was preceded, however, by a pioneering and influential anti-colonial nationalist movement which became a major factor in ending the broader British Raj. The first government of the new Union was formed under Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister with Vallabhbhai Patel as deputy prime minister, both members of the Indian National Congress. Lord Mountbatten, who had served as the last Viceroy of India, stayed on from August 1947 until June 1948 as independent India's first governor-general; he was replaced by C. Rajagopalachari.

The religious violence occasioned by the partition was soon reduced, in large part through the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi; resentment of him grew though amongst Hindu fundamentalists, eventually costing him his life. To Patel fell the responsibility for integrating the princely states of the British Indian Empire into the new India. Lasting through the remainder of 1947 and the better part of 1948, integration was accomplished by means of inducements, and on occasion threats. It went smoothly except in the cases of Junagadh State, Hyderabad State, and, especially, Kashmir and Jammu, the last leading to a war between India and Pakistan and to a dispute that has lasted until today.

During the existence of the Union/Dominion, the new constitution of the Republic of India was drafted. It was based in large part on the Government of India Act 1935, the last constitution of British India, but also reflected some elements of the Constitution of the United States as well as the Constitution of Ireland. The new constitution disavowed some aspects of India's past by abolishing untouchability and derecognising caste distinctions.

A major effort was made during this period to document the demographic changes accompanying the partition of British India. According to most demographers, between 14 and 18 million people moved between India and Pakistan as refugees of the partition, and upwards of one million people were killed. A major effort was also made to document the poverty prevalent in India. A committee appointed by the government in 1949, estimated the average annual income of an Indian to be Rs. 260 (or $55; perhaps equivalent to Rs. 28,720 in 2023), with many earning well below that amount. The government faced low levels of literacy among its population: it was estimated at 23.54% for men and just 7.62% for women in the 1951 Census of India. The Union Government also began work to improve the status of women, which bore some fruit eventually in the mid-1950s passage of the Hindu code bills, outlawing patrilineality, marital desertion and child marriages (though evasion of these bans continued for years thereafter). The Dominion of India lasted until 1950, at which time India became a republic within the Commonwealth with a president as head of state.