Freedom Struggle — Pre-Independence Movements

Why This Chapter Matters

If there is one section of General Awareness where SSC CGL papers pile on the questions, it is the freedom struggle. Between 1857 and 1947, India went from scattered regional resistance to a mass national movement with organized leadership, and nearly every year, every session, and every major event in this period has been asked at least once across SSC exams. This is dense, name-and-date-heavy material, and there is no shortcut around memorizing it properly. But the material rewards structure: once you understand the movement in three broad phases — Moderate politics, Extremist and revolutionary politics, and Gandhian mass politics — the hundreds of individual facts start attaching themselves to a timeline instead of floating loose in your memory.

The single most common mistake aspirants make is mixing up the three major Gandhian movements — Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and Quit India — their years, their immediate triggers, and the specific incident that ended each one. A close second is confusing the various committees, missions, and pacts of the 1930s and 1940s (Simon Commission, Round Table Conferences, Cripps Mission, Cabinet Mission), which all sound alike but served very different purposes. Nail the sequence and the trigger event for each, and a large chunk of this chapter's marks become close to automatic.

The Indian National Congress and Early Nationalism

The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant, with its first session held in Bombay under the presidency of Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee. Early INC leaders, later labelled Moderates, believed in constitutional methods — petitions, resolutions, and dialogue with the British government — to secure gradual reform. Prominent Moderates included Dadabhai Naoroji (author of the "Drain of Wealth" theory, arguing that British policies systematically drained India's wealth to Britain, laid out in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India), Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Pherozeshah Mehta.

By the early 1900s, a younger, more assertive group grew impatient with Moderate methods. These Extremists, led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lala Lajpat Rai (together remembered as the "Lal-Bal-Pal" trio), pushed for Swaraj (self-rule) as a clear goal and favoured more assertive methods, including Swadeshi (boycott of foreign goods and promotion of domestic industry) and passive resistance. Tilak's famous declaration, "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it," captures the Extremist spirit.

Memory hook: Moderates asked politely; Extremists demanded directly. Think of it as the difference between writing a formal complaint letter and organizing a public protest over the same grievance.

The Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi Movement (1905)

Viceroy Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal in 1905, officially for administrative convenience given Bengal's large size and population, but widely seen as a deliberate attempt to weaken Bengali nationalist sentiment by splitting the province along religious lines, separating a Hindu-majority west from a Muslim-majority east. The move triggered massive protest across Bengal and beyond, giving rise to the Swadeshi movement, which promoted boycott of British goods, the use of Indian-made products, and the growth of national education institutions. The movement also produced the slogan "Vande Mataram" as a rallying cry and saw participation from figures like Rabindranath Tagore, who composed songs for the cause and personally tied rakhis to symbolize Hindu-Muslim unity against the partition.

Facing sustained protest, the British reversed the partition in 1911, the same year the capital of British India was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.

The Surat Split and Reunion

Tensions between Moderates and Extremists came to a head at the Surat session of the Congress in 1907, where the party split into two factions over disagreements about methods and goals. The two factions eventually reunited at the Lucknow session in 1916, the same session that produced the famous Lucknow Pact, an agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League (founded in 1906 at Dhaka, initially to safeguard separate Muslim political interests) to jointly demand constitutional reform from the British, including the League's demand for separate electorates.

Exam trap: The Surat Split (1907) and the Lucknow Pact/reunion (1916) are exactly nine years apart and are often tested together as a pair. Keep the sequence straight: split first, reunion later, and note that the Muslim League was founded in 1906, one year before the split.

Gandhi's Arrival and Early Movements

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, where he had already developed and tested his method of Satyagraha (nonviolent resistance rooted in truth-force) against discriminatory laws targeting Indians. His first major interventions in India were local: the Champaran Satyagraha (1917) in Bihar, supporting indigo cultivators forced into exploitative farming arrangements; the Kheda Satyagraha (1918) in Gujarat, supporting farmers seeking tax relief after crop failure; and the Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918), mediating a dispute between mill owners and workers over wages.

Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922)

Gandhi's first genuinely all-India movement was triggered by two grievances converging at once: the Rowlatt Act (1919), which allowed detention without trial and provoked widespread protest, and the horror of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (13 April 1919), where British troops under General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed crowd gathered at Amritsar for Baisakhi, killing hundreds. Layered on top of this was the Khilafat movement, an Indian Muslim campaign in support of the Ottoman Caliphate, which Gandhi allied with Congress to build a joint Hindu-Muslim mass movement.

The Non-Cooperation Movement, launched in 1920, called on Indians to boycott British titles, government schools and colleges, courts, and foreign goods, and to surrender government honours. It gained enormous, unprecedented mass participation. Gandhi abruptly called off the movement in February 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident, in Uttar Pradesh, where an angry crowd set fire to a police station, killing several policemen — a violation of the strict nonviolence Gandhi insisted the movement maintain.

Memory hook: Chauri Chaura burns, movement ends. A single violent incident, against Gandhi's core principle, was enough to shut down a nationwide campaign — proof of how seriously he treated nonviolence as non-negotiable, not just tactical.

Civil Disobedience Movement (1930–1934)

The next great movement began with a strikingly specific act. Gandhi announced eleven demands to Viceroy Lord Irwin; when they went unmet, he launched the Dandi March (Salt March), walking roughly 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi on the Gujarat coast over 24 days, starting on 12 March 1930, to break the government's salt monopoly by making salt from seawater himself. This deceptively simple act of civil disobedience against a law affecting every Indian household triggered the broader Civil Disobedience Movement, which spread to boycotts of foreign cloth, non-payment of taxes, and defiance of forest laws.

The movement led to negotiations and the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (March 1931), under which the government agreed to release political prisoners and Gandhi agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London and suspend civil disobedience temporarily. When talks in London produced little of substance, the movement resumed but was called off for good in 1934, worn down by sustained government repression.

Quit India Movement (1942)

By 1942, with the Second World War underway and the failure of the Cripps Mission (which offered dominion status after the war but fell short of immediate self-government, and was rejected by Congress), Gandhi launched his most direct and urgent call yet: "Do or Die," delivered at the Bombay session of the AICC on 8 August 1942, launching the Quit India Movement. The British responded with immediate, sweeping arrests of top Congress leadership within hours, which meant the movement, unusually, proceeded largely without centralized leadership, driven by spontaneous local action, underground networks, and figures like Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Aruna Asaf Ali, who famously hoisted the Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay after senior leaders were arrested.

Memory hook: Three movements, three trigger points and three closing points, all worth memorizing as pairs — Non-Cooperation: Rowlatt Act/Jallianwala Bagh opens it, Chauri Chaura closes it. Civil Disobedience: Salt tax and the Dandi March open it, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact pauses it. Quit India: Cripps Mission failure opens it, mass arrests scatter its leadership but the movement itself outlasts the arrests.

Exam trap: Do not swap the closing events. Chauri Chaura ended Non-Cooperation (1922); the Gandhi-Irwin Pact paused (not fully ended) Civil Disobedience (1931); Quit India had no single closing pact — it simply wound down under sustained repression as the war moved toward its end.

Revolutionary Movements

Alongside Gandhian mass mobilization, a parallel strand of revolutionary nationalism pursued more direct and often armed resistance.

Bhagat Singh, along with Rajguru and Sukhdev, is the most remembered figure of this strand. Bhagat Singh, associated with the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), was involved in the killing of British police officer John Saunders in 1928 in retaliation for the death of Lala Lajpat Rai (who died from injuries sustained in a police lathi charge during a protest against the Simon Commission). Bhagat Singh, along with Batukeshwar Dutt, later threw a low-intensity bomb inside the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi in 1929, deliberately designed not to harm anyone, to protest repressive legislation, and then courted arrest, using the trial as a platform to publicize revolutionary ideas. He was executed, along with Rajguru and Sukhdev, on 23 March 1931, a date now observed as Shaheed Diwas (Martyrs' Day).

Subhas Chandra Bose, a former Congress president who broke with Gandhi's leadership over strategy, particularly the question of using armed struggle, escaped house arrest and eventually reached Germany and later Southeast Asia during the Second World War. He took leadership of the Indian National Army (INA, also called Azad Hind Fauj), originally formed by Rash Behari Bose and Captain Mohan Singh from Indian prisoners of war in Japanese custody, and led it under Japanese support to fight British forces in the northeastern frontier, most notably at Imphal and Kohima in 1944, campaigns that ultimately failed militarily. Bose also established the Azad Hind Government (Provisional Government of Free India) in 1943 in Singapore, and gave his famous call, "Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom." He is widely believed to have died in an air crash near Taipei, Taiwan, in August 1945, though the circumstances have long generated public debate.

Memory hook: Bhagat Singh's method was targeted, dramatic protest inside British institutions to win public attention and a trial platform; Bose's method was building an entire alternative army and government to fight the British militarily from outside India. Two very different theories of how revolution should work, from the same broad generation.

The Simon Commission, Round Table Conferences, and the Roadmap to Partition

The Simon Commission, appointed in 1927 to review India's constitutional progress, was boycotted across India because it contained no Indian members, provoking the slogan "Simon, Go Back." It was during a protest against the Commission in Lahore that Lala Lajpat Rai was fatally injured in a police lathi charge in 1928, directly feeding into the revolutionary response described above.

Three Round Table Conferences were held in London between 1930 and 1932 to discuss constitutional reform. The First (1930) was boycotted by Congress, whose leadership was in jail over Civil Disobedience. The Second (1931) was attended by Gandhi as the sole Congress representative, following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, but achieved little concrete progress, partly over unresolved disagreements on minority representation. The Third (1932) saw very limited Congress participation and, likewise, produced little.

The Communal Award (1932), announced by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, proposed separate electorates for depressed classes (Dalits) along with other religious minorities. Gandhi opposed this specific provision through a fast in Yerwada jail, arguing it would permanently divide Hindu society, and the resulting negotiation with B.R. Ambedkar produced the Poona Pact (1932), which replaced separate electorates for depressed classes with reserved seats within the general electorate.

The Government of India Act, 1935, the most comprehensive constitutional document before independence, introduced provincial autonomy and a proposed (but never implemented) federal structure, and served as the broad template later adapted for the Constitution of independent India.

During the Second World War, the Cripps Mission (1942), led by Sir Stafford Cripps, offered post-war dominion status in exchange for wartime cooperation, but was rejected by Congress as too little, too late — famously described by Gandhi as "a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank." This rejection directly preceded the Quit India Movement.

As the war ended, the Cabinet Mission (1946), comprising three British cabinet members, proposed a loose, three-tier federal structure to keep India united while accommodating Muslim League demands for autonomy in Muslim-majority regions, grouped into sections. The plan was initially accepted in principle by both Congress and the League but collapsed over differing interpretations, and the League's subsequent call for "Direct Action Day" on 16 August 1946 triggered severe communal violence, particularly in Calcutta, accelerating the slide toward partition.

Exam trap: The Cripps Mission (1942, wartime, dominion status offer) and the Cabinet Mission (1946, post-war, federal structure proposal to prevent partition) are frequently confused simply because both involve a "Mission" sent from Britain. Anchor them by purpose: Cripps was about wartime cooperation, Cabinet Mission was about the final transfer-of-power structure.

Constitutional Reforms Before 1935 — Building Context

It helps to see the freedom struggle alongside the gradual (and deliberately slow) constitutional concessions the British made along the way, because Congress strategy repeatedly shifted in response to what these reforms offered or withheld.

The Indian Councils Act, 1909, commonly called the Morley-Minto Reforms, expanded legislative councils and, controversially, introduced separate electorates for Muslims, a decision that hardened communal political categories for decades to come and is often cited as an early structural cause of eventual partition. The Government of India Act, 1919, known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, introduced a system called dyarchy in the provinces, dividing subjects into "transferred" areas (like education and health, run by Indian ministers responsible to the legislature) and "reserved" areas (like finance and police, kept under British officials), a half-measure that satisfied almost no one and fed directly into the frustration that produced the Non-Cooperation Movement the following year.

Memory hook: Morley-Minto (1909) introduced separate electorates; Montagu-Chelmsford (1919) introduced dyarchy. Two reform packages exactly ten years apart, each remembered for exactly one signature mechanism — keep the decade and the mechanism paired.

Exam trap: Students sometimes credit the Government of India Act, 1935 with introducing dyarchy. Dyarchy actually began at the provincial level under the 1919 Act; the 1935 Act extended a version of dyarchy to the central government while giving provinces full autonomy, so if a question asks specifically where dyarchy was first introduced, the 1919 Act is the answer, not 1935.

Partition and Independence, 1947

Lord Mountbatten, appointed Viceroy in early 1947 with a mandate to complete the British withdrawal, concluded that a united, negotiated transfer of power was no longer achievable given the depth of Congress-League disagreement and the scale of communal violence. He announced the Mountbatten Plan (June 1947), accepted by both Congress and the Muslim League, providing for partition into two independent dominions.

The Indian Independence Act, 1947, passed by the British Parliament, gave legal effect to this plan. India and Pakistan became independent on 14–15 August 1947, with boundaries drawn by a commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, whose line, announced only after independence, triggered one of the largest and most violent mass migrations in human history, with an estimated ten to fifteen million people crossing borders and enormous loss of life amid communal riots.

Jawaharlal Nehru became independent India's first Prime Minister, delivering his address, "Tryst with Destiny," at midnight on 14–15 August 1947. Pakistan celebrated its independence a day earlier, on 14 August 1947, while India's official independence day remains 15 August, a distinction that trips up students who assume both nations mark the same calendar date. Lord Mountbatten served as independent India's first Governor-General for a short transitional period, succeeded by C. Rajagopalachari, the only Indian to hold that office before it was abolished with the adoption of the Constitution in 1950. Muhammad Ali Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan.

Memory hook: The final sequence runs Mountbatten Plan (June 1947, the decision to partition) then Indian Independence Act (the British law making it official) then 14–15 August 1947 (the actual transfer of power) — decision, law, execution, in that order, all within roughly ten weeks.

Other Strands Worth Knowing

Not every part of the freedom struggle fits neatly into the Congress narrative, and SSC papers occasionally reach for these adjacent threads.

The Home Rule Movement (1916), launched separately by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Maharashtra and Annie Besant (an Irish-born theosophist and social reformer) across Madras and other regions, campaigned for self-government within the British Empire, modelled loosely on Irish Home Rule demands, and helped rebuild mass political energy after the Extremist-Moderate split had weakened Congress activity for nearly a decade.

The Ghadar Party, founded in 1913 by Indian immigrants on the American west coast, primarily in San Francisco, under leaders including Lala Hardayal, aimed to organize an armed uprising against British rule with support from Indians abroad; its plans were largely disrupted by British intelligence before they could mature into a coordinated rebellion.

Women's participation deserves specific attention beyond the individual leaders already named. Sarojini Naidu, poet and political leader, became the first Indian woman to serve as President of the Indian National Congress, at its 1925 Kanpur session, and later became the first woman Governor of an Indian state after independence. Kasturba Gandhi was jailed multiple times for her own participation in satyagraha campaigns, not merely as Gandhi's spouse but as an organizer in her own right, particularly during Quit India. Large numbers of women joined the Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement's picketing of liquor shops and foreign-cloth stores, a scale of participation that marked a genuine shift from earlier, more male-dominated phases of the movement.

Exam trap: Sarojini Naidu is frequently confused with Annie Besant on "first woman Congress president" questions. Annie Besant presided over Congress earlier, at its 1917 Calcutta session, but she was British-born; Sarojini Naidu, in 1925, was the first Indian-born woman to hold the post. If a question specifies "first Indian woman," the answer is Naidu; if it asks simply "first woman president of Congress" without the nationality qualifier, the answer is Besant.

Timeline Anchor — Tying It All Together

If you remember nothing else from this chapter under exam pressure, hold onto this compressed spine and let the details attach themselves to it: Congress founded (1885), Bengal partitioned and Swadeshi begins (1905), Congress splits at Surat (1907), Muslim League founded (1906) and reunites with Congress at Lucknow (1916), Gandhi returns and starts local satyagrahas (1915–1918), Jallianwala Bagh and Non-Cooperation (1919–1922), Simon Commission boycotted (1927), Dandi March and Civil Disobedience (1930), Poona Pact (1932), Government of India Act (1935), Cripps Mission rejected and Quit India launched (1942), INA's push at Imphal-Kohima (1944), Cabinet Mission fails (1946), and Partition and Independence (1947). Ninety years, compressed into roughly fifteen anchor dates. Every fact in this chapter hangs off one of these pegs.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 by A.O. Hume; first president W.C. Bonnerjee.
• Dadabhai Naoroji proposed the "Drain of Wealth" theory.
• Lal-Bal-Pal (Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Pal) led the Extremist phase of the Congress.
• Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon in 1905 and reunited in 1911.
• Muslim League was founded in 1906 at Dhaka.
• The Congress split at Surat in 1907 and reunited at Lucknow in 1916.
• The Lucknow Pact (1916) was an agreement between Congress and the Muslim League.
• Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915.
• Champaran (1917) and Kheda (1918) were Gandhi's first Indian satyagrahas.
• Jallianwala Bagh massacre occurred on 13 April 1919 under General Dyer's orders.
• Non-Cooperation Movement (1920) was called off after Chauri Chaura (February 1922).
• Dandi March began on 12 March 1930, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931.
• Quit India Movement was launched on 8 August 1942 with the call "Do or Die."
• Cripps Mission (1942) offered post-war dominion status; Congress rejected it.
• Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were executed on 23 March 1931.
• Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt bombed the Central Legislative Assembly in 1929.
• Simon Commission (1927) was boycotted for having no Indian members.
• Lala Lajpat Rai died in 1928 from injuries sustained protesting the Simon Commission.
• Three Round Table Conferences were held in London between 1930 and 1932.
• The Poona Pact (1932) followed Gandhi's opposition to the Communal Award.
• Government of India Act, 1935 introduced provincial autonomy.
• Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj).
• INA fought at Imphal and Kohima in 1944.
• Cabinet Mission (1946) proposed a three-tier federal structure.
• Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) triggered severe communal violence.
• Mountbatten Plan (June 1947) provided for partition into two dominions.
• Radcliffe Line, drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, decided the India-Pakistan border.
• India became independent on 15 August 1947; Nehru became first Prime Minister.
• C. Rajagopalachari was the only Indian Governor-General of independent India.
• Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Three Gandhian Mass Movements

Movement	Years	Trigger	How it ended
Non-Cooperation	1920–1922	Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh, Khilafat	Chauri Chaura incident, called off
Civil Disobedience	1930–1934	Salt tax, Dandi March	Gandhi-Irwin Pact (paused), later withdrawn
Quit India	1942	Cripps Mission failure, wartime urgency	Mass arrests, no formal closing pact

Table 2: Missions, Commissions, and Pacts (1927–1946)

Event	Year	Core purpose
Simon Commission	1927	Review constitutional progress (boycotted, no Indian members)
Round Table Conferences	1930–1932	Discuss constitutional reform in London
Communal Award / Poona Pact	1932	Electorate arrangement for depressed classes
Government of India Act	1935	Provincial autonomy, federal blueprint
Cripps Mission	1942	Wartime cooperation offer, dominion status post-war
Cabinet Mission	1946	Federal structure to avoid partition

Practice MCQs

Q1. Who founded the Indian National Congress in 1885? (a) Dadabhai Naoroji (b) A.O. Hume (c) W.C. Bonnerjee (d) Surendranath Banerjee

Q2. The "Lal-Bal-Pal" trio refers to which group of leaders? (a) Moderate leaders (b) Revolutionary leaders (c) Extremist leaders (d) Muslim League leaders

Q3. Bengal was partitioned by which Viceroy in 1905? (a) Lord Curzon (b) Lord Minto (c) Lord Hardinge (d) Lord Irwin

Q4. The Congress and the Muslim League signed the Lucknow Pact in which year? (a) 1907 (b) 1916 (c) 1919 (d) 1922

Q5. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on: (a) 6 April 1919 (b) 13 April 1919 (c) 23 March 1919 (d) 10 May 1919

Q6. The Non-Cooperation Movement was called off following which incident? (a) Jallianwala Bagh massacre (b) Chauri Chaura incident (c) Dandi March (d) Simon Commission protests

Q7. The Dandi March, marking the start of the Civil Disobedience Movement, began on: (a) 6 April 1930 (b) 12 March 1930 (c) 26 January 1930 (d) 8 August 1930

Q8. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were executed on: (a) 30 January 1931 (b) 23 March 1931 (c) 8 August 1942 (d) 15 August 1947

Q9. The Simon Commission was widely boycotted in India primarily because: (a) It proposed separate electorates (b) It contained no Indian members (c) It recommended partition (d) It rejected dominion status

Q10. The Poona Pact (1932) was signed between Gandhi and: (a) B.R. Ambedkar (b) Muhammad Ali Jinnah (c) Lord Irwin (d) Motilal Nehru

Q11. Subhas Chandra Bose led which military organization during the Second World War? (a) Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (b) Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) (c) Ghadar Party (d) Anushilan Samiti

Q12. The Cripps Mission of 1942 was primarily sent to: (a) Announce Indian independence (b) Propose partition (c) Secure Indian cooperation in the war effort by offering post-war dominion status (d) Investigate the Jallianwala Bagh massacre

Q13. The Cabinet Mission of 1946 proposed which broad constitutional structure? (a) Complete independence with no federal structure (b) A three-tier federal structure to keep India united (c) Immediate partition (d) Continuation of Crown rule with minor reform

Q14. The Radcliffe Line, drawn in 1947, determined: (a) The boundary between British India's provinces (b) The India-Pakistan border (c) The Simla Agreement line (d) The Durand Line

Q15. Who became the first Prime Minister of independent India in 1947? (a) Mahatma Gandhi (b) Jawaharlal Nehru (c) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (d) C. Rajagopalachari

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(b)	A.O. Hume founded the INC in 1885; Bonnerjee presided over its first session, a distinct fact.
2	(c)	Tilak, Lajpat Rai, and Pal led the assertive Extremist wing, distinct from Moderate leaders.
3	(a)	Lord Curzon ordered the 1905 partition of Bengal, reversed by 1911 under mass protest.
4	(b)	The Lucknow Pact (1916) coincided with the Congress-Extremist reunion at the same session.
5	(b)	General Dyer's troops fired on an unarmed Baisakhi crowd on 13 April 1919 in Amritsar.
6	(b)	The Chauri Chaura violence in February 1922 led Gandhi to withdraw Non-Cooperation.
7	(b)	Gandhi began the 240-mile Salt March from Sabarmati on 12 March 1930, reaching Dandi in April.
8	(b)	23 March 1931 is observed as Shaheed Diwas for the three revolutionaries' execution.
9	(b)	The all-British Simon Commission excluded Indians, prompting the "Simon, Go Back" protests.
10	(a)	The Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar replaced separate electorates with reserved seats.
11	(b)	Bose led the INA (Azad Hind Fauj), fighting British forces at Imphal and Kohima in 1944.
12	(c)	Cripps offered dominion status after the war in exchange for wartime support; Congress refused.
13	(b)	The Cabinet Mission proposed a loose federal structure to avoid outright partition, in 1946.
14	(b)	Sir Cyril Radcliffe's boundary commission drew the India-Pakistan border in 1947.
15	(b)	Nehru became independent India's first Prime Minister, delivering the midnight address on 15 August 1947.