How British viceroy’s whim, Hindu stars, Muslim spirituality shaped birth of India and Pakistan

Iftikhar Gilani

On the eve of India and Pakistan’s independence anniversaries, the question still lingers: Did freedom truly arrive on August 15, 1947 — or was it actually August 14?

Legally, the Indian Independence Act is clear: from August 15, two dominions — India and Pakistan — came into being.

Founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah himself called August 15 Pakistan’s “birthday.” Postage stamps issued in 1948 said the same. Yet Pakistan celebrates on August 14, the day Jinnah took oath as governor-general in Karachi.

The reason, historians say, lies in Lord Louis Mountbatten’s travel schedule and an unusual midnight compromise. Mountbatten swore in Jinnah on the 14th before flying to Delhi for India’s power transfer at the stroke of midnight.

Pakistan celebrates August 14 and India on August 15. Both are right in their own way, and the reason is more human than legal. It involves a Viceroy’s pride, widespread faith in auspicious hours, and a compromise that turned midnight into a stage.

P. Acharya, a retired Special Chief Secretary of Telangana, stumbled on the most revealing piece of this puzzle in the early 1980s. As a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, he helped authors Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre sift through Lord Mountbatten’s personal papers and interview tapes for a follow-up to magnum opus book Freedom at Midnight.

“Among the huge loads of material, one taped interview stood out,” Acharya recalls.

“What struck me was Mountbatten’s characteristic arrogance and insouciance. He confessed he chose August 15 simply because it marked the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. He had not consulted Indian leaders, who thought it was an inauspicious day as per astrologers.”

In that interview, Mountbatten admitted the pushback caught him off guard.

“I hadn’t consulted the astrologers,” he said. “Nehru didn’t believe in astrology, but he said so many people did, and I’d chosen an unpropitious day. He suggested we have a midnight meeting just before the 15th so it would be more auspicious. What a marvellous, dramatic idea, and you’ll remember, it was done not for drama but because I’d chosen the wrong day.”

While the day was inauspicious for Hindus, for Muslims the night of 14–15 August 1947 was of immense spiritual significance.

It coincided with 27 Ramadan 1366 of the Islamic calendar  which Muslims regard as a sacred night. In Islamic belief, Laylat al-Qadr, or the Night of Power, is a sacred night in memory of when the Holy Quran was first sent down from heaven to the world.

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, engage in extra prayers, and recite and reflect upon the Quran.

 In the Hindu calendar, the new day begins at sunrise, not at midnight. By holding the ceremony at midnight, leaders could keep Mountbatten’s chosen date on the Western calendar while avoiding the sunrise of August 15, considered unlucky by many pundits and priests.

“It was what I call an astrological upay, a clever workaround born out of compulsion, not choice,” Acharya says.

“It was essentially a Viceregal whim, and our leaders, even Patel and Kripalani who objected, ended up accommodating it. The midnight ceremony was a compromise to make an inauspicious day acceptable.”

The world remembers that night in Delhi through Jawaharlal Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech in the Constituent Assembly. The proceedings began around 11.30 p.m. on August 14 and rolled into August 15.

Outside the chamber, the subcontinent was in turmoil. Families pressed around radios. Trains rolled through the night carrying refugees. Violence spread along new borders. Even at that moment of arrival, the tone was set by a balance between colonial authority and local belief.

“History often turns on the ordinary and the emotional, not just on law,” Acharya reflects. “This episode shows how, even at independence, we were negotiating between a British timetable and our own traditions. That tension still shapes our politics and public life.”

Pakistan’s observance on August 14 grew from its earlier oath-taking and the lived memory of a day that felt like the beginning.

India’s ceremony at the stroke of midnight kept faith with the statute and with a nation that would wake to its freedom on the morning of August 15. In the Hindu reckoning, midnight was still the 14th. In the Western reckoning, it was already the 15th. Two clocks, one independence.

What to remember

• The law: The Indian Independence Act said the new Dominions would come into being on August 15, 1947.
• The ceremony: Pakistan’s oath in Karachi happened on August 14, India’s transfer of power in Delhi took place at midnight that flowed into August 15.
• The compromise: Midnight satisfied Western time while avoiding an inauspicious sunrise in the Hindu calendar.
• For Muslims 14–15 August 1947 coincided with 27 Ramadan 1366 of the Islamic calendar  which Muslims regard as a sacred night.
• The human layer: Ego, faith, and practicality stood beside politics in the birth of two nations.

Or, as Acharya puts it, “The British Viceroy’s ego, Indian superstition, and political expediency all converged. The story behind those dates makes independence feel more human, not less.”