RAS question
Lord Mountbatten advanced the date of independence from June 1948 to August 1947 because:
Correct answer: (A) Rapidly deteriorating communal situation and administrative collapse.
Lord Mountbatten advanced Indian independence from June 1948 to August 1947 because the communal situation and British administrative control were deteriorating too fast to wait.
Explanation
Mountbatten's decision was driven by urgency, not by a neat constitutional timetable. The original British deadline was no later than June 1948, but communal violence had worsened after Direct Action Day, Noakhali, Bihar and Punjab, alongside weakening British administrative control. Encyclopaedia Britannica supports the same logic: after consulting Indian leaders and officials in Delhi, Mountbatten judged the situation too dangerous to wait even until June 1948, with civil war raging and fears around British troops and Indian military discipline. That is why the date was advanced to August 1947. The choice of 15 August also matched the second anniversary of Japan's surrender in the Second World War, but that explains the date chosen, not the main reason for advancing it.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act after the accelerated transfer plan; it did not independently order Mountbatten to move the deadline forward.
- (C) Congress wanted early transfer of power, but there was no specific Congress demand for August 1947 as the reason for Mountbatten's decision.
- (D) The Muslim League's position shaped the partition crisis, but the question's grounded reason is not a League ultimatum on the date; it is the breakdown of communal and administrative conditions.
Concept
This tests the transfer-of-power phase of modern Indian history, especially how communal violence and administrative limits shaped the timing of independence. RAS repeatedly asks such cause-and-effect questions because they connect constitutional decisions with ground-level political crisis.