Independence Day 2024: Why Pakistan celebrates freedom a day before India

India and Pakistan are marking their 78th Independence Day this month. While India celebrates the joyous occasion on August 15, its neighbour does it a day earlier.

In August 1947, the British rulers split India into two independent nations – India and Pakistan. But why do Indians and Pakistanis observe the same independence on two different days?

Let’s understand.

What does history tell?

The Indian Independence Act of 1947, promulgated on July 18, 1947, gave birth to India and Pakistan. According to the Act, “As from the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan."

August 15 was Pakistan’s independence day is also clear from the historic radio address of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, to his newly created nation.

“August 15 is the birthday of the independent and sovereign state of Pakistan. It marks the fulfillment of the destiny of the Muslim nation which made great sacrifices in the past few years to have its homeland,” Jinnah had said.

Speaking to The Express Tribune in 2016, senior Pakistani journalist Shahida Kazi had said, “If we use logic, any kind of logic, August 15 is the day on which we (Pakistan) should celebrate our independence.”

In fact, Jinnah and the Pakistan cabinet took oaths of office on the morning of August 15, 1947, reported The Express Tribune.

Pakistan’s first commemorative postage stamps, released in July 1948, also referred to August 15, 1947 as the country’s Independence Day.

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For Muslims, August 15, 1947, was an auspicious day as it was the last Friday of the holy month of Ramzan.

Former Pakistan prime minister Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, as per Dawn, wrote in his 1967 book The Emergence of Pakistan, “Fifteenth August 1947 was the last Friday of Ramadan-ul-Mubarak, one of the holiest days in Islam. On that auspicious day, Quaid-i-Azam [Jinnah] became the Governor-General of Pakistan and the cabinet was sworn in, the star-and-crescent flag was hoisted, and Pakistan emerged on the world map.”

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What happened on August 14, 1947?

On August 14, 1947, Viceroy Lord Mountbatten delivered a speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. He was to transfer power to India and Pakistan at midnight on August 15. However, it was not possible for Mountbatten to be in both New Delhi and Karachi at the same time.

Mountbatten first transferred power to Pakistan in Karachi on August 14 and then travelled to New Delhi.

Renowned Pakistani historian Khursheed Kamal Aziz wrote in his book Murder of History, “The power had to be personally transferred to the new countries by the Viceroy, who was the British King’s sole representative in India. Lord Mountbatten could not be present in person in Karachi and New Delhi at the same moment. Nor could he transfer power to India on the morning of 15th August and then rush to Karachi, because by that time, he would have become the Governor General of the new Indian Dominion.

“So the only practicable thing was for him to transfer power to Pakistan on 14th August when he was still the Viceroy of India. But that does not mean that Pakistan gained its independence on 14th August. The Indian Independence Act did not provide for it.”

Why was the date shifted?

Like India, Pakistan should have celebrated its independence on August 15 every year.

However, in 1948, Pakistan advanced its Independence Day to August 14. There are theories behind why this was done.

According to an India Today report, some Pakistan leaders wanted to celebrate Independence Day before India. A group of ministers convened a meeting under the leadership of the then Pakistan prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan towards the end of June 1948.

It was in this meeting that the decision was taken to move forward Pakistan’s Independence Day by a day. The report says Jinnah approved the proposal of advancing Pakistan’s Independence Day to August 14.

But not all agree.

Yasser Latif Hamdani, the author of Jinnah: Myth and Reality, told PTI in 2013 that Jinnah could not have changed the Independence Day date as he was already on his deathbed by August of 1948.

However, Hamdani justified the date change, saying Pakistan was a new nation that needed to carve its identity.

“Why our (Pakistan) leaders decided to celebrate it on the 14th is of course a different story altogether. They just probably wanted it to be on a different day than India,” journalist Kazi told The Express Tribune.

Since 1948, Pakistan has been celebrating its Independence Day on August 14.

With inputs from agencies