The British even brought forward the deadline for withdrawal by almost a year.

The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 as an all-India, secular political party and a forum for growing nationalist feeling.

For many years, nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi headed a campaign of non-violent protest against British rule. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called on India to support Britain's fight against the Nazis, Gandhi insisted Indians should not join the war while being oppressed at home.

On 8 August 1942, Congress launched the Quit India movement. The British government declared it to be an unlawful organisation, and the next day, Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of its working committee were arrested. Mass demonstrations and violent protests followed.

The 1930s saw a growing mistrust between Congress and the Muslim League, a body founded in 1906 as a forum for Indian Muslim separatism.

In 1940, the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, endorsed the idea of partition and the creation of a separate nation for India's large Muslim minority, along the subcontinent’s north-western and north-eastern boundaries.

The name Pakstan - without the letter 'i' - was coined in 1933. P stands for Punjab, A for the Afghanis of the north-west frontier, K for Kashmir, S for Sind and Tan denoting Baluchistan. The word also means ‘land of the pure’ in Urdu.