Self-determination
In 1947, India gained independence from the British Empire. The empire was in decline but adapted to these circumstances by creating the British Commonwealth—since 1949 the Commonwealth of Nations—which is a free association of equal states. As India obtained its independence, multiple ethnic conflicts emerged in relation to the formation of a statehood during the Partition of India which resulted in Islamic Pakistan and Secular India. Before the advent of the British, no empire based in mainland India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country's Northeast, part of the reason for the ongoing insurgency in Northeast India. In 1971 Bangladesh obtained independence from Pakistan.
Speeches about Indian independence
Although the militant factions of the Independence movement were advocating a complete break from British rule for almost a century, the first call for a non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi was articulated in the aftermath of the failed Cripps' mission in April, 1942. Below is an excerpt of Gandhi's speech advocating complete independence from British rule.
"I am convinced that the time has come for the British and the Indians to be reconciled to complete separation from each other. Complete and immediate orderly withdrawal of the British from India [...] will at once put the Allied cause on a completely moral basis. [...]
I ask every Briton to support me in my appeal to the British at this hour to retire from every Asiatic and African possession. ... I ask for a bloodless end of an unnatural domination and for a new era. Leave India to God and if that be too much, leave her to anarchy, necessity for withdrawal lies in its being immediate." By Rahul Kumar