India had officially been a colony of the British Empire since 1858. Even before this, when the British East India Company was in power, a strong anti- British nation began to arise among the Indian people. British officials were usually racially discriminating towards the people and often violated their religious beliefs. They were denied privileges and positions within the government. During this tumultuous period, a man named Mohandas K. Ghandi rose up into the ranks. He advocated his idea of Indian independence, but opposed the idea of violence. He promoted the idea of passive resistance. Ghandi and his followers boycotted British goods and did not cooperate with their officers.
Muslim nationalists feared domination and disagreed with some of the British government's objectives. The Muslims eventually came together and formed their own group under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Muslim league was intended to divert Muslims form the independent movement and attract them towards their own cause. The Muslims always dominated the Hindus decisions and demanded their formation of another new independence for themselves; Hindu free. Gandhi was extremely opposed to this idea and desperately tried to make India free.
It was impossible to make separate sections for Hindus and areas where Muslims could live. Therefore, they had to live side by side and as a consequence, their religions overlapped in many ways. Neighbors were always turning against each other and formed violent mobs, which would wound and murder people of opposing faiths and tried to drive the country to one religion. These violent mobs tore through streets, burning, looting, and killing. Hindus were found slaughtered on every street corner. A group of violent, angry fundamentalist Muslims followed a train they had originally planned to travel on, stopped it, and killed every passenger on board. In total, hundreds of thousands were massacred and twelve million were forced to leave their native lands.