End of British rule
The last viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who considered the grant of independence to India as his act of crowning glory, was ambitious to achieve this "superhuman" task in record time. He said that before accepting the post of viceroy, he had told George VI, who was his cousin: "I am prepared to accept the job only on one condition. India must be granted independence by July, 1948 and I will not stay there a day longer". Mountbatten came to India in March, 1947 and this left him just about sixteen months to complete such a gigantic task. In reality, he achieved it in five months, on 15 August 1947, for which he was given much credit.
Originally, the award of the Boundary Commission was to be made public on 13 August. But Mountbatten was reluctant to make this public. According to Philip Ziegler, the author of Mountbatten's official biography, the case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts was uppermost in Mountbatten's mind. Mountbatten "foresaw an Independence Day marred by rancour, Nehru boycotting the ceremonies, India born in an atmosphere not of euphoria but of angry resentment." So Mountbatten decided to announce the award only on 16 August when the celebrations were over. As Zeigler writes, "India's indignation at the award of the Chittagong Hill Tracts to Pakistan may have been a factor in making up Mountbatten's mind to keep the reports to himself till after independence".
Mountbatten was himself surprised by the ferocity of Vallabhbhai Patel's reaction to the issue. In his memoirs he wrote, "The one man I had regarded as a real statesman with both his feet firmly on the ground, and a man of honour whose word was his bond, had turned out to be as hysterical as the rest. Candidly I was amazed that such a terrific crisis should have blown up over so small a matter. However, I have been long enough in India to realise that major crises are by no means confined to big matters." Leonard Mosley in his book The Last Days of the British Raj puts it as "a matter for Mountbatten's conscience".
History
The early history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a record of constantly recurring raids on the part of the eastern hill tribes and of the operations undertaken to repress them, of which narrative will be found in the article on the Lushai Hills (Eastern Chakma kingdom).In the early 16th century the chakma people came from Arakan(Burma) due to repression and hostility by Rakhaine people. The Chakma are the single largest tribe, comprising half of the tribal population. The Marma people are the second largest tribe. They came from Burma when arakan was conquered by Burmese king Bodawpaya. The tribal peoples emigratted from burma due to repression by the burmese king settled in the hill tracts with the consent of subedar of bengal who is the representattive of Mughal emperor. The Bengali people lived in chittagong hill tracts from the later period of British rule. The Bengali People comprised majority of the population of Chittagong Hill Tracts.
