The term "Indian independence movement" is diffuse, incorporating various national and regional campaigns, agitations and efforts of both Nonviolent and Militant philosophy and involved a wide spectrum of political organizations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending the British Colonial Authority as well as other colonial administrations in South Asia. The Portuguese can trace the initial resistance to the movement back to the very beginnings of Colonial Expansion in Karnataka in the 16th century and by the British East India Company in Bengal, in the middle and late 1700s. The first organized militant movement was in Bengal, that later took political stage in the form of mainstream movement from of the then newly formed Indian National Congress with prominent moderate leaders seeking only their basic rights to appear for civil services examinations and more rights, economic in nature, for the people of the soil. They used moderate methods of prayer, petition and the press (3p's). The beginning of the early 1900s saw a more radical approach towards political independence proposed by leaders such as the Lal Bal Pal and Sri Aurobindo. Militant nationalism also emerged in the first decades, culminating in the failed Indo-German Pact and Ghadar Conspiracy during the World War I. The end of the freedom struggle saw the Congress adopt the policies of nonviolence led by Mahatma Gandhi. Other leaders, such as Subhash Chandra Bose (called Netaji), later came to adopt a military approach to the movement. Yet there were others like Swami Sahajanand Saraswati who along with political freedom wanted economic freedom of peasants and toiling masses of the country. The World War II period saw the peak of the movements like INA movement led by Subhas Chandra Bose from East Asia and Quit India movement.
India remained a Dominion of The Crown until 26 January 1950, when it adopted its Constitution to proclaim itself a Republic....