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Effects Of Decolonisation Of Britain After The Second World War

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Decolonisation of Britain After the Second World War

It has been said that Britain was “the empire in which the sun never set”. This, in fact, is true. At its height in 1922, Britain controlled 13.01 million square miles of land; which is almost one-fourth of the earth’s land mass. At this time, Britain also controlled around one-fifth of the world’s population; which calculates to around 458 million people. Never before had an empire achieved such phenomenal height; controlling land on every continent; a major economic and political force to be reckoned with. However, the glory and enormous scale of the British Empire would soon take a massive blow. After the Second World War, which lasted from 1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945, Britain …show more content…

For example, the British Raj in India sent over two and a half million volunteer soldiers to fight under the command of the British. As the colonies began to develop a newfound sense of national pride it, in turn, let to the creation of major social movements, which consisted of desperate pleads for independence from Britain. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Mahatma, meaning ‘great soul’, who employed nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve his goal of Indian Independence, led one of such social movements. Mahatma Gandhi led boycotts on British goods and institutions; the most famous of which being his direct action campaign and non-violent protest entitled the ‘March to the Sea’ or the ‘Salt March’ in which thousands of Indians gathered to protest the British tax on sea salt. The earlier Purna Swaraj (literally meaning complete self-rule in Sanskrit), or declaration of the Independence of India alongside Mahatma Gandhi’s social movements in India caused the British to evaluate their presence in

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