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
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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
Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist and writer who would lead the independence movement of India to free the country of British rule (“Mahatma Gandhi,” 2017). He would prove that a single person could change the course of history and take on the entire British Empire. Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience are attributed to his success in gaining independence for India. The act of passive resistance allowed Gandhi to generate more support for his movement for independence while making it difficult for the British to find reasons to arrest them. He argued that although violence could be more effective than peaceful
In 1757, Great Britain extended its empire into India. This occupation would not fully end until 1947. In the time between, there were many movements by the Indian people to gain independence from the British. The movement that finally succeeded in winning India’s independence was led by one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi’s methods for fighting against the occupation of the British were very different from those of any of the freedom movements before. And that was why it worked. Gandhi did not agree with the general reasoning of the time: that conflicts could be solved through negotiation and forceful resistance.1 Rather, his faith led him to go
Just after the French and Indian War, Great Britain was at the top of the world, broke. The war had taken almost
World War II was a period that changed many countries forever after the war ended: Germany was split in two, an iron curtain fell across the continent shortly after the war’s end, and acres of land and millions of people were destroyed and lost in the war. However, many changes happened during the war as well, and this is easily observed in Britain during the beginning of the war, when the country was constantly being bombed and attacked during the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain forced British citizens to change their mindset as a society and as a functioning economy in a split second, regardless of whether or not the people were ready for it.
He outed the moral and political philosophy of satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance, which he had developed while in South Africa. His message to Indians was simple: develop your own resources and control the instincts and activities that encourage membership in colonial economy and government, and you shall achieve swaraj or self-rule. Faced with Indian self-reliance and self-control pursued nonviolently, Gandhi claimed, the British eventually would have to leave. When the Depression struck India in 1930, Gandhi asked for his people not to use salt showing his new way of civil disobedience. Salt symbolized tasked the Indians' defeat to an alien government. To break the colonial government's control, Gandhi began a 240-mile march from western India to the coast to gather sea salt for free. With him were seventy-one followers representing different regions of India. Thousands of people met around and encouraging them to hold independence from British rule. (Pollard, Rosenberg, Tignor 2015 Pages
The salt march which is nonviolent was most successful in helping India gain independence. First, before the protest against Britain’s Salt Tax law, Gandhi wrote a letter to Lord Irwin. For example, in the letter it said that salt are one of the most important thing for the poor people. Also, not be able to buy salt because of the high tax are burdensome on the poor people. “... when it is remembered that salt is one thing he must eat more than the rich man” (source #2).
One of the most widely known event would be when Mahatma Gandhi employed nonviolent strategies such as hunger strikes and protest marches in order to fight oppression. In 1930, Gandhi started the “Salt March” which was aimed at the British “salt tax”- Taxing on Indian salt so the people would have to import salt from Britain. Indians were unable to both collect and sell salt because of the British salt monopoly in India. The march and hunger strikes eventually led India to independence from the Brits. Gandhi’s success in guiding his country to freedom by conducting nonviolent means has proven civil disobedience and direct action to be
We are all aware of the controversies surrounding the Treaty of Versailles and the End of World War I. Historically, most scholars believe that the treaty significantly contributed to events that would ultimately unfold as World War II and was ultimately unsatisfactory to all sides. Despite the agreement of war reparations to be paid, the Interwar period in Britain was devastating from an economic perspective. Prior to the War, Britain could simply not conceive of a world in which it was not at the apex of power. The cost of the war to all participants was, of course, devastating. Britain experienced almost 1 million deaths, or a bit over 2.2% of its population, with another 1.6 million wounded. Another 36,000 colonials died, which also had an effect on the economic welfare
After the French and Indian War in 1763, the price of financing the colonies soared to £350,000 a year. (C&G 95) Although England was pouring a vast amount of money into colonizing America, it was receiving relatively little, despite the growing wealth of the states. The members of Parliament reasoned that since so much money was being spent for the Americans, perhaps they should help pay off the debt that had been acquired in their defense. The Americans, who had until then had quite a bit of freedom to govern themselves, were heavily opposed to taxation or government from England. While they didn't mind having England oversee their international trade and solve their various problems, England was too distant to effectively govern the constantly expanding states. Furthermore, the English Government consisted mainly of aristocrats who were only seeking to increase their personal wealth.
During World War I, Gandhi had an active part in recruiting campaigns by launching his new movement of non-violent resistance to Great Britain (Byers 202). When Parliament passed the Rowlatt Acts in 1919, Satyagraha, which means insistence on truth, spread throughout India, recruiting millions of followers. British soldiers massacred Indians at Amritsar as a demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts. In 1920 the British government failed to make peace, which resulted in Gandhi organizing a campaign of non-cooperation (Andrews 103). There was chaos in India as the public
1919 at Amritsar when the British military massacred more than one thousand people Gandhi called his people to stay calm they obeyed him, he called for everyone to burn foreign-made cloth and start wearing nothing but homespun material millions of people in Indian obeyed him he decides that a march to the sea to protest the salt act would be their rallying point for civil disobedience against the British they obeyed him and follow him to two hundred miles to the city of Dandi, where they were arrested by representatives of British government.
The effect that World War I had upon civilians was devastating. WWI was a war that affected civilians on an unprecedented scale. Civilians became a military target.
In an effort to help free India from the British rule, Mahatma Gandhi once again contributed to a protest against salt taxes, known as the Salt March. This protest advocated Gandhi’s theory of satyagraha or nonviolent disobedience as the nation came together on March 12, 1930 to walk the 241 miles long journey to the shores of Dandi to attain salt. Although some Indians criticized Gandhi for not achieving direct independence from the Raj or British rule, Gandhi’s execution of the Salt March helped to create a stronger nation for the Indians to live in. Gandhi motivated the Indians to act robustly against the injustices of the salt taxes through nonviolent means. This caused Gandhi to create a temporary compromising pact between Gandhi and
This essay will focus on the decolonisation of India by the British Empire and the problems they encountered. It will also aim to bring recognition to the struggle decolonisation brought upon the world after World War II. Pierce states that “after the War concluded, a worldwide process of decolonisation commenced in which Britain granted independence to all of its major colonies, beginning notably in India” (Pierce, 2009). India had struggled with uprisings and conflicts for the many years of British occupation but when Gandhi began sharing his social efforts; the perceptions of colonialism began to change leading to the collapse of the British colonial Empire. Gandhi began changing the lives of regular Indian’s with his popular visions, he also advocated for the people of India in a non-violent
Decolonization can be achieved by gaining independence, along with interaction of power also, it is a political process that causes violence in in a lot of circumstances and may sometimes be resolved by negotiating on peaceful terms. But can also lead to violent resistance and arm struggle by the native population. Eventually with World War coming to an end, it brought a revolution of decolonization in many countries. For many people, this was a positive thing as they were to obtain independence from colonies and empires. Decolonization was a long process to begin with, it took almost thirty years after World War II for some places. With colonial powers getting weaker, that was great chance for independence for Africa and Asia. Not only