1914 - Present
Comparison: Indian and African
Decolonization
Compare patterns and results of decolonization
in Africa and India after WWII
• Europe was sapped of resources and willing
to prop up their colonial empires; so
independence movements were allowed to
occur.
• Nazi routing of the French and a quick
Japanese occupation of British, Dutch,
French, and American colonial possessions
destroyed the myth of white man’s invincibility
- and gave the native people a strengthened
resolve to become self-ruling.
Compare patterns of results of
decolonization in Africa and India
• India: In the late 1930s, the Indian National
Congress tried to make a deal with Great
Britain - India would support the Allies war
effort against the Nazis if Britain would allow
an independent India once the war was over.
Britain rejected the offer.
• Britain sent Sir Stafford Cripps to smooth
things - failure.
• This led to mass civil disobedience campaigns
- the Quit India Movement - which began the
Summer of 1942.
• The British responded with repression and
arrests - Gandhi, Nehru and other politicians
were imprisoned
Compare patterns of results of
decolonization in Africa and India
• India-2: Of all the Indian nationalist parties, the Communists and
the Muslim League, rallied to the British cause.
• The Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, won much
favor from the British for its wartime support. What did Jinnah
want in return? - an independent Muslim state in South Asia.
• Jinnah and the Muslim League worried that an independent
India would be a large majority of Hindus that would discriminate
against a Muslim minority - therefore Pakistan is born.
• The process of decolonization occurred between 1945-47: with
India and Pakistan gaining independence the summer of 1947.
• The British agreed to a partitioning of the Indian subcontinent
as a way to avoid a bloodbath - one occurred anyways.
Compare patterns of results of
decolonization in Africa and India
• India-3: Violent rioting broke the summer of 1947 in Northwest
India between Muslims-Hindus and Muslims-Sikhs. Hundreds of
thousand lives were lost. Women and children were not spared.
Whole villages were wiped-out.
• Result: over 10 million terrified refugees and no Gandhi to teach
tolerance. Gandhi, on his way to a prayer meeting, was
assassinated in early 1948 by a Hindu fanatic.
• The British, in giving up India, started a chain reaction in that
part of the world and soon other British possessions Burma(Myanmar) and Ceylon(Sri Lanka) won their
independence the following years.
India Partition Maps - 1947
Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Gandhi
• Jinnah and Gandhi, best of pals … one leads
Pakistan, one leads India…one is a Muslim,
the other Hindu… both nations want Kasmir…
both nations have “The Bomb.”
Compare patterns of results of
decolonization in Africa and India
•
Africa-1: