Why did the British leave India in 1947?

Résumé du document

The independence of India in August 1947 was the result of a long process which started after the First World War. Indeed in 1919 Parliament had passed the Government of India Act which was designed to organize provincial governments in India. Then, before 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War, there were moves by Great Britain to give more self-government to India. Both major parties of the British National Government were committed to giving more autonomy to the eleven Indian Provinces through the 1935 Government of India Act. Even if the provincial governments had more and more power, the essential functions were still in hands of the British Viceroy and the British government was still responsible for foreign and defense affairs. As Britain proposed a federal solution to India's problems, independence movements – such as the Congress with Gandhi at its head – asked for more autonomy. But the Declaration of War in 1939 was a crucial step towards independence of India. Indeed the Congress Party together with nationalists saw in the war the opportunity to achieve their goals.

Extraits

[...] After the end of the war in May 1945 and the General election in Great Britain, the Labour government, with Clement Attlee as Prime Minister, was committed to giving India independence as quickly as possible. In spite of his fear of seeing the partition of India, Attlee announced that Britain would leave India whatever happened in June 1948. In fact independence was moved up to August 1947. This raises an important issue: why did Britain give India independence in 1947? Why neither before nor after? Yet India was not the only colony to obtain independence since the post-war period was marked by the fall of the British Empire everywhere in the world. [...]

[...] In order to explain why the British left India in 1947, we also have to study the situation in India. With the outbreak of the war on 3 September 1939, decolonisation and self-rule became important issues for the Indians. Soon after the declaration of war the Congress Party demanded independence: in October 1939, the All India Congress Committee resolved that India must immediately be declared an independent nation. Britain's reply was that those changes had to wait until after the war, even if the British position got weaker and weaker because of Japan's victories in Asia. [...]

[...] On the contrary Churchill, who was Conservative Prime Minister during the war, inclined to put India reform on hold in the interests of winning the war, since India was a major base and source of troops”[4]; so decolonisation of India could not have been made before 1945. Attlee's point of view was quite different as he was responsible for Southern Asian decolonisation. His first move was to call elections in India at the end of 1945. Then he sent Cripps in India from March to May 1946 in order to negotiate with the Indian leaders and so to avert Pakistan separation. Therefore India benefited from the intervention of Attlee who was inclined to deal with domestic problems as well as with the Indian question. [...]

[...] After 1945 there were many endeavours on the part of Britain to remain a world power, even if the biggest part of the Empire was on the way to independence. Besides Britain's place in Europe was at stake since the other industrialized countries recovered faster and since Britain had to deal with the Irish question. W. David MacIntyre, British Decolonisation, 1946-1997: why and how did the British empire (London: Macmillan, 1998) 83. MacIntyre Ibid Ibid Joseph Levesque, Colonisation et décolonisation ; Analyse du processus et description de deux cas : l'Inde et l'Algérie (Paris : Editions des Ecrivains, 1998) 256. [...]

[...] Therefore we can find three main reasons for India's independence in 1947. First of all we have to consider the situation of the British economy after the war. Britain had to face a severe financial crisis while the Labour government tried to establish the Welfare State and to follow a policy of nationalization, which was very expensive. Secondly we must consider the fact that in 1947 India was on the verge of revolt because of the growing independence movement. Indeed Britain's fear of a civil war and its consequences can be considered as one of the reasons why Britain left India. [...]