Decolonization

Résumé du document

India was Britain's first colony to be decolonized, in 1947, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, Britain had promised India, before the war began a transfer of power, to make the sub-continent more independent. Furthermore, Britain had already started an "Indianization" of the army and civil service: once the British withdrew, the Indians would have enough experience to effectively run their own country. It had even started its own tariff system, making it economically independent from Great-Britain. Secondly, by 1945, Britain was in debt to India: the subcontinent was not keeping its role as an economic asset to England, but was becoming an economic liability.

Finally, the Second World War had a negative impact on English and Indian relations. To be able to keep up with the cost of the war, financially and humanly, the British had to mobilize India's resources, reinforcing Indian nationalism. Additionally, the extremely high cost of the war left England broke. The idea of war was inconceivable for most of the British, and the current government, the Labor Party, was ideologically committed to decolonization.

However, keeping India meant sending more troops to calm Indian nationalism and the heightening tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims. India was thus the first to be decolonized because it was becoming increasingly independent, nationalism was heightening and because it was not serving its purpose of an economic and strategic asset.

Extraits

[...] Furthermore, the decolonization of Kenya was as well due to political negotiating, by political leaders Kenyan political leaders Odinga Odinga and Tom Mboya, by showing Britain that Kenya was mature politically mature enough to achieve independence, than terrorist action that liberated Kenya. The falling economic importance of Britain's colonies is also sometimes over judged. For Waites, the economic performance of the British Empire did not lessen: Britain decolonized because of revolution of rising expectations”. Britain, in the 1950s, was enjoying a period of very large growth, while the Empire's growth stagnated: the Empire's input seemed increasingly small. [...]

[...] Furthermore, British decolonization would bear no economical cost - Britain would lose neither a good market to invest in, neither economic gains - and would on the contrary be able to invest the money used to maintain their colonies into the economy. If Britain decolonized, it would be able to cut taxes and increase wages, which would in turn stimulate employment and the economy. By explaining the possible economic gains of decolonization in his “Wind of Change” speech, Macmillan produced a rise in popular opinion for decolonization. [...]

[...] Decolonization 1. India was Britain's first colony to be decolonized, in 1947, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, Britain had promised India, before the war began a transfer of power, to make the sub-continent more independent. Furthermore, Britain had already started an “Indianisation” of the army and civil service: once the British withdrew, the Indians would have enough experience to effectively run their own country. It had even started its own tariff system, making it economically independent from Great-Britain. [...]

[...] The Suez Crisis showed that even countries that were not colonized were fighting against colonization. Nasser, who wanted the removal of white men from the Middle East, posed enough threat to England for Eden to declare that he wanted him “destroyed”. Nationalism and anti-colonialism was rapidly rising and colonized and non-colonized countries and populations were now willing to go to new heights to make their point. In his “Wind of Change” speech, Macmillan admits that wind of change is blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact [ ] and our national policies must take account of a rise in nationalism was thus one of the causes of British decolonization. [...]

[...] India was thus the first to be decolonized because it was becoming increasingly independent, nationalism was heightening and because it was not serving its purpose of an economic and strategic asset In July 1956, the Egyptian nationalist president and prime minister, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal, until then owned by the French and English. Their attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal ended in embarrassment, withdrawing from Egypt under US pressure. This crisis was, to a certain extent, the turning point in decolonization. Firstly, it showed the world, and most importantly English colonies, that Britain was unable to take a firm and successful stance against a country without backing from the United States. Britain had become, like many other countries, an American “satellite”. [...]