British Withdrawal From India

Question 1

What led to the Government of India Act 1919?

Answer 1

What led to the Government of India act 1919 was nationalist demands for self government after the First World War.

Question 2

What did the Government of India Act 1919 allow?

Answer 2

The Government of India Act 1919 allowed a limited system of self-government for India, based on the sharing of powers between Indian ministers and the British Viceroy. Policy of dyarchy: Viceroy maintained control of main areas such as foreign Policy Legislative Council - split into 2 parts with some elected members Provincial councils run by elected Indian ministers.

Question 3

What was the intent behind the Government of India Act 1919?

Answer 3

The Government of India Act 1919 intended to satisfy the demands for greater Indian representation among the moderate nationalists, by presenting the reforms as a step towards full Dominion status for India.

Question 4

Why did Britain adopt a ‘twin track’ strategy?

Answer 4

Britain adopted a ‘twin track’ strategy out of concerns that their reforms might strengthen nationalist aspirations for faster change.

Question 5

What was the ‘twin track’ strategy?

Answer 5

The ‘twin track’ strategy was a combination of reforms and a determination to make them work, with a clear signal that any resort by the nationalists to create mass resistance would be dealt with ruthlessly. This second, tougher strand was enshrined in the passage of the Rowlatt Act of 1919.

Question 6

What was the Rowlatt Act 1919?

Answer 6

The Rowlatt Act gave the authorities harsh powers to arrest and imprison anyone who protested against British rule. It proved to be very counterproductive and produced the Amritsar Massacre of 1919.

Question 7

What expectations were there after the First World War?

Answer 7

By 1918, expectations were high that measures introduced during the war would be eased and that India would be given more political autonomy.

The Montagu-Chelmsford Report, presented to the British Parliament in 1918, did in fact recommend limited local self-government; a system of ‘dyarchy’ was established. Instead, government of India passed the Rowlatt Act in early 1919 which essentially extended the repressive war time measures.

Question 8

What was the Amritsar massacre April 13 1919?

Answer 8

The Amritsar massacre was when a crowd of at least 10,00 men, women and children gathered in an open space known as the Jallianwalla Bagh was open fired on by Brigadier General Dyer who was given the task of restoring order as public gatherings were banned. They kept shooting until they ran out of ammo and an estimated 379 (according to the British government) people were killed, 1200 more were wound.

Question 9

What was the impact of the Amritsar massacre?

Answer 9

The Amritsar Massacre was humiliating and extremely damaging to Britain’s reputation. It was worse than the Indian Mutiny and the Sudan because they fired on innocent people and they had no weapons; they were praying. It was publicly condemned by Montagu (“Are you going to keep your hold on India by terrorism, racial humiliation, subordination and frightfulness…”) and Churchill (“… a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation… the crowd was neither armed or attacking”).

Indian Congress officials claimed that it showed Britain no longer had the moral authority to govern. It created nationalist movements. At least 379 died. Led to a crisis of confidence in the Empire. Further outbreaks of violence e.g. Chauri Chaura Incident where participants of the non-cooperation movement were fired upon by police. Galvanised support Gandhi’s noncooperation movement of 1920-22.

Question 10

Who was Gandhi?

Answer 10

Gandhi went to England to train as a lawyer. After failing to set up his own law firm in India, he began his career in South Africa where he began to publicly criticised colonialism. He went back to India in 1915 where he was later elected as the President of the Indian National Congress as a member of the Congress Party.

Question 11

What did Gandhi do in 1917-1918?

Answer 11

In 1917-1918 he championed the downtrodden indigo workers of the state of Bihar, and mediated in a textile industry dispute in Ahmedabad as well as a dispute over land taxes in Gujarat.

Question 12

What was the non-cooperation movement in 1920?

Answer 12

The non-cooperation movement of 1920 was to be non-violent and to consist of Indians resigning their titles; boycotting government educational institutions, the courts, government service, foreign goods, and elections; and eventually, refusing to pay taxes. The non-cooperation movement drew in middle-class Indians into the campaign for Indian independence.

Question 13

What happened to the non-cooperation movement and what did it mark?

Answer 13

In 1921 the government, confronted with a united Indian front for the first time, was visibly shaken, but a revolt by the Muslim Moplahs of Kerala (southwestern India) in August 1921 and a number of violent outbreaks alarmed moderate opinion. After an angry mob murdered by police officers in the village of Chauri Chaura in Feb 1921, Gandhi himself called off the movement; the next month he was arrested without incident. The movement marked the transition of Indian nationalism from a middle class to a mass basis.

Question 14

What was the Simon Commission, 1929-30?

Answer 14

The Simon Commision (which did not include Indian representation), under Sir John Simon, reviewed the India Act and recommended that:

• a federal system of government be created across India, incorporating both provinces under direct British rule and the Princely States.
• the provinces be given more power.
• defence, internal security and foreign affairs should remain in the hands of a British viceroy, ensuring overall British control.

Did not include Indian representatives.

Question 15

What was the Civil Disobedient Movement 1930-31?

Answer 15

On March 12 1930, Gandhi began a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt.

Question 16

Why did Gandhi march protest the British monopoly on salt?

Answer 16

Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Indian’s poor suffered the most. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.

Question 17

What did the Salt Marches consist of?

Answer 17

On March 12 1930, Gandhi organised a 24 day March to Dandi with 78 followers where they were to defy British policy be making salt from seawater. Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud and British law had been defied. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested, but the satyagraha continued without him.

Question 18

What occurred at both the Round Table Conferences in 1930 and 1931?

Answer 18

Gandhi was unable to attend the first as he had been imprisoned, but he represented the Congress Party at the second. Britain rejected Dominion status for India because of doubts about the competence of non-white leaders and peoples as well as concern for India’s strategic and economic importance to Britain.

Question 19

Why was Gandhi even more unsuccessful at The Second Round Table Conference?

Answer 19

Gandhi could not reach agreement with the Muslims on Muslim representation and safeguards. Gandhi’s claim of the Congress representing majority was not endorsed by the British and also the Muslim representative. The final blow to Gandhi came when at the end of the conference Ramsay MacDonald undertook to produce a Communal Award for minority representation, with the provision that any free agreement between the parties could be substituted for his award.

Question 20

What was the second civil disobedient movement in 1932-34?

Answer 20

The Congress Working Committee took the decision to restart The Civil Disobedience Movement, as the British government was not prepared to relent. Gandhi resumed the movement in January 1932 and appealed to the entire nation to join in. The viceroy was also informed of the stance assumed by the Congress. The police was given the power to arrest any person. Sardar Patel, the President of Congress and Gandhi were arrested, along with other congressmen.

Question 21

What was the impact of the Statute of Westminster?

Answer 21

The Statute of Westminster passed through Parliament in 1931. This statute gave the dominions the autonomy to make their own laws and to govern themselves as they wished. The Governor-General in each of the dominions therefore, no longer had any legislative power. The role became that of a figurehead and their presence served as a reminder of the relationship these countries had to the crown and the commonwealth.

Question 22

How did Colonial Services evolve?

Answer 22

In 1930, various sub services for administrating the colonies were merged into one Colonial Service. This provided a more centralised system for organising personnel within the service. As a result, recruits became more generalised in their skill-base and their administrative qualities improved. To work in the Colonial Service was quite prestigious and something middle-class people aspired to.

Public schools and top universities like Oxford and Cambridge churned out young men, normally trained in the humanities, who were ready for the Colonial Service entrance exams.

Question 23

What was the Government of India Act, 1935?

Answer 23

The Government of India Act 1935 created a Federation of India by:

• making the provinces completely self-governing (although provincial governors were still to be appointed by the British, and the Viceroy could suspend self-government in emergencies)
• expanding the franchise from 7 to 35 million people.

Question 24

How successful was the Government of India Act 1935?

Answer 24

The Act was opposed by the Congress Party because it fell short of the independence enjoyed by the White Dominions and because of a desire to be completely free of British rule. The Princely States also rejected a federal India, as they wanted to maintain their independence from the rest of India.

Question 25

What happened in 1939?

Answer 25

In 1939 members of Congress-controlled ministries in the provinces resigned from office, in opposition to Indian participation in the war. The British therefore imposed a direct rule, and dealt with independence protests against the war with repression - especially the arrest of independence leaders.

Question 26

What did Churchill decide in March 1942?

Answer 26

In March 1942 Churchill, aware of the vulnerability of the British Empire in Asia, sent Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour member of wartime coalition government, to promise the Indians full Dominion status. It conceded few changes to the government of India Act of 1935.

Question 27

Why was the granting of a Dominion status not enough for Gandhi and other Congress leaders?

Answer 27

Gandhi and other Congress leaders wanted Britain to leave India entirely. In August 1942, they launched a ‘Quit India’ campaign.

Question 28

What former policy did Britain retreat to during the 1930s?

Answer 28

During the 1930s, Britain increasingly retreated to their former policy of ‘divide and rule’, playing on the growing divisions within the nationalist movement.

Question 29

What were the growing divisions within the nationalist movement?

Answer 29

• The All India Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, wanted a separate, independent Muslim state: Pakistan.
• The Hindu Congress movement, led by Gandhi, wanted a united Indian state.

Although, Gandhi preached Hindu-Muslim unity, the Muslims viewed Hindu leaders with suspicion. The British favoured the Muslim league, arguing that there was a case for a Muslim ‘homeland’ within a federal India. They suggested the divisions between Hindu and Muslims provided the necessity of continued British rule, since the alternative was likely to be a bloody Hindu-Muslim civil war.

Question 30

What did the Quit India 1942 campaign entail?

Answer 30

The Quit India 1942 campaign was where Gandhi seized upon the failure of the Cripps mission, the advances of the Japanese in south-east Asia and the general frustration with the British in India. On 7th to 8th August 1942, the All Indian Congress Committee met in Bombay and ratified the ‘Quit India’ resolution. Gandhi called for ‘Do or die’. The next day, on 9th August 1942, Gandhi, members of the Congress Working Committee and other Congress leaders were arrested by the British Government under the Defence of India Rules. The Working Committee, the All India Congress Committee and four Provincial Council Committees were declared unlawful associations. The arrest of Gandhi and the Congress leaders led to mass demonstrations throughout India.

Question 31

How effective was the ‘Quit India’ movement?

Answer 31

The ‘Quit India’ movement was not particularly effective because the British swiftly suppressed many of the demonstrations by mass detentions; more than 100,000 people were imprisoned. However, it did unite the Indian people against British rule and, after Gandhi’s release in 1944, he continued resistance and went on a 21-day-fast.

Question 32

Who was Jawaharlal Nehru?

Answer 32

Jawaharlal Nehru was a lawyer who returned to India in 1912 and joined the Indian National Congress in 1919, becoming a strong ally of Gandhi. He was elected as the INC President in 1928 and imprisoned during the anti-salt tax campaign. Re-elected as President in 1936, he supported Britain in 1939, although he gave reluctant support to Gandhi’s 1942 ‘Quit India’ campaign and was consequently imprisoned until 1945. He again became President in 1946 and India’s first Prime Minister in 1947 at independence. He died in office.

Question 33

How was Nehru’s idea of India’s future different from Gandhi’s?

Answer 33

Nehru sought modernisation and industrialisation through state economic planning, Gandhi an agricultural, rural based society.

Question 34

Were Gandhi’s views universally accepted?

Answer 34

The ‘Untouchables’ leader, the British-educated lawyer Dr B.R. Ambedkar, for example, criticism Gandhi’s refusal to reject the caste system completely, even though Gandhi did call for equality between the castes.

Question 35

Who was Subhas Chandra Bose?

Answer 35

There were divisions over strategies and tactics. Nehru’s rival for the leadership of the Congress Party in the 1930s, Subhas Chandra Bose, wanted the INC to adopt a more militant line. In 1939, Bose allied himself with Britain’s enemies, Germany and Japan, and in 1943, formed the Indian National Army. He died in a Japanese plane crash in August 1945.

Question 36

Who was Muhammad Ali Jinnah?

Answer 36

The All Indian Muslim League, originally formed in 1906, worked in cooperation with Congress and had been the junior partner in the nationalist struggle. However, under Jinnah, it became more vociferous in its representation of India’s substantial Muslim minority. Jinnah disagreed with Gandhi’s tactics and campaigned for the establish,ent of safeguards for the Muslims in the movement for independence.

Initially, he favoured Hindu-Muslim political cooperation, but he resigned from the Congress Party in 1920, disagreeing with the policy of non-violent protest, and by 1940 he had come to believe that there should be a separate Muslim state. Following his efforts to create Pakistan, he was appointed as the country’s first Governor-General in 1947.

Question 37

Who was Lord Linlithgow?

Answer 37

Lord Linlithgow served as Viceroy of India from 1935 to 1943. Promoted the enfranchisement of Indians in the Government of India Act 1935. Believed that further reform would weaken the more radical elements of nationalism and give rise to ‘more responsible’ Indian politicians, who would see the wisdom of working with the British towards the longer term goal of self-government. His appeal for unity at the outbreak of WWII brought a promise of greater rights in the governance of India for the Indian people; but this was rejected by most Indian politicians. He hated Gandhi and resorted to suppression during the Indian civil disobedience campaign. Indians blames him for the division and lack of economic development in their country.

Question 38

What were the effects of the Second World War on Empire?

Answer 38

• the colonies led to new demands for greater autonomy in the aftermath of the war
• Britain’s economic position had been severely weakened. None could really afford to fight a series of prolonged colonial wars, fighting against insurgent nationalist movements.
• Japanese ended myth of ‘white invincibility’ - gave new confidence to independence movements across south east Asia - 30,000 Indian troops that had been captured by the Japanese in Singapore joined the Indian National Army which aimed to rid India and Asia of the British. They fought against them in Burma and elsewhere. Burma formed the Burma Independence Army.
• the Germans came close to dislodging the British and were only driven back at the Battle of El Alamein in Nov 1942. Both the Egyptians and Palestinians saw the opportunity for exploiting British weaknesses.
• Emergence of INA fighting British
• Repressive policies increased Indian frustration
• Cripps mission to promise full dominion status.

Question 39

What was the significance of the fall of Singapore?

Answer 39

Singapore was the most important British naval base in Asia. It had been reinforced in the 1930s with massive guns to deter the Japanese or anyone else. In 1941 it was defended by 88,000 troops, British, Australian, Indian and Malaysian.

Question 40

How did Singapore fall?

Answer 40

At the same time of Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941, General Yamashita, with a force of about 70,000, invaded Malaya. Expecting a Japanese offensive, Churchill had sent two of Britain’s most modern warships, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse to deter the Japanese from invading. Without adequate air cover, both ships were sunk on 9 Dec 1941. Aided by their aid supremacy, the Japanese quickly conquered Malaya and attacked Singapore from the north, where the defences were at their weakest, and forced a demoralised British Army to surrender on 15 Feb 1942.

Question 41

What were people thinking after the war?

Answer 41

At the end of WWII, there were basically two schools of thought. One school - that of Winston Churchill - said keep it. As Churchill said, “India is the crown jewel of the British Empire”. However the majority of Britons accepted that it was time to give up India. Even before WWI, successive British governments had taken steps to allow for a transfer of power.

Question 42

How did Gandhi accelerate this impulse to leave Empire behind?

Answer 42

Gandhi’s contribution was not the techniques of civil disobedience, but understanding their larger significance. Their effort was not just to push the British out, but to bring the Indians in and bring them together. Gandhi was very careful to couch his anti-British stance in terms the British themselves would understand and sympathise with - namely that this was a question about rights; that the rights the British upheld as part of their own constitution, as part of their history, were being systematically denied to Indians.

Question 43

What did numerous peaceful protests do to Britain’s morale?

Answer 43

Keeping order in the subcontinent required certain kinds of drastic action - police actions breaking up riots and demonstrations, throwing Gandhi into prison on a regular. The more this occurred the more it had a wearing effect on the British public, until the British became ashamed of themselves and of their empire in India. They saw a face of themselves they did not recognise. This was one one of the key reasons why the decision was made once the war was over that Britain must give up rule in India.

Question 44

Why did Churchill lose the election?

Answer 44

What led to Churchill’s defeat, even in the midst of the war, was an awareness that by re-electing Churchill, the British would go back to a pre-war, imperial past.

Question 45

What did the Labour Government of 1945 conclude?

Answer 45

The Labour Government of 1945 concluded that it was no longer feasible or desirable to keep India and decided to grant India independence as soon as possible. This was for a number of reasons:

• there would be widespread violent resistance which would stretch military resources to the limit if they tried to keep India.
• activities of the INA and the strength of pro-independence feeling meant that the Indian army might not be reliable and large numbers of British troops might have to be deployed: a move that would be expensive and unpopular, at a time when the country was in deep economic trouble
• India was no longer the great market for British cotton exports it had once been, so the cost of holding onto it would massively outstrip any economic benefits.

Question 46

What was the initial task of withdrawing from India and who did they leave with this?

Answer 46

The task became how to withdraw from India while still maintaining law and order and how to work out the political element so the Indians could govern themselves without the British. The first task was left in the hands of Viceroy Archibald Wavell.

Question 47

What was Viceroy Archibald’s Wavell plan?

Answer 47

He developed a plan for a staged, gradual British withdrawal from India - first by withdrawing from the least violent areas, then by moving British troops and police into areas that were bound to be volatile as a result of the coming independence. Once law and order has been established there, then he would begin the process of complete withdrawal.

Question 48

Why did the Wavell plan fail?

Answer 48

The new Labour government wanted Britain out of India, and those who fought the hardest to get British out of India were the least concerned with what would happen to India once the withdrawal was done. As a result, three crucial errors were made. First, they rejected the Wavell plan. Second, they decided to set a date for the transfer of power (15th August 1947) to assure the Indians that the British were really leaving. Third, they appointed as the last Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Question 49

Who was Lord Louis Mountbatten?

Answer 49

In March 1947 the Government sent Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, with instructions to bring about Indian independence as soon as possible, and no later than June 1948. In April-May 1947 it was decided that India would be partitioned: independence for Pakistan as well as India would be granted by 15 August 1947.

Question 50

The process of the partitioning of India

Answer 50

• In April 1947 Mountbatten tried to persuade Jinnah that he would get a bigger Pakistan if he accepted a weak common center along with the rest of India, otherwise a sovereign Pakistan could include only Muslim majority regions.
• Jinnah was determined not to accept a common center and insisted on being given the bigger Pakistan anyway, which would have had 45% non-Muslim population.
• Jinnah’s unwillingness led to a divide in India being more likely.
• ethnic regions worried about who would be in charge. Sikhs did not want to be ruled by Muslims. Some people took advantage of the divisions.
• villages in Punjab were scarcely patrolled - Sikhs began to form bonds. Sikhs that were in the army still had weapons and training.
• Mountbatten agreed that they would divide India in two; partitioned
• Muslim majority moved to Pakistan
• Mountbatten brings up when Britain would leave
• there was no clear border. Once they gave a date, they needed to do it by then which added to the tension.
• some British troops were left behind but they couldn’t do anything to stop the killing
• two days before the partition people feared the city would be given to Pakistan
• the boarder was decided but kept secret until the British left so they couldn’t be blamed for the violence

Question 51

Was Britain to blame for the partition and violence during the withdrawal from India in 1947?

Answer 51

For decades the British only offered minor concessions to the publication of the Indian sub-continent and then when independence became inevitable they rushed through their withdrawal, drew up unsuitable boundaries and caused widespread violence and death.

Britain was partially to blame for the partition of India following their withdrawal from the country in 1947. Many of the measures they introduced created the circumstances whereby partition became likely. However, some of the responsibility must also rest with the leaders of the Indian Congress and the Muslim League for creating a situation whereby the two communities could not live together in the one country.

British withdrawal became inevitable after World War II. Despite the efforts made by the British to find an acceptable solution to all sides both the Congress Party and the Muslim League were intent on pursuing their own agencies. The failure to reach agreement led to widespread violence and division that led to partition.

Question 52

What were the reasons for British withdrawal from India?

Answer 52

• Role of the Congress Party: Opposed many attempts at appeasement by Britain.
• Britain’s ruling authorities: Attempts at appeasement failed. Rowlatt/Amritsar massacre. Cripp’s visit. Lost will to rule after war? Viceroy Mupountbatten - ‘sped up’ withdrawal
• The impact of war: Economic, political, no longer in a position to maintain Empire?

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