AHC: More Gandhi-esque independence movements

What would be the best way to have more peaceful independence movements akin to India than OTL?

India was fortunate in that as far back as the first world war tgere were people in the british establishment who realised thr impossibility of hanging on to India in the long run. Thus they were already committed to a dialogue with Indian independence leaders and getting whatever advantage they could before going. Most other colonial powers were far less rational
 
India was fortunate in that as far back as the first world war tgere were people in the british establishment who realised thr impossibility of hanging on to India in the long run. Thus they were already committed to a dialogue with Indian independence leaders and getting whatever advantage they could before going. Most other colonial powers were far less rational

In fact this was something going on, even as the Company was going through its conquests and many bemoaned the its conquests, urging it to hand it over to a 'native prince'.
 
India was fortunate in that as far back as the first world war tgere were people in the british establishment who realised thr impossibility of hanging on to India in the long run. Thus they were already committed to a dialogue with Indian independence leaders and getting whatever advantage they could before going. Most other colonial powers were far less rational

Can this be recreated in other British colonies?
 

katchen

Banned
I'm not certain that I believe this, but I read that Theosophists believe that if the Indian Independence Movement (see www.[B]indian[/B]etzone.com/.../annie_besant_indian_freedom_fighter.htm had continued to align with Theosophy, India could have achieved independence without partition,,even rataining Burma, in 1937.
 
In fact this was something going on, even as the Company was going through its conquests and many bemoaned the its conquests, urging it to hand it over to a 'native prince'.

Let's not exaggerate- despite the moaning and groaning, throughout the 19th C Britain was delighted to be able to extract resources from and sell finished goods to a captive and extremely profitable market.

However by the early 1900s once Indian nationalist ideals had properly developed I think the Raj was realistic enough to recognise that there was absolutely no way to keep down a population that large committed to the idea of Independence. By the interwar era the only question about Independence was 'when' not 'if'.
 
Let's not exaggerate- despite the moaning and groaning, throughout the 19th C Britain was delighted to be able to extract resources from and sell finished goods to a captive and extremely profitable market.

However by the early 1900s once Indian nationalist ideals had properly developed I think the Raj was realistic enough to recognise that there was absolutely no way to keep down a population that large committed to the idea of Independence. By the interwar era the only question about Independence was 'when' not 'if'.

Oh, I'm not....but the fact that there were cases (although admittedly much so a rarity) demonstrating what I said.
 
Can this be recreated in other British colonies?

The thing is, it didn't really need to be. After India (which had the most well developed and earliest coherent independence movement) went, there was no point hanging on to most of the other colonies.

Many people are unaware of this but the only consistently profitable British colonies (excluding the white settler colonies) were India as a whole, the Malay states, the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, Singapore) and Hong Kong. The African colonies, for example, ran at a loss and were only secured in order to obtain power projection bases to control the routes to India.

So as was already said, Indian nationalism developed and Britain recognised the inevitability of Independence. Malaya was secure until WW2 when the humiliating Japanese defeat of Britain left it without a leg to stand on- they had proven that they couldn't protect their SE Asian colonies so that sparked off a (largely peaceful) Independence movement, again mostly unopposed and accepted by Britain.

Same thing happened with the African colonies- they were mainly too much trouble to keep so Britain just let them go.

Essentially, once India and Malaya go, there's no point (nor does Britain have the money) to keeping the rest
 
India was fortunate in that as far back as the first world war tgere were people in the british establishment who realised thr impossibility of hanging on to India in the long run. Thus they were already committed to a dialogue with Indian independence leaders and getting whatever advantage they could before going. Most other colonial powers were far less rational

No, that's simply not true, Britain was still committed to India before the Second World War. The British strategy was to cling on to the central government in India whilst appeasing the nationalists through granting provincial autonomy - just look at Carl Bridge's work on the 1935 Act, no-one in Britain viewed it as a stepping stone to independence. Most British politicians expected the British presence in India to last for at least a few more decades.
 
No, that's simply not true, Britain was still committed to India before the Second World War. The British strategy was to cling on to the central government in India whilst appeasing the nationalists through granting provincial autonomy - just look at Carl Bridge's work on the 1935 Act, no-one in Britain viewed it as a stepping stone to independence. Most British politicians expected the British presence in India to last for at least a few more decades.

That may have been the official position but read some of the oral histories- Plain Tales from the Raj is quite telling. I recall quite a few Indian Civil Service personnel went out in the 1920s firmly convinced that they would be the last generation able to serve out their careers in India
 
That may have been the official position but read some of the oral histories- Plain Tales from the Raj is quite telling. I recall quite a few Indian Civil Service personnel went out in the 1920s firmly convinced that they would be the last generation able to serve out their careers in India

Hm, I'll have to take a look at it. Most of what I've read has stressed that the collapse in the ICS' morale occurred during the 1940s.
 
Hm, I'll have to take a look at it. Most of what I've read has stressed that the collapse in the ICS' morale occurred during the 1940s.

The impression I got from the accounts of those going out in the 20s was that they had a feeling that they'd be the last generation to serve their full careers in India but they weren't sure when the Deluge would come, so to speak. Certainly the War was the direct catalyst for Independence because Congress managed to give their ultimatum of cooperation with the Allied war effort in exchange for independence but no matter what Whitehall may have thought in the 20s, Indians were determined that they would be independent and it seems the junior officers on the ground thought so too. Interestingly these junior officers in the 20s would have been the mid to senior officers in the 40s who suffered that collapse of morale and it would be interesting to consider what extent their youthful perceptions had on their later attitudes.
 
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