World War II had a profound effect on the colonial powers because it completely destroyed their economies. Although Hitler committed crimes against humanity, he gets credit for India’s independence immediately after World War II. Hitler destroyed the economies of Britain and France to such an extent that they were no longer able to financially maintain their military forces, and were hence incapable of containing the burgeoning freedom movements in their colonies.

After WWII, Britain left not only India but nearly all its other holdings, including Jordan in 1946, Palestine in 1947, Sri Lanka in 1948, Myanmar in 1948, Egypt in 1952 and Malaysia in 1957. For the same reason, France also had to grant independence to Laos in 1949 and Cambodia in 1953, and had to leave Vietnam in 1954; Netherlands also left most of its colonies called Dutch East Indies, mainly Indonesia in 1949. Had there been no Hitler and no World War II, it most probably would have taken another 30 or more years for India and some of the other colonies to achieve independence.

Another major consequence of World War II was that it greatly hastened Indian political independence. The highly publicized Cripps Mission that took place in India in 1942 was essentially a political ploy approved by Churchill to buy time for Britain and to try to assuage anti-colonialist feelings in the U.S.

By the end of war, there was a loss of purpose at the very center of the imperial system. The gentlemanly administrators who managed the Raj no longer had the heart to devise new moves against increasing odds, not least because after 1939 the majority of the Indian Civil Service were themselves Indian. In 1945 the new Viceroy, Wavell, commented on the “weakness and weariness of the importance of the instrument still our disposal in the shape of the British element in the Indian Civil Service. The town had been lost to opponents of the Raj; the countryside had slipped beyond control. Widespread discontent in the army was followed in 1946 by a mutiny in the navy. It was then Wavell, the unfortunate messenger, reported to London that India had become ungovernable [which finally led to the independence of India].

Although Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), which drew its cadre from Indian POW’s in Japanese camps and fought along with Japanese forces on India’s eastern front towards the end of the war, failed in its ultimate mission, indirectly it succeeded in causing the British to leave India early. When Japan surrendered, the British charged 20,000 INA men with treason. They decided to hold the trial in public at the Red Fort in Delhi. The first three of Bose’s officers to be tried were a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Sikh. This immediately united Indians of all three religions against the British. While the Muslim League was at that time fighting with the Congress Party and demanding a separate state for Muslims, on this issue it joined Congress in the now-national movement against the INA officers’ trial.

Credits: Susmit Kumar

Comments