Nick Arnett asked rhetorically,
Why did the British decide to pull out [of India]? Was it their
good-hearted nature? Was it because of fear of violence? Or did
it have nothing to do with anything they did? Did they not resist
until they recognized that resistance was futile?
Before suggesting any of that, it is worth responding to the usually
stated reasons. How much influence had these reasons?
* The British were bankrupt and its government could not afford to
suppress Indians who were against it. In the Victorian period the
British were richer, relatively speaking, and more able to afford
to suppress those who were against them, as in the India Mutiny.
Put another way, the British government did not fear violence done
by their soldiers, with little chance fighting would destroy
London -- they had just fought a war involving that danger -- but
understood that overcoming resistance was expensive.
Put yet another way, the British government of the time was smart
enough not to spend resources on what to them were lower priority
issues.
(Note that Britain also stopped funding the Greek government in
the latter 1940s. The British asked the US to fund the Greek
government instead. Also, the British government negotiated a
large loan from the US government. However, the British
government misspent a fortune on peanut farms that failed in
Kenya, the `ground nut' plan. They funded this effort because
they worried that in another war Britain would lack a large enough
fat supply.)
* The Indians who were against the British were very smart in how
they ran their campaign: in particular, even though millions died
in the Partition, the impression given to many outside was that of
life, not death.
* Britain was ruled by a government who wanted to help its
supporters, not those of its opponents, who were more likely to
support British government spending on British rule in India.
* Some of those who supported the then British government also
favored governments `of the people' even if the people were not
British.
* The Labour Party had been against colonialism since its beginning,
and the government, which was made up of Labour Party politicans,
had to follow the party to some degree. If I remember rightly,
some of the cabinet members opposed colonialism morally, but most
were motivated more by finance.
* Many powerful people in the US wanted to enter British markets and
felt they could more easily do so with a change in rulers.
* Some supporters of the US government favored governments `of the
people' even if the people were not white Americans.
Since the US was very powerful in the late 1940s, and since such
different groups in the US opposed others' colonies, US
anti-colonialism was very important.
--
Robert J. Chassell
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