The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

117

appeared convincing evidence that for sometime to come no dramatic
development with regard to
independence would take place in India. In his letter
in 1939, the Secretary of State for India, Lord
Zetland, had expressed the view to
the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, that the rate of advance was “much
more likely to
be that of a stage coach rather than an express train,”29 and in spite of the fact that
he had doubted this judgement once the war had
broken out, Lord Linlithgow had
continued to feel astonishment at the idea that the British would
“seriously
contemplate evacuation in any measurable period of time.”30

However, the Indian leaders were losing their patience and becoming
increasingly active in their
demands for self-government. They had no wish to
wait indefinitely. The Second World War undoubtedly
stimulated the Indianas’
struggle for separation from the British Empire. “At the beginning of
that war the
Viceroy made the ludicrously inept mistake of declaring war on India’s behalf,
as
he was entitled to do, without consulting a single Indian.”31 The white Raj came
to realise in the early 1940s that its years were numbered,
as Britain’s ability to
defend its Asian Empire, with war raging in Europe, was brought into
question
and increasing reliance had to be placed on Indian support and forces in the face
of the
Japanese threat. Dominion status had accordingly been offered to the
Indians, once the war was over, and
detailed propositions had been formulated by
Sir Stafford Cripps in 1942; in that year Japanese seizure
of the British
possessions in the Far East, notably Singapore and Burma, had made Indian help
in the
face of a threatened invasion of India crucial. However, both the
predominantly Hindu Congress party and
the Muslim League rejected the
propositions put forward by Sir Stafford Cripps. Congress had
objected
particularly to Cripps’ recommendation that provinces might opt out of the
projected
dominion, while the League rejected the proposal on the entirely
opposite ground that the idea of a
separate Muslim state was not contemplated.
Gandhi, in particular, had contributed to the failure of
Cripps’ mission with his

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213