The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)
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provincial governments. The significant feature of the federation was to be the
organisation of the
provinces into three groups, one predominantly Hindu and the
others predominantly Muslim. Ironically,
this time, the Muslim League said that
the United Kingdom was favouring the Hindus. Therefore, the leader
of the
Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in August 1946, inaugurated Direct
Action by the League
for securing a separate sovereign state for Muslims. The
campaign began with communal riots in Calcutta
which resulted in 4,000 dead
and 10,000 injured. In early September rioting broke out in Bombay, in
October
destruction and disorders in East Bengal led to Hindu evacuations; in October and
November
there followed a holocaust of Muslims in Bihar.
Early
in 1947 Wavell, the Viceroy, concluded that no single Indian central
authority could be constituted and
he accordingly advised the British government
either to retain power for at least a decade or to transfer
it, fragmented, to the
several provinces.
The
United Kingdom Government rejected this advice. The Viceroy, Lord
Wavell, was recalled, and replaced in
1947 by Lord Mountbatten of Burma as the
last Viceroy. Lord Mountbatten brought the prestige of his royal
connections and
his war record to his new post (he had been the Supreme Allied Commander
in
South-East Asia): he had, additionally, a well-developed diplomatic sense and the
capacity for
decision-making. He also had a good relation with the Attlee
Government with regard to a large number of
issues. Concerning Lord Wavell,
however, Attlee wrote in his autobiography. “I had a great
admiration for Lord
Wavell… but I did not think he was likely to find a solution. I did not think
that
he and the Indians could really understand each other. How men were needed for
a new
policy.”33
The
appointment of Lard Mountbatten was to end British rule in India.
Lord Mountbatten started by
re-examining the points of agreement and
disagreement among the Indian leaders. This was not a formal
investigation, but
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