To What Extent Is The Second World War The Main Reason For The Partition Of India in 1947?



To What Extent Is The Second World War The Main Reason For The Partition Of India in 1947?

Introduction

This argument paper assesses to what extent is the second world war the main reason for the partition of India in 1947? With the Second World War, the pressure of Indian nationalists rose to the British government, which called for the cooperation of India. Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress established the Quit India Movement, which is not formally joined the Muslim League. There followed a period of uncontrolled violence (Wolpert 2006, p. 85-97).

Credibility of the sources can be judged in the form that only books have been included as a source of reference in this research paper. These books have been reviewed by other authors also as part to reference the material in their books and publication. Therefore, only those books have been selected that have been used as reference by other authors also. Documentation purpose also considers the number of sources used as reference to highlights the authenticity of the written sources.

Discussion

At the beginning of the 20th century the British Empire, which had established itself on every continent but Antarctica, was so vast that it validated the boast that on it "the sun never set." It appeared as permanent as the long reign of the queen in whose name it was ruled. However, by 1902, Victoria was dead, and the empire had suffered its first major setback in the Boer War. Five years later, in 1907, finding imperial administrative burdens overwhelming, England agreed to confer "dominion" status—de facto self-government—on Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa. Although the empire seemed to rebound after the victory in World War I, when it acquired added power in the Middle East, it was forced, after a face-losing war, to grant free-state status to its oldest, geographically closest, and most intransigent colony, Ireland. At the same time, trouble loomed in the "jewel in the imperial crown," India, where the frail figure of Mohandas K. Gandhi developed a policy of passive resistance to British rule that proved to be an extraordinarily effective weapon in India's fight for independence.

Nevertheless, the British clung to control of India and its African colonies, although increasingly relying on a policy of "indirect rule," which meant using existing native rulers to administer the colonies while the British pursued their own economic and political interests. Discontent with imperial rule grew with the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, but World War II proved how vulnerable the empire really was. In Southeast Asia, the Japanese easily overcame British colonies, most notably in the ignominious fall of Singapore and the first phase of the Burma Campaign in 1942. In the aftermath of World War II, even indirect rule was unable to assuage the tide of nationalism and cries for independence that emerged from the colonized peoples. Britain, exhausted and impoverished by the war, acceded to these demands, granting ...