Originally posted by astralis
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it is true the power to overturn a decision was still available to the Viceroy, but creating policy and having a veto power on it is quite different. it dramatically raised the political cost of vetoing. IE, if the british wanted to overturn a decision it had to very publicly be done by the Viceroy...and everyone would know who to blame.
yup, and accordingly he paid a very high political price for it.
yup, and accordingly he paid a very high political price for it.
but in the context of 1939-1940 indian participation in the war was a life and death matter for the UK. there was no way the UK, an island nation, could fight two continental powers at once without India. and had the Viceroy put it to a vote, there would been stalemate at best, rejection at worst (Muslim League was for the war, the INC was split-- which reflected Gandhi's confused 'i support the fight against fascism but i reject war as a means of doing so' stance).
note that the british KNEW that there was going to be significant pushback and almost instantly tried to negotiate:
August Offer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
followed by the Cripps Proposals.
see how different the British response was compared to their more slow evolution during the First World War.
note that the british KNEW that there was going to be significant pushback and almost instantly tried to negotiate:
August Offer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
followed by the Cripps Proposals.
see how different the British response was compared to their more slow evolution during the First World War.
more accurately, SOME indians didn't see it that way. actually the main crux was not Indian mistrust of the British word, but that the INC position was rock-solid and would not be negotiated with: full independence. (that, by the way, was relatively new: as late as 1932, the INC and Gandhi were negotiating parameters of being a Dominion.)
more fought for the British than for the INA, and the Quit India movement faced considerable dissent even within the ranks of the INC. of course indian muslims disagreed with this altogether.
probably too absolute of a statement, i think, although you're right about the lack of control. there would certainly have been a huge split. officers tended to side with the British while the NCOs and grunts were definitely, well, disgruntled. in the Navy Mutiny the mutineers threw Indian naval officers out when they tried to order them to stand down.
feh, then why the difference in enthusiasm between WWI and WWII? i'm sure some went in for the money, but is it really that hard to admit that there was a time when there was considerable sympathy/loyalty for the idea of India being a part of the Empire? remember, Gandhi himself didn't become a supporter for independence, full stop, until WWII.
Yes Gandhi was a supporter for independence long before WWII. It is just that he was trying to use the status of Dominion to obtain full independence later on as a method of nonviolence and keep true to his faith. Since British was anathema to the idea of full independence and was willing to use violence to quell it down and there were violent revolutionaries and agitators for full independence advocating violence, Gandhi cleverly brought up the idea of Dominion in an attempt to obtain self rule peacefully but all along full independence was the goal. It was just that he wanted to manuever the British peacefully non-violently into accept Dominion status and then 10 years down the road, declare independence and the British couldn't do anything about it because then the loyalty of the BIA would be transferred to the Indians, not British.
sure, they moved fastest when circumstances forced their hand. but even prior to the wars, the relationship between the British and her subject peoples had been changing. not out of some noble sense of good will, but because of simple self-interest: the costs of an Empire in an age where growing political self-consciousness became too much to bear.
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