Dating Decline Gurkha Regiment Victory Parade Pall Mall 1919

But the dates: WWIinter-war Constitutional Challenges

mandate challengesWWII resource drain

1947 – India1956 – Suez1960s – all over

the result: a Commonwealth of Nations

Declineor re-definition?

20C: decolonization in a neo-colonial world

→ formal, political ‘Nationalist’ aspirations

→ communal identities

→ metropolitan interests

→ settler society

→ Superpower meddling

INC

supporters

Arguments for EmpireMilitary: garrisons in Empire [19C strategy]

use of Indian army restricted from 1920s

asset in WWII in Europe/ceased to outside

Economic case: growing industrialization in Canada, India, Australia – lost ‘traditional’ benefit

net gain

Moral argument:prideemotional commitment

But, pressure from outside and inside

Three paths to a postcolonial world:1. rapid disengagement 2. constitutional disengagement3. armed resistance

complicated by: neo-imperial intervention

never simple

Pre 1945 disengagement ugly:geographies of identity in Palestine

German colony, Haifa

Baha’i World Center

Ein Hod artist’s colony

�ין �פ� פר רו� כkibbutz movement in modern Israel

Nirdavid (1946)

Britain and Palestine• Arab history of fighting for local

autonomy

• Zionism: 19C rootsBritish mandated territoriesHolocaust domestic political pressure

• Israel created (1947) • Palestine divided

1876 ‘the Lion’s Share’

vs. a bedraggled lion by 1956

What had changed?

Operation

Kadesh

State of Israel: 1949

Suez Crisis: 1956

Harold Macmillan’s diaryNassar as an ‘asiatic Mussolini’

That was:

rapid disengagement [with a past]

Next: constitutional negotiations

[with complications]

Colonies and Mandates Ram Mohan Roy

Nationalism in 19C:intellectual movementspopular anti-colonialismreligious revival

Mohandas Gandhi

Promise of WWI: human ‘Progress’possibilities as administrators goneexperience of Europe in warused to political/military purposehopes dashed: Peace Conference in colonies

Interwar British rule in Indiaजलि�या��वा��� बा�ग हतया�का��ड

• Defense of India Regulations• Ghadar conspiracy• Komagata Maru

• Rowatt Acts (1919)• hartal

• Jallianwala Bagh massacre• Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer • British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Sir Michael

O'Dwyer wrote: ‘Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor approves.’

Creation of a ‘Successful’ anti-colonial movement

• charismatic leader• ahimsa – resisting by non-resistance• World War

Indian IndependenceIndian Nationalist Congress (INC)

small elite → mass movementMohandas K. Gandhisatyagraha; swadeshi; ahimsa

Jawaharlal Nehru

Muslim LeagueMohammed Ali Jinnah

last British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten

Independence, 15 August 1947 and Partition creates India and Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Lord and Lady Mountbatten

Independence – PartitionAugust 1947

Characterizing Withdrawal

That was:

constitutional negotiations[with complications]

Next: armed resistance

complicated by: neo-imperial intervention

and, constitutional negotiations

‘The Mickeys were hard menand only hard methodswould work with them.It was a war to savewhite civilization in Kenyaand in war people get killed.’

- A white policeman in Kenya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upc6yMKPu1c

Kenya: Commerce and Civilization

• IBEA (1887)• ‘Lunatic Express’ to Lake

Victoria• south Asian railway

workers, becomeshopkeepers, urban artisan class

• the Happy Valley ‘set’

Decolonization in Africa Issues of a Settler Society: Kenya

pop.: various local groups kikuyu

colonial administratorssouth Asian laborers

and m.c.

‘white’ farmers and business

Mau Mau RebellionIndependence 1962

Organizing resistances

1920s education jobs FGC

1930s/40s mau mau

‘White’ shareholdersthis alone is complex

There was no ‘white’ perspective:

1.Settler society: well-off investorsde-mob soldiers

2.Government-appointed administrators

3.British ‘liberal’ society

4.British conscripts“dad’s army”

Mau Maulost landlocked into waged labourpolitical leaders jailedattacked cattle, and people [32 killed altogether]forest resistanceoathing ceremonieswomen’s workarrestedconcentration/re-education camps

British Africa: 1953-80Northern Rhodesia• fewer white settlers• Copper• administered by Colonial Office

Southern Rhodesia• significant no. white settlers• displaced black societies →farming,

mining• Political power→1923 internal self-

governance

Nyasaland• large population; generally poor• administered by Colonial Office

CAF: a White and Black IssueAfrican opposition: Kenneth Kaunda (Northern Rhodesia)

Hastings Banda (Nyasaland)

1959: political posturingmedia positioningpopular protest

White Settlers widespread detention ordersRhodesian Front

British government independence referendumHarold Macmillan

Nyasaland → Malawinorthern Rhodesia → Zambiasouthern Rhodesia → 1965 Declaration of Independence

international sanctions/guerilla war – 1980 - Zimbabwe

Neocolonialisms1960 Ghanaian Independence

constitutional process bauxite

Kwame Nkrumah

1966 deposed – CIA backed coup

Akosombo DamVolta RiverBritish-plannedIMF, UK, American-financedinterest rate fixed (high)20% electricity for Ghana – cannot access profits