The lead-up to Indian independence from a British perspective: Path to Indian Independence unraveling the British Perspective on the Empire’s Decline

Subject :History

Section: Modern India

Economic crisis following World War II

While Britain emerged victorious from World War II, it was physically and financially exhausted.
Its treasury was nearly empty by 1945, and it had mounted significant war debt.
The situation was ripe for some radical changes like decolonisation. Moreover, Britain did not have the resources to maintain its global empire any more.

Clement Atlee and his Labour Government:

The 1945 general elections ousted Churchill’s Conservative Party and brought in a new Labour Party government.
Atlee was firmly in favour of “self-governance” in India, a sentiment he had expressed as far back as the early 1930s.

Mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy:

The mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN), which broke out on February 18, 1946 in only five days, delivered a mortal blow to the entire structure of the British Raj.
On February 18, 1946, the ratings of ”Talwar” in Bombay harbour went into a hunger strike to protest against bad food and the worst racial arrogance.
Others in 22 ships in the neighbourhood, followed suit on the following day, and it soon spread to the Castle and the Fort Barracks on the shore
Further, they elected a Naval Committee headed by MS Khan, and drew up their demands, highlighting as much the national ones as their own. They demanded:
- Release of INA prisoners
- Freedom of all other political prisoners
- Withdrawal of Indian troops from Indo-China and Java
- Better food
- More civilized treatment
- Equal pay for European and Indian Sailors alike
On 20th February, the ratings in Barracks were surrounded by armed guards, while their Comrades in the ships found British members threatening them with destruction.
By 22 February, the revolt had spread to all the naval bases in the country, involving 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 ratings.
While the mutiny did not last long, it convinced the British that they had to grant India independence
Atlee announced The Cabinet Mission a day after the mutiny started.

Britain’s “early” exit and the Partition:

The Cabinet Mission under Pethick-Lawrence, Strafford Cripps, and AV Alexander, alongside then Viceroy Archibald Wavell, proposed a complicated three-tier administrative structure for India, with a weak central government.
However, this proposal was eventually rejected by both the Congress and the Muslim League.
Atlee decided to replace Wavell with the charismatic Louis Mountbatten in February 1947 and had announced in the House of Commons that British rule in India would end “not later than July 1948”.
However, upon arriving in India, Mountbatten realized that waiting till July of next year would possibly not be wise in light of the already worsening situation.
The plan for India’s independence and partition was announced on June 3, and the Indian Independence Act received royal assent on July 18. The “Mountbatten Plan” as this was known, set August 15 – the second anniversary of the Japanese surrender – as the deadline for transfer of power.