What options India had other than getting its independence from Britain?
score:3
Honestly, even if the Indians had trusted the British, the British themselves would have refused this. Many countries had tried to convert their colonies into integral provinces (such as French Algeria), but could not retain them. Moreover, India's leaders had by 1929 publicly asked for complete independence. The British Indian Army itself was unwilling to remain a colonial army any longer (see Royal Indian Navy Mutiny). The Indians never felt that they had much to gain from such an arrangement. All these ensured that there would not remain any political ties between India and Britain.
Upvote:5
IN THEORY, if you assumed that India had very skilled political leaders, they might have pushed for "one man one vote" within the British Commonwealth, and taken over "Britain" in a "reverse takeover" by the sheer weight of numbers.
In practice, it's very hard for two culturally different and widely separated populations to be administered on an equitable basis. the best example is East and West "Pakistan," or Bangladesh, where the one "needed" (and obtained) independence from the other. The difference in cultures and distances are a fraction of those between Britain and India.
Upvote:11
First of all, Hong Kong is now China (from 1997), based off your question, I wasn't sure if you knew.
India and Hong Kong were very different stories. India was most definitely hurt by Great Britain. For example, Great Britain had a total monopoly on Indian salt. That meant that the Indians produced salt, and then, the British took it and sold it back to the Indians for exorbitant prices. Another example, the British bought Indian cotton and brought it back to Manchester for manufacturing, then they exported the cloths to India which sold for exorbitant prices. If India had control of these markets for them selves, they would have been much richer, so, they left, because British rule hurt them. (The British justified this by saying they were enforcing "free trade")
Hong Kong on the other hand, was not a colony that really produced much, (at first) rather it was used as a base to import, among a few other items, Opium, for Chinese tea and silk. Hong Kong didn't suffer from this British style free trade, but rather it benefited all the jobs the trading created. More importantly than this, When the British Empire was finally weakening, the Communist party was taking power in China. Hong Kong, used to the British freedom, rathered foreign rule than Communist rule, so they stayed loyal. When the Hand Over happened, most of the Hong Kong population actually left Hong Kong because they were still afraid of China.
It really was necessary for India to gain independence, because British rule was sucking India dry.
More post
- 📝 Did the Confederate States use a plain oval CS buckle during the Civil War?
- 📝 Did Hitler have any plans in regards to the troops he had stationed in Norway throughout the war?
- 📝 How exactly did the government work with very large empires?
- 📝 Did the ancient Greeks have "taverns"?
- 📝 What do we know of the conditions the "prominents" were kept in in Nazi concentration camps?
- 📝 How did a scientist who came from China in 1935 become a US Army Colonel by 1945?
- 📝 Who first in human history has promoted equality rights of all people?
- 📝 Who invented and marketed the first "clip on" headphones?
- 📝 Historical Statistical Analysis on the Length of Court Proceedings in the US?
- 📝 How did the plague doctors get rid of the infections on their gear?
- 📝 Cannon Aiming: Spanish vs English and Chinese vs English?
- 📝 Have there been known instances in history when a queen consort slept with someone other than her husband, and no one got hurt? How was that possible?
- 📝 What was the estimated population living in Egypt around 1446 BC?
- 📝 What did Cleopatra's nose look like?
- 📝 When was Silver ever more valuable than Gold?
- 📝 What day and year was the first public & general confession held in the Church of England?
- 📝 Authenticity of the Russian birch bark manuscripts
- 📝 Did Princess Diana ever talk about her alleged Armenian descent?
- 📝 Who thought there might be a war between the British Empire and the United States of America in the 1920s?
- 📝 How did ancient armies keep the route of supplies to their battlefield?
- 📝 How, and why, did Ancient Chinese hold banners displaying the type of work a person was undertaking?
- 📝 Did archers ever shoot over the heads of their allies at enemy cavalry? Did they ever do this during a melee?
- 📝 Is there a record of a rabid human attacking another human?
- 📝 Is there a precedent for a large amount of refugees granted asylumn by a distant foreign nation
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 What percentage of men, ages 18 to 35, from the northern states served in the Union Army?
- 📝 What does it mean to "take the Cross"
- 📝 Why does Japan use the same type of AC power outlet as the US?
- 📝 Why was Zabrze renamed Hindenburg O.S in 1915?
- 📝 What is so special about the location of Mexico City?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What options India had other than getting its independence from Britain?
- 📝 What evidence is there of Asians and Africans in medieval Britain other than Moors in the 7th century?
- 📝 What are some cases where a country bought land from another country, other than the United States?
- 📝 What did Germany do after World War II to recover so successfully that it became more prosperous than its WW2 victors?
- 📝 What set Checkpoint Charlie apart from the other border checkpoints in Berlin during the Cold War?
- 📝 What were the thoughts of the Celts, Romans and other ancient European people about the standing stones which survive from prehistoric times?
- 📝 Did the Tlingits benefit from resisting the Russians more than other Alaskan tribes?
- 📝 What stopped the British from granting independence to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands?
- 📝 Why was immigration from France to the United States lower than from some other countries?
- 📝 To what extent is the independence of India a result of Indian Independence Movement?
- 📝 Why did India choose August 15th as its Independence Day?
- 📝 What did Central America export in the early 20th century other than coffee and bananas?
- 📝 What happened in Kazakhstan that its population dropped from 16m to 14m between 1992 - 2001?
- 📝 Why did the price of eggs in Britain increase much more than for other basic foods during WWI?
- 📝 Historically, have African nations had a higher proportion of coups than nations on other continents?
- 📝 What is the most historically prevalent reason of states dissolving, other than military activity?
- 📝 What differentiated Rome from other Mediterranean (e.g. Greek) city states?
- 📝 What were the major strategies/ideas Britain exerted against Indian Independence movement?
- 📝 Where other than Kronstadt did the Russian American Company train its employees?
- 📝 What lands have been called by names chosen to disassociate those lands from its inhabitants
- 📝 Other than coffee and tobacco what major product became Cuba's source of wealth in the 18th century?
- 📝 Journeys from Gujarat in India to Dare es Salaam in what was then, Tanganyika in 1925 and 1948
- 📝 What factors contributed to the United States having a larger proportion of Jews than other British colonies?
- 📝 Where did the masquerade ball come from and what was its original concept?
- 📝 Has any country, other than Britain, given away its empire?
- 📝 What other pairs of wars have had a ~25 year interval?
- 📝 What can you tell about a society from its architecture?
- 📝 What was Texas called after gaining its independence and why was it called that?
- 📝 What could be the uses of a pike, other than for fighting, circa 1833 Ireland
- 📝 What caused medieval England to be freer than other countries at the time?