British power in India
...lustrated the strength of the British by declaring “India...will never become a single autonomous unit” although perhaps his previous record as Viceroy including the notoriously unpopular partition of Bengal makes his account toward the Indians slightly biased. Huge Indian casualities in the first world war would also indicate that until 1918 Britain still held genuine power over India. The theory that British power “steadily declined” between 1858 and 1947 is therefore somewhat inaccurate because for the first 60 years of this timescale it arguably didn’t decline that much. The period between 1918 and 1947 of gradual British decline in India does vindicate the theory more though. During the 1st world war Britain had made promises to the Indians that they expected the British to keep and the gradual reforming nature of British policy in the region would corroborate the theory. The Government of India Act in 1919, the Montagu reforms of 1921 and the 1929 Irwin declaration of dominion status for India each giving away more and more show that Britain did not suddenly lose control of India but slowly lost it over a number of years. Language such as “the old system of paternal government….was no longer sufficient” illustrate that when the government of India Act was introduced in 1935 Britain had all but lost India. Therefore the progressive nature of the reforms meant that Britain had no real hopes of “holding India to the empire” and indicates that the theory is an accurate one concerning the period after 1918. The general trend of the timescale is of course one of British power declining but the years following both world wars were by far the most obvious examples of this. The Amritsar Massacre and the Government of India Act in 1919 just after the first world war and full independence following the “decline of administration” and the “loss of all power to control events” in 1947/8 just after the second world war show that undoubtedly decolonisation of India was exacerbated after both wars. Therefore although the theory of declining power is an accurate one the “steady” nature of it is a little inaccurate. The impact of war also reduces the credibility of the “inevitable” decline of British power over India. Without the loss of millions of Indian lives on the fields of Belgium and France in the first world war would the Britain have had to relinquish its hold over the raj? After the First World War was the “White Man’s Burden” not removed due to the price India had paid in blood and loss of British interest in India? Surely war ...