Decolonization in Asia
Between 1945 and 1960, three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their European colonial rulers. The British and French particularly saw their colonial systems collapse in the aftermath of the war. In some instances, this was due to preexisting nationalist movements, which simply used the war as an opportunity to gain ground on a weakened adversary. In others instances, the war itself prompted native nationalist movements to take shape, oftentimes drawing inspiration from the idealistic language of the Atlantic Charter.
India
For the British, the most significant alteration in their colonial structure after World War II was the granting of independence to India. The Indian anti-colonial movement was one that had been in existence for years prior to the outbreak of World War II, but the war injected it with new fervor and new opportunity, as many Indians were opposed to sending their men abroad to fight for the British.
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One such figure was Subhas Chandra Bose, a former president of the Indian National Congress who deeply resented British rule over India. In 1940, Bose escaped from house arrest and made his way to Germany, where he sought German and Italian aid in creating an Indian army that could be used to throw the British out. Bose met with little success in Berlin and was told to seek aid from Japan instead. Bose arrived in Southeast Asia with Japanese support and established the Azad Hind government, a free government in exile, and organized the Indian National Army (INA). The INA would see action during the war against British troops in Burma and in the Japanese invasion of northeastern India in 1944. The INA failed to flourish, mostly due to poor leadership and the lack of real support from the Japanese. At the end of the war, Bose attempted to escape to Soviet-held Manchuria. However, the plane on which he was traveling crashed in Taiwan, and Bose was killed.
Another challenge to British rule in India during the war came from the Quit India Movement, which was initiated in 1942 by Mohandas Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. This was a policy of large-scale civil disobedience by Indians against British authority. The Indian nationalists hoped that they could force the British to come to the negotiating table by presenting a very real threat to the British war effort in Southeast Asia. The British responded by offering a devolution of power after the war in exchange for complete support during the fighting. The negotiations broke down, however, because neither side could agree to a timetable for the transition of India from under British rule. In response, the British arrested and imprisoned Gandhi. Leaderless, the Quit India movement petered out by late 1943, but the efforts of Indian nationalists did not come to an end there.
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In 1946, the British government, financially exhausted from fighting the war, announced an end to formal British rule in India with the intent of turning power over to an independent Indian government no later than June 1948. One of the great concerns for both the British and the Indians was the potential for violence between the Hindu majority of the country and its Muslim minority. Already in 1946 and 1947 there had been outbreaks of violence between the two groups throughout India, and many worried that when the British left, a civil war would develop between the two sides.
In order to lessen this risk, in June 1947 the British concluded a partition agreement with members of the Indian National Congress, leading Indian Muslims such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and Sikhs, which would lead to the creation of not one independent nation but two.
On August 14, 1947, under the leadership of Jinnah, the predominantly Muslim state of Pakistan was established, and the following day, the Union of India came into official existence. This exchange, however, did not go off without some violence. In particular, the divided border region of Kashmir and Punjab became sites of clashes between the two sides, as massive numbers of Muslims and Hindus began to relocate out of their traditional homes and into their new countries. This contributed to the establishment of a pattern of tense relations between India and Pakistan that continues to the present day.
Indo-China
After the collapse of Japan in August 1945, nationalist forces, most notably the Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh, sought to establish an independent state free from French colonial rule. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh announced the establishment of an independent Vietnam. However, the French challenged this, with the backing of the British government, as they sought to reassert their colonial rule in the region. The American view on the issue prior to 1945 had been to resist the reinstatement of French rule in Indochina. However, after Roosevelt’s death, the American administration— under intense pressure from Charles de Gaulle—became more willing to entertain such an event. For American policymakers, French aid and cooperation in Europe after 1945 was far more crucial than the establishment of an independent Vietnam.
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As French authority was being reestablished in 1946, the Viet Minh moved quickly to undercut this by challenging French forces in the cities of Haiphong and Hanoi. The superior firepower of the French troops proved to be too much, and Ho Chi Minh and his forces withdrew into the mountainous regions of the north and from there launched a guerilla war against the French.
Between 1950 and 1954, France fought a grueling guerilla war against Ho Chi Minh’s forces. The war proved to be a major drain on French resources and on the French spirit. The climactic battle between the two sides occurred in March 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, where a sizable French force was surrounded and destroyed by Viet Minh forces. This prompted France to seek a diplomatic solution to the issue, and in April 1954, peace talks between the two sides and other major world powers began in Geneva, Switzerland. On July 21, 1954, it was announced that the country would be temporarily divided along the 17th parallel in preparation for national elections to be held in 1956. These elections, like those planned in Korea, never materialized, and by 1955, the temporary division of Vietnam had become a more permanent one, with a pro-Western government in the south supported largely by the United States at this point and a Communist government in the north supported by the Soviet Union and Communist China.