V.

The Triumph of Imperialism

 Colonial Regimes in Southeast Asia
 In Southeast Asia, economic profit was the immediate and primary aim of the colonial
enterprise. For that purpose, colonial powers tried wherever possible to work with local
elites to facilitate the exploitation of natural resources. Indirect rule reduced the cost of
training European administrators and had a less corrosive impact on the local culture.
 In the Dutch East Indies, for example, officials of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)
entrusted local administration to the indigenous landed aristocracy, known as the priyayi.
The priyayi maintained law and order and collected taxes in return for a payment from the
VOC.
 The British followed a similar practice in Malaya. While establishing direct rule over areas
of crucial importance, such as the commercial centers of Singapore and Malacca and the
island of Penang, the British signed agreements with local Muslim rulers to maintain
princely power in the interior of the peninsula. In some instances, however, local
resistance to the colonial conquest made such a policy impossible. In Burma, faced with
staunch opposition from the monarchy and other traditionalist forces, the British abolished
the monarchy and administered the country directly through their colonial government in
India.
 In Indochina, the French used both direct and indirect means. They imposed direct rule on
the southern provinces in the Mekong delta, which had been ceded to France as a colony
after the first war in 1858–1860. The northern parts of the country, seized in the 1880s,
were governed as a territory, with the emperor retaining titular authority from his palace in
Hue.
 The French adopted a similar policy in Cambodia and Laos, where local rulers were left in
charge with French advisers to counsel them. Even the Dutch were eventually forced into a
more direct approach. When the development of plantation agriculture and the extraction
of oil in Sumatra made effective exploitation of local resources more complicated, they
dispensed with indirect rule and tightened their administrative control over the
archipelago. Whatever method was used, colonial regimes in Southeast Asia, as elsewhere,
were slow to create democratic institutions.
 The first legislative councils and assemblies were composed almost exclusively of
European residents in the colonies. The first representatives from the indigenous
population were wealthy and conservative in their political views. When Southeast Asians
began to complain, colonial officials gradually and reluctantly began to broaden the
franchise, but even such liberal thinkers as Albert Sarraut advised patience in awaiting the
full benefits of colonial policy. “I will treat you like my younger brothers,” he promised,
“but do not forget that I am the older brother. I will slowly give you the dignity of
humanity.”3 Colonial powers were equally reluctant to shoulder the “white man’s burden”
in the area of economic development. As we have seen, their primary goals were to secure
a source of cheap raw materials and to maintain markets for manufactured goods. So
colonial policy concentrated on the export of raw materials—teakwood from Burma;
rubber and tin from Malaya; spices, tea, coffee, and palm oil from the East Indies; and
sugar and copra from the Philippines. In some Southeast Asian colonial societies, a
measure of industrial development did take place to meet the needs of the European
 population and local elites. Major manufacturing cities, including Rangoon in lower
Burma, Batavia on the island of Java, and Saigon in French Indochina, grew rapidly.
Although the local middle class benefited in various ways from the Western presence,
most industrial and commercial establishments were owned and managed by Europeans or,
in some cases, by Indian or Chinese merchants.
 In Saigon, for example, even the manufacture of nuoc mam, the traditional Vietnamese
fish sauce, was under Chinese ownership. Most urban residents were coolies (laborers),
factory workers, or rickshaw drivers or eked out a living in family shops as they had
during the traditional era. Despite the growth of an urban economy, the vast majority of
people in the colonial societies continued to farm the land. Many continued to live by
subsistence agriculture, but the colonial policy of emphasizing cash crops for export also
led to the creation of a form of plantation agriculture in which peasants were recruited to
work as wage laborers on rubber and tea plantations owned by Europeans. To maintain a
competitive edge, the plantation owners kept the wages of their workers at the poverty
level.
 As in India, colonial rule did bring some benefits to Southeast Asia. It led to the
beginnings of a modern economic infrastructure and what is sometimes called a
“modernizing elite” dedicated to the creation of an advanced industrialized society. The
development of an export market helped create an entrepreneurial class in rural areas. On
the outer islands of the Dutch East Indies (such as Borneo and Sumatra), for example,
small growers of rubber, palm oil, coffee, tea, and spices began to share in the profits of
the colonial enterprise.
 A balanced assessment of the colonial legacy in Southeast Asia must take into account that
the early stages of industrialization are difficult in any society. Even in western Europe,
industrialization led to the creation of an impoverished and powerless proletariat, urban
slums, and displaced peasants driven from the land. In much of Europe and Japan,
however, the bulk of the population eventually enjoyed better material conditions as the
profits from manufacturing and plantation agriculture were reinvested in the national
economy and gave rise to increased consumer demand.
 In contrast, in Southeast Asia, most of the profits were repatriated to the colonial mother
country, while displaced peasants fleeing to cities such as Rangoon, Batavia, and Saigon
found little opportunity for employment. Many were left with seasonal employment, with
one foot on the farm and one in the factory. The old world was being destroyed, while the
new had yet to be born.

 Imperialism and Americans in Asia

 The British imperialist Cecil Rhodes wrote that “the world is nearly all parceled out,
and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonized. To think of
these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach, I
would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so
clear and yet so far.”
 Rhodes was an imperialist, and to an imperialist, “expansion was everything.”
Imperialism is the policy of expanding the rule of a nation or empire over foreign
countries by force. In the 1800s, European nations acquired great wealth and power
 from both the natural resources of the lands they conquered and the forced labor of the
people from whom they took the land. Imperialists used ideas from eugenics and Social
Darwinism to justify their conquests. To imperialists like Rhodes, the idea that there
would soon be no opportunity for further expansion was unsettling.

 The French held similar views. In a speech to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1884,
Jules Ferry, who twice served as prime minister of France, said:

“Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say openly
that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races. . . . I repeat, that the
superior races have a right because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize
the inferior races. . . . In the history of earlier centuries these duties, gentlemen, have
often been misunderstood, and certainly when the Spanish soldiers and explorers
introduced slavery into Central America, they did not fulfill their duty as men of a
higher race. . . . But in our time, I maintain that European nations acquit themselves
with generosity, with grandeur, and with the sincerity of this superior civilizing
duty.”
 Armed with these ideas of racial and cultural superiority, Western nations expanded
into Asia from the mid 1850s to the beginning of World War I. The "Age of
Imperialism" was fueled by the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States,
and it profoundly influenced nation-building efforts in Japan and China. As the desire to
exert regional strength grew, Japan also began to expand its colonial influence across
East Asia.

 Imperialism and Cultural Change

 In the 1800s China simultaneously experiences major internal strains and Western
imperialist pressure, backed by military might which China cannot match. China’s
position in the world and self-image is reversed in a mere 100 year period (c.a. 1840-
1940) from leading civilization to subjected and torn country.
 The Japanese witness China’s experience with the military power of Western nations,
and after the arrival of an American delegation in Japan in 1853, Japan is also forced to
open its ports. Japan is able to adapt rapidly to match the power of the West and soon
establishes itself as a competitor with the Western powers for colonial rights in Asia. In
1894-5, Japan challenges and defeats China in a war over influence in Korea, thereby
upsetting the traditional international order in East Asia, where China was the supreme
power and Japan a tribute-bearing subordinate power.
 Through the 1700s, China’s imperial system flourishes under the Qing (Ch’ing) or
Manchu dynasty. China is at the center of the world economy as Europeans and
Americans seek Chinese goods.
 By the late 1700s, however, the strong Chinese state is experiencing internal strains —
particularly, an expanding population that taxes food supply and government control —
and these strains lead to rebellions and a weakening of the central government. (The
Taiping Rebellion, which lasts from 1850-1864, affects a large portion of China before
being suppressed.)
 Western nations are experiencing an outflow of silver bullion to China as a result of the
imbalance of trade in China’s favor, and they bring opium into China as a commodity to
trade to reverse the flow of silver.
 China’s attempt to ban the sale of opium in the port city of Canton leads to the Opium
War of 1839 in which the Chinese are defeated by superior British arms and which results
in the imposition of the first of many “Unequal Treaties.” These treaties open other cities,
“Treaty Ports” — first along the coast and then throughout China — to trade, foreign
legal jurisdiction on Chinese territory in these ports, foreign control of tariffs, and
Christian missionary presence. By the late 1800s, China is said to be “carved up like a
melon” by foreign powers competing for “spheres of influence” on Chinese soil.
 From the 1860s onward, the Chinese attempt reform efforts to meet the military and
political challenge of the West. China searches for ways to adapt Western learning and
technology while preserving Chinese values and Chinese learning. Reformers and
conservatives struggle to find the right formula to make China strong enough to protect
itself against foreign pressure, but they are unsuccessful in the late 1800s.
 The Qing dynasty of the Manchus is seen as a “foreign” dynasty by the Chinese. (The
well-known “Boxer Rebellion” of 1898-1900 begins as an anti-Qing uprising but is
redirected by the Qing Empress Dowager against the Westerners in China.) As a symbol
of revolution, Chinese males cut off the long braids, or queues, they had been forced to
wear as a sign of submission to the authority of the Manchus. The dynastic authority is
not able to serve as a focal point for national mobilization against the West, as the
emperor is able to do in Japan in the same period.
 China finds its traditional power relationship with Japan reversed in the late 19th century,
especially after its defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese war in 1894-95 over influence in
Korea. (The Japanese, after witnessing the treatment of China by the West and its own
experience of near-colonialism in 1853, successfully establish Japan as a competitor with
Western powers for colonial rights in Asia and special privileges in China.)
 China is impressed by Japan’s defeat of Russia, a Western power, in the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-05; additional reform efforts follow in China and the examination system,
which linked the Chinese Confucian educational system to the civil service, is abolished
in 1906.
 Internal strains and foreign activity in China lead to rebellions and ultimately revolt of the
provinces against the Qing imperial authority in 1911 in the name of a Republican
Revolution. (New scholarship, by writers such as Edward Rhoads, challenges the notion
that the 1911 Revolution was “inevitable” and suggests that reforms leading to a
constitutional monarchy, recommended by the Chinese reforms of 1898 and similar to
reforms of Meiji Japan, might have been possible were it not for court politics and military
delays that facilitated the 1911 Revolution route.)
 Chinese military leaders, “warlords,” step into the political vacuum created by the fall of
the Qing. The warlords control different regions of the country and compete for
domination of the nominal central government in Beijing. Sun Yat-sen and his nascent
Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or Guomindang) struggle to bring republican government
to China.
 The terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, ending WW I, enrage the Chinese urban
populace by recognizing Japanese claims to former German rights in the Shandong
 peninsula of China. This leads to an outpouring of nationalistic sentiment on May 4, 1919
and to the subsequent “May 4th Movement” to reform Chinese culture through the
adoption of Western Science and Democracy. The Confucian system is discredited and
rejected by those who feel it did not provide China with the strength it needed to meet the
challenge of the West.
 For some Chinese, Marxism a) represents a Western theory, based on a scientific analysis
of historical development, that b) offers the promise of escape from the imperialism that is
thwarting their national ambitions, and c) promises economic development that would
improve the lot of all. It also offers a comparative philosophic system that can for some fill
the vacuum left after the rejection of the Confucian system. The founding of the Chinese
Communist Party in 1921 follows the success of the communist revolution in Russia of
1917-18.
 The Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party (founded in 1921) work and
compete to reunify China politically.
 The very rapid change in China’s international status and self-image as a leading
civilization leads the Chinese on a quest to reestablish China’s place in the world — a
quest that continues today.

 The Legacy of Western Control

 Conclusions about imperialism it is valuable to look back at various historical case
studies. That’s why we learned about the British Raj in India, the Opium Wars in China,
and several cases in Africa during and after the scramble. What common patterns did you
notice? Were the motivations for imperialism more similar or different? What methods
made European imperialism possible and successful? Europeans said that they intended to
bring commerce, civilization, and Christianity to the rest of the world. Based on the case
studies you read, were these noble goals?
 European Imperialism in Asia and Africa has certainly left a lasting legacy in the modern
world. Some former colonies have fared quite well. A couple former imperial port cities
—Hong Kong and Singapore—have been among the wealthiest cities or countries in the
world. According to the CIA World Fact Book, these cities both had a higher GDP per
capita than the United States or Great Britain in 2011 (Wikipedia). Older former settler
colonies—such as the United States, Canada, and Australia—are also among the
wealthiest. Other countries that have recently shuffled off imperial control—China and
India—have had the fastest growing economies in the world since opening up their
economies to the highly competitive global free market.
 Other countries have not fared well at all. Almost all of the poorest countries in the world
in 2012 were in sub-Saharan Africa, with the Congo leading the pack. Most of these
African countries have seen their GDP per capita decrease since independence from
European imperial control. Political instability has perhaps been the biggest problem in
the development of Africa. Companies do not want to risk investing in countries suffering
from civil wars, rebellions, corruption, and violent regime changes. Between
independence starting in 1957 and continuing through1990, only six out of 150 African
heads of state gave up their power voluntarily (Meredith 379). Clearly, the newly
independent nations of Africa still struggle with unscrambling the legacy of imperialism.
VI. Nationalism and Revolution in China and India
 The Fall of the Qing 1860-1911.
 The last seventy years of the Qing dynasty, simply put, is a story of decline. But a
closer examination reveals a much more complex and nuanced picture. The reasons for
decline are fairly straightforward, though scholars might dispute the relative weighting
among them. The period opened with the First Opium War (1839–1842), a milestone in the
dynastic decline. Viewed more broadly, however, the sources of this decline if seen as a
function of ailing institutions such as the examination system or an increasingly inefficient
revenue system out of sync with population growth can be traced back to the Ming dynasty
(1368–1644) and before. As such, this perspective focuses on large sociopolitical forces
that beg the question of whether the decline was not just of the Qing political order but of
China’s civilization itself. Symptomatic of this decline, reforms came slowly and with
limited and sporadic government support. Known as the Qing Restoration, which began
around 1860, the aim was to reinvigorate the Confucian state through administrative and tax
reforms, as well as a practical application of Confucian principles in governance.
 To tackle the thorny problem of foreign threats, the reformers’ initial response was the
adoption of Western military technology and diplomatic practices, conveniently
encapsulated as “self-strengthening” (ziqiang), in 1861. But reforms soon acquired a life of
their own. It became apparent early on that the adoption of one Western technological or
diplomatic innovation would inevitably lead to the adoption of another. Modern guns and
boats would require new military training, just as their manufacture would require
machinists and engineers, and they in turn would demand support industries such as coal
mining and a modern transportation infrastructure.
 To finance these projects, the self-strengtheners branched out into money-making
enterprises. A steamship company and textile mills followed, first under government
purview, but eventually, under further pressure to combat cheap foreign manufactured
goods, import-substitution industries were promoted, now completely in private hands, who
were touted as patriotic entrepreneurs.
 To meet demands, modern education was introduced. In the meantime, the foreigners—
their enterprises, missionaries, and military might—continued to threaten the Qing Empire,
extracting greater concessions each time there was an altercation or war, which the Chinese
inevitably lost. By the end of the 19th century, some Chinese began to realize that, if they
were to become a modern nation, their political system had to be seriously reformed and,
should that fail, changed.
 The combined effect of modern commerce, industry, and education had led to major
diversification and enrichment of the Chinese elites. They were now poised for greater say
in the polity. When their demands were not satisfied, they deserted the Qing Court, and the
dynasty collapsed in 1912. Seen in its immediate aftermath, all the efforts at reform or self-
strengthening had failed. Over the long haul, the late Qing had laid the foundation for
modern China. There was no turning back.
 Chaos and Warlordism
 The term junfa became part of the Chinese vocabulary in the 1910s and gained popularity
in the 1920s to describe the phenomenon of militarism that dominated the Chinese political
scene between 1916 and 1928. While both characters, jun (military) and fa (as in menfa,
prominent lineage), are ancient Chinese words, it was in Japan that fa as a suffix was
paired with other words to mean "a clique of" or "a faction of." Zaibatsu, for example,
means financial combines (caifa in Chinese); and gunbatsu, meaning military clique,
helped the Chinese define the emerging situation of militarism in China.
 Before junfa, there were other Chinese terms to refer to individual military governors. Zongdu
—viceroy, for example—was used in the Qing text. In the early twentieth century, the character
du, "to supervise," appeared in such compounds as dudu, dujun, and duban—all referring to a
military governor.
 Junfa, or its English equivalents warlords and warlordism, when used in the context of Chinese
polity and society during the first part of the twentieth century, are pejorative expressions,
evoking brutality, chaos, and the plundering of the civilian population. The warlord era was
marked by constant warfare, thrusting China into perpetual economic and political instability.
Typically, modern warlordism in China applies to the years between 1916 and 1928, but its
impact and legacy, with its residual influence, lasted well into the 1940s. Official history in
Beijing and Taipei denounces warlords and characterizes the era as reactionary to China's
endeavor toward national unity and progress. Both Chinese and English scholarship describe
the warlords as regional militarists, possessing personal armies that they constantly strove to
expand and heavily relied on to advance their own interests in power and money. Backed by
their military power, they maintained virtual territorial autonomy over the regions under their
control. They relied heavily on taxes of the local population for revenue. While petty warlords
depended more on local sources, including the domestic opium traffic, more significant ones
had established ties with the foreign powers present in China from whom they gained financial
and military support.
 However, it would be a mistake to think of warlords as being under the thumb of the foreign
powers. Between 1916 and 1928, when the warlords held sway in China, they numbered in the
hundreds if not in the thousands. Their strengths varied tremendously, from a force composed
of no more than a handful of men to well-armed troops of several hundred thousand strong.
Numerous as they were, there were fewer than a dozen major factions, among which were three
infamous cliques in North China. The Anhui clique (Wan) was headed by Duan Qirui, the
premier of the Beijing government between 1912 and 1920. The Zhili (Zhi) faction was
commanded by Feng Guozhang, who, after his death, was succeeded by Cao Kun. The
Fengtian (Feng) clique was led by Zhang Zuolin. Members of all warlord coalitions, big and
small, shifted their allegiance constantly as was the nature of the warlord alliances; but the
three northern factions stood out and commanded more attention than the southern warlord
groupings because they fought for national power represented by the Beijing government.
 Warlordism in modern China had its origin in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when
the Qing government was losing control of the empire under the pressure of domestic unrest
and foreign intervention. Though not the hereditary descendants of the regionally originated
Xiang and Huai armies that aided the imperial government in defeating the Taiping rebels in
the mid-1800s, the later warlord troops were nourished by the same political crisis that had
challenged the Qing's power. A more immediate model followed by the twentieth-century
 warlord system was the New Army that the Qing established in the 1890s as part of its attempt
to revamp the imperial power. Unfortunately for the central government, the reform effort
failed, and the New Army, comparatively modern in training and equipment, acquired the
quality of a personal army loyal to its commander, Yuan Shikai.
 With this army at his command, Yuan emerged as a power to be reckoned with at a time when
China was undergoing its most fundamental historical transformation. Oscillating between the
Qing and the anti-Qing forces, but finally leaning toward the latter, Yuan used his military
power to gain the highest political position in the new government, becoming the first president
of the Republic of China in 1912. During his reign, Yuan more than once resorted to force in
implementing his policies. His opponents also turned to military power in their effort to block
and defeat Yuan's political agenda, as in the anti-monarchical war in 1915, touched off by
Yuan's scheme of putting himself on the dragon throne. Military force, thus politicized and
empowered by political leaders, established its legitimate authority in political struggles.
 China was well on the road toward rule by the gun during Yuan's presidency. But his regime
was not a military regime; it represented a central authority supported by provincial leaders, a
structure not fundamentally different from the Qing bureaucracy. However, more than the Qing
monarchy, Yuan's government was plagued by the perennial tension between centralization and
local autonomy. Yuan's death in 1916 left the weak and antiquated civil institutions in the
hands of his less capable successors, plunging the country into complete fragmentation.
 What also contributed to the rise of the system of warlords was the absence of an institutional
passage to power. The civil service examination had long channeled the talented and ambitious
to the service of the imperial bureaucracy. No longer in use, it left one with nothing to follow
but one's own ability to survive. Consequently, military power became the assurance of success
in a society without a clearly defined code of conduct.
 Instead of an aberration, twentieth-century warlordism was a manifestation of a recurrent theme
in Chinese history—a history that alternated between political integration and fragmentation
and a history filled with struggles of local powers challenging the central authority. During
times of disintegration, soldiers dominated politics. The backgrounds of the modern warlords
were diverse: some were bandits with little education; others had training in Confucianist
classics. A few may even have received some Western education. While many deserved the
reputation of being a breed of gross and unscrupulous men, there were also those who
succeeded in presenting themselves as men of idealism and altruism, steeped in Confucianist
morality and Christian benevolence. Provincial warlords such as those in Sichuan were
notoriously corrupt and cruel; Yan Xishan, who overlorded Shanxi, was mostly noted for his
effective control of the province. Nationally known figures such as Wu Peifu and Feng
Yuxiang, on the other hand, maintained a façade of being honest and high-minded. Though
some of them displayed modern attitudes and used rhetoric of patriotic nationalism, and in fact
many of them adopted modern organization and technology to their forces, they were not men
of ideology. Their political and military maneuvering at various levels, confusing and
conflicting but ultimately in accordance with their own interests, only prolonged and deepened
China's political crisis.
 hough the warlords dominated Chinese politics during the early years of the Republic of China,
they did not come to power suddenly in the wake of the fall of the Qing dynasty. The system
evolved over a period of time. In contrast, the end of the warlords' rule came rather suddenly.
After two years between 1926 and 1928, the Northern Expedition claimed victory over the
 warlords when its troops entered Beijing, signifying the reunification of the whole of China.
The defeat of the warlords was more than a military victory. Built on the rising nationalistic
desire for a strong and unified China and a strong antiwarlordist sentiment, the nationalist
government was finally able to wage a successful war against the warlords.
 However, this was not a complete victory, as political and military expediency forced the newly
established nationalist government to negotiate with some of the warlords, allowing their troops
to be absorbed en masse into its own army in exchange for their allegiance. These "residual
warlords" continued to contest the central power and made China's unification only a nominal
reality. The Communist victory in 1949 ultimately put an end to the influence of the warlords
who had survived throughout the Republican era.

 China in the 1920s and 1930s

 Before Europeans first arrived in Asia, China was one of the most advanced and
powerful nations in the world. It was the most populous, was politically unified, and
most importantly, it had mastered the art of agriculture. However, when Europeans first
landed on Chinese shores, they found a nation that had revered to traditional culture and
warfare. Industrialization was almost nonexistent.
 At the beginning of the 20th century, China was divided into sphere of influence with
each powerful Western nation trying to exert as much control over it as possible. The
Chinese resented foreigners control and expressed this at the beginning of the 20th
century with the Boxer Rebellion. At the same time, the traditional government of
China began to fail in the early years.
 During the 1920’s, China was divided in a power struggle began between the CCP and
KMT. The KMT controlled a majority of China with a strong base in urban areas while
the CCP displaying smallholdings in rural communities. By 1928, the CCP was
expelled and China was nationalized under the KMT. However, the Communist Party of
China resurfaced on November 1, 1931 when it proclaimed the Jiangxi providence as
the Chinese Soviet Republic. The army of the Republic of China, under the leadership
of Chiang Kai-shek tried to destroy the Communist army in 1934, however, Chiang
failed but did cause the CCP to flee northward in the Long March.
 Also in 1931, Japan began to occupy Manchuria and established a puppet government
called Manchukuo. The Japanese aggression in China became full blown on July 7,
1937, the beginning World War II. By 1939, Japan controlled most of the east coast of
China, while Chiang blockaded the Communists in the northwest region. By 1944, the
United States began to help nationalist China, but the nationalist remained weak due to
high inflation and economic strife.
VII. India under Colonial Rule
 The beginnings of Indian nationalism
 Queen Victoria’s proclamation that all her subjects would be treated equally under
British imperial law, discrimination led many educated Indians to seek redress. To that
end, a small group of lawyers and merchants founded the Indian National Congress
(INC) in 1885 in Bombay. The INC focused on pressuring the British to make
constitutional reforms to ensure equal rights and increase Indian participation in the
imperial government. At first the group met only once a year and had little influence.
Over time, the Indian National Congress helped diverse ethnic, religious, and linguistic
groups coalesce around the idea of resisting British rule. Could the diverse groups of
people living in the South Asian subcontinent fuse together to form a single nation?
 Before World War I, the Indian National Congress remained a small, upper class, urban
movement that struggled to unify Indians. Communal splits—along religious lines—
divided India politically. Though some Muslims did join, Hindus dominated the INC. In
1905, the British split the province of Bengal between Muslims and Hindus for local
elections. Though short lived, the move worried Muslim leaders that, as a minority
group, their rights and concerns would not be heard in democratic elections over the
much larger Hindu majority. In 1906, wealthy leaders of the Muslim community founded
the Muslim League at Dacca to protect the rights and privileges of the Muslim
community in India.
 The British exploited this religious division in 1909 by introducing separate religious
electorates in provincial elections (Fischer 115). From this moment on, under the British
Raj, Hindus could only vote for Hindu candidates and Muslims could only vote for
Muslim candidates. This solidified religious affiliation with political parties and
decreased interreligious negotiation and discussion. Despite the communal divisions,
these two organizations, sometimes working together and sometimes apart, would
eventually lead India to Independence.

 Gandhi

 Since the late-1910s, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had been at the forefront of
India’s quest to shake off the yoke of British colonial domination, otherwise known as
the “Raj.” The thin and abstemious former lawyer had led civil disobedience against
colonial policies, encouraged Indians to boycott British goods, and had served two years
in prison on charges of sedition.
 Gandhi’s philosophy of “satyagraha,” which sought to reveal truth and confront
injustice through nonviolence, had made him the most polarizing figure on the
subcontinent. While the British regarded him with suspicion, Indians had begun calling
him “Mahatma,” or “great-souled.”

 When the Indian National Congress redoubled its efforts for independence in January
1930, many assumed Gandhi would stage his most ambitious satyagraha campaign to
 date. Yet rather than launching a frontal assault on more high profile injustices, Gandhi
proposed to frame his protest around salt.

 As with many other commodities, Britain had kept India’s salt trade under its thumb
since the 19th century, forbidding natives from manufacturing or selling the mineral and
forcing them to buy it at high cost from British merchants. Since salt was a nutritional
necessity in India’s steamy climate, Gandhi saw the salt laws as an inexcusable evil.

 Many of Gandhi’s comrades were initially skeptical. “We were bewildered and could
not fit in a national struggle with common salt,” remembered Jawaharlal Nehru, later
India’s first prime minister. Another colleague compared the proposed protest to
striking a “fly” with a “sledgehammer.” Yet for Gandhi, the salt monopoly was a stark
example of the ways the Raj unfairly imposed Britain’s will on even the most basic
aspects of Indian life. Its effects cut across religious and class differences, harming both
Hindus and Muslims, rich and poor.

 India moves toward independence

 The Indian independence movement began in 1857. The early proponents led militant
uprisings against British rule, but the leaders of the Indian National Congress, which
was founded in 1885, pushed for more rights for Indians in terms of the vast civil
service and land ownership.
 From the 1920s onwards, Mahatma Gandhi was established as the leader of the Indian
independence movement. His belief in civil rights and non-violent struggle inspired a
generation. Many inspirational activists came to the fore, such as B. R. Ambedkar, who
championed greater rights for the lower castes, that had been treated despicably under
British colonial rule.
 In 1942, Congress launched the "Quit India" movement. Britain, leading the fight
against Nazism in the Second World War alongside 2.5 million Indian troops, promised
to grant India independence after the war. Following the Battle of Britain, Gandhi said
he would not push for India's self-rule out of the ashes of a destroyed Britain.
 However, by the end of the war and with its empire weakened, Britain was unable to
resist the overwhelming demand for independence. Both Congress and the Muslim
League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, dominated elections. Further, Clement Attlee,
by now Britain's prime minister, was a supporter of independence.
 In a climate of growing communal tensions and pressure from Jinnah, who argued that
Muslims should have their own state, the Mountbatten Plan was hastily conceived. It
divided British India along broad religious lines. The problem being that there were
millions of Muslims living in what would become Hindu-majority India and huge
numbers of Hindus and Sikhs living in what would be Muslim-majority Pakistan.
 Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who led the Boundary Commission, proposed the Radcliffe Line,
which was a "notional division" of the vast country based on simple district majorities.
He submitted his plan for both the west and east borders on August 9 1947 - just five
days before it came into force.
 The two countries celebrate on different days because Lord Mountbatten, the viceroy of
British India, had to attend the Pakistan celebration on August 14th and then travel to
Delhi for India's first independence day on August 15.
 King George VI remained the head of state of India until the enshrining of the country's
constitution in 1950. Likewise, Pakistan remained a Dominion of the Crown until 1956,
when its constitution came into force.