@phdthesis{Schwarzer2020, author = {Schwarzer, Peter}, title = {Die britische Debatte {\"u}ber Indiens Unabh{\"a}ngigkeit, 1909 - 1947. Machttransfer oder Kontrollverlust?}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-489}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4899}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {556}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The British Debate about India's Independence, 1909 - 1947 Transfer of Power or Loss of Control -Abstract- India's independence in 1947 was not the result of a planned transfer of power. Rather it betrayed the loss of control by the British colonial power that was decades in the making. Although contemporaries referred to India as the Jewel in the Crown, the broader British public showed relatively little interest in any of this. Against this background, this book examines the following three theses: Firstly, between 1909 and 1947, the British public debate on India's political future was limited to a relatively small elite who viewed themselves as guardians of India's well-being. Over the examined period, the debate took place in the context of growing uncertainty and self-doubt about the purpose of Britain's mission in India. Secondly, discussions surrounding the introduction of a constitution to India based on British parliamentary democracy resulted in a debate about how Britain itself was governed and what the Empire stood for. The British debate between 1909 and 1947 about political reforms in India thus became both a debate about the United Kingdom's own values and a vehicle for self-discovery in a rapidly changing world in which Britain had to cope with an increasing loss of control and influence. To justify the loss of actual control, the colonial power had to ensure its control of the narrative and develop compensation mechanisms. In fact, the debate about reforms was not so much concerned with how to implement a transfer of power. Rather, it was a debate about how British control had to be modified to preserve British influence beyond India's independence. This leads to the third thesis, namely that the wider British public would have displayed even less interest in Indian reforms had the debate not been embedded in domestic policy issues, thus violating a core consensus of keeping British rule over its Indian colony above party politics. Between 1909 and 1947, the British debate on India's independence underwent three critical transformations. The first transformation took place against the backdrop of the redefinition of the British claim to power in India. The reform of 1909 was still justified as a means of optimizing British control over India. Over the next years, Britain had to come to terms with uneasiness about reprisals against the protesters against the partition of Bengal and the resulting doubts about the archetype of the British colonial officer as the final authority on Indian affairs. In addition, there was Britain's astonishment at India's unexpected display of loyalty during the Coronation Durbar of 1911 and the First World War. Together with the Amritsar massacre of 1919, these events led to a rethinking of how the kingdom should exercise its control in India. The debates about British misconduct in India ultimately focused on British identity and attempted to distinguish Britain's colonial rule from Russian despotism or even Prussian or German tyranny. British rule over India therefore had to be exercised differently than before. The debate about the duration of British control over India preceded the second transformation. Beginning in 1912, there were calls to formulate the concrete objectives of British rule in India, implicitly including the question of a timeframe for a transfer of power. Until the 1920s, leading participants in the discourse still thought in centuries, whereas in reality it would take less than twenty years until the decisive concessions of 1942. The third transformation took place during the debate about the ability of the Indian colonial subjects to govern themselves. As insignificant as the 1909 reform ultimately was, it exposed as hollow any claims of the alleged lack of ability among Indian civil servants to manage their own affairs. With the 1919 reforms, Indian civil servants increasingly took on posts within the colonial administration, culminating in the measures of the reforms of 1935. These reforms further undermined doubts about Indian capabilities as Indian civil servants were able to prove once and for all their administrative and governmental skills. The British discourse underlying all these developments was primarily determined by efforts to maintain Britain's control over its colony. During the examined period, the colonial rulers tried to control the participants in the discourse, the reform process, the timetable, and last but not least, the narrative. In the end, Britain only succeeded in maintaining control over the narrative while seeing it slip away in all other areas. Successive Secretaries of State for India were able to control the narrative for two main reasons: the general lack of British interest in the colony and successful strategies which limited the actual public debate. Containing the debate was possible because India seldomly became a politically relevant issue. Exceptions included royal visits to the sub-continent which the kingdom used to display its imperial splendour. The British debate about the Amritsar massacre was another exception, as many feared the military reaction to protests in India could foreshadow how a future British government would react to protests in Great Britain itself. The sensationalist propaganda of the anti-reformist diehards only aroused interest in India because they threatened to bring down the Baldwin government. Other issues not related to India tended to be viewed as more important by the broader public. Inadvertently, Britain caused its own loss of control, firstly through the move of the colonial administration from Calcutta to New Delhi, announced in 1911. The misconduct of individual agents of British colonial control ultimately forced the kingdom to give up further areas of control. The Indian and British protests against Sir Bampfylde Fuller's handling of protests in Bengal and General Dyer's military campaign in Amritsar played a decisive role in accelerating the process. Furthermore, already in 1915 the India Office was aware that British rule would have to change considerably after the war in order to hold India. The reform of 1919 only tried to delay the inevitable. The fact that hardly anyone publicly admitted that it was passed as a concession to India's loyalty during the war ultimately proved the British loss of control. The Round Table Conference between 1930 and 1932 confirmed that Britain's India policy would not be enforceable without Gandhi's cooperation. The kingdom was forced to open negotiations with the "fakir" and grant him access to the viceroy and even the king. As independence approached, Britain deployed further mechanisms to at least maintain indirect control over India even after the end of direct British rule. The British were able to fall back on the language of the Round Table, which had been developed since the early 1900s and was characterised by concepts such as "organic growth" and "voluntary membership of the Commonwealth". Furthermore, it was hoped that the role of the mother nation would not change significantly after a transfer of power. Having prepared its Indian colonial subjects for full governmental responsibility over the past decades, the kingdom would now be able to continue to advise and guide the young Indian nation. While Britain was losing direct control over India, it was at least anxious to maintain control of the handover process. The goal of transferring power to capable Indian successors made close cooperation with the Indian National Congress a necessity. The organisation had the most support in India and, like the British colonial power, was against partitioning the colony. Gandhi, Nehru and other congress leaders were now fully rehabilitated partners - in contrast to Jinnah, whose own boycott and protest movement made it difficult for the colonial power to play its role as a benevolent mother nation and maintain the mirage of still providing law and order on the subcontinent. Britain's role now consisted of handing over India undivided and in a smooth process to a new government in the hope of permanently binding the newly independent nation to itself as a junior partner. In reality, Indian independence was not the result of a controlled transfer of power. At the end of the reviewed period, Britain's loss of colonial power and control was disguised as a transfer of power the kingdom portrayed as the fulfilment of its role as a mother nation - assuming various scenarios that would allow it to continue to exert influence on its former colony in the future. This enabled Britain to herald the so-called transfer of power as the fulfilment of the "proudest day of the British Empire" as foreseen by Lord Macaulay in 1835.}, language = {de} }