Edit, for those interested, there hadn’t been violent mass resistance in India since the uprisings in 1857. While terrorism and assassinations continued, the Imperial intelligence services (which were one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world) effectively neutered and public opinion in Britain wasn’t affected at all.
The Indian National Army which grew in WW2 with Japanese support certainly worried the Imperial governors but it had been obliterated during the botched invasion of India in 1944 and was never able to fully recover, despite strong support in some regions.
The now hugely powerful and well armed British Indian Army was another source of concern but there was no appetite among the officers for revolution and the ordinary soldiers had mixed loyalties.
Most of the violence within India at the time was actually between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority and not directed against British occupation in any large degree.
It was the non-violent passive opposition of Gandhi and the Quit India Movement, and crucially, the British violent crackdown of it, that shifted public opinion within Britain. Once Churchill was ousted, there was neither the public support, or the political desire for further defense of British rule in India and forced them to the negotiating table.
To say violence was what caused the British to pull out is factually incorrect and that the non violent resistance totalled “jack shit” is ignorant beyond belief.
Gross over simplification and also false.
Edit, for those interested, there hadn’t been violent mass resistance in India since the uprisings in 1857. While terrorism and assassinations continued, the Imperial intelligence services (which were one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world) effectively neutered and public opinion in Britain wasn’t affected at all.
The Indian National Army which grew in WW2 with Japanese support certainly worried the Imperial governors but it had been obliterated during the botched invasion of India in 1944 and was never able to fully recover, despite strong support in some regions.
The now hugely powerful and well armed British Indian Army was another source of concern but there was no appetite among the officers for revolution and the ordinary soldiers had mixed loyalties.
Most of the violence within India at the time was actually between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority and not directed against British occupation in any large degree.
It was the non-violent passive opposition of Gandhi and the Quit India Movement, and crucially, the British violent crackdown of it, that shifted public opinion within Britain. Once Churchill was ousted, there was neither the public support, or the political desire for further defense of British rule in India and forced them to the negotiating table.
To say violence was what caused the British to pull out is factually incorrect and that the non violent resistance totalled “jack shit” is ignorant beyond belief.