Why did many British colonies demand independence from Britain in the years immediately after the world war two? Explain your answer by referring to two former British colonies (the two colonies are India and Kenya).

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Mohamed Omar   11rwe

   Question 1

Why did many British colonies demand independence from Britain in                   the years immediately after the world war two? Explain your answer by referring to two former British colonies (the two colonies are India and Kenya)

1)  Mahamata  Ghandi quote “an eye for an eye will only make the world blind”.

This quote is actually trying to say that violence is now good, however it is saying if a person starts violence with you, you must turn away. India wanted independence when they saw England, France and Russia fighting for their freedom against Germany in the war? That was another inspiration of how India wanted their independence.

However, the move towards independence started much earlier with world war one. World war one saw people in India started to question their British rules.

  2)  At the start when the war broke out in 1914 almost all the Indian people enthusiastically supported Britain and the empire. Indian soldiers fought in Europe. India also gave Britain £100 million a year after that. To pay for taxes were increased and as the war went on, Indians became more critical. Indians started to question the British, so they allowed them to  run some parts of the empire. There demands for self-rule was ignored. This made people angry and the congress party started to campaign for Indian independence. Another reason why India and Kenya wanted independence was that they were treated unfairly by the British. Also the Indians and Africans got fed-up of being treated badly. The Kenyattas got their land taken off them by white farmers, and the white farmers grew crops and soled it as coffee. The black Kenyattas were made to work for the white farmers and the black people got paid low wages.

 3)  Indians were also increasingly angry because of what happened in the Anritsar massecar. There was a large unarmed crowed gathered in the Jalianwalla bagh, an open space enclosed by walls. Dyer marched with so soldiers to the scene and without ordering the crowed to move, he lined his men up on a bank overlooking the area and ordered them to fire. Trapped by walls and narrow gateways, the crowed was unable to escape. Within six minutes 30 lay dead and 1,000 injured. This made Ghandi so enraged and showed the people in India that British could not be trusted to rule any country. This increased demands for independence.

4)  The Kenyattas and Indians wanted to have self rule and not to be governed by the British. Ghandi and his people used non-violence methods against the British. The non-violent methods were not buying English cloth and not paying the taxes. So Britain started to get fed-up of what the Indians were doing. Ghandi was then taken to prison for six years this was treatment.  Indians and Kenyans wanted to have self rule so that they can control their own country and culture. For example Indians had their self rule Indian would not give their money to Britain. So then they would not have to face high payment of food and more people being poor.  Kenyans didn’t want to make or grow crops for the white farmers which black got low wages. The Kenyans wanted their own land to grow food for their families.  To get cheap labour they made the Africans pay taxes in their huts. In the early 1950s some of the Kikuyu  became impatient. They organised themselves into Mau Mau. Mau Mau was part secret society and part guerrilla army. It s aim was to drive which white farmers any their workers of the Kikuyu lands. However there were some black Africans and Indian leaders who were educated and lived for a time in Britain. For example Ghandi was educated and lived for a while. When Ghandi was getting educated in India as a lawyer he saw their system and how they do things fairly. There was one time when England fought the world war two and that England fought for freedom against Germany. Ghandi realised that they were treating India unfairly and that India should fight for freedom.

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5)       India and al the other countries started to demand for freedom because they saw and realised that why England was fighting the war for freedom then why shouldn’t we fight for freedom. But the new labour government agreed with India and wanted to make India independent as quickly as possible, Britain didn’t really mind loosing India as a colony because England was pretty in a bad shape after WW2. However India was starting to cost a lot of money, and why India started to cost a lot of money there was really no point of ...

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