1J - Relations with indigenous peoples (1914–1947)
Between 1914 and 1947, people living under British rule developed competing identities and increasingly organised demands for political change. This lesson explains how wartime experiences, colonial institutions, protest and repression helped turn local grievances into nationalist movements across India, the Middle East and Africa.
Colonial relations and identities
Colonial society contained unequal relationships rather than two completely separate, united camps. British governments depended on local officials, chiefs, landlords, soldiers and police. Some people cooperated to preserve authority, earn a living or secure reforms. Others resisted taxation, land loss, labour conditions or political exclusion. Cooperation in one setting did not prevent opposition in another.
Nationalism gave these different grievances a wider political language: a people should control its own government. Schools, newspapers, railway travel and towns helped people communicate across local boundaries. Colonial administration could unintentionally assist this process by giving diverse communities a common government to challenge. Educated activists could use British claims about liberty and law to expose the inequality of colonial citizenship.
Nationalism
A belief that a people understood as a nation should control its own political future. A nationalist movement had to establish who belonged to that nation as well as how it should be governed.
A shared colonial identity was not inevitable. Religion, ethnicity, class and region shaped what people wanted. An Indian could be attached to village, language and religion as well as an Indian nation; some Muslims increasingly supported a separate Pakistani nation. A ruler defending local authority might oppose the same imperial policy as an activist demanding majority government, but for different reasons. Never treat an entire colonised population as having one attitude.
The First World War intensified these tensions. Service and taxation created expectations of recognition, while wartime coercion exposed the reach of colonial power. The language of national self-determination circulating after 1918 offered another resource, although the victorious powers did not apply it equally to their own empires.
India: mass politics and repression
In India, the 1919 Rowlatt legislation retained powers of detention without trial after the war. Gandhi called for protest. On 13 April 1919, troops commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired on an unarmed gathering at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, killing hundreds. The House of Commons Library records the massacre and the continuing dispute over Britain's response. It weakened the credibility of a government that claimed to uphold justice.
Gandhi helped Congress expand beyond elite petitions. Non-cooperation, launched in 1920, asked Indians to withdraw participation from institutions and boycott British goods. It overlapped with the Khilafat campaign among Muslims concerned about the Ottoman caliphate, creating a temporary basis for joint mobilisation. Gandhi suspended the campaign after protesters killed policemen at Chauri Chaura in 1922: maintaining non-violence mattered to his strategy, even when suspension disappointed supporters.
The Salt March of 1930 turned a familiar necessity into a political issue. By challenging the state's salt monopoly and tax, civil disobedience connected sovereignty to everyday life. Its significance lay in participation and visibility, not simply the amount of salt produced. Britain could imprison leaders, but arrests did not resolve the question of whether it possessed legitimate authority.
By the 1940s, Indian nationalism was both stronger and more divided. Congress's Quit India campaign in 1942 demanded an end to British rule, and the government arrested its leaders and suppressed the movement. The Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, promoted the demand for Pakistan. War, political mobilisation and mounting distrust made restoration of the old relationship increasingly difficult. Independence in 1947 ended British rule, but partition showed that agreement on ending empire did not produce agreement on one national state.
Egypt and Iraq: negotiation after revolt
Egypt's wartime protectorate made British control more explicit. In 1919 the arrest and exile of Saad Zaghloul and other Wafd leaders triggered widespread protest. Students, workers and other groups joined opposition that went beyond a small political elite. The Wafd used the claim to represent the Egyptian nation to challenge British authority.
Britain recognised Egyptian independence in 1922 but reserved important matters, including imperial communications, defence, foreign interests and Sudan. This was a major constitutional change without complete withdrawal. Nationalists could therefore argue that the achievement was insufficient. The 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty reduced some restrictions but retained a British military presence in the Canal Zone. The conflict concerned the substance of sovereignty, not merely the country's formal label.
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