01-25-2006, 08:23 AM
As far as Indians were concerned we had no enemity with Germany, Japan, Russia or USA, but we did have direct conflict with England. However, civilizationally we had very little overlap with these other countries save Japan. We had also come to have an intitmate civilizational overlap with England despite the negative basis for it. Given this situation it is not surprising that different Indians saw it very differently: some like Savarkar and Aurobindo felt we should stand by England others like Bose and Gandhi felt we could exploit the situation to our advantage. What ever the case it should be kept in mind that Indians ultimately played a major role in the allied victory in World war II despite S. Bose's opposite vector.
It is pretty clear that Indian freedom was a consequence of many contingencies: The world war had devastated England's holding capacity. The naval rebellion, the national support for the arrested INA officers and general strikes sent the message home to the British that their days were numbered.
It should also not be assumed that the Britons might have given us a better deal- As Kaushal and Acharya have been mentioning they already had a program in place to preclude any possibility of a resurgent India. They feared the vast Indian army as a new power base with the normally divided people unified by experience of the freedom struggle. Only sad point was that there was no major political alternative to the Congress. This was also a consequence of the British social engineering.
It is pretty clear that Indian freedom was a consequence of many contingencies: The world war had devastated England's holding capacity. The naval rebellion, the national support for the arrested INA officers and general strikes sent the message home to the British that their days were numbered.
It should also not be assumed that the Britons might have given us a better deal- As Kaushal and Acharya have been mentioning they already had a program in place to preclude any possibility of a resurgent India. They feared the vast Indian army as a new power base with the normally divided people unified by experience of the freedom struggle. Only sad point was that there was no major political alternative to the Congress. This was also a consequence of the British social engineering.