Editing Clement Attlee (section)

===== South Asia =====
Attlee orchestrated [[Partition of India|the granting of independence to India and Pakistan]] in 1947. Attlee in 1928–1934 had been a member of the [[Indian Statutory Commission]] (otherwise known as the Simon Commission). He became the Labour Party expert on India and by 1934 was committed to granting India the same independent dominion status that Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa had recently been given.{{sfn|Bew|2017|pp=186–187}} He faced strong resistance from the die-hard Conservative imperialists, led by Churchill, who opposed both independence and efforts led by Prime Minister [[Stanley Baldwin]] to set up a system of limited local control by Indians themselves.<ref>{{cite book |last=Herman |first=Arthur |title=Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age |year=2008 |pages=321–325}}</ref> Attlee and the Labour leadership were sympathetic to both the Congress led by [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] and the Pakistan movement led by [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]]. During the Second World War, Attlee was in charge of Indian affairs. He set up the [[Cripps Mission]] in 1942, which tried and failed to bring the factions together. When Congress called for passive resistance in the [[Quit India]] movement of 1942–1945, it was the British regime ordered the widespread arrest and internment for the duration of tens of thousands of Congress leaders as part of its efforts to crush the revolt.{{sfn|Bew|2017|p=433}}
Labour's election Manifesto in 1945 called for "the advancement of India to responsible self-government".<ref>{{cite book |last=Craig |first=F. W. S. | author-link = F. W. S. Craig |title=British General Election Manifestos: 1918–1966 |year=1970 |page=105}}</ref> In 1942 the [[British Raj]] tried to enlist all major political parties in support of the war effort. Congress, led by Nehru and [[Gandhi]], demanded immediate independence and full control by Congress of all of India. That demand was rejected by the British, and Congress opposed the war effort with its "[[Quit India]]" campaign. The Raj immediately responded in 1942 by imprisoning the major national, regional and local Congress leaders for the duration. Attlee did not object.<ref>Herman, ''Gandhi & Churchill'' (2008) pp.&nbsp;486-95.</ref> By contrast, the [[All-India Muslim League|Muslim League]], led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, strongly supported the war effort. They greatly enlarged their membership and won favour from London for their decision. Attlee retained a fondness for Congress and until 1946, accepted their thesis that they were a non-religious party that accepted Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and everyone else.<ref>Kenneth Harris, ''Attlee'' (1982) pp.&nbsp;362–64</ref> Nevertheless, this difference in opinion between the Congress and the Muslim League towards the British war effort encouraged Attlee and his government to consider further negotiations with the Muslim League.

The Muslim League insisted that it was the only true representative of all of the Muslims of India. With violence escalating in India after the war, but with British financial power at a low ebb, large-scale military involvement was impossible. Viceroy Wavell said he needed a further seven army divisions to prevent communal violence if independence negotiations failed. No divisions were available; independence was the only option.<ref>David Chandler, ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p. 331</ref> Given the increasing demands of the Muslim League, independence implied a partition that set off heavily Muslim Pakistan from the main portion of India.<ref>Harris, ''Attlee'' (1982) pp.&nbsp;367–69.</ref> After becoming Prime Minister in 1945 Attlee originally planned to give India Dominion status in 1948.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-136/churchill-and-india-again-a-again-a-again-a-again/|title=Churchill and India: Again & Again & Again & Again|date=4 July 2013|website=International Churchill Society|access-date=17 May 2021|archive-date=17 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517132627/https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-136/churchill-and-india-again-a-again-a-again-a-again/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Attlee suggested in his memoirs that "traditional" colonial rule in Asia was no longer viable. He said that he expected it to meet renewed opposition after the war both by local national movements as well as by the United States.<ref>{{cite book| author=Attlee, Clement|title=As It Happened|publisher=Viking Press|date=1954|page=254 }}</ref> The prime minister's biographer John Bew says that Attlee hoped for a transition to a multilateral world order and a Commonwealth, and that the old British empire "should not be supported beyond its natural lifespan" and instead be ended "on the right note." His exchequer Hugh Dalton meanwhile feared that post-war Britain could no longer afford to garrison its empire.<ref>{{cite book| author=Bew, John|title=Citizen Clem|publisher=Quercus Editions Limited|date=2016|page=414 }}</ref>

Ultimately the Labour government gave full independence to India and Pakistan in 1947 through the [[Indian Independence Act 1947|Indian Independence Act]]. This involved creating a demarcation between the two regions which was known as the [[Radcliffe Line]]. The boundary between the newly created states of Pakistan and India involved the widespread resettlement of millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Almost immediately, extreme anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh violence ensued in [[Lahore]], [[Multan]] and [[Dacca]] when the [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]] province and the Bengal province were split in the [[Partition of India]]. This was followed by a rapid increase in widespread anti-Muslim violence in several areas including [[Amritsar]], [[Rajkot]], [[Jaipur]], [[Calcutta]] and [[New Delhi|Delhi]]. Historian Yasmin Khan estimates that over a million people were killed of which several were women and children.<ref>Yasmin Khan, ''The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan'' (Yale UP, 2005) pp.&nbsp;6, 83–103, 211.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Peter Lyon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vLwOck15eboC&pg=PA19 |title=Conflict Between India and Pakistan: An Encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2008 |isbn=9781576077122 |page=19}}</ref> Gandhi himself was [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|assassinated]] in January 1948.<ref>"Gandhi Is Killed By A Hindu; India Shaken, World Mourns; 15 Die In Rioting In Bombay Three Shots Fired" [https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0130.html ''New York Times'' 30 January 1948] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170207115225/http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0130.html |date=7 February 2017 }}</ref> Attlee remarked Gandhi as the "greatest citizen" of India and added, "this one man has been the major factor in every consideration of the Indian problem. He had become the expression of the aspirations of the Indian people for independence".<ref name="British Broadcasting">{{cite book | author=British Broadcasting Corporation | title=London Calling | publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation | issue=nos. 432–457 | year=1948 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_h_HxjR8uz8C | access-date=2023-05-19 | page=4 | archive-date=19 May 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230519013201/https://books.google.com/books?id=_h_HxjR8uz8C | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | first1 = H. S. L. | last1 = Polak | author1-link = Henry Polak | first2 = H. N. | last2 = Brailsford | author2-link = H. N. Brailsford | first3 = Frederick | last3 = Pethick-Lawrence | author3-link = Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YGQfAAAAMAAJ | title = Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Modern India | publisher = Anmol Publications | year = 1986 | page = 303 | access-date = 26 March 2023 | archive-date = 26 March 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230326070005/https://books.google.com/books?id=YGQfAAAAMAAJ | url-status = live }}</ref>{{sfn|Bew|2017|p=441}}

Historian Andrew Roberts says the independence of India was a "national humiliation" but it was necessitated by urgent financial, administrative, strategic and political needs.<ref>Andrew Roberts, ''Eminent Churchillians'' (1994) p.&nbsp;78.</ref> Churchill in 1940–1945 had tightened the hold on India and imprisoned the Congress leadership, with Attlee's approval. Labour had looked forward to making it a fully independent dominion like Canada or Australia. Many of the Congress leaders in the India had studied in England, and were highly regarded as fellow idealistic socialists by Labour leaders. Attlee was the Labour expert on India and took special charge of decolonisation.<ref>Kenneth Harris, ''Attlee'' (1982) pp.&nbsp;362–387.</ref> Attlee found that Churchill's viceroy, [[Field Marshal Wavell]], was too imperialistic, too keen on military solutions, and too neglectful of Indian political alignments.<ref>Irial Glynn, "'An Untouchable in the Presence of Brahmins' Lord Wavell's Disastrous Relationship with Whitehall During His Time as Viceroy to India, 1943–7". ''Modern Asian Studies'' 41#3 (2007): 639–663.</ref> The eventual appointee for new Viceroy, [[Lord Mountbatten]], the dashing war hero and a cousin of the King, was put forward by [[V. K. Krishna Menon]] as a candidate acceptable to all, in a series of clandestine meetings with Sir Stafford Scripps, and with Attlee.<ref>{{Citation |title=Aminossehe, Sherin, ( born 26 Nov. 1976), Director, Infrastructure, since 2019, and Race Champion, Ministry of Defence |date=2022-12-01 |work=Who's Who |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u294527 |access-date=2024-03-13 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u294527 |isbn=978-0-19-954088-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author = Moore R. J. | year = 1981 | title = Mountbatten, India, and the Commonwealth | journal = Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics | volume = 19 | issue = 1| pages = 5–43 | doi=10.1080/14662048108447372| doi-access =  }}</ref>

Attlee also sponsored the peaceful transition to independence in 1948 of Burma (Myanmar) and [[Ceylon]] (Sri Lanka).<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul H. Kratoska|title=South East Asia, Colonial History: Peaceful transitions to independence (1945–1963)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yookbQZ-0yUC|year=2001|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9780415247849}}</ref>