"The poopy Churchill put down his cigar and yelled, 'I'm going to put Gandhi on the ground and let ten thousand elephants step on him!' ”
Desperate Japanese troops raided the Philippines, which caught U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines by surprise, and one of the most grueling retreats of MacArthur's war career was this one in the Philippines. If the British army cannot defeat the Japanese army at sea, the British colonies in Southeast Asia will not be saved, and the chain reaction will be that the "treasury" of the British Empire, India, cannot be saved.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > independent success</h1>
To the surprise of the British army, the fierce Japanese army quickly seized the British Malaya region and then followed the Malayan army to Burma. At this point, all the british empire's cards in Southeast Asia were basically played, and even they were now in danger. The british army command was most worried about the Japanese invasion of India. If India had been lost, the Empire could have declared sunset in advance.
▲ British soldiers in World War II
Britain's defeat on the battlefield caused the British Empire's political influence in the colonies to decline sharply, and it was for this reason that Britain eventually had to agree to India's independence. What the British are best at is to seek more benefits for themselves through calculations and means when they are in a weak position, and the British Empire also has such a step behind allowing India to become independent.
Nehru, India's first prime minister after independence
If India gains independence through violent revolution, India will become an extremely anti-British country because of the war, and instead of making India an anti-British country, it is better to let india after peaceful independence become a country close to Britain. For Britain, it did not matter whether India was independent or not, as long as Britain could get the desired benefits in India, which is why Britain finally agreed to India's independence.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > irreconcilable</h1>
There is a view that before the British withdrew from India, they provoked contradictions between Hinduism and Islam, leaving a time bomb for post-independence India. However, this statement does not stand up to serious scrutiny, and the contradiction between the two major religions is also a key node in Gandhi's history as a key figure in Indian history. India's ability to transform from countless states into a seemingly unified state is in fact due to Britain, which is the shaper of India's actual state form. In order to maximize the exploitation of India, the British Empire built some infrastructure in India, which were small problems that the British could solve.
Exterior view of a Hindu temple
However, the conflict between Hinduism and Islam existed long before the British Empire colonized, and the British Empire could not solve this problem, as written in the previous article, although the British Empire was good at balancing the contradictions between various forces and allowing itself to eventually gain benefits, it could not solve those original contradictions, India was originally a gathering place of multiple religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc., which were basically born out of brahmanical beliefs.
Sikh guards at the Golden Temple of Amritsar
Belief in Brahmanism is also the cornerstone and core of India's entire caste system, which is less a derivative of religion than a model of distribution. In this mode of social resource allocation, India has formed a unique model, but this mode of operation is obviously different from the model of Christianity and other religions, and when so many models exist at the same time, it is conceivable how serious the incompatibility is.
Religion in the Middle East is developed according to the local social state and reality, the Middle East has been a hot spot for thousands of years, it is easy to attack and difficult to defend, the master has changed hands many times, this complex regional situation has also spawned the needs of monotheism, the entire organizational form is very close, which is completely different from the actual situation in India, and the conflict is inevitable.
▲ The city of Mecca at night
In India, the contradiction between these two religions is mainly reflected in the rejection of the latter by the high caste groups, which are worried about the loss of their own interests, when the social resources are only so much, but there are two completely different distribution methods, it must be as fierce as Mars hitting the earth.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > torched to ash</h1>
In desperation, the British Empire could only use its own tough means and colonial system to suppress this contradiction as much as possible, but it could not solve this problem. As the strength of the British Empire gradually declined, the contradictions slowly intensified, and at this time Gandhi truly stepped onto the stage of history.
▲ Old photo of "Mahatma" Gandhi
But Gandhi obviously could not solve this problem, and on the question of the struggle for social resources, this contradiction is a fundamental contradiction, an irreconcilable contradiction. It is this kind of division that has caused India, although it is located on the South Asian continent and has a natural geographical development advantage, India's internal contradictions are also the largest, resulting in India having a good skin bag, and can only go forward in a muddy way.
In the twilight years of Gandhi's life, when more and more people called him "Mahatma", he was torn apart by various religious contradictions, and he did not know what to do, just a few words here, a few words over there. Because the process of India's independence itself is similar to a gift and a begging, only nominal independence, neither internal problems are solved.
Gandhi could only emphasize the so-called goodness in the human soul over and over again, hoping to bridge the contradictions, but this was like a castle in the air, which could only be washed away by the real problems of resource allocation. Gandhi went on hunger strike again and again, wanting to give up his life to feed the tiger, but he did not know that the tiger was easy to satisfy, but the human heart was never satisfied, and in the end Gandhi could only run out of oil.
Although gandhi's every hunger strike can cause quite a small international sensation and can briefly quell a conflict that is about to erupt, this contradiction will not disappear, but will only make a comeback again and again, and Gandhi will slowly wither in this consumption again and again.
▲ Gandhi in the crowd (stills)
However, the more this almost gambling hunger strike is staged, the more the contradictions between the two sides will intensify, and even the dissatisfaction of the forces on both sides will be vented on Gandhi. In the end, a Hindu ended Gandhi's life with a bullet because Gandhi had failed them and Gandhi was unable to solve the problem they had hoped to solve.
Gandhi won India independence because of "non-violent non-cooperation", gandhi achieved independence at the lowest cost, but he did not escape the fate of paying the cost, and finally left a sigh.
Resources:
The Biography of Gandhi
History of the Second World War