Chapter 22: End of Empire

Chapter 22: The End of Empire

Freedom struggles to end empire  were different everywhere in the world: in time, tactics 
used, and in ideology used to support the struggle. The two main case studies the book
dives into are India and South Africa.

India had geographic unity, but their identities were primary local before British rule. British 
presence made them more aware and promoted a sense of an Indian identity as a country.
They realized they were different from their colonial rulers. Expression of this identity 
culminated in the Indian National Congress (INC). This group was composed of English-
educated Indians from high-caste Hindu families. They did not want to free the country 
from British rule, but only wanted greater access to political life in India. Despite great 
efforts, it was difficult for them to gain a following at first; this changed after the British 
started to use violence to oppress the Indian peoples. It was at this time that the public 
started to become more responsive to the INC.

Gandhi played a major role in Indian independence from the British. Gandhi was a Hindu
who studied law in England. After his studies, he worked at an Indian firm in South Africa 
and experienced extreme racism for the first time. He began to gather people to protest the
racial segregation within the country.  He used nonviolent protest as his guiding 
philosophy. When Gandhi returned to India, he joined the INC and became a prominent 
leader in its struggles. His tactics resulted in British responses of both compromise and 
oppression. Gandhi wanted moral transformation, which was his own kind of radicalism. He 
didn’t like urbanization and wanted harmonious self-sufficient villages instead.

Overall, the Indian Movement was not unified. Hindus and Muslims were divided. The 
Muslim League was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He argued that the Muslim majority 
should be separate from the Hindus. Gandhi and the Congress agreed to partition after 
independence from the British; it was this moment when Pakistan was born as a Muslim 
state, separate from India. Many died due to the violence of the partition.

The other case study mentioned in the book was South Africa’s apartheid. South Africa 
had been independent since 1910, but for most of the 20th century, it was ruled by Dutch 
settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 17th century. Only 20% of the population was 
white, yet the whole of South Africa was controlled by this minority. Africa’s struggle was 
different from India’s in that the settler community was large, and so the struggle took many
years. South Africa was also mainly industrial, unlike India who focused on agriculture.

Whites controlled the entire South African economy. In 1948, apartheid was legalized. 
Apartheid is segregation and the monitoring of black South Africans. There were laws to 
control where blacks could move to, as well as native reserves. Like India, South Africa 
developed a political party named the African National Congress (ANC). Also like India, the
ANC accepted the white minority rule, but wanted to be accepted and respected as equals 
within their own country. The ANC started with nonviolent protest. Nelson Mandela is a 
famous leader from the ANC. His tactics were inspired by Gandhi’s earlier struggle in India.
The South African government met the ANC’s peaceful protest with harsh, violent 
oppression. Because the ANC was now illegal, the black South African majority started to 
use violence as well. The Black Consciousness movement arose. This, along with 
international pressure, helped South Africa’s black majority gain rights. Apartheid policies 
were abolished and national elections were held.

Although the South African struggle was more unified than the Indian struggle, it was also 
divided in terms of the political parties involved. Each had different policies regarding what 
kinds of people could join and give support

Comparing these two case studies, we see that it was overall difficult for colonies to 
achieve true independence. South Africa’s situation intrigued me the most. To think that 
apartheid ended only very recently is saddening. It reminded me that segregation in the 
U.S. ended only recently as well, with Brown v. Board in the 1950s. Looking at these 
events from the perspective of World History is very different from how I saw them in 
Modern World History, or U.S. History, which I both took in high school. Since the time 
period we looked at was short in length, these events seemed far away and foreign at the 
time. With the lens of World History, I think I’ve begun to feel more empathy for these 
groups. Although many events in the 20th century showed the deterioration of 
Enlightenment values, South African and Indian independence gives me hope that those 
were only temporary setbacks.