WINSTON CHURCHILL - THE MAN WHO DELIBERATELY DELAYED INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE

Winston Churchill was closely connected with India from 1896 until 1947 when India finally achieved independence. No other British statesman had such a long association with the sub-continent or sought to influence its politics in such a sustained and harmful manner. Churchill consistently sought to sabotage moves towards any degree of independence and for five years led opposition to the Government of India Act, crippling the legislation before its passage in 1935. 

In 1939 he congratulated himself that he had created a three - legged stool on which Britain could sit indefinitely. As Prime Minister during the Second World War Churchill worked behind the scenes to frustrate the freedom struggle, delaying India’s Independence by a decade. To this day he is regarded as the archetypical imperialist villain, held personally responsible for the Bengal Famine. This is Churchill at his malign, cruel, obstructive and selfish worst.

But the same man was outstandingly liberal at the Colonial Office, generous to the Boers and the Irish, to the detriment of his career. He later rushed colonies in the Middle East towards Independence. So why was he so strangely hostile towards India ?

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer twice served as Prime Minister of United Kingdom, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

I am Nathan Obigalu and this is my friend Catherine Hastings. We study in Germany and wish to make names of ourselves for our country Greece and Romania ! We are participating in a very important discussion with regard to a man who is considered God in United Kingdom. Sir Winston Churchill had made UK proud by fighting with the Nazis at a time when all seemed lost. The next few pages will be dedicated to him as I and Catherine would put forward very interesting but different aspects of Winston.

Churchill’s India sojourn. On 18th June 1898, Winston Churchill, a junior officer in the Fourth Hussars set sail for Europe from Bombay. He cut an elegant figure in his cavalry uniform. He was good looking, his eyes blue, his hair ginger and his countenance distinctly boyish. He had none of the jowly bulldog appearance of Karsh’s famous photograph of 1941 (title picture above), the image that came to symbolise his defiant leadership of the British people as they fought for survival. In Bombay, after months in the saddle, his figure was lithe.

Was Churchill a racist(?). Churchill viewed British domination around the globe, such as the British Empire, as a natural consequence of social Darwinism. Charmley argued that similar to many of Churchill's contemporaries, he held astonishingly weird hierarchical perspective on race believing white Protestant Christians to be at the top of this hierarchy, and white Catholics way beneath them, while Indians were higher on this hierarchy than black Africans.

An imperialist to the core, he saw British imperialism as a form that benefited its subject peoples because he believed by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them. To Churchill, the idea of dismantling the Empire by transferring power to its subject peoples was anathema – especially manifested in his opposition to the Government of India Act 1935 and his acerbic comments about Mahatma Gandhi, whom he called a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir. Goodness gracious !!  

Henry Wallace, Vice President of the USA, reports in his diary that during a White House lunch in May 1943, when Churchill said why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution.

Churchill made disparaging remarks about Indians, was it driven by color, one would never know but the future beheld very unkindly to Winston as modern England loathed him as a racist and all the good work he so studiously gained and reputation nurtured went down the drain.

John Charmley has argued that Churchill's denigration of Gandhi in the early 1930s contributed to fellow British Conservatives' dismissal of his early warnings about the rise of Adolf Hitler. Churchill's comments on Indians – as well as his views on race as a whole – were judged by his contemporaries within the Conservative Party to be extreme. 

Some historians have debated whether Churchill was driven in this antipathy by imperialism or by any other social menace. He was angered in autumn 1930 by the Labour government's decision to grant dominion status to India. He argued that it would hasten calls for full independence from the British Empire as he joined the Indian Empire Society which opposed the granting of Dominion status.

In his view, India was not ready for home rule because he believed that the Brahmins would gain control and further oppress both the untouchables and the religious minorities. In March 1931, when riots broke out in Cawnpore (now Kanpur) between Hindus and Muslims, he claimed that the situation proved his case.

I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10, Downing Street.

Winston Churchill always believed himself to be a man of destiny. Because of this he lacked restraint and could be reckless. His self-belief manifested in his affinity with war of which he exhibited a profound and innate understanding. Churchill considered himself a military genius but that made him vulnerable to failure and Paul Addison says the Gallipoli disaster was the greatest blow his self-image was ever to sustain. However, that although Churchill was excited and exhilarated by war, he was never indifferent to the suffering it caused.

On 19th May 1940, Winston Churchill made his first broadcast as Prime Minister. With defeat in France imminent and speaking just seven days before the start of the Dunkirk evacuation, he paddled down Nazi invasion in Biblical terms. Churchill urged Britons: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict, for it is better for us to die in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.

 In a hurry to destroy Russia, Adolf Hitler had expected London to sign a quick armistice in exchange for the Royal Navy's freedom of the seas and the preservation of the British Empire. Churchill never signed any armistice and doubling it up his fiery speech to the Nation earned him huge acclaim from the people of Britain and the Royal family, and heartfelt love from his wife.

Churchill spoke haltingly, but passionately. I have to declare the decision of His Majesty’s Government – and I feel sure it is a decision in which the great Dominion will, in due course, concur – but we must speak out now, at once, without a day’s delay. I have to make a declaration, but can you doubt what our policy will be? We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose: we are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this, nothing will turn us – nothing. We will never parley; we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the air, until, with God’s help, we have rid the Earth of his shadow and liberated his people from his yoke. Any man or State who fights against Nazism, will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. That is our policy and that is our declaration. It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and to pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end.

Germany was never able to defeat Britain and Churchill’s leadership was enamoured by all !!

The lighter side of Churchill. Winston was playful with his mates, but very rarely, when in one occasion his famous V sign for victory was interpreted as up your bum by one of his office secretaries – the hilarious encounter brought a lighter side to Winston’s persona (picture below).

Churchill was a soldier, reporter, writer and politician. He fought dervishes, escaped from a Boer prisoner-of-war camp and held almost every cabinet position in the British government. He made mistakes that would have destroyed careers of lesser men, but nevertheless rose to become Hitler’s chief nemesis, enough of a thorn to be name-checked in der Fuhrer’s speeches. He delivered epigrams with the flair of Samuel Johnson, won the Nobel Prize in Literature, amassed great fortunes and did it all while consuming heroic quantities of alcohol and cigars – but seldom got drunk !!

Churchill’s upbringing fell short on expectations in many ways. Winston Churchill attended a boarding school, St George’s, for six years and then went to Harrow for seven more; the latter is among the most elite of British public schools. While at Harrow he wrote 76 times to his parents between 1885 and 1892, and received not more than six letters. In one of these, his mother Jennie remonstrated him over his schoolwork and thoughtlessness, adding you repay your father’s (Lord Randolph) kindness to you badly. Lord Randolph remained convinced that his eldest son Winston would never amount to anything and took little interest in him. Once Lord Randolph castigated Winston for incessant complaints and his total lack of application at Sandhurst.

Wealthy, privileged and fiercely independent New Yorker Jennie Jerome (Winston’s mother) took Victorian England by storm. As Lady Randolph Churchill she gave birth to a man who defined twentieth century: her son Winston. But as the family’s influence soared, scandals exploded and tragedy befell the Churchills. Jennie was inescapably drawn to the brilliant and seductive Count Charles Kinsky – diplomat, skilled horse racer and a deeply passionate lover. She disrupted lives, including her own, as their impossible affair only intensified leaving Randolph Churchill’s sanity frayed. Forced to decide where her heart truly belonged, Jennie risked everything – even her son – on both sides of the Atlantic !

Violet, one of Jennie’s many accomplices, once quipped – Jennie barely spared Winston a thought when he was a boy. Only when he was old enough to be interesting – to worship her as she liked – did she bother to take him. Poor chap might have been raised by wolves !!

Winston Churchill’s childhood and adulthood were sketchy and were bereft of proper guidance. The hollowness created was thus deeply ingrained in his personality and in later years was scornful like a bull.

Lord Randolph Churchill, erstwhile father of Winston, made his career in politics winning a seat in Parliament in 1874 as a Conservative, rising as a Tory leader of significance, enjoying the favour of Prime Ministers Disraeli and Salsbury, until an untimely, prolonged illness struck him at the age of 40. After June 1885 election Randolph was appointed Secretary of State for India. He worked for brief seven months and built military capacity in India and strengthened British position in Burma; but after being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886 he differed with Salsbury on issues and offended Queen Victoria by sending his resignation letter while a guest at Windsor Castle, using Royal stationary, what was then a glaring breach of etiquette! That was an unceremonious end to what had been estimated as a stellar political career.

While in India, Randolph was scathing in his remarks on its people, as vast sheet of oil, whom he considered an ocean of humanity with an insulted creed. In one of his several speeches he noted:

 Our rule in India is, as it were, a vast sheet of oil spread over the surface of, and keeping calm and quiet and unruffled by storms, an immense and profound ocean of humanity. Underneath that rule lie hidden all the memories of fallen dynasties, all the traditions of vanquished races, all the pride of insulted creeds; and it is our task, our most difficult business, to give peace, individual security, and general prosperity to the two hundred and fifty million of people who are affected by these powerful forces; to bind them and to weld them by the influence of our knowledge, our law, and our higher civilisation, in the process of time, into one great, united people; and to offer to all the nations of the West the advantages of tranquility and progress in the East. That is our task for India. That is the raison d’etre in India. That is our title to India.

A wayward mother and a whimsical father were what Winston got and the upbringing in those venomous surroundings brought about in him, apart from other reasons, a deep hatred for India.

Churchill and the ignominious famine. In 1943, India, then still a British possession, experienced a disastrous famine in the north-eastern region of Bengal - sparked by the Japanese occupation of Burma the year before. At least three million people were believed to have died - and Churchill's actions, or lack thereof, had been the subject of criticism. He refused to meet India’s need for wheat and continued to export rice to fuel the war effort. The War Cabinet ordered the build-up of a stockpile of wheat for feeding European civilians after they had been liberated. So, 170,000 tons of Australian wheat were stored, starving India - destined not for consumption. Churchill even blamed the Indians for the famine, claiming they bred like rabbits.

Boy, boy, boy ! Winston’s parentage took precedence. Jennie must be overwhelmed with happiness ?

The End of Empire – India gained freedom. There is nothing sadder in India’s Independence than the way it traversed its way. At three minutes before midnight on 14 August 1947 the unity of the Indian subcontinent was broken. Pakistan was established as an independent, sovereign state. Exactly five minutes later India became independent.

The British Empire could not hold on to the Jewel in their Crown. In spite of all efforts !!

How Wavell turned the tide(!). In 1943 Archibald Wavell was appointed by Churchill as the Viceroy. He was supposed to sit tight and keep India quiet through the war. But to Churchill’s great irritation he did something what his earlier political masters had never done – he came up with a policy precisely opposite of what history and instincts would have suggested, but it was correct and it was what his successor, Mountbatten would do.

Wavell saw that nothing the politicians had been doing had prepared India to look after herself as there was no economic preparation. The choice was to stay for another generation – which Wavell thought would be impossible. He felt the Empire’s attitudes towards India negligent, hostile and contemptuous to a degree nobody had anticipated. Repeatedly the Indians would find being offered a form of words which was known to mean one thing to them and quite another to those making the promise. The weasel statements, the deliberate misunderstandings were difficult to excuse.

They were the reasons that Indian politicians, then and now, accused and accuse the British of bad faith. Well, Winston, you lost your hat here !

Wavell and Mountbatten. The War over, Britain no longer had the means, financial or otherwise, or indeed the strength of will, to hold on to India. But the Labour Government which was elected in 1945 had no wish to let go of India entirely. For geo-strategical and prestige reasons India was to be kept in the Commonwealth and tied in to defence commitments. It was envisaged that an area around Delhi would not pass out of British control and that there would be a continuing British presence.

Sadly, it did not happen. It was never meant to be.

While Winston Churchill kept fuming, India got freedom beating all his appalling tribulations. One can see above when he, with his wife, in one of the many ceremonies at Buckingham Palace, kept pointing his sinister eyes at Lord Mountbatten (not in the frame) whispering in her ears:

This is the man who engineered everything. He gave India away !!

Shut up! Clementine Churchill was quick to retort.

References:

1.        Churchill – Amazon Prime

2.       The Crown: Season I – Amazon Prime

3.       That Churchill Woman – Stephanie Barron

4.       Keeping the Jewel in the Crown: The British Betrayal of India – Walter Reid

5.       Churchill: Walking with Destiny – Andrew Roberts

6.       Churchill: The Unexpected Hero – Paul Addison

7.       Fighting Retreat: Churchill and India – Walter Reid

8.      Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal – Kishan Rana

Disclaimer: The names Nathan Obigalu and Catherine Hastings are imaginary and do not have any resemblance to any person(s) dead or alive.