Empire React
How did the British public react to Indian Independence?
Were British people upset because it was the end of 'empire'.
Was there rioting in the streets?
Or were British people happy for the Indians. Were there parties to celebrate independence. Was there guilt over the empire.
Or was the British public in the UK indifferent to events happening in India
You can celebrate Indian Independence Day on 15th August 2008.
Independence Day (India) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
India's Independence Day (Hindi: स्वतंत्रता दिवस) is celebrated on
August 15 to commemorate its independence from the British rule and its ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(India)
I was only seven years old in c1948 when India became independant. In my household there was great rejoycing mixed with sorrow. Rejoycing that India was at last free and sorrow that our hero Gandhi had not lived to see his dream fulfilled - an independant and Socialist India - the Jewel in the Crown.
Some people, were probably upset, but most people really were quite glad for India to be free at last. In spite of the enormous difficulties of partitian which had not originally been anticipated and which had lead to the deaths of many hundreds, the final result seems to have been satisfactory.
The British Empire was not very popular with my family. We were all Socialists, Welsh Methodists, who had campaigned against the empire and for the freedom and liberty of our fellow workers in India and elsewhere in the former British Empire.
One Tory hero who is often forgotten in all of this was the late Greorge Canning, who at least had one saving grace in that he wanted an end to Empire and an opening up of free trade.
British Empire - Research Guide
British Documents on the End of Empire. London : HMSO,: [Van Pelt Library Stacks:
call .... Some Official Correspondence of George Canning [1821-1827]. ...
http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/guides/hist/britempire.html