Touchy, touchy..
You don't know your history, you talk shit.
The Indian freedom movement dated back as far as 1857 - it started with a revolution, look it up. You think the Indians were pleased to have the Brits sit on them for over a 100 years? The fact that there were Indians fighting alongside the English was not because they cared for the English or their cause, but more a convenience for the British who had a large population they found easy to create an 'army' from.
Look, no one in the UK is going to give a rats ass when India CELEBRATES its independence on the 15th of August. But make no mistake, it will be a day that is celebrated.
Who did India get its independence from - the British.
How did they get that independence - because the Indians FOUGHT for it and the British did not have the economic ability/manpower to fight back in a place so far away from 'blighty' as they had in years past.
'gave it all up' - my dude, you guys (I'm assuming you're British from your post) ran when you couldn't handle the locals well enough. There's no shame in that, it's true for any country that had colonial ambitions in the past couple of centuries. You're richer for it - and the countries that now control their own destinies celebrate it.
It's no where near as black and white as you make it out to be.
The conquest of India itself was as much about making alliances and fighting alongside Indian armies against those that opposed it. India has always been divided on Britain and the days of empire, to this day there's still a large amount of respect for one another in both nations, as well as trade and migration going both ways. There's a reason why Asians are the largest ethnic minority group in the UK.
There's been a rewriting of history in the last couple of decades to portray it all as barbaric, oppressive and universally fought against, that we brits were tyrants and racists that exploited the poor brown people because we were little better than the Nazis.
And there was certainly a lot of horrific shit done, I don't deny that. Callousness towards lives, exploitation and xenophobia were problems throughout the time of the Empire, as was the case for every empire and pretty much all societies throughout history.
But the violent revolutionarys were
not what ended the British rule of India. Quite the opposite in fact, such insurrection made vicious crackdowns easy to justify, and if anything prolonged British rule.
No, it was
peaceful resistance, and the political and popular support for such movements, especially with Ghandi as it's figurehead, arguing so eloquently for freedom to the british people themselves, that put pressure on the UK government and eventually lead to the argument, that India should be given back it's own sovereignty, to win out.
The renowned bravery of the Indian soldiers that fought alongaide the British army in WW2 also did a bloody large amount of good too.
Also economically the Empire was not paying for itself well before the world wars. Hell, the massive amount of debt britian saddled itself with when ending slavery alone wasn't paid off until 2015.
People forget that once the conquering and expansion into new territory is done, and all the rewards that that conquering can bring in is over, you're left with nothing but administration and upkeep costs. Meanwhile, any new wealth that can be generated requires investment to get going and relies on a sustainable economy, all in an environment where a good chunk of the population will hate you, to the point they may well behave violently towards anything you do and anyone involved.
And let's face facts, there have been many, many empires throughout history, all of which encountered the same problems the British Empire did, and their general reactions to such resistance were horrific.
Mass crucifixions, burnings, stonings, decimations, genocides and mass enslavements, often putting whole cities to the sword, then salting the earth as a warning to others that might resist, that is what was the norm in quelling rebellion, and a far cry from even the worst atrocities comited in the name of the British Empire.
If Britain had wanted to keep the Empire, there were numerous such examples throughout history on how to do it, but the fact was we weren't the monsters so many want to paint us as today.
It was our comparative compassion that was what lead to the end of Empire. Not defeat, not incompetence, not weakness, but an unwillingness to compromise our values, that eventually had the last word.
It's why we have the Commonwealth and so many surviving colony nations today, instead of the mass graves that denote the end of every other empire throughout history.
Glorifying violent resistence and demonising imperialists as 2 dimension cartoon villains is an incredibly reductive and stupid way to view such a complicated era of world history.
It insults the memories of those heroic individuals on both sides that eventually came to agreement and built a better, more hopeful and freer future for both Britian and India, that has made both nations stronger and wealthier in the decades since.
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