Did WW2 delay Indian Independence? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

If anything I think that WW2 accelerated Indian independence.

So there were already limited plans to tone down the British role in India, which had accelerated after the 1919 Amritsar massacre where many peaceful protesters were massacred by British troops. However, the process was still slow and painful and there were many in Britain who wanted to maintain some level of British influence in India. The 1935 Act of India, which seemed to give India more autonomy, nonetheless kept Britain in a position to retain its influence (for instance, by creating a divide between independent princedoms, the Muslim League, and the Indian National Congress).

The Indian Independence movement was split several times. Immediately before WW2 the main split was between Gandhi's non-violence faction and Subhas Chandra Bose's more militant faction.

When the war started, Gandhi was affronted by the fact that India had essentially been thrown into the war by the Viceroy without any input from the Indian National Congress. This led to the Quit India movement-specifically, the INC's motives here were entirely derived from this act of the Viceroy. While most of the INC supported Britain against Nazi Germany (as Gandhi mentioned, he did not want "an independent India from the ashes of Britain") but they did not want to be subservient to Britain's actions-there were several attempts to negotiate independence in exchange for cooperation in the war.

However the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the rapid destruction of British forces in Southeastern Asia provided two major impetuses for Indian independence: Bose, who was willing to do whatever it took-including war-to achieve independence, decided to cooperate with the Japanese and founded the Indian National Army, a force of Indians mostly constituted from captives in Malaya (some of whom essentially faced a choice between torture or collaboration). This also resulted in the creation of the Azad Hind government, which claimed to be a free and independent government of India.

The second thing that the fall of Malaya achieved was a sudden recognition by the Indian independence movement as to just how weak the British presence in India had become-Britain's assets in the region essentially boiled down to the Indian Army units and the handful of underequipped British and Commonwealth troops.

This weakness, combined with several British attempts to reach an agreement (a "dominion" system ala Canada was one such proposal), seemed to be an opportunity for Gandhi and the INC, which they attempted to capitalize on by starting the "Quit India" movement, As you say, it was quickly crushed, not necessarily because of "war powers" but because many other groups that supported Indian independence supported the war, including the Muslim League, the Communists, the independent Princedoms, and so forth. They instead criticized the INC and supported the British war effort.

However, after the war, India is in an interesting position. Britain is greatly weakened by the war, essentially dependent on US life support (a US that was supportive of Indian independence). And... the Indian National Army is put on trial for treason.

The "Red Fort Trials" led to a series of insurrections, riots, and even mutinies-because of their role in fighting "for Indian independence" (although they did so at the behest of Imperial Japan, who had none-too-friendly an attitude towards its intended colonies). Bose, who had died in a plane crash accident on Formosa (now Taiwan), became a martyr for Indian independence. The Royal Indian Navy mutinied, and the British were forced to give into their demands to both improve their conditions and to free the INA prisoners without significant penalties. More importantly, this signaled to the British that the Indian military could not be relied upon any more to put down rebels, and even more critically that the military itself might rebel. Because Britain was forced to arm India to fight the war, because Britain's garrisons were weakened by the war, and because Britain unwittingly turned the INA into political martyrs, the British position in India was clearly no longer sustainable, and thus the Act of Independence in 1947.