Hey, I am currently working on the answer to this question and I wanted to see whether some of you might have some information on this subject to see whether I am answering the question correctly.
My main question here is: why was it that people started questioning the benefits of colonial rule after the first world war and not before? It seems like, after the first world war in which many of the colonial people fought, there was a 180 degrees turn, and people questioned colonial rule which led to a lot of bloodshed in the colonies, the likes of India, Java, Vietnam and many others.
What gave birth to this rise of Colonial Nationalism after the first world war?
Thanks for the help.
Remember that it's not like colonized countries had anything to say at the time. They were, in fact, an extension of the colonizing country and thus, did not have a choice but to participate in the world wars. Which is why, in a sense, a 'western war' escalated to a 'world war', because the colonized countries all over the world were dragged into it.
As for the "questioning the benefit" bit, unless you are speaking from the perspective of the colonizers, the colonized never accepted the colonialism or thought them to be beneficial in any way (hard to do when your people are being treated worse than animals and dying like flies, but that's another story). Many were indifferent to the world war and sought to take advantage of a weakened empire to gain independence.
India, for example, had a full-blown ongoing independence movement since late 1800s. Few Indian independence leaders sought to seek help of the Germans or the Japanese during WWII to weaken and overthrow the British (look up Subhashchandra Bose and Azad Hind).
I would say that the assumption that colonial nationalism rose after the first world war is false. It was always there, and so was the bloodshed. Perhaps one could argue that it had a lot more impact because the world wars weakened the hold of the colonizers on the colonized countries.