Winston Churchill Quotes

That is exactly what happened. However it would not happen until after the Second World War.

He persuaded many other rulers to join the Indian Union when India became Independent.

Even into the 21st century, the problem was not solved and Muslims from Pakistan continue their futile but tragic terrorist tactics to try and acquire more territory from India." 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

This speech to over 100,000 people galvanized the Indian nationalists They had been asking the British to change the constitution to give India more independence. Churchill was opposed to any policy that would diminish the British Empire, but needed the Indians as men of India served in the British Army in every major theater of WWII. So instead of saying "No" Churchill held out the possibility but at a later time. He argued that it was inopportune to alter the Constitution in the midst of a world war.

Some in the military and state department were distressed by this writing. England was our major WWII ally. We were fighting, side by side with soldiers of many of the colonies of the British Empire. Some nationalists in India were urging non-cooperation in the Allied war effort. Most American leaders adopted the policy of holding our differences with our allies (England, China & Russia) until after the war was won. However, Mrs. Roosevelt, was more outspoken than most other public officials.

Taft was making his first appearance as the newly appointed Governor General of the Philippines. Prior, the country had been administered by General Arthur MacArthur, father of General Douglas MacArthur, and some military officers and a few civilians, and the results had been quite poor—not unlike the administration of Iraq after the Iraq War at the beginning of the 21st century. However, unlike the Iraq situation, Taft admitted our failings and explained them, as shown in this quotation. He learned fast and had good instincts and developed a cadre of excellent administrators who got along very well with the people and did a good job.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the other Muslim League leaders wanted to stir up India's Muslims in order to prevent Indian Independence from Britain unless India were partitioned and the Muslims could have their own nation. At that point the British and the Congress Party of India—the majority political party were both starting to plan for independence. Jinnah and most of the Muslim nationalists did not want to have Muslims in a Majority Hindu nation. To stop it, they first used fear to try and separate the many Indian Muslims who were politically active from their roles in and loyalty to the Congress Party which although Hindu dominated had Muslim members and officials. All the Muslims who were literate were aware of the terrible revelations of the Nazi Concentration Camps and the attempted extermination of all the Jews of Europe. The "party line" of the Muslim League was that once the British turned the government of India over to the Congress Party, they would turn on the Muslims and exterminate them so that India would be all Hindu. There were no such plans or even suggestions be anyone in the Congress party, the paranoia and the conspiracy theory resonated with many Indian Muslims just as conspiracy theories are believed by some people in every society. In this case, the paranoia that was unleashed by the Muslim League would have tragic consequences as with Independence getting closer many Muslims struck out and preemptively attacked and butchered Hindus and Sikhs who retaliated in kind and the butchery went on all through the Independence process and the partition of India to create a Muslim state—Pakistan. Almost 2 million people would be murdered in the sectarian violence that was unleashed.

Churchill was reported to be so angry and exasperated that his face turned red and he was sputtering. During World War II, Gandhi, Nehru and other Indian Nationalists were leading protests against British control of India. This not only bogged down British soldiers surprising the nationalists rather than fighting in Burma or in other war theaters, but India supplied a huge number of battalions to the British Army the world over and if that manpower dried up, the allied war effort would suffer. The American State Department wanted Churchill to announce that after Japan was defeated, there would be a process toward self-government. This way, they thought, the Indians would redouble their effort to defeat the Japanese and stop the then current protests and strikes. Churchill was strongly opposed to any diminution of the British Empire, but beyond that, he knew India quite well and realized that at any hint of Independence the large Muslim minority in India would insist on autonomy or a partition of the country and use sectarian violence and terror to intimidate the Indian Congress party and the British, but the major victims of the terror—the Hindus and the Sikhs would not remain passive, but would retaliate in kind. President Roosevelt was in the midst of planning the Normandy Landings of the D-Day invasion and did not want to pressure Churchill and the British at this point in time, so the door to independence was not opened during the war and Britain had to deal with the protests throughout. However, when, after the war, the Labor Government, started a process toward Indian independence which resulted in exactly what Churchill predicted. At least 2 million Indians were slaughtered in the internecine terrorist cycles of fear and retaliation motivated terror attacks what were so extensive that the British military could not really control it.

He had little difficulty until he and the British Government announced the plan to grant independence to India. At that point the Muslim League came up with the notion of Partition of India which polarized the Indian politicians mostly along religious lines, and much of India was "up for grabs". No one wanted to concede anything to the other side as this might strengthen the other side's image of its power and just encourage them to go for more. Wavell's job became impossible.

This famous quotation, from this important address, at such a critical time in history has been admired for years. Despite his great oratory, the next months were to see almost 2 million Indians of all faiths killed in what was probably the worst internecine violence in human history. Ironically, the politically motivated terrorism had stopped since all the decisions had been made. The motivation for the frightful atrocities that took place from then on was vengeance and fear of more vengeance." 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

The Partition was accompanied by over 2 million murdered Indians as India was divided into a smaller India with almost all the Hindus and Sikhs and a slight majority of the Muslims and Pakistan with all Muslims who made that choice. Pakistan has been trying to de stabilize the area ever since to gain control of more land and became a theocracy and military dictatorship—sometimes de facto and sometimes de juro.

Hobson, like Mark Twain in America, was a major critic of imperialism.

This quotation is an excellent example of the early, militant Gandhi. It is typical of militant theocracies of the Islamic world today.