Chapter 3

Question 1

India after WW1

Answer 1

• After World War I (1914-1918), the Indians intensified their fight to improve their living conditions and obtain independence from the British Empire.
• This was due in part to the return of Mohandas “Mahatma’’ (i.e., Great Soul) Gandhi from South Africa in 1915. He had been practicing law there since 1893.

Question 2

Gandhi feelings WW1

Answer 2

-Gandhi hoped that the significant contribution of his fellow Indians during World War I deserved to be acknowledged and rewarded with more decision-making power within India: Indian political leaders felt with some justification that Indian contributions to the British war effort had earned them credits towards independence (Brower and Sanders, 2014, p. 109)

Question 3

did the british feel like letting india go was a good move and why

Answer 3

• However, the British were not in the mood to compromise.
• India remained vital to Great Britain’s global influence: India was its prized colony and the linchpin of its global empire…It is no exaggeration to say that India allowed Britain to balance its global trading books and that Britain`s status as the leading imperial power was inconceivable without India. (Brower and Sanders, 2014, p. 105).
• The British authorities wanted to maintain their firm control over the most valuable colony of their empire. India was still 20 times larger than Great Britain in 1919.

Question 4

Gandhi goal

Answer 4

independce self betterment

• Gandhi argued that complete independence from Great Britain had to become the ultimate goal of his fellow Indians.
• He also believed that moral force was stronger than physical force. He called this satyagara. It means “Hold fast to the truth”.
• Gandhi was also on a mission for the salvation of India not only by gaining independence but also by improving the behavior of his fellow Indians. Winston Churchill once called Gandhi: a half-naked rebellious holy man.
• Gandhi was convinced that his fellow Indians could overcome the odds and end the rule of the powerful British Empire over India.
• He led by example and his charismatic personality made him tremendously popular and influential in India.

Question 5

Gandhi first protest

Answer 5

• In 1919, Gandhi encouraged his fellow Indians to close their shops for one day to denounce British oppression. This was the first national protest in the long history of India. The British collected taxes on products sold in stores of India. Therefore, Gandhi suspected that this peaceful protest would not leave the British indifferent since they would lose revenues from Indian stores for one day.
• The protest was against to the British’s will to permanently maintain strict laws against rebellious activities that had been passed in India during World War I. This series of British laws included in the Rowlatt Act were supposed to be temporary measures to maintain peace in India while the war was raging in Europe.

Question 6

was this first protest well received

Answer 6

• This type of measures that curtailed rights to protest had been passed in almost every countries that were involved in the First World War but other countries had repealed these laws as soon as the war was over.
• Gandhi and his followers were frustrated that their rights to protest against the British were still restricted. The nationwide protest initiated by Gandhi led to a crackdown by the British. The main event of this wave of repression was the Massacre of Amritsar.

Question 7

Massacre of Amritsar. who what where

Answer 7

• The British troops led by Reginald Dyer killed approximately 400 innocent Indians in Amritsar.
• The British crackdown in that city was large and dramatic because Amritsar is a holly site for the Sikhs (because of its famous Golden Temple) and the protest coincided with the New Year for the Sikhs.

Question 8

aftermath of the protests and the Massacre of Amritsar,

Answer 8

-In the aftermath of the protests and the Massacre of Amritsar, the British never enforced the controversial Rowlatt Act. This was a first victory for Gandhi’s movement.

Question 9

Response Rowlatt Act

Answer 9

• It convinced Gandhi to continue the civil disobedience campaign during the 1920s by denouncing the abuses of the British in his writings and his speeches.
• In 1921, Gandhi also began a national boycott of the manufactured clothes sold by the British in India. The British used cotton grown in India to produce clothing in the textile manufactures of Great Britain. These products that used Indian cotton were sold in stores across the British Empire including in India. Gandhi considered that it was absurd that Indians had to pay high prices for clothing that was made of cotton that had been produced in India.
• He wore loincloths that he made himself. The spinning wheel he used to produce homemade cotton threads became a national symbol of resistance to British imperialism (Gandhi was nice enough to visit the British textile workers who suffered from the boycott he was leading).

Question 10

consequnce of the boycott onm Gandhi

Answer 10

• The British were losing patience with Gandhi’s resistance and he was imprisoned in 1922 for sedition (i.e., urging people to disobey the British authorities).
• Gandhi was released in 1924. He became a leader of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1925: “Gandhi took command of the Indian National Congress and turned it from an elite debating society into a well-organized mass movement” (Roskin, 2013, p. 327).

Question 11

INC

Answer 11

• The INC fought to become independent from Great Britain (Gandhi was not the founder of the INC. This organization dates back to 1885 and it still remains one of the main political parties of India. It calls itself the largest democratic organization on Earth).
• Gandhi encouraged the INC members to follow his path of nonviolent resistance.

Question 12

Did Gandhi and the INC work well ?

Answer 12

• The Indian masses flocked to Gandhi’s movement of civil disobedience in even greater number when the Great Depression began in 1929. The economic hardships that it caused made the British imperial policies seem even more unjust for the Indians.
• For example, more than 60,000 Indians were arrested for supporting Gandhi’s Salt March, in 1930.
• Gandhi and his followers walked 320 kilometers to go collect salt in the city of Dandi on the western coast of India. This was strictly forbidden by the British authorities.
• A monument that honors the participants of the Salt March:

Question 13

Salt march goal and effects

Answer 13

• Gandhi wanted to protest against the unpopular British monopoly on salt because the Indians were not allowed to collect their own salt. Moreover, the British taxed that product excessively.
• The Salt March led too so many arrests that it overwhelmed the prisons of India. The pressure from demonstrators finally convinced the British to end their monopoly on salt and liberate Gandhi and other Indians who had been arrested for picking salt illegally in Dandi.
• In 1935, the British authorities granted and internal self-government to appease the Indians.
• It allowed the Indians to set up local governments but the central government was still under the authority of the British monarch.

Question 14

was G and co happy with these relache in measures and did they achieve their goals

Answer 14

• This was not the ultimate goal for Gandhi and the INC.
• Their ultimate objective of attaining total independence was postponed by World War II. India suffered from starvation because rice imports into India declined when the Japanese conquered the British colonies of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia. The Japanese even conquered Burma, a territory that was still part of India during World War II.

Question 15

When did englend give up india

Answer 15

• After World War II, Great Britain could no longer afford another military campaign to repress India’s nationalism.
• Britain’s post-war economy depended on loans from the United States and using violence against India would have damaged Britain’s exhausted army, its limited financial resources and its international reputation.
• Moreover, the British were dependent on their military alliance with the United States and the Americans hoped that Britain, Belgium and France would let go on their colonies in Asia and Africa quickly and peacefully (the Americans were afraid that the communists of the USSR would support and infiltrate independence movements and expand the communist ideology in Asia and Africa).
• In 1947, Gandhi’s efforts were finally rewarded when India’s independence was recognized by the British. However, the Hindus and the Muslims of India were unable to imagine a collective future.

Question 16

Muslims in India

Answer 16

• The Muslims were led by Muhammad Jinnah. Jinnah became increasingly frustrated by the Hindu majority who controlled the INC.
• The possibility of a civil war between the Hindus and Muslims of India led the British to divide their enormous colony because Jinnah had worked hard to convince the British that this was the best thing to do.
• India became a Republic with a population that was mostly Hindu. The Muslims still represented more than 10 percent of India’s population. Relations between the Muslims and Hindus of India are still very tense. This still causes massacres and terrorist attacks.
• Pakistan, a region with a Muslim majority, became the Republic of Pakistan or the “Land of the Pure” (Bangladesh was part of Pakistan until its independence in 1971).
• This division of India and Pakistan caused an enormous migratory movement in 1947 (millions of Muslims left India and millions of Hindus left Pakistan. They all wanted to avoid becoming an oppressed minority in these new countries).
• The coveted region of Kashmir in northern India still causes border disputes between India and Pakistan.
• Burma also became independent in 1947. The Burmese are mostly Buddhist and they still deny citizenship to the Muslims who moved to Burma during the period of British rule.

Question 17

Gandhi dénouement

Answer 17

-Finally, Gandhi was assassinated by a fellow Hindu in 1948 for being too accommodating to the Muslims. His friend, Jawaharlal Nehru, became the first elected Prime Minister of India.

Question 18

what was JApan’s position in the early 1900s

Answer 18

-The earthquake of Tokyo (1923) and Great Depression (1929-1939) undermined the growth of democracy and modernity in Japan. Imperial militarism was Japan’s answer to deal with those crises.

Question 19

What was the power structure in 1926 japan

Answer 19

-Hirohito, the emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989, admired Western democracy and he was willing to accept a constitutional monarchy (like in Great Britain) but his plans were stopped by the conservative Japanese military elite who took control of the government in 1932: antidemocratic military groups determined Japanese politics behind the scenes in the 1930s, leading to the official collapse of the parliamentary system. (Brinkley, 2005, p. 497)

Question 20

??

Answer 20

• The Japanese had 10 Prime Minister linked to the military between 1932 and 1945.
• Hideki Tojo was by far the most famous and influential Prime Minister of this period. His mandate covered most of the duration of World War II.
• The military prime ministers used the respect the Japanese had for the emperor to convince their fellow Japanese to embark on a risky and ambitious plan to create a Japanese empire that would dominate Asia.

Question 21

What was the ideas/values behind the Japanese empire

Answer 21

• Michael G. Roskin (2013) compares the Japanese militarist government to the German Nazis because they both combined “racism, extreme nationalism, militarism, and a bit of socialism. Both defined their peoples as a biologically superior, warrior race, destined to conquer their regions and dominate inferior peoples. Both were convinced they needed new lands for their growing populations” (p. 183).
• The Japanese wanted to remove the European and American imperialists from Asia.
• They claimed that the Asian should control Asia themselves.
• This project pleased Japan’s entrepreneurs who were limited by the scarcity of food and natural resources offered by their small homeland.

Question 22

First target Japanese empire

Answer 22

-The first target of the new government was Manchuria. In 1931, Japan invaded that region of northeastern China. It was renamed Manchukuo.

Question 23

propaganda trick for Chinese control

Answer 23

-The Japanese used Puyi, the last emperor of China, to govern this puppet state (Puyi had been chased from the Forbidden City, when he was still a child during Chinese Revolution of 1911. The the classic movie The Last Emperor tells his fascinating story. You can also get of sense of Japan’s influence over China in the Tintin album Le lotus bleu).

Question 24

did peeps looove this new Japanese expansion

Answer 24

• This invasion Manchuria continued to isolate Japan from the rest of the world.
• The League of Nations condemned Japan for its aggression in China.
• The unrepentant Japanese replied by leaving the League of Nations in 1933.

Question 25

did china take this obvious violation of their territory

Answer 25

• By 1937, the Chinese were increasingly hostile vis-a-vis the presence of the Japanese on their soil.
• It was also obvious that the ambitious Japanese hoped to invade other regions of China.
• Hostilities broke out near Beijing, on Marco Polo Bridge. This led to a full-scale war between China and Japan.

Question 26

next major move of Japanese empire

Answer 26

• The Japanese military superiority allowed them to advance quickly despite the spirited resistance of the KMT (Kuomintang or Chinese nationalists) to protect Shanghai, the largest city in China.
• The Japanese continued their invasion towards Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China.

Question 27

Rape of Nanking

Answer 27

• The Chinese tried to resist but the Japanese mercilessly slaughtered at least 300,000 inhabitants of Nanking within 6 weeks because many Chinese soldiers had managed to flee and they tried to blend in with the civilians. This gave a pretext to the Japanese to assault the entire population of Nanking mercilessly.
• This massacre was named the Rape of Nanking by an American journalist who witnessed it. It remains the name of this tragedy.
• The entrance of the memorial for the victims of the Rape of Nanking
• Furthermore, the massacre of Nanking was marked by gang rapes, pillaging, arbitrary executions and countless other gruesome violations of human rights by Japanese soldiers such as forcing young women to become comfort women for Japanese soldiers (Japanese soldiers also did this in Korea and other parts of China).

Question 28

how did the NAZIS!!!! each to the rape of nanking

Answer 28

• The Rape of Nanking was widely condemned by other countries. Even Nazi Germany was shocked by the heinous acts of the Japanese troops in China.
• Japan did not pay attention to its critics. It literally hoped to establish a new order in Asia.

Question 29

Japanese justification for this horrible acts

Answer 29

-Their pan-Asian policies aimed at “liberating” the Far East of western imperialism and replace it by a Japanese hegemony. They called it Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Question 30

other International reponses Rape of Nanking

Answer 30

• The Japanese ongoing series of cruel conquests led the Americans to impose an embargo on Japan.
• The Americans stopped selling weapons and oil to Japan to protest against the invasion of China.

Question 31

Japan response to American embargo

Answer 31

• Japan tried to solve its oil shortage by attacking the oil fields of the USSR, in Siberia.
• They were quickly defeated by the Soviet troops in Nomonhan (in present-day Mongolia).
• The embargo imposed by the United States and their debacle against the USSR forced the Japanese to choose between stopping their ambitious expansionist policy or begin a war against the United States and Great Britain who had valuable colonies in Asia.

Question 32

Japan vs USA

Answer 32

• Meanwhile, the Americans had remained neutral but President Franklin D. Roosevelt stationed many battleships and aircraft carriers in Hawaii to make a show to intimidate Japan. It failed to deter the Japanese.
• The Japanese decided to launch a surprising aerial attack involving 200 airplanes (without declaring war) on Pearl Harbor, the largest American naval base in the Pacific, on the morning of December 7th 1941.
• This historic attack lasted 2 hours. It caused 2,400 Americans and 100 Japanese deaths. The Japanese also destroyed 6 American battleships and 300 airplanes.
• The Japanese were also able to take control of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska for one year (this was the first conquest of an American territory since the war of 1812).
• The beginning of hostilities against Japan led the American authorities to force 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps (Canada also forced 21,000 Canadian of Japanese descent into camps).

Question 33

American joining the war

Answer 33

• The Japanese hoped that their vicious attack on Pearl Harbor would definitively discourage the Americans from getting involved in the war. Their gamble backfired.
• The Japanese awoke a sleeping giant instead: “no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through with absolute victory” President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941.

Question 34

Japan vs Europe

Answer 34

• The Japanese were still able to be successful initially by crushing the British in Hong Kong and Malaysia and the Americans in the Philippines.
• By the end of 1942, Japan had conquered the Asian colonies of Great Britain (Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong), France (Indochina), the Netherlands (Dutch West Indies/Indonesia) and the United States (Philippines).

Question 35

other horrors of Japanese warfare

Answer 35

• The prisoners of war (POWs) were treated like sub humans by the Japanese who did not hesitate to put them on death march and to massacre injured soldiers in hospitals (the Japanese troops followed the Bushido code. They considered that defeated soldiers had been totally dishonored and undeserving of compassion).
• The Prisoners of War used in the construction of railroads were exploited mercilessly by the Japanese.

Question 36

Japan and other asian conquest

Answer 36

-The Japanese also controlled Korea, Taiwan, most of the atolls of the Pacific and they even threatened to invade Australia.

Question 37

Japanese controversy

Answer 37

• But the Japanese were not always welcomed by the local populations.
• Japanese imperialism became even more odious than European imperialism for many Asians. Moreover, the Japanese were as disrespectful and brutal as the western imperialists: ``The Japanese turned out to be worse colonialists and racists than Westerners. The Japanese governed with a bloody hand…” (Roskin, 2013, p. 183).
• The presence of 14 convicted war criminals at the Yasukuni shrine, a memorial for Japan’s dead soldiers, is still a major source of tension between Japan and its Asian neighbors (especially China and South Korea).