20th-century independence and nationalist movements (QCE Modern History Unit 2)

What this dot point is asking

QCAA wants Year 11 students to understand 20th-century nationalist and independence movements as a connected global phenomenon, identify case studies in Ireland, India and Africa, and compare the tactics, outcomes and human costs.

Background: the long 19th-century context

European empires were at their territorial peak by 1914, controlling approximately $85$% of the world's land surface. Anti-colonial movements existed throughout the 19th century but rarely succeeded except in the Americas (the wars of South American independence, 1810-1825).

The 20th century reversed this. By 1975 the European empires had been dismantled.

Irish independence (1916-1922)

Easter Rising (24-29 April 1916)

Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army seized buildings in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic. British forces crushed the rising within a week. Fifteen of the leaders were executed (3-12 May 1916), creating Irish republican martyrs.

Sinn Féin's electoral victory (December 1918)

Won $73$ of $105$ Irish seats. Established the First Dáil (Irish parliament) and the Irish Republic (January 1919).

War of Independence (1919-1921)

IRA guerrilla campaign led by Michael Collins. British "Black and Tans" reprisals (1920). Government of Ireland Act (1920) partitioned Ireland.

Anglo-Irish Treaty (December 1921)

Established the Irish Free State as a dominion within the British Empire. Partitioned Northern Ireland out. Split the independence movement; Civil War (1922-1923) followed.

Republic of Ireland Act (1949)

Ireland became a full republic outside the Commonwealth.

Indian independence (long arc to 1947)

Indian National Congress (1885)

Initially a moderate lobbying group.

Amritsar Massacre (13 April 1919)

British troops under General Dyer killed at least $379$ unarmed civilians at Jallianwala Bagh in the Punjab. Radicalised the movement.

Gandhi's non-cooperation (1920-1922) and civil disobedience (1930)

The Salt March (March-April 1930): Gandhi walked $390$ km from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax. Hundreds of thousands joined the salt satyagraha.

Government of India Act (1935)

Provincial autonomy; Congress won most provincial elections (1937).

Second World War

Britain committed India to the war without consulting Indian leaders. Congress launched the Quit India movement (August 1942); leaders arrested and held for most of the war.

Partition and independence (August 1947)

The Muslim League's demand for Pakistan (Lahore Resolution 1940) and Hindu-Muslim communal violence led Mountbatten to partition the subcontinent. India and Pakistan became independent on 14-15 August 1947. Estimated $1$ to $2$ million dead and $14$ million displaced in partition violence.

African independence

Ghana (1957)

Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party led the first sub-Saharan African colony to gain independence (6 March 1957). Nkrumah was a leading proponent of pan-Africanism.

Year of Africa (1960)

Seventeen African states became independent in a single year, mostly French and Belgian colonies.

Algeria (1954-1962)

Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) launched the Algerian War of Independence on 1 November 1954. The war killed several hundred thousand Algerians. France's Fourth Republic collapsed (1958); de Gaulle returned to power and ultimately negotiated the Evian Accords (March 1962). Algerian independence: 5 July 1962.

Kenya (1952-1963)

Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960). British counterinsurgency in detention camps documented in scholarship (Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 2005). Independence under Jomo Kenyatta (12 December 1963).

Portugal's African empire (1974-1975)

Portuguese revolution (Carnation Revolution, 25 April 1974) ended fascist dictatorship; Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé independent within the next eighteen months.

Patterns

Common features. Mass mobilisation under a political organisation. Charismatic leadership. Long arc of agitation before final political victory. Often partition or civil conflict at independence. Bilateral negotiation with the colonial power as the closing phase.

Differences. Violence ranged from non-violent (India largely; Ghana entirely) to armed struggle (Ireland, Algeria, Mau Mau). Outcomes ranged from peaceful (Ghana) to catastrophic (India's partition).

Significance

Nationalist and independence movements created over $80$ new states by 1975, transformed the United Nations from a wartime alliance into a near-universal organisation, and reshaped global politics around the North-South distinction and the non-aligned movement.

Historiography

Ranajit Guha and the Subaltern Studies collective (from 1982). Centred peasant and subaltern agency in Indian historiography.

Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961). Wrote during the Algerian War; argued anti-colonial violence was psychologically necessary.

Joe Cleary (Outrageous Fortune, 2007). Irish independence in comparative perspective.

Caroline Elkins (Imperial Reckoning, 2005; Legacy of Violence, 2022). British counterinsurgency in Kenya and Malaya.

In one sentence

20th-century nationalist and independence movements ended European empire through varied combinations of mass civil resistance (India under Gandhi and Nehru, independence 1947), guerrilla war (Ireland 1916-1921, Algeria 1954-1962, Mau Mau 1952-1960) and negotiated transitions (Ghana 1957, the Year of Africa 1960); the result was over $80$ new states by 1975 and the modern multipolar international system.