THE PRECEDENT-SETTERS: BRITISH NORTH AMERICA AND INDIA

Back of the obvious differences between the two decolonization phases are simi­larities that drove parallel processes of change. But this conclusion remains vague. How much time did settler communities need to change their attitudes, other than a few decades? How much education did non-European populations need to take on the government, other than some postprimary education for a few people? There is too much variation in the historical record to permit one to advance beyond these imprecise statements.

Approaching decolonization phases from an alternative angle enables one to be more specific. If the question is not why these phases occurred but how and why they began, one can focus attention on territories whose independence helped set off a series of political transitions. The thirteen bna colonies and India were precedent­setters in their respective phases.²⁸ A search for similarities between them might seem pointless because there are so many obvious and important ways in which they differ. But rough parallels do exist, which help explain the parallel roles of political activists separated by half a globe and more than a century.

bna settlers in late phase i were in a stronger position to capture the colonial public sector than settlers elsewhere in the New World at that time. They elected representatives to legislatures functioning at a colonywide level, in contrast to Span­ish American creoles, whose power base was limited to local government assemblies.

Indian political leaders in phase 4 were in a stronger position to capture the colonial public sector than non-Europeans elsewhere in the colonial world at that time. An electorate of many millions sent representatives to legislatures operating at provincial and all-India levels. By 1937 elected politicians took full control of provin­cial assemblies. This contrasted sharply with the situation in non-British colonies, which lacked equivalent representative bodies, and in other British colonies in which appointed European administrators still dominated fledgling legislative councils. In the early 1920s Gandhi, Nehru, and others transformed the inc into a mass move­ment, organizing throughout the subcontinent and challenging the raj on many fronts. No social movement or political party in phase 4 came close to the inc in size, tactical creativity, and clearly articulated nationalist goals. The inc was controlled from top to bottom by Indians, as were other populist movements like the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha. In contrast to bna there was a powerful bureaucracy, the Indian Civil Service, accountable to top British officials.

bna settlers played a more conspicuous role in the private profit and religious sectors than settlers in other New World territories. They dominated small-scale and plantation agriculture, fishing, forestry, handicrafts, and commerce among the thir­teen colonies. Entrepreneurs were active in international shipping and small-scale industrial production, fields normally reserved for a metropole’s private profit sec­tor. In fact, by the mid-eighteenth century the settler-owned economy was as diver­sified, industrialized, and wealthy as any in the world, including England. Settlers were competent in so many facets of the economy that Benjamin Franklin said, “I do not know a single imported article into the northern colonies, but what they can either do without or make themselves.”²⁹ In the Spanish colonies settlers predomi­nated in agriculture, but there was less small-scale industry. Bureaucrats controlled the sale of many commodities and tried to enforce regulations restricting creole commercial autonomy.

The great majority of bna settlers was Protestant, with many from dissenting sects constituting self-governing congregations. Religious autonomy was far higher than in officially Catholic Spanish America, where a hierarchy headquartered in Rome and sensitive to the Spanish Crown’s interests controlled sectoral life. The bna religious sector was a model for political independence rather than a barrier to it.

Segments of the public and private profit sectors that bna settlers controlled overlapped in the sense that those who organized politically and engaged in debates over public issues earned income from self-employment or ownership of large plan­tations. Political leaders could tap their own resources to cover expenses as they devoted time to the unpaid career of challenging colonial authority. Those who needed help could obtain it from affluent businessmen. Once fighting broke out in 1775, settlers’ resources were deployed in various ways to cover the costs of recruiting and training soldiers. The emergence of new public sector institutions—Continental Congress, Continental Army—was greatly aided by settlers’ dominance of the private profit sector.

Indians in phase 4 played a more prominent role in the private profit sector— and in the Christian segment of the religious sector—than did non-Europeans in any other Old World colony. Substantial wealth was held by a landowning and money- lending elite. In chapter 6 I noted that Indian entrepreneurs owned and managed iron and steel plants, cotton yam and cloth factories, and shipping companies. Such large-scale industrial activities were either nonexistent in other colonies or owned by Europeans. Also noteworthy was the role Indian clergy played in Christian churches.

The private wealth some Indians possessed gave nationalism a headstart by generating university-trained people decades earlier than in other occupation colo­nies. The three outstanding figures at independence and partition—Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah—received university training in England prior to World War I, at their fam­ilies’ expense. Nehru went the others one better by attending Harrow, the exclusive secondary school. A highly educated cadre was ready by the 1920s to join nationalist ranks and enter the Indian Civil Service.

The high profile of Indians in the private profit sector meant that resources were available to political activists when the inc took a populist turn in phase 4.

The unusually influential position bna settlers and Indian entrepreneurs held in their colonies’ private profit sectors is shown by the successful campaigns their politicians launched to boycott imported consumer goods. The bna and Indian economies were sufficiently diversified and self-reliant to sustain these campaigns. And at least some local entrepreneurs stood to benefit from a boycott of East India Company tea, in the first instance, and Lancashire cloth, in the second. Cross-sector coalitions empowered the two precedent-setting nationalist movements, just as cross-sector coalitions strengthened Europe’s drive for expansion.

This chapter provides background evidence making imperial decline under­standable. But it does not account for the specific timing or compressed nature of developments in phases 2 and 5. To address those issues an analysis of broad trends should be complemented by a search for politically transformative events.