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Compare the conditions that gave rise to decolonization in India and Algeria? What role did the French play in Algeria as compared to the British...

The British were forced to grant India independence in part because of the Quit India movement launched by Gandhi in 1942 and supported by the All-India Congress Committee. Gandhi gave a speech in which he advocated the British withdrawal from India and the use of civil disobedience to achieve Indian independence. The British were alarmed by the advance of Japanese troops to the border of India and Burma, and they jailed Gandhi and other leaders of his party shortly after the speech. However, after World War II ended, the British government was forced to grant Indian independence because of their great debts from the war, and India became independent in 1947.

Algerian independence, on the other hand, involved a great deal more overt violence and long-term bloodshed on both sides. The independence movement was launched in 1954 by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), and it led to the end of the unstable Fourth French Republic and the start of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle. The FLN called for Muslims to resist French rule, and the French political response, which was to state that Algeria could not leave the French Republic, further radicalized the Algerian people.


Part of the reason the French wanted to keep Algeria as part of the republic was that about one million French people lived there. These French people, who were Christian and Jewish, were referred to as "Pied-Noir," or "black foot," and had taken lands that belonged to Algerians in the 19th century. The Algerians used guerrilla tactics to fight for their independence, unlike the passive resistance that Gandhi used to win Indian independence. They launched the Battle of Algiers in 1956-1957, which involved women and other guerrilla fighters placing bombs in public locations. The French sent hundreds of thousands of troops to put down the insurgency but were unsuccessful in combating guerrillas. By 1960, the United Nations had passed an initiative supporting Algerian indendepence, and de Gaulle opened up negotiations with the Algerians that resulted in their independence in 1962. As a result, most French people in the country left and went back to France.

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