34.1 - The Indian Subcontinent Achieves Freedom

• Muslims resisted attempts to integrate them under a Hindu-dominated Indian administration.

  • In various Indian cities, rioting between the two groups erupted.

  • Four days of riots in Calcutta in August 1946 resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 persons and the injuries of over 15,000 others.

• As if the partition of India had not caused enough violence between Hindus and Muslims, the two groups quickly clashed over the little province of Kashmir.

• Kashmir is located on the northernmost tip of India, bordering Pakistan.

  • Kashmir had a mainly Muslim populace despite its Hindu king.

• For the first 17 years of India's independence, Nehru was the country's leader. He was one of Gandhi's most ardent supporters.

• Nehru, who was educated in Britain, was well-liked by all sections of Indian society.

  • He promoted democracy, unification, and modernization of the economy.

• Nehru passed away in 1964. After his death, the Congress Party was left without a strong leader capable of uniting the different political factions that had developed since India's independence.

  • Then, in 1966, Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, was elected Prime Minister. She was re-elected in 1980 after a brief absence from politics.

• Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist party's leader, has reigned over a dynamic but frequently tumultuous country since his election as prime minister in 1998.

  • He faces challenges posed by India's growing population, which is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2035.

  • Furthermore, the country is plagued by social inequity and religious unrest is a constant concern.

• The two Pakistani regions have had tense relations since the beginning. While East Pakistan had a greater population, West Pakistan, which housed the national administration, generally overlooked it.

  • A massive cyclone and tidal surge hit East Pakistan in 1970, killing an estimated 266,000 people.

  • While international aid flooded into Pakistan, the government in West Pakistan did not transmit the aid to East Pakistan as quickly as it should have.

34.2 - Southeast Asian Nations Gain Independence

• The initial priorities of the Filipinos were to rebuild the economy and reinstate Manila as the country's capital.

• World War II had wreaked havoc on the city. The Philippines had been promised $620 million in war reparations by the US.

  • However, in order to receive the funds, the US administration requested that Filipinos accept the Bell Act.

  • This bill would establish eight years of tariff-free trade between the United States and the Philippines, followed by a progressive increase in tariffs.

• The Philippines has had to fight its own separatist organization since attaining independence.

  • The southern region of the country has been a stronghold of Muslims known as the Moros for generations.

  • The Moro National Liberation Front was founded in the early 1970s by a group of Moros.

• Burma experienced one political crisis after another after obtaining independence.

• People in the country were torn between repressive military rulers and pro-democracy forces.

  • Conflicts between Communists and ethnic minorities also wreaked havoc on the country.

• The Japanese captured the Malay Peninsula, which had previously been held by the British, during World War II.

  • Following the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the British returned to the peninsula.

  • They attempted, but failed, to unite the many peoples of Malaya into a single state.

  • They also had to deal with a Communist rebellion.

34.3 - New Nations in Africa

• Kenya was dominated by the British, and many British settlers opposed Kenyan independence, particularly those who had taken over valuable farmland in the country's northern highlands.

  • As a result of two events, they were forced to recognize African self-government. One was Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta's strong leadership.

• Algeria, France's most important overseas colony, had one million French colonists and nine million Arabs and Berber Muslims.

• The French colonists refused to share political power with the local Algerians after World War II.

  • The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) declared its desire to struggle for independence in 1954.

• To combat the FLN, the French sent nearly half a million troops to Algeria.

  • Atrocities were committed by both sides.

• The Belgian Congo was one of the most exploited European territories in Africa. Belgium had brutally plundering the colony's rich rubber and copper resources.

  • Furthermore, Belgian officials reigned harshly and gave no social services to the inhabitants.

  • They had also made no effort to prepare the population for independence.

• Angola, to the southwest of Congo, was a country that had to battle not just for independence, but also to keep itself together afterward.

• The Portuguese had governed Angola for a long time and had no intention of relinquishing power.

  • When the colony's independence movement erupted, Portugal dispatched 50,000 troops to quell the uprising.

  • Almost half of Portugal's national budget was spent on the conflict.

34.4 - Conflicts in the Middle East

• In 1956, the second Arab-Israeli war broke out.

• Egypt took possession of the Suez Canal, which ran between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea along Egypt's eastern border.

  • Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, dispatched forces to seize the canal, which was owned by British interests.

  • Nasser's fury about the loss of US and British financial support for the construction of Egypt's Aswan Dam triggered the military action.

• Tensions between Israel and the Arab states began to rise again in the years after the Suez Crisis was resolved.

  • Nasser and his Arab allies, armed with Soviet tanks and planes, felt poised to confront Israel by early 1967.

• Arab Palestinians fought for recognition as Israel and its Arab neighbors fought each other.

• While the Palestinians were granted their own homeland by the United Nations, Israel conquered much of it, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during its successive conflicts.

  • Israel said that such a measure was necessary for its national security.

• Palestinians, a considerable number of whom lived in Israel-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip, were one Arab group that continued to clash with Israelis.

• During the 1970s and 1980s, the PLO's armed wing waged an anti-Israel campaign.

• Israel retaliated by attacking suspected Palestinian rebel positions in Palestinian towns.

  • The Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to demolish Palestinian rural strongholds.

• The Israelis were obliged to withdraw after becoming entangled in Lebanon's civil war.

• The fate of the Palestinian territories proved to be a fiercely divided topic, and negotiations between the two sides made little headway.

  • Secret meetings in Oslo, Norway, in 1993, however, yielded a surprising agreement: the Declaration of Principles, often known as the Oslo Peace Accords.

• Demonstrations, attacks on Israeli soldiers, and rock throwing by unarmed youngsters marked the start of the second intifada, which began similarly to the first.

  • This time, though, Palestinian militant groups began to employ a novel weapon: suicide bombers.

  • Their attacks against Jewish settlements in the occupied areas, as well as civilian targets throughout Israel, increased the level of bloodshed substantially.

  • Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the war as the second intifada lasted into 2007.

• Israel unilaterally evacuated all of its settlers and troops from Gaza in the summer of 2005.

  • Then, in 2006, Hamas, a militant terrorist organization focused on deposing Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state, won a majority in Palestinian Authority elections.

34.5 - Central Asia Struggles

• These countries have suffered economically since attaining independence, and are now among the poorest in the world.

  • Much of the issue derives from their reliance on the Soviet Union for financial assistance.

  • As a result, they've had a hard time sticking up for themselves. Additional issues have arisen as a result of Soviet economic practices.

• For several of the newly established Central Asia Struggles countries, fighting among diverse ethnic and religious groups has provided another barrier to stability.

  • The region is home to a diverse group of people, some of whom have a long history of animosity toward one another.

• The Soviets kept a lid on these conflicts and mainly avoided severe ethnic riots with their iron fist control.

• Afghanistan has a lengthy and tumultuous history. During the 1800s, Russia and Britain battled it out for control of the continent.

• Russia desired access to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan, while Britain desired control of the country to preserve its Indian Empire's northern boundaries.

  • Before finally departing Afghanistan in 1919, Britain fought three distinct wars with the Afghans.

• Following the Soviet withdrawal, numerous Afghan rebel factions began fighting for control of the nation.

• The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic outfit, emerged victorious.

  • By 1998, it had taken control of 90% of the country.

  • The Northern Alliance, another rebel group, controlled the country's northwest region.

• Initially, many saw the Taliban as a good force, as it provided order to the war-torn country, rooted out corruption, and encouraged business growth.

• While the Taliban gathered in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Afghan officials chose Hamid Karzai to lead a new administration.

  • He was later elected president for a five-year term in 2004. His government was faced with the job of rebuilding a country that had been ravaged by conflict for more than two decades.

  • However, the Taliban resurfaced in 2006, prompting NATO troops to take over military operations in the south.

  • Fighting with the Taliban raged on well into 2007.