Decolonisation

The first principle

An empire lasts only while ruling is cheaper than leaving. After 1945 the cost of empire rose sharply, because nationalist movements had become mass movements, Europe was exhausted, and the two new superpowers and the United Nations (UN) treated colonial rule as illegitimate. Where few settlers lived, the colonial power usually negotiated its exit; where settlers or economic stakes were large, it fought. The new states inherited borders, economies and divisions drawn for the convenience of their rulers, and much of their later trouble follows from that inheritance.

The core

Why empires ended after 1945

• Exhaustion of Europe. Britain ended the war as the world's largest debtor, and France and the Netherlands had themselves been occupied.
• Nationalism. The war spread political awareness, armed and trained colonial soldiers, and showed in Asia that European powers could be defeated.
• The UN Charter and the superpowers. The Charter spoke of self determination. The United States (US) opposed formal empires for principle and trade, and the Soviet Union backed anticolonial movements to weaken the West.
• India's example, 1947. The independence of the largest colony showed that freedom was achievable, and India under Nehru became a voice for others at the UN and at Bandung in 1955.
• Cost of empire. Wars in Indochina, Algeria and Kenya cost money and lives and divided opinion at home; France's Fourth Republic fell in 1958 largely over Algeria.

The sequence

• Asia went first: India and Pakistan (1947), Sri Lanka and Burma (1948) and Indonesia (1949).
• Africa followed from the late 1950s. Ghana became the first black African colony to win independence in 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah, and in 1960, the Year of Africa, 17 African states became independent.
• In December 1960 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. It declared that alien rule denies human rights and that unpreparedness is no pretext for delay.
• The Portuguese empire fell only after the 1974 revolution in Lisbon, Zimbabwe gained majority rule in 1980, Namibia became independent in 1990, and apartheid in South Africa ended with the election of 1994.

Dimensions

Patterns of decolonisation

• Negotiated transfer. In India, Ghana and Malaya, the colonial power handed over to an elected nationalist party, leaving parliamentary institutions and Commonwealth ties.
• Armed struggle. In Indonesia (against the Dutch, 1945 to 1949), Vietnam (against France), Algeria (1954 to 1962) and Kenya, where the British crushed the Mau Mau rising of the 1950s, freedom came through war and left a stronger role for armies and liberation parties.
• Settler colonies. Where white settlers held land and power, as in Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa, they resisted majority rule; South Africa institutionalised racial separation as apartheid from 1948 until 1994.

• Political. Many new African democracies slid into one party or military rule within a decade, because parties built to win freedom were not built to govern.
• Economic. Colonies had been shaped to export raw materials, so new states inherited single crop or single mineral economies, few industries and low literacy.
• International. Decolonisation multiplied the number of states and created the Third World as a political bloc, giving rise to the Non Aligned Movement and the demand for a New International Economic Order in 1974.

In practice

UN membership as a record of decolonisation

Problems of decolonisation

• Arbitrary borders. Boundaries drawn at and after the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 split peoples and joined rivals; the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) chose in 1964 to accept them to avoid endless wars.
• Partition. The departing powers often divided territory, as in India in 1947 and Palestine in 1948, leaving disputes that continue today.
• Ethnic conflict. The Congo crisis of 1960 and the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970 followed from colonial units that held groups with no shared loyalty.
• Neo colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah argued in 1965 that political freedom without economic freedom left new states controlled through debt, aid and foreign firms.
• Cold War proxy wars. Angola, Mozambique, the Congo and Vietnam became battlegrounds for the superpowers.

Case study: the Malay Peninsula

Malaya shows almost every problem of decolonisation in one place.

• A plural society. British rule brought Chinese labour to the tin mines and Indian labour to the rubber estates. By 1947 Malays were about half the population of Malaya, Chinese nearly two fifths and Indians about a tenth,. The central question was who would count as a citizen and who would hold power.
• The Malayan Union, 1946. Britain merged the Malay states, Penang and Malacca, reduced the sultans to ceremonial roles and offered citizenship to non Malays on easy terms. Malays saw this as a threat to their special position, formed the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in 1946, and forced its withdrawal.
• The Federation of Malaya, 1948. It restored the sultans, protected the special position of the Malays and tightened citizenship, alienating many Chinese.
• The Malayan Emergency, 1948 to 1960. The Malayan Communist Party (MCP), mostly ethnic Chinese and led by Chin Peng, began a guerrilla war. Britain answered with the Briggs Plan, moving about half a million Chinese squatters into guarded New Villages, and with a policy of winning "hearts and minds" under General Templer. Britain would hand power only to a government that kept communists out.
• Economic stakes. Tin and rubber made Malaya one of Britain's largest earners of dollars after the war, so Britain wanted a friendly, stable successor, not a quick exit.
• The communal bargain and independence, 1957. UMNO joined the Malayan Chinese Association and the Malayan Indian Congress in the Alliance, which won 51 of 52 seats in the 1955 election. Malaya became independent on 31 August 1957 under Tunku Abdul Rahman; the constitution drafted after the Reid Commission gave non Malays citizenship in return for the special position of Malays, Malay as national language and Islam as the official religion.
• Malaysia, 1963, and its strains. Malaysia was formed in September 1963 by joining Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah, partly to balance Singapore's Chinese majority with the Borneo peoples; Brunei stayed out. Indonesia under Sukarno opposed it as a British neo colonial project and waged Konfrontasi, an undeclared border war, from 1963 to 1966, while the Philippines claimed Sabah. Singapore, under Lee Kuan Yew, pressed for a "Malaysian Malaysia" of equal citizens, clashed with UMNO over Malay rights, and was separated on 9 August 1965.

Issues and way forward

• Push or pull? Nationalist historians stress the freedom movements, while imperial historians stress Britain's calculation that informal influence was cheaper than rule. Both are partly true: nationalism raised the cost of staying, which changed the calculation.
• Was the transfer of power real? Critics such as Nkrumah argue that economic dependence continued; others point to India, Malaysia and South Korea, which used independence to build industry.
• Unfinished business. The UN still lists 17 non self governing territories. In 2019 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its advisory opinion on the Chagos Archipelago, held that Britain's separation of the islands from Mauritius in 1965 was unlawful and its administration should end; India supported Mauritius, and in 2025 Britain signed a treaty to return sovereignty while keeping the Diego Garcia base on lease.
• The lesson. Institutions that share power across communities, as in Malaya's Alliance, prevent conflict better than majority rule alone; but they must keep adapting, as the race riots of 1969 in Malaysia and its New Economic Policy of 1971 showed.

Common confusions

• Malayan Union and Federation of Malaya. The Union (1946) diluted Malay rights and was rejected; the Federation (1948) restored them.
• Malaya and Malaysia. Malaya became independent in 1957; Malaysia, adding Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah, was formed in 1963.
• Resolution 1514 and the UN Charter. The Charter (1945) spoke cautiously of self government; Resolution 1514 (1960) demanded speedy and unconditional independence.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: transfer of power, self determination, Year of Africa, Resolution 1514, settler colony, apartheid, neo colonialism, arbitrary borders, plural society, Malayan Union, Emergency, New Villages, Alliance, Konfrontasi.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction (data): The UN began in 1945 with 51 members; by 1960 it had 99, and in that one year 17 African states became independent.
  • Introduction (judgement, quote or report): Resolution 1514 of 1960 declared that inadequate preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence, turning decolonisation into a norm of international law.
  • Conclusion: Decolonisation ended formal empire within three decades, but the borders, economies and divisions it left behind still shape the politics of Asia and Africa.
  • Conclusion: Malaya shows that a plural society can win freedom peacefully when its communities strike a bargain, though that bargain must be renewed as society changes.