One would have thought that if there was one cause in the world which the Conservative party would have hastened to defend, it would be the cause of the British Empire in India … Our fight is hard. It will also be long … But win or lose, we must do our duty. If the British people are to lose their Indian Empire, they shall do so with their eyes open.

Notes for speech 23 February 1931, Winchester House, Epping, entitled ‘A Seditious Middle Temple Lawyer’, in which Churchill withdraws from the Conservative Business Committee...

Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu philosopher, pacifist and reformer, had taken over the Congress in India in 1920 He believed India could not flourish under an alien (British) government and campaigned for...

Returning to Britain from the US, Churchill found Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government had issued a declaration, in October 1929, that British rule in India should aim to allow India ‘Dominion Status’. A firm believer that British rule was a guarantee of good government, Churchill’s found himself arguing against colleagues in his own party. Baldwin had endorsed the declaration and nearly everyone else within the party felt that India should be granted limited self-government and dominion status. Only a few ‘diehard’ Conservatives supported Churchill. He fought vehemently. Churchill argued strongly that only British rule could prevent racial and religious divisions within India resulting in bloodshed. But Churchill’s fighting talk didn’t win anyone over. When Gandhi and other Congress politicians were released from prison to attend discussions on constitutional reform, Churchill resigned in protest from the shadow cabinet in January 1931. Click to see some Punch cartoons of the time. 

Churchill wanted to see Britain as the interlocking link between three circles – the Empire and Commonwealth, Europe and the United States. But the British Empire was fading fast. The Empire never really recovered from the Second World War. British authority in India had been eroding since the early 1930s and the hand-over of power was now inevitable. But Churchill was still against relinquishing responsibility for the governance of the country to ‘men of straw’. Eventually, Churchill realised that the glory days of the Empire were over and he had to support the Independence of India Bill. Learn more about Indian Independence at the British Library India Office Records .

The Second Round Table Conference, London, October 1931 (Ramsay MacDonald is seated to the right of Gandhi) copyright: Wikimedia Commons...