Decolonization

Abstract

The decolonization of British India can be summarised in the following three main points. First, independence was achieved through a movement based on non-violent principles and led by political parties; second, independence was achieved not through war but through a transfer of power; and third, independence took the form of a partition based on religious identity.

1 Decolonization of South Asia

The decolonization of British India can be summarised in the following three main points. First, independence was achieved through a movement based on non-violent principles and led by political parties; second, independence was achieved not through war but through a transfer of power; and third, independence took the form of a partition based on religious identity. This section first reviews the development of the independence movement, then examines the decision-making process behind the partitioning of India and Pakistan, and finally explains how the partition came about in practice and what its consequences were.

1.1 Development of the Independence Movement

1.1.1 Formation of the Indian National Congress

Section 3.2 described the process by which British colonial policy underwent a major shift after the Great Rebellion of 1857, leading to the strengthening of colonial rule and increasingly conservative policies. The second half of the nineteenth century was a period in which the impact of British social reforms dwindled and political organizations gradually emerged in major cities, mainly led by the Indian upper and middle class. Various proposals to bring these political organizations together on a pan-Indian scale emerged in the 1880s. Among these developments, A.G. Hume, a retired Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, organized the Indian National Congress, which held its first session in Bombay in December 1885; this marked the birth of the Indian National Congress (hereinafter referred to as “Congress”).

The primary objective of the Congress was to create a sense of identity as “Indian” among the people of India. This identity development was based on promoting friendly relations among nationalists in different parts of India; developing and strengthening nationalism irrespective of caste, religion, or region of origin; bringing together the demands of the people and presenting them to the government; and finally (and most importantly) forging and organizing Indian public opinion.

The core of the Congress leadership comprised elites from Bombay and Calcutta who had studied in the 1860s and 1870s for the positions in the Indian Civil Service and legal professions. As such, participants were primarily English-educated urban upper and middle-class elites. At its inception, the organization was not a political party in essence. Meetings of the Congress were called literally “congress,” and they were little more than public debates or entertainment events held for three days at the end of the year.

In terms of policy, the Congress first called for the reform of the central and local legislative councils, which had been established as advisory bodies to the Viceroy, and the introduction of a limited representation system to the councils. With regards to administration, they called for the Indianisation of government officers. For the economy, they called for policies that would promote economic growth in India. However, the Congress movement remained an elite movement during this period. It had to wait for the arrival of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) to expand its base and involve the masses.

1.1.2 Emergence of the Muslim League

The initial style of the Congress movement was mainly petition-based and was derided as a form of begging. However, the Congress gradually became more anti-British and actively campaigned against the partition of Bengal in 1905. The Muslim League (hereinafter the “League”), which later became the main force of the Pakistan movement, was formed during this period.

Although Hindus and Muslims fought together to re-establish the Mughal Dynasty, the development after the Great Rebellion of 1857 against British rule precipitated the disharmony between Hindus and Muslims. After the uprising, the British explicitly treated the Muslims coldly and favored the Hindus in an attempt to divide them. This situation heightened a sense of crisis for Syed Ahmad Khan, who started the Aligarh Movement as a Muslim reform movement. He argued that the future of Muslims lay in distancing themselves from the nationalist Congress and cooperating with the British through modern education programmes. He feared that since Hindus were the majority in India, if British rule was weakened or withdrawn, they would come to dominate the Muslims. Indeed, many leaders of the Congress were of Hindu Brahmin origin.

As a response to the movement against the Partition of Bengal in 1905, which was the largest since the Great Rebellion, the British supported to form the League as a political organization for Muslims in 1906. It was aimed to counter the influence of the Hindu-dominated Congress. Subsequently, accepting the League’s demand, the Indian Councils Act was amended in 1909 to introduce separate electorates for the first time. This system created Muslim constituencies and restricted suffrage in those constituencies only to Muslims. It institutionalized the idea that Hindus and Muslims had separate interests and served to demarcate the boundary between them. This institutional design would later lead to the partition of India and Pakistan.

However, younger Muslim leaders opposed the pro-British attitude of the League. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who later became the “father of Pakistan,” was a member of the Congress and worked with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a prominent popular leader of the Congress, to conclude the Lucknow Pact in 1916, based on the position that the League should cooperate with the Congress to achieve Indian independence. The pact called for cooperation between the Congress and the League to press the British for Home Rule (self-government), and Jinnah distinguished himself as a connecting bridge between Hindus and Muslims.

Thus, during the First World War, the Congress and the League were poised to fight together. However, both organizations were mainly composed of English-speaking upper class and middle-class elites and were therefore detached from the people. Tagore described the situation aptly when he lamented that “a great ocean separates us educated few from millions in our country” (Sarkar 1983, p. 122). It was Gandhi who brought the two together.

1.1.3 Gandhi’s Independence Movement

Today, seventy-seven years after the India-Pakistan partition, there are mixed assessments of Gandhi and his legacy. However, it is virtually impossible to speak of India’s independence movement without mentioning him. Specifically, there are three main reasons to focus on Gandhi’s movement.

First, during the history of the Indian independence movement, the interwar period (also known as the Gandhi era) played a major role in the formation of the “Indian Nation.” Second, the movement’s ideology (which criticized modern Western civilization) and methods (non-violence and disobedience) were original and novel; they greatly influenced not only the Indian independence movement, but also the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the Civil Rights movement in the United States in later years. To this day, they continue to have an impact on democratization, anti-war, and environmental protection movements. Finally, he demonstrated and practiced, in his own way, a method to break the vicious cycle of violence. In a modern world still unable to overcome the vicious cycle of violence, the non-violent movement he led offers hope and an alternative.

Gandhi honed his non-violent ideology and movement style during his long struggle for human rights in South Africa, before returning to India in 1915. Upon his return, he led the three major independence movements. The first were the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements that he led from 1921 to 1922, and the second was the Civil Disobedience Movement organized from 1930 to 1934. These movements led to the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, which made it possible for Indians to take up positions of power at the state level. The third and final movement, the Quit India Movement, was launched in 1942 during the Second World War.

What distinguished these movements was that they developed based on a dynamic of popular demonstrations and participation in the parliamentary system. In other words, they first exerted pressure on Britain by launching large-scale popular movements with the goal of Swaraj (self-rule). The British conceded by progressively expanding representation. While participating in the expanded representative government, dissatisfaction with its concessions once again took the form of a popular movement, pressing the British to make further concessions. Britain responded by further expanding Indian participation in the representative government. This dynamic, based on popular movements and participation in representative government, was a key characteristic of the Indian independence movement and an important factor in India’s ability to establish democracy after independence.

Why, then, were Gandhi’s movements able to garner popular support? This was largely due to the following three innovations. The first was organizational reform, which strengthened the foundation of Congress as a political party by establishing a chain of command and introducing inter-party elections. This election system involved party leaders trying to acquire new party members who would support them. Second, the movements set goals and symbols that were able to overcome the cleavages in Indian society based on religion, caste, class, and region etc. The goal of self-rule (swaraj) was defined ambiguously such that anyone could attach their own dreams to it, and symbols such as salt and yarn spinning, which could be accepted irrespective of class, caste, gender, and religion, were utilized. Last but not least, the method of non-violence, which rejected class struggle and preached harmony, succeeded in winning the support of capitalists, merchants, and landowners who would otherwise have feared losing their property or even their lives in a violent socialist revolution. In other words, “non-violence” served as an umbrella for the “Indian people” to unite under and formed the basis for the establishment of the Congress as a catch-all party after independence.

1.2 The Partition of India and Pakistan

1.2.1 Hindu-Muslim Relations

The Civil Disobedience Movement led to the Round Table Conference, which led to the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935. Elections planned under the 1935 Act were held in 1937, and the Congress won in eight of the eleven provinces. Subsequently, the Viceroy of India maintained ultimate authority, but the Indians were in charge of provincial-level governments. Although the governments formed by the Congress resigned en masse following the outbreak of the Second World War (due to their refusal to cooperate with the British in the war effort), independence was finally on the cards. The problem that emerged at this stage was the presence of the Muslim population, comprising about twenty-five percent of the population of British India.

The first test of cooperation after the 1916 Lucknow Pact were the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements, which were launched in 1921 and 1922. Despite having significant momentum, Gandhi halted them after the Chauri Chaura incident in which more than twenty policemen were killed by the mob. The abrupt end of the movement created a sense of frustration, and also cast a shadow over Hindu-Muslim relations. The conflict was fuelled by religious riots that broke out during this period. In 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), one of whose former members would later assassinate Gandhi, was formed, fuelling the conflict between the two communities.

Hindu-Muslim relations did not improve after this. Participation in the Civil Disobedience and Quit India Movements also varied according to region: the areas in which the Quit India Movement gained momentum would later become present-day India, and the areas where participation was weak would become present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. The varying degrees of participation appear to have implied the later borders.

1.2.2 The Core of Muslim Interest

This raises the question of why Hindu-Muslim relations could not be re-established after this point. The core of the Muslim interest was protecting Muslims as a minority. Jinnah, who was instrumental in the formation of the Lucknow Pact, left the Congress Party after harshly criticizing Gandhi’s collaboration with the Khilafat Movement, which he described as a politicization of religion. After temporarily retiring from politics and going to England, Jinnah returned to India in 1934 and re-entered politics, continuously conducted tough negotiations with the Congress. He insisted that the League was the “sole spokesman of Indian Muslims” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 4) and demanded an equal footing with the Congress in the post-independence central government. This position became known as the two-nation theory, which argued that Hindus and Muslims constituted separate “nations” by introducing the concept of “nation,” since Muslims could not escape from being a numerical minority. He then aimed to stand on an equal footing with the Congress, which he considered to only represent Hindus.

The resolution that first called for the establishment of Pakistan based on the two-nation theory is commonly known as the Pakistan Resolution, adopted at the Lahore Congress of the League in March 1940. The essence of the Pakistani resolution were the demands that (1) Muslim-majority areas such as the north-western and eastern parts of the Indian subcontinent be created as independent states, and (2) their constituent units should have autonomy and sovereignty. However, the resolution included no mention of “Pakistan” or “partition.” Jinnah avoided giving a strict definition of “Pakistan” until the very end, leaving it to the League’s supporters to envision whatever Pakistan they wanted. The ambiguity made it a convenient slogan for mobilizing the Muslim masses, a trait it shared with Gandhi’s swaraj. Nazimuddin, a prominent leader of the League, explained this problem in 1947, the year of independence, as “he ‘did not know what Pakistan meant,’ in fact, ‘nobody in the Muslim League knew, so that it was very difficult for the League to carry on long-term negotiations with the minorities’” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 238).

Given that the Muslim population was only twenty-five percent of the population of British India and that the League did not have the support of all Muslims (as evidenced by its disastrous defeat in the 1937 elections), Jinnah’s demand that the League be the “sole spokesman of Indian Muslims” and on equal footing with the Congress Party was unreasonable. However, Jinnah’s concerns cannot in themselves be described as the result of paranoia. Post-independence India experienced several religious riots in which thousands of Muslims were massacred, and the movement to abolish Muslim personal law is still going strong today. Against this background, let us now summarize the differences between the claims of the League and the Congress Party.

1.2.3 Differences Between the Claims of the League and the Congress

The differences between the Congress and League’s claims can be summarized from three perspectives: the relationship with Muslims, the distribution of power at the center, and the center-state relationship.

From Table 1, we can see that compromise would be difficult to achieve on any of the points. However, the possibility of compromise was not completely absent. According to Jalal (1994[1985], p. 57), Jinnah’s real aim was to extract concessions from the Congress Party, and the idea of Pakistan was merely a bargaining counter. The decisive factor in the realization of this just “bargaining counter” was the shift in British policy.

Table 1 Fundamental conflicts between the league and congress

1.2.4 British Policy

British policy changed dramatically after the Second World War. Prior to this point, their basic policy was “divide and rule”; they believed that pitting Hindus against Muslims would stabilize British rule. The Hindu-Muslim conflict was seen as the bulwark of the rule over India. However, this attitude changed after the end of the Second World War. Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, who had been in favor of Indian independence, won the general elections in July 1945, leading to the formation of a Labour government. The Attlee administration dispatched a Cabinet Mission and began negotiations for Indian independence.

The Cabinet Mission visited India in March 1946 and presented Indian leaders with two schemes (Schemes A and B). The main points of Scheme A were that British India would be made independent as a united Indian federation, with central authority limited to diplomacy, defence, and transportation, and the key elements of executive and legislation vested in a second level of administration, known as the Groups. The Groups corresponded roughly to today’s India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The provinces would form the third level. In contrast, Scheme B was the actual partition that took place.

The Cabinet Mission gave priority to Scheme A; Scheme B was thought of merely as an alternative in case it was difficult to reach agreement on Scheme A. Negotiations were very tough. During the process, the greatest tragedy of the partition, the communal riots, started in Calcutta. We will return to the Great Calcutta Killings for a discussion; for now, it is enough to mention that they spread to various parts of the country and the situation became extremely unstable. In the process, Britain headed to a policy of shifting “the burden of responsibility for these troubles squarely, if not fairly, onto the shoulders of Indians themselves” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 244).

In these circumstances, the Attlee administration announced on February 20, 1947 that it would withdraw from India by the end of June 1948. Attlee dismissed Viceroy Archibald Wavell, who understood well Jinnah’s demand for the creation of Pakistan was only a bargaining counter and had been carefully negotiating for independence, and appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten as his replacement, with a deadline for withdrawal as a condition of his acceptance. Unlike his predecessor, Mountbatten could not understand that Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan was aimed at “equal status for Muslims.” He was prejudiced against Jinnah, calling him a “psychopathic case,” “lunatic,” “evil genius,” “clot,” and “bastard” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 259, note 46), while he described Nehru as “most sincere” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 250). It was under this new Viceroy that the independence process accelerated. Mountbatten presented a proposal for partition on June 3, 1947, resulting in Pakistan gaining independence on August 14, 1947 and India on August 15, 1947. He praised himself for completing one of the “greatest  administrative operations in history” (Jalal 1994[1985], p.293) in less than two and a half months. However, the hasty partition led not just to the tragedy of the wave of massive communal riots but remains at the root of the India-Pakistan conflict to this day.

1.2.5 Outbreak of the Great Calcutta Killings

The India-Pakistan partition was a tragedy that continues to traumatize both populations to this day. Although exact figures are unavailable, the partition created some 15 million refugees and caused the death of approximately one million people.

The Great Calcutta Riots created a chain reaction of violence. The initial catalyst was the League’s proclamation of the Direct Action Day. At the time, the League had finally won the 1945–46 elections and was getting closer to its long-held claim to be the “sole spokesman of Muslims,” but it could hardly compete with the Congress in terms of popular mobilization. They feared that this lesser mobilization would make them unable to compete with the Congress in the ongoing independence negotiations. Jinnah therefore declared August 16, 1946 to be the Direct Action Day to demonstrate the mobilizing power of the Muslim League. Jinnah explained such as “‘direct action’ day should be a day of peaceful reflection, not a day ‘for the purpose of resorting to direct action in any form or shape’” (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 216). However, in reality, a massacre took place.

Detailed empirical studies have revealed that, rather than being impossible to suppress, the Calcutta Killings were deliberately not contained. According to Nakazato (2004), the British security authorities were well aware of the danger of religious riots breaking out and spreading, yet deliberately turned a blind eye. This was because they feared that if the authorities intervened, the violence of the mobs would be directed against the colonial government. One can imagine the concerns of the British colonial government in the aftermath of the Second World War, when anti-British sentiment had been heightened by the Indian National Army trials that began in November 1945 and given the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in February 1946. However, given that maintaining security was the primary responsibility of the rulers, ignoring the riots was a clear abdication of responsibility. Considering that the chain of violence spread to all of India and led to a hasty partition by making negotiations impossible, Britain’s responsibility in these events is extremely serious.

As mentioned, the religious riots spread to other parts of British India. In October 1946, Muslim gangs attacked Hindu landowners, lawyers, and others in Noakhali, in present-day Bangladesh, and Tripura, in present-day India. In the same month, the Bihar Riots, in which about 7,000 Muslims were killed, occurred in retaliation for the Noakhali riots. From March to August 1947, Punjab was in a state of civil war and 5,000 people were massacred before independence was sealed. However, the violence worsened after independence. Roughly 180,000 people were massacred in Punjab (60,000 Hindus and Sikhs and 120,000 Muslims). By March 1948, 6 million Muslims and 4.5 million Hindus and Sikhs had become refugees(Sarkar 1983, pp. 432–434).

1.2.6 Gandhi’s Activities: His Final Struggle for Non-violence

In the midst of the riots, Gandhi continued to preach his lifelong belief in Hindu-Muslim harmony, but he was increasingly isolated. In the independence negotiations, he proposed that Jinnah be made Prime Minister of India and, in a reversal of his previous position, that the British should stay on for a while to protect the interests of the majority. However, Congress leaders dismissed this as “quixotic” (Sarkar 1983, p. 437) and removed him from the center of the independence negotiations. He eventually endorsed the partition though he personally did not accept it. After that, he devoted the remainder of his life to stopping the riots. In Calcutta, he undertook a “fast unto death” to stop the riots and succeeded in stopping them. It was described as the “Miracle of Calcutta.”

However, Gandhi’s suffering did not end there. As mentioned earlier, religious riots intensified everywhere after independence. Riots in Delhi were frequent at this point, where many Hindu and Sikh refugees fleeing present-day Pakistan were present. On January 30, 1948, after fasting to protest the riots, he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a former member of the RSS, at the residence of Birla, a nationalist capitalist known to be a close supporter of Gandhi.

The assassination of Gandhi, though anticipated, came as a great shock and deeply wounded the new India. Japanese prominent political scientist and historian Chiharu Takenaka (2018, pp. 190–191) astutely analysed that the Mahatma’s death was the cornerstone for moving the Hindu majority of the nation in the direction of Indian-style secularism, where many religions would peacefully coexist, rather than in the direction of anti-Islamic communalism. For the first two decades after independence at least, religious riots were indeed suppressed.

1.3 Consequences of the India-Pakistan Partition

The slipshod partition and independence process, as well as the accompanying religious riots, left major scars on both India and Pakistan. Let us now examine the impact on both countries in terms of national integration and the political structures upon which it is based.

1.3.1 India

India became independent while maintaining its territorial integrity, despite the partition of the north-western province of Punjab and the eastern province of Bengal. The question of the majority of the princely states that were indirectly ruled during the British era was settled upon the independence of India and Pakistan, with the princely states located in the Indian territory belonging to India and the princely states located in the Pakistani territory belonging to Pakistan. The princely state of Kashmir (known as Jammu and Kashmir state before the abolition of Article 370 which allowed more autonomy to the state in 2019), Junagadh (part of present-day Gujarat) and Hyderabad (part of present-day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) resisted joining India. Possession of Kashmir is contested between India and Pakistan to this day. The statuses of Junagadh and the Hyderabad were eventually settled by their belonging to India. Although disputes continued in the northeast between the Indian government and the Nagas and other ethnic minorities seeking independence, the issue of national integration was generally resolved by 1950, when the Constitution was promulgated.

With territorial national unity on the horizon, India held its first general elections under the 1950 Constitution in 1951–52. The Congress, which led the independence movement, overwhelmingly won the elections and formed a one-party dominant rule, which Rajni Kothari modelled as the “Congress system,” until the late 1960s. This political stability laid the foundations of Indian democracy. However, the experience of Partition remained traumatic and became the undercurrent of religious conflicts that continue to this day. From the late 1980s onwards, the Sangh Parivar (the conglomerate of RSS and other affiliated organizations including the present ruling party of Bharatiya Janata Party) became increasingly active, aiming for making India “Hindu rashtra (nation)”; religious riots became more frequent in many parts of the country. The politicization of religious identity was linked with the growing power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political arm of the Sangh Parivar, and led to its current rise to power.

1.3.2 Pakistan

Pakistan, by contrast, faced more serious challenges of national integration. It gained independence in the form of a divided state, with West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) some 2,000 km apart. This was the very Pakistan that its founding father Jinnah resisted to the end as the “mutilated and moth-eaten” Pakistan (Jalal 1994[1985], p. 246).

The problem of the divided state was not just a question of territory, but that it created a fractured sense of political belonging. The challenge that Pakistan faced from its inception was the imbalance under which West Pakistan seized political leadership while East Pakistan held the majority of the population. If general elections were held, as in India, it was highly likely that East Pakistan would wrest control from West Pakistan. Indeed, the League suffered a disastrous defeat in the 1954 East Pakistan Provincial Assembly elections. In the general elections of 1970, which were the first general elections at the national level, the Awami League, the main party in East Pakistan, also won a majority, leading to the outbreak of civil war and ultimately the Third Indo-Pakistani War, which led to Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

This fragmentation of the state also had a significant impact on the political system. Whereas India enacted a constitution shortly after gaining independence, Pakistan underwent a difficult constitution-making process. The Constituent Assembly submitted a draft constitution in 1954, but it was dissolved by the Governor-General, who did not want his powers restricted, and the new assembly finally enacted a constitution in 1956. However, the Chief of Army Staff, Ayub Khan, who was wary that the implementation of universal elections based on the 1956 constitution would lead to deprivation of West Pakistan’s power by East Pakistan, carried out a coup d’état in 1958. From this point onwards, Pakistan would experience cycles of military and civilian rule.

Hence, despite both being born out of the British India independence process, a long-lasting contrast emerged between India, which maintained a stable democratic system, and Pakistan, which experienced cycles of democracy and authoritarianism. The process of partition set the tone for the Indo-Pakistani conflict which continues to the present day.

2 Decolonization of Southeast Asia

Most areas of Southeast Asia were under Western colonial rule before the Second World War. There are eleven independent nation states in the present Southeast Asia, namely, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar in Mainland Southeast Asia, together with the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and East Timor (Timor Leste) in Maritime Southeast Asia. Let us look back briefly upon the historical formation processes of these eleven nation states.

2.1 The Birth of Nationalism and the End of Western Colonial Rule in Southeast Asia

2.1.1 The Final Phase of Colonization and the Emergence of Nationalism

By the middle of the 1910s, the whole area of Southeast Asia, except Thailand whose name was Siam at that time, came under Western colonial rule. At the same time, the geographical boundaries of each territorial units were clearly demarcated. As a result of unified territorial rule, the prototypes of national identity, territory, and single state sovereignty as the three basic elements of the modern state were nurtured. A sense of solidarity among people who resided in the same territory intensified. On the other hand, a new intellectual class emerged through the introduction of the modern education system. In parallel with these changes, the national consciousness, the nationalist movement in search of independence from colonial rule, and the creation of nation states arose.

Such modern nationalist ideas and movements appeared first in the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century, which was under the Spanish colonial rule. The founding of the Republic of the Philippines was declared in 1899. However, it was crushed down by the United States, which conquered the Philippines after the Spanish-American War in 1898 (Agoncillo 1990, pp. 129–243). Early in the twentieth century, modern nationalism also emerged in the Dutch East Indies, and by the end of the 1920s, developed into a political movement that aimed to create the Republic of Indonesia (Ricklefs 2008, pp. 188–234). Together with the emergence of modern educated intellectuals, nationalism was born and developed in Vietnam (then a part of French Indochina) and British Burma as well. Particularly in Vietnam, the socialists took leadership of the movement.

Even in Siam, which maintained its independence under royal rule, the demand for establishing a diet and promulgating the constitution had become greater. In 1932, such reform was realized through a coup led by a group of young elite officials. As a result, Siam was transformed into a modern state based on a constitutional monarchy (Wyatt 2003, pp. 210–231), which was renamed the Kingdom of Thailand in 1939.

2.1.2 The Second World War and Southeast Asia Under the Japanese Occupation

After the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the Japanese army invaded various parts of Southeast Asia. By the middle of 1942, every part of Southeast Asia was occupied by Japan or came under its strong influence. The responses of nationalists in each Southeast Asian country to Japanese military rule were diversified according to specific historical conditions.

In the Philippines, the existing autonomous government (the Commonwealth of the Philippines) had sought asylum in the United States after the Japanese intrusion. Accordingly, the Philippine government organized under the Japanese occupation could not get genuine support from the people (Agoncillo 1990, pp. 387–423). On the contrary, many nationalist leaders of Indonesia, such as Sukarno (1901–1970), chose to cooperate with Japanese rule and preparation for national independence had officially started since March 1945. In the case of Burma, a group of young nationalists, such as Aung San (1915–1947), fled Burma shortly before the outbreak of the war, and they organized a voluntary army for independence in cooperation with the Japanese. Then, under the Japanese occupation, the government led by the Burmese prime minister was set up.

On the other hand, the pro-German French government maintained control in Indochina until March 1945 when it was dissolved by the Japanese occupation army. Accordingly, there was no room for cooperation between the nationalists and the Japanese army. The Communist Party of Indochina, which went underground led by Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), was preparing for confrontation against the French and the Japanese.

2.2 National Independence and the Formation of ASEAN

2.2.1 National Independence Through Armed Struggle: Vietnam and Indonesia

After the end of the Second World War, movements toward national independence in Southeast Asia accelerated. The process was remarkably diversified. In Indochina and Indonesia, France and the Netherlands fought for the revival of colonial rule; whereas in areas such as the Philippines, Burma and Malaya, the United States and United Kingdom acted more flexibly to nationalist trends.

In Vietnam, the League for the Independence of Vietnam (abbreviated as Viet Minh) and the communist People’s Army led by Ho Chi Minh joined together soon after the surrender of Japan. On September 2, 1945, they declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi. As France did not approve the independence of Vietnam as a unified nation, they went to war with the Viet Minh in 1946. The armed resistance against France had also started in Cambodia and Laos, which developed into the First Indochina War. The war ended in July 1954 by a peace agreement reached in Geneva, Switzerland. As a result, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel into the Democratic Republic in the north and the pro-French government of the State of Vietnam in the south (Lam 2010, pp. 208–252). On the other hand, the national independence of the Kingdom of Laos was attained in 1953 by a treaty with France. However, three separate groups, the right wing, the neutralists and the left-wing, contended for power, and Laos entered a state of civil war (Stuart-Fox 1997, pp. 59–98). Cambodia also gained its independence from France in 1953 as the kingdom ruled by Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) (Chandler 2008, pp. 211–232).

In Indonesia, the founding of the Republic of Indonesia (RI) was declared on August 17, 1945 at Jakarta, and Sukarno was inaugurated as its president. However, an armed conflict took place at the end of October between the people and the British Indian Army that had landed in Java on behalf of the Allied Forces. It developed into the war of independence fought by the Indonesian National Army (TNI) against the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL), which had replaced the British Indian Army. The war ended at the end of 1949 by a peace agreement concluded at the Hague, and the Federal Republic of Indonesia (RIS) was established by uniting RI and plural local states that were backed up by the Netherlands. However, those local states dissolved one after another, and by the abolition of the federal system, the unitary state of RI was finally established in August 1950 (Ricklefs 2008, pp. 249–271).

2.2.2 Peaceful Routes to National Independence: The Philippines, Burma, and Malaya

In 1934, the Philippine Independence Act was enacted by the United States Congress and was accepted by the Congress of the Philippines. Based on this act, the autonomous government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines led by the Filipino president and vice president came into being in 1935. After the Second World War, formal independence from the United States was finally attained by the establishment of the Republic of the Philippines on July 4, 1946 (Agoncillo 1990, pp. 328–370, 427–440).

After the surrender of Japan, British colonial rule in Burma was restored for a short time. However, within a year, an agreement for independence was reached in January 1947 between the British government and Aung San as the representative of Burmese nationalists. Then, on January 4, 1948, the nation seceded from the British Commonwealth and became an independent republic named the Union of Burma (Charney 2009, pp. 62–65). Later, in 1974 it was renamed the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma, and in 1989, was renamed again, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, which has continued up to the present.

In the Malay Peninsula, the concept of the Malayan Union was proposed under the British military administration after the end of the Second World War as a new form of colonial rule that replaced the former British Malaya. It was put into practice in 1946 but was fiercely opposed by the local Malay leaders. As a result, it was abolished at the end of January 1948 and was replaced in February of the same year by the Federation of Malaya. It comprised of nine Malay states, together with Penang and Malacca, which had formerly belonged to the Straits Settlements (Andaya and Andaya 2001, pp. 264–282). However, Singapore, another part of the Straits Settlements, did not join the federation. The autonomous Singaporean government was established after the election of the Legislative Assembly in May 1959 (Turnbull 2009, pp. 225–277).

2.2.3 The Formation of Malaysia and the Birth of ASEAN

In May 1961, Tunku Abdul Rahman (1903–1990), the prime minister of the Federation of Malaya proposed the formation of a new federal state named Malaysia by uniting Malaya, Singapore, Sabah (former British North Borneo), Sarawak (former kingdom ruled by the British royal family before the Second World War) and Brunei (Malay sultanate that had become a British protectorate in 1888). In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) agreed, but there were forces of opposition in Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei. Particularly in Brunei, a rebellion broke out against this plan. Accordingly, the Sultan of Brunei called off participation in the new Malaysia (Saunders 2002, pp. 139–160).

Indonesia, as a neighboring country under the leadership of President Sukarno, also clearly demonstrated a confrontational stance and considered Malaysia a product of neo-colonialism. The Philippines also opposed the formation of Malaysia by claiming sovereignty over Sabah. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Rahman took every opportunity to persuade, such as the Prime Ministers’ Conference of the British Commonwealth, and finally secured the support of the British government.

On September 16, 1963, Malaysia was established as a new federal state by uniting the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak (Andaya and Andaya 2001, pp. 282–290). However, the pro-Malay policy promoted by the federal government in Kuala Lumpur gave rise to conflict with the government of Singapore, where most of the population were ethnic Chinese. In 1964, violent clashes took place between Chinese and Malay residents in Singapore, which made the discord inextricable. As a result, Singapore separated from Malaysia and became an independent nation as the Republic of Singapore on August 9, 1965 (Turnbull 2009, pp. 291–295). On the other hand, Brunei, which had not joined Malaysia, finally became independent on January 1, 1984 as Brunei Darussalam, an Islamic state led by the Malay Sultan (Saunders 2002, pp. 161–177).

In the meantime, Indonesia had officially declared a confrontation against Malaysia and started a military operation to crush it. However, this was unsuccessful because of the counterattack of Malaysia, which was militarily supported by the United Kingdom and others. The abortive coup on September 30, 1965 in Jakarta had led to the downfall of Sukarno, and the birth of a new regime led by Army Minister Suharto (1921–2008, later inaugurated as president), to whom presidential power was delegated in 1966. Then, the new administration put an end to the confrontation against Malaysia (Ricklefs 2008, pp. 308–319, 327–328). Diplomatic relations with the Philippines were also disrupted by the advent of Malaysia. However, after the birth of the new Philippine administration led by President Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) at the end of 1965, a reconciliation was gradually realized between the two nations.

On August 8, 1967, the founding of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was declared at Bangkok by the foreign ministers of five countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Its major purposes were to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region, and to promote regional peace and stability by paying respect to the rule of justice and law as well as following the principles of the United Nations Charter. In November 1971, ASEAN laid the foundation for further expansion and development by adopting the declaration to create the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN Secretariat as a standing organization was set up in 1976 at Jakarta. The ASEAN member states increased by accepting Brunei in January 1984 (soon after its independence), Vietnam in July 1995, Laos and Myanmar in July 1997, and Cambodia in April 1999. Thus, now it covers ten countries in the whole region of Southeast Asia.

2.3 The Final Process of Decolonization

2.3.1 The Second Indochina War and the Decolonization of Three Nations in Indochina

After the French had withdrawn from Vietnam in compliance with the Geneva Agreement of 1954, a military coup broke out in the South and the Republic of Vietnam was set up. The leadership of this government refused to carry out the nationwide general election that had been stipulated by the Geneva Agreement. Though they built a dictatorship backed up by American aid, it was met with opposition from peasants, urban intellectuals and Buddhists, which developed into a resistance movement in 1960. The National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam (FNL) was set up in December 1960, and armed conflict broke out with the government forces. Starting in 1963, repeated military coups occurred in South Vietnam, and the political situation remained unstable. The government forces of South Vietnam proved powerless, and the U.S. armed forces began to engage directly in warfare.

In March 1970, a coup supported by the United States took place in Cambodia. King Sihanouk was ousted from Phnom Penh and U.S. forces intruded into Cambodia. Sihanouk organized the National United Front of Kampuchea together with the left-wing Khmer Rouge and started guerilla war (Chandler 2008, pp. 233–254). In February 1971, U.S. forces also intruded into the southern part of Laos to block the supply route from North Vietnam to the liberation front in the South. As a result, the war escalated and spread into the entire region of Indochina (the Second Indochina War).

Nevertheless, the military strategy of the U.S. and South Vietnam forces was unsuccessful, and the final withdrawal of U.S. troops was decided by the Paris Agreement in January 1973. Even after U.S. withdrawal, civil war continued between the South Vietnam forces and the liberation front backed by the North. However, due to a massive offensive starting in December 1974, the South Vietnam forces collapsed and surrendered unconditionally on April 30, 1975. With this surrender, the war finally ended, and national unification was declared in July 1976 with the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Lam 2010, pp. 253–310).

In Laos, the fourth united national government was established in April 1974, in which the left wing Pathet Lao held a dominant position. Until August 1975, the right-wing groups were swept away, and royal rule was also abolished in December 1975 by establishing the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Stuart-Fox 1997, pp. 135–167).

In Cambodia, the war ended in 1975 with the triumphant entry of the united front forces, mainly composed of Khmer Rouge. In 1976, the country was renamed Democratic Kampuchea. However, the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot faction) started a reign of terror soon after the liberation of Phnom Penh, and Cambodia again lapsed into civil war. This ended in October 1991 with the conclusion of the Cambodian Peace Agreements at Paris. In 1993, a new constitution was promulgated by the constituent assembly established after the general election conducted under supervision of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). In this way, the Kingdom of Cambodia ruled under constitutional monarchy was restored (Chandler 2008, pp. 255–300).

2.3.2 Independence of East Timor (Timor Leste)

Timor Island, located about 1,100 km east of Java, had become a Portuguese colony in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, it was divided by Portugal and the Netherlands into east and west. Thus, the eastern half of the island remained as a Portuguese territory, while its western half became a part of the Dutch East Indies. After the independence of Indonesia, West Timor became part of its territory, but East Timor remained under Portuguese rule. However, in 1974 a revolution broke out in Portugal, and its right-wing dictatorship was overthrown. The new Portuguese government decided to approve the independence of its overseas territories. In concert with this change, the left-wing organization named Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) was organized and the independence of East Timor was declared by this organization in November 1974.

Nevertheless, Indonesia urged the anti-Fretilin groups in East Timor to make a petition for annexation out of fear of a socialist government rising to power. Indonesian troops disguised as volunteer soldiers started an invasion in East Timor. In July 1976, Indonesia declared the annexation of East Timor as its 27th province. However, in December 1975, the United Nations Security Council condemned the Indonesian invasion and required immediate withdrawal from East Timor. Fretilin continued to struggle for independence and engaged in guerilla warfare with an appeal for the international support. Accordingly, the armed struggle continued in East Timor for many years.

In May 1998, riots broke out in various parts of Indonesia against the background of political and social unrest triggered by the Asian economic crisis that started in the previous year. As a result, President Suharto was driven to resign. With the agreement of the new Indonesian government, the referendum for self-determination of East Timor was held in August 1999 under the supervision of the United Nations, and separation from Indonesia was decided (Ricklefs 2008, pp. 339–384). Because of this decision, East Timor came under the provisional control of the UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor) from October 1999, and finally became a new sovereign state named the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste in May 2002. This resulted in the birth of the eleventh nation state in Southeast Asia.

2.4 Ethnic Composition of Southeast Asian Nations and Their National/Official Languages

All of the eleven Southeast Asian nations whose formation processes have been described above are conspicuously multiethnic states. They are integrated into single nations with common national or official languages. However, we find great variety in the manner of integration, particularly between five countries in Mainland Southeast Asia and six countries in Insular Southeast Asia. Let us briefly observe each country’s condition.

2.4.1 Mainland Southeast Asia

Figure 1 shows the total population, estimated percentage of major ethnic groups in the population and the national languages in five countries of Mainland Southeast Asia. In all these countries, we can find the predominant ethnic groups whose ratio in the total population exceed 50 percent. In Vietnam, which has the largest population among the five countries, more than fifty different ethnic groups exist. Among them, Kinh account for more than 85 percent of the total national population. There are no other ethnic groups whose population accounts for more than two percent of the national total. Vietnamese, the national language, is also the mother tongue of the Kinh.

Fig. 1

Total population, major ethnic groups and the national languages in Mainland Southeast Asian countries

In Thailand, with the second largest population in Mainland Southeast Asia, more than sixty ethnic groups exist. Among them, Thai people, the largest group, amount to more than 90 percent of the total population, and their mother tongue has become the national language. However, the Isan, who mainly reside in northeast Thailand and speak a peculiar dialect, are counted among the Thai as a subgroup. They account for approximately 30 percent of the total population. Among non-Thai groups, Malays reside in the southern part of the country and has the largest non-Thai population. However, it amounts to a mere 2.5 percent of the total population.

More than a hundred ethnic groups are living in Myanmar, which has a population of over 51 million. The largest group is the Bamar who amount to nearly 70 percent of the total population. The national language of Myanmar, Burmese, is the mother tongue of these people. However, other large groups whose populations respectively exceed five percent of the national total exist, such as the Shan (about five million people) and Karen (about 3.6 million people). Some of these groups have their own militias to confront the central government.

In Cambodia, which has a population of more than 15 million, approximately twenty different ethnic groups reside. Among them, Khmer amount to more than 95 percent of the total population and hold the predominant position. Their mother tongue has become the national language of Cambodia. Even in Laos, which has the smallest population among the mainland countries (less than seven million), more than a hundred ethnic groups are present. Among them Lao is the largest one, and their population exceeds 50 percent of the national total. Their mother tongue has also become the national language.

2.4.2 Insular Southeast Asia

The ethnic composition and language variety in Insular Southeast Asia is more complicated than in Mainland countries, where particular ethnic groups hold the predominant positions, and their mother tongues are adopted as national languages. Figure 2 shows the total population, percentage of major ethnic or language groups in the population and the national or official languages of six countries in Insular Southeast Asia.

Fig. 2

Total population, major ethnic/language groups and the national/official languages in Insular Southeast Asian countries

Within the Philippines, located at the northeast edge of Southeast Asia with the second largest population in the region after Indonesia (more than 100 million), there exists a great variety of language groups whose total number may exceed 180. (In the Philippines, these groups are seldom referred to as ethnic groups.) However, there are only four major languages whose number of speakers respectively exceed nine million, namely Tagalog (spoken principally in Central Luzon), Cebuano (spoken mainly in the central part of the country such as Cebu), Ilocano (spoken in North Luzon) and Hiligaynon (spoken in central and southern parts of the country such as Panay). Among them, Tagalog is widely used in Manila and adjacent areas and has been adopted and standardized as the national language, Filipino. However, the population of native Tagalog speakers is less than 40 percent of the total population, and a large number of the Philippine people could not speak Tagalog well. Accordingly, English (widespread in the period of United States colonial rule from 1898 to 1946) has also been accepted as an official language. Although today the majority of people speak Filipino, English is still widely used in schools and government offices.

Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world after China, India and the United States (about 270 million in 2020). Several hundred different ethnic groups (suku bangsa) exist. The group with the largest population is Javanese (Jawa). Their homeland is Central and East Java, but there are also a number of Javanese transmigrants in other parts of the country. Their total number is more than 100 million, the largest population of a single ethnic group in the whole of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, they merely account for about 40 percent of the total population of Indonesia. Besides Javanese, there are many other groups whose population amount to several million (sometimes more than ten), such as the Sundanese and Batak, whose homelands are respectively West Java and North Sumatra. In addition, the national language of Indonesia (bahasa Indonesia) is not Javanese. Its parent is Malay (bahasa Melayu), the native language of the Malays who reside in various areas such as Sumatra, Borneo (called Kalimantan in Indonesia) and the Malay Peninsula across the national borders of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Though the population of Malay people in Indonesia is much smaller than that of Javanese, their language is much easier to learn. Javanese has an intricate system of honorific language (termed “speech levels” by linguists), so Malay had been widely used as a common language in the region historically. However, as the independently developed national language, bahasa Indonesia is rather different in vocabulary and usage than bahasa Melayu, the national language of Malaysia and Brunei.

Although the population of East Timor is merely over 1.4 million, it also consists of many small ethnic groups that have their own native tongues. Among these languages, Tetun (or spelled Tetum) is widely used as a common tool of communication and is adopted as an official language together with Portuguese. Besides these two official languages, Indonesian and English are also adopted as working languages in East Timor.

In Malaysia, of which the total population is over 32 million, a plural society is made up from indigenous people generically called bumiputra (meaning “children of the earth”) and the descendants of immigrants from other Asian regions, especially China and India. According to population statistics in 2017, bumiputra accounted for about 69 percent of the total population, while the proportion of Chinese is over 23 percent and Indians account for seven percent. Among bumiputra, Malays amount to slightly less than 55 percent, and the residual 14 percent are made up of non-Malay indigenous groups in Borneo (states of Sabah and Sarawak) together with minority groups related with Mainland Southeast Asian areas such as Thai, Khmer and Cham. The national language of Malaysia is Malay (bahasa Melayu), but it is also called Malaysian (bahasa Malaysia) to differentiate it from various domestic dialects and Indonesian. As a legacy of former British colonial rule, English is also widely used as the de-facto official language.

The population of Singapore as a city state is more than four million. It chiefly consists of three major ethnic groups of Malay, Chinese and Indian. In contrast to Malaysia, the proportion of Malays as indigenous residents to the total population is less than 14 percent, whereas the Chinese population amounts to more than 74 percent. The national language of Singapore is constitutionally Malay. However, English is used as the common tongue, thus the de-facto national language. In addition, Chinese (Mandarin) and Tamil (from south India) are also adopted as official languages. For the MRT (mass rapid transit) trains that crisscross the island of Singapore, announcements are made in the four languages of English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil.

In Brunei Darussalam, located at the north coast of Borneo, the total population is just over 450 thousand. Nevertheless, it consists of more than ten different ethnic groups. The largest group is Malay (nearly 65 percent of the total population), followed by Chinese (a little more than ten percent). The national language is Malay, but English is also widely used as the official language.