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No Amritsar Massacre by Steve Payne & HT
Griffin
 Author
says: what if the British Government had adopted a softly-softly
approach steering the Raj towards Dominion Status (in this ATL we assume
there is no Amristar massacre and no partition of India)? Thank you to HT
Griffin for the original idea. Please note that the opinions expressed in
this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
In 1947, August 15th:
under the auspices of a long-awaited Act of Parliament, His Excellency Sir
Mohandas K. Gandhi was appointed Viceregal representative by King George VI,
serving as the first indigenous Governor General of the newly constituted
Dominion of India until his assassination just six months later.
Born in 1869 at Porbandar, a coastal town on the
Kathiawar peninsula in the western part of the Indian subcontinent, Gandhi
was a lawyer by profession.
Educated at University College London, he was admitted to the British bar
before returning to India in 1891 to establish a law practice in Mumbai.
During the Great War he served as an ambulance driver in
the British Army. "It is alarming and also nauseating
to see Mr. Gandhi in a Saville Row suit striding up the steps of the
Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the
King-Emperor" ~ Winston ChurchillOne year after the armistice, he was
brought to the attention of the British authorities when he represented the
Jallianwala Bagh prisoners after a tense, but peaceful pro-Indian
Independence Movement protest in Amritsar.
Gandhi's eloquent adovacy of non-violence at the trial positioned him as a
trusted partner for peace. Thrust onto the stage of Anglo-Indian politics,
he left the legal profession to lead multi-party talks that eventually lead
to Dominion Status after the Second World War.
The imperialist Winston Churchill was not the only person less than pleased
at the appointment of a Saville Row suit wearing Anglo-Indian lawyer. On 30
January 1948, Gandhi was shot dead while he was walking to a platform to
deliver a political speech. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu
nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi
responsible for accepting a settlement with the British Government that was
less than outright independence.
Author
says the idea that Gandhi becomes Govenor General is explored on
Yahoo! Discussion Groups by HT Griffin. To view guest historian's
comments on this post please visit the
Today in Alternate History web site. Please also note that 1) Gandhi's
law firm in Mumbai failed. 2) Churchill actually said - "It is alarming and
also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the
type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up
the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the
representative of the King-Emperor".
Steve Payne, Editor of Today in
Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History
That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on
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Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items
explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist
superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy
Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting
fictional blog.
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