A new documentary, "1947: Brexit India," posits that Britain's departure from India was primarily an economic decision, framing colonialism as a commercial enterprise that ceased to be profitable after World War II, leading to a "disgraceful Brexit." While acknowledging Britain's post-war economic exhaustion as a factor in the timing of independence, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor emphasizes that the Indian freedom movement was not incidental, arguing that rising British sympathy for India, fueled by figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Dadabhai Naoroji, alongside a free press, eroded the moral justification for imperialism. The film also highlights the crucial, often overlooked, military dimension, particularly the impact of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which, along with the unsustainable nature of British rule after 1945, compelled Britain to accelerate its withdrawal, underscoring the military apparatus's role in maintaining control and ultimately contributing to the empire's end.

A new documentary, "1947: Brexit India," posits that Britain's departure from India was primarily an economic decision, framing colonialism as a commercial enterprise that ceased to be profitable after World War II, leading to a "disgraceful Brexit." While acknowledging Britain's post-war economic exhaustion as a factor in the timing of independence, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor emphasizes that the Indian freedom movement was not incidental, arguing that rising British sympathy for India, fueled by figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Dadabhai Naoroji, alongside a free press, eroded the moral justification for imperialism. The film also highlights the crucial, often overlooked, military dimension, particularly the impact of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which, along with the unsustainable nature of British rule after 1945, compelled Britain to accelerate its withdrawal, underscoring the military apparatus's role in maintaining control and ultimately contributing to the empire's end.

A new documentary, "1947: Brexit India," posits that Britain's departure from India was primarily an economic decision, framing colonialism as a commercial enterprise that ceased to be profitable after World War II, leading to a "disgraceful Brexit." While acknowledging Britain's post-war economic exhaustion as a factor in the timing of independence, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor emphasizes that the Indian freedom movement was not incidental, arguing that rising British sympathy for India, fueled by figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Dadabhai Naoroji, alongside a free press, eroded the moral justification for imperialism. The film also highlights the crucial, often overlooked, military dimension, particularly the impact of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which, along with the unsustainable nature of British rule after 1945, compelled Britain to accelerate its withdrawal, underscoring the military apparatus's role in maintaining control and ultimately contributing to the empire's end.

It remains one of history’s most flabbergasting reversals: a trading company that arrived in India seeking pepper eventually came to rule vast parts of the subcontinent. So if colonialism was fundamentally an economic project, was decolonisation, too, an economic decision?

That lens is the premise of 1947: Brexit India, a new documentary directed by Sanjivan Lal, produced by Swarnjit Singh, and written by veteran screenwriter Shama Zaidi. 

Drawing on commentary from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, historian William Dalrymple, and security analyst Commodore Uday Bhaskar, among others, the film examines Britain's centuries-long presence in India through an economic lens. In the process, it frames colonialism more as a commercial enterprise than a political saga.

That business ended with Britain’s economic devastation in the Second World War. India’s independence, hence, was a strategic exit once the enterprise ceased being profitable.

‘Most disgraceful Brexit’

Calling Britain's withdrawal from India "the first and most disgraceful Brexit", Congress MP Shashi Tharoor agreed that the timing of independence was shaped by Britain's post-war economic and geopolitical exhaustion. However, he rejected any suggestion that the freedom movement was incidental to the process. 

According to him, the rise of a free press and a liberal intellectual climate in Britain from the late nineteenth century onwards meant that imperialism increasingly required moral justification. While the early decades of British presence in India were driven openly by economic gain, the empire later sought legitimacy through the language of a "civilising mission". 

“Public opinion in Britain developed considerable sympathy for the Indian freedom movement because of Mahatma Gandhi’s moral stature, and because of the arguments advanced by leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian advocates abroad such as Dadabhai Naoroji,” he said.

And in the gradual progression towards self-rule, the freedom movement had a direct role to play, he suggested. 

The military might

A key pillar of British rule in India was also its military apparatus, which employed several Indian soldiers. These troops not only fought Britain's wars across the world but were also deployed to maintain colonial control at home and suppress dissent.

One of the starkest examples was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919. Under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, armed soldiers, many of them Indians serving in the colonial army, opened fire on an unarmed gathering in Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh on the festival of Baisakhi, killing hundreds.

That changed during and after the Second World War, ultimately culminating in the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which acted as a major catalyst in hastening India’s independence. 

“The film very effectively highlights an often-ignored military dimension: the unstated but significant role played by the British Indian military, the Army, Navy, and Air Force, in compelling Britain to accelerate its decision to leave India,” said Commodore Bhaskar at the panel discussion.

“Indeed, one very good thing the film does, going beyond conventional textbooks, is to make the point that British rule after 1945 had become unsustainable for a variety of reasons,” he added.