The Cold War - YouTube Channel

  Covered some of the details but contained a number of glaring errors.  For instance

a)  It talks of centuries of British oppression.  Somewhat difficult when Britain was formally in charge for less than a century, from 1858 to 1947 and the EIC was a significant player - but not the dominant one for a century, from the capture of Bengal province in 1757 to 1856 and the start of the mutiny.  Not to mention that for most of the time until ~1830/40 India was in a considerable measure of chaos after the collapse of the Mughal empire until Britain, using overwhelmingly local forces, united the region.

b)  It talks about India only gaining minor internal self-government after WWI but actual it controls virtually all internal affairs and some foreign ones including the ability to set tariffs.  So from that period while Indian goods gained free access to Britain and the rest of the empire Britain's goods faced tariffs on entering India.

c)  Given that Britain did have control of foreign affairs for India and there were many Indians serving elsewhere in the empire as well as Indian seamen on British merchant ships it would have been difficult for India not to join the war at this stage.

d)  Somewhat tangential but the US interest in WWII was less the destruction of the empire but more of Britain's economic and industrial power.

e)  The hurried end to British rule did make it more likely that violence would occur but this was at the insistence of both Congress and the Muslim party.

f)  He said that ~14M people fled their homes to cross borders, which could well be accurate.  However he then says this was 1 in 50 of the population which would give a total population of about 700M.  It was nowhere near that so another gross inability to get facts right.  Most figures I've seen for British India were about 250-300M.  Which makes the actual proportion fleeing even larger.

  There were many problems with imperial rule, although many things were done well.  The empire and especially in India was doomed from the starting of European education in India from the late 19thC and I'm very glad, for all concerned that there was no attempt to hold it by force.  However this video is inaccurate on some basic facts and also distinctly bias in a fair bit of the language.