Bombay, 1885: seventy-two lawyers, teachers and journalists found the Indian National Congress to ask the Raj, politely, for a voice. Thirty years later over a million Indian soldiers fight for the empire in France, Mesopotamia and East Africa, and come home to the Rowlatt Act, which lets the government jail suspects without trial.
The pressure
The Raj asks for blood and money and keeps its emergency powers. In April 1919, at Amritsar, General Dyer orders his troops to fire into a crowd trapped in a walled garden and kills at least 379 people. A lot of Indians stop believing the British are a reforming presence.
Which future
Gandhi's genius is logistics and theatre: salt, spinning wheels, filling the jails until the jails look ridiculous. Congress asks first for self-rule, then for independence. The Muslim League comes to fear a Hindu-majority state. London plans to hold the prize.
What survived
In 1939 the viceroy declares war on India's behalf without consulting a single Indian leader, and the Congress ministries resign. In March 1940 the Muslim League demands separate Muslim homelands. Two and a half million Indians volunteer for the army, the largest volunteer army in history, while Congress leaders go to jail after Quit India in 1942. Independence comes in 1947, with partition and blood.
Whose story
Did Gandhi's campaigns win independence, or did a war-broke Britain decide to leave? Was partition the League's demand, Congress's mistake, or Britain's exit plan? Each answer has a country behind it.