This was all part of the policy of divide and rule: no one in any responsible position in Britain as late as 1940 had any serious intention whatsoever of relinquishing the Empire or surrendering the jewel in His Majesty’s Crown to a rabble of nationalist Indians clad in homespun. But the devastation of World War II meant that only one half of the phrase could survive: bled, bombed and battered for six years, Britain could divide but it could no longer rule.
