Eighty years ago this week Attlee announces the end of the Raj, Iran protests at the expansion of the Soviet empire and France rebrands its own

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Prime Minister Attlee made a statement to Parliament of the mission of the ministerial delegation that was to go to India. He announced the end of the Raj and was emphatic that they should use their, "utmost endeavours to help her to attain [...] freedom as speedily and fully as possible. What form of government is to replace the present regime is for India to decide.....India herself must choose what shall be her future Constitution, and what will be her position in the world." The statement was widely welcomed in India although it left open the mechanism for independence. Insidiously it seemed to place the onus for solving the question of communal relations on the Indians themselves.

The government of Iran lodged a formal protest at the  the continuing, illicit presence of Soviet forces in the country with the UN Security Council.  It was based on the tripartite treaty of 1942 which featured a withdrawal by the occupying forces at the end of the war. The Soviets attempting to deter the Iranian protest by claiming it was an unfriendly act.

Four of France's distant colonial possessions were given the status of "Overseas Departments": Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America and Reunion in the Indian Ocean. The status was already held by three sections of Algeria. They were (and still are) formally part of France, constitutionally and legally identical to the Departments of metropolitan France.


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