Cairo between worlds: Britain, India, and the Middle East, 1935-1942

This thesis follows a cast of British, Egyptian, and Indian figures—politicians, diplomats, military attachés, journalists, bureaucrats, activists, and artists—whose lives and work intersected in Cairo between the late 1930s and early 1940s. It traces the connections between them through personal correspondence, diaries, published memoirs, newspapers, and government archives, while documenting the emergence of the Egyptian capital as a global city of the interwar period. The project offers new insight on the international history of the 1930s and ‘40s, viewed from the colonial East. It argues for the reassessment of these years as a ‘Collaborative Moment’ in which relations between the British Empire and nationalist movements in Egypt and India were briefly redefined. Research is organised into four key lines of enquiry which intersect. These are, first, British policy in the Middle East; second, Government of India contributions to, and interventions in, British policy in the Middle East; third, Egyptian foreign and domestic politics; and fourth, Indian nationalist engagement with Egyptian and Middle Eastern politics. Chapters provide original interpretations of the Abyssinian Crisis; the negotiation of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936; the Arab Revolt, and the 1939 St James’ Conference on Palestine; the evolution of nationalist politics in Egypt and India, and the relationships between their leaderships; and the comparative impact of the Second World War on both countries. The thesis culminates with a meditation on the transformation of Egyptian and Indian society between 1935 and 1942, in light of the ideas of a near-contemporary, the Italian Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony provides an original lense through which to consider the triangular relationship between Britain, India, and the Middle East during this period, and the essential role of Cairo within it.