<P> The war, however, only accelerated forces already in existence undermining Western imperialism in Asia . Throughout the colonial world, the processes of urbanisation and capitalist investment created professional merchant classes that emerged as new Westernised elites . While imbued with Western political and economic ideas, these classes increasingly grew to resent their unequal status under European rule . </P> <P> In India, the westward movement of Japanese forces towards Bengal during World War II had led to major concessions on the part of British authorities to Indian nationalist leaders . In 1947, the United Kingdom, devastated by war and embroiled in economic crisis at home, granted British India its independence as two nations: India and Pakistan . The following year independence was granted to Burma and Ceylon . In the Middle East, the United Kingdom granted independence to Jordan in 1946 and two years later ended its mandate of Palestine . </P> <P> Following the end of the war, nationalists in Indonesia demanded complete independence from the Netherlands . A brutal conflict ensued, and finally, in 1949, through United Nations mediation, the Dutch East Indies achieved independence, becoming the new nation of Indonesia . Dutch imperialism moulded this new multi-ethnic state comprising roughly 3,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago with a population at the time of over 100 million . </P> <P> The end of Dutch rule opened up latent tensions between the roughly 300 distinct ethnic groups of the islands, with the major ethnic fault line being between the Javanese and the non-Javanese . </P>

What was the effect of imperialism in asia