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Colonial History of India - acharya - 12-20-2005
url: http://www.dsp.unito.it/italindia/soci/mtorri.html
Description of work:
My research work deals with:
a) Gandhi, the freedom movement, the "Westernized middle class";
b) the maritime history of India, with special reference to Surat in
the second half of the 18th century;
c) Indian politics after independence.
At the moment I am working at a general history of India, focussed on the
interactions between India and the remainder of the world. So I guess that
among the topics explored in my reasearch work you could add:
d) the history of India as part of world history.
Apart from this, I am president of ITALINDIA, the Italian association of
modern Indian studies. ITALINDIA was founded a little more than one year
ago, with the aim of fostering the knowledge and understanding of modern
and contemporary India in Italy. It is mainly, but not only, an academic
association. The home page of ITALINDIA is at
http://www.dsp.unito.it/italindia/
but it is still under construction and only in Italian. Next month it will
be upgraded, but we will need some more time before having an English
version. Anyway, at the address
http://www.dsp.unito.it/italindia/pubbli.html
you will be able to download a paper of mine, _Studies in Italy on Modern
and Contemporary India_ that is a good introduction to the (not too
brilliant) Italian record of studies on the subject (the paper was
completed a little less than two years ago). Or, by clicking on _leggi un
abstract_, you will be able to read its synopsis.
Colonial History of India - acharya - 12-20-2005
http://www.dsp.unito.it/italindia/articoli/torri1.pdf
Colonial History of India - acharya - 12-29-2005
Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan (Continued): Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
Chapter LXXX
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/hmp/chp80.doc
<b>
RENAISSANCE IN INDO-PAKISTAN (Continued)
SIR SAYYID AHMAD KHAN AS A POLITICIAN,
HISTORIAN, AND REFORMIST</b>
A
INTRODUCTORY
Born of a distinguished family of Delhi in 1232/1817, Sayyid Ahmad was brought up under the care of his mother and went through the customary schooling. He started his literary career in 1273/1856 when he began to write for his brother's journal, Sayyid al-Akhbar. After the fashion of the time he took to composing poetry but the hobby did not hold his interest for long. The death of his father in 1254/1838 sent him out into the world in quest of a living. His first occupation was a petty job in a civil court under the East India Company at Delhi. He earned promotions by sheer merit and served first at Agra and then at Fatehpur Sikri. In 1263/1846, he was sent back to Delhi at his own request. Before coming to this place he had compiled a few tracts on such diverse subjects as history, science, theology, and civil law, dealing with them each in a distinctly medieval spirit. In addition to his official duties at Delhi, he re-read intensively a number of medieval Muslim classics, sat in the company of prominent poets and men of letters, practised medicine for some time, and busied himself with the first round of his researches in history which culminated in the At_har al-Sanadid, a work which would do credit to any professional historian. After seven years' stay at Delhi his employers transferred him to Bijnaur as a civil judge. The rising known as the Mutiny of 1273-74/1857 broke out while he was stationed there. The rulers foisted the responsibility for this on the Muslims and singled them out for a fierce vendetta. The Muslim losses by way of seizures, confiscations, and malicious persecutions were colossal. In Sayyid Attmad's own words: "Scores of illustrious families were laid low. Theirs is a harrowing tale. I was heedless of my personal sufferings, grievous though they were. I was shocked at the afflictions of my people.... I was seized with despair. I lost all hope of Muslims' ever rising again and recovering their departed grandeur. I stood aghast at the tragedy. I could not stand Muslim tribulations. The gnawing agony aged me prematurely. I wanted to say good-bye to the country of my birth and settle down in a foreign land. However.... I realized that I should not desert my post, but stand by my people in their ordeal and sink or swim with them...." I
Sayyid Abmad viewed the Mutiny as an outcome of racial misunderstand¬ing and administrative blunders. After the outbreak had been quelled, he
I Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Majmu`ah-i Lectures.
threw himself heart and soul into the task of bringing about a better under¬standing between the British and the Indians, and between the British and the Muslims. His thought-provoking book on the causes of the revolt and his com¬mentary on the Bible belong to this period. He anticipated his educational work by setting up two schools in the cities of Muradabad and Ghazipur. In 1281/1864, he founded the Scientific Society, almost the first learned body in Northern India. The periodical of this association, The Aligarh Institute Gazette, was noted for its sober tone, objective reporting, and scrupulous avoidance of cheap journalistic tricks-qualities rare in early Indian journal¬ism. Three years later, Sayyid Alymad found himself involved in an unedifying wrangle with the protagonists of Hindi who were determined to do away with Urdu as the language of the law-courts in Upper India. This together with his visit to England in 1286-87/1869-70 gave a fresh orientation to his ideas and a new direction to his efforts and he dedicated himself to the social and intellectual regeneration of the Indian Muslims.
On his return to India Sayyid Abmad brought out his magazine, the Tah_dhib al-Akhlaq, with the sub-title Mohammedan Social Reformer. This bright periodical had a chequerred career and ultimately its publication ceased in 1311/1893. Sayyid Abmad himself was its principal contributor. The essays that he wrote for it are universally acknowledged among the classics of Urdu literature. They examined the foundations of Muslim society and subjected Muslim institutions to a powerful searchlight. Whereas Bentham inquired into the utilitarian bases of institutions, Sayyid Alymad applied to them the test of reason and religious sanction. The Tahdhib gathered round itself. a select and highly discriminating readership which shared Sayyid Attmad's zeal for reform. It countered on the one hand the forces of scepticism and irreligion unleashed by Western influences, and on the other beat down the firmly entrenched opposition to Western education. Towards the end, Sayyid Abmad devoted himself more and more to the Mulyammadan Anglo-Oriental College which was an imaginative educational experiment intended to develop into a character-building residential institution. The College produced a unique community of alumni and in due season Aligarh became the political and educational capital of Muslim India. The cognate organization, the All-India Mohammadan Educational Conference, founded by Sayyid Abmad in 1304/ 1886, became a lively forum for the discussion of social and educational questions and proved to be an important factor in promoting Muslim solidarity in the sub-continent.
Sayyid Abmad resolutely declined to be drawn into politics. "Educate, educate, educate. .." was his watchword. His decision to hold aloof from the political movement has been often maligned and caricatured as a counsel of political reactionism. The misunderstanding arises primarily from an attempt at studying his ideas out of context and disregarding the circum¬stances of the times. A more realistic appraisal of his political creed in the context of contemporary events is urgently called for. Be that as it may,
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Sayyid Abmad's political testament prevented the absorption of the Muslim community into Hindu nationalism and finally resulted in the partition of the Indian sub-continent into its Hindu and Muslim zones. He was knighted in 1305/1888, and after a long intellectual and political career passed away at Aligarh in 1315/1898 at the ripe age of eighty-one.
B
THE SAYYID AS A HISTORIAN
Sayyid Abroad had the intellectual make-up of a true historian and his entire thinking was coloured with a deep sense of obligation to the past. But he was seldom obsessed with it, and did not become, like Burke, one of its unreasoning worshippers. Indeed, he could distinguish between its healthy and injurious legacies. He viewed political and social problems in the light of history and his ideas bore a close resemblance to the findings of the historical school in political science. As a historian he was concrete and objective. His monograph on the history of the Mutiny in the district of Bijnaur, entitled Tarikh-i Sarkashi-i Bijnaur, opens with the following observations about the responsibility of a historian:
"The contents of this book mostly deal with what I saw with my own eyes and did with my own hands. I have taken great pains to ascertain the truth of events and incidents beyond my own experience. Tampering with historical truth is a fraudulent enterprise. [It damages the truth and] its evil influence works for ever. Thus, the sinful irresponsibility of the historian be¬comes everlasting."
A resume of Sayyid Abmad's historical writings must naturally begin with the Athar al-Sanddid which deals with the ancient buildings and historical monuments of Delhi and its suburbs. The city of Delhi is one of the oldest capitals and can boast of a hoary antiquity. It is the graveyard of dynasties and empires. Time has hallowed almost every bit of its territory. When Sayyid Ahmad entered the field of historical research he was fascinated by the wealth of its unexplored archaeological remains. He personally surveyed some one hundred and thirty sites, measured their dimensions, transcribed their inscriptions, and reconstructed their original plans. He experienced con¬siderable hardship in getting at the inscriptions located in different parts of the column of Qutb Minor. The researcher in him was undeterred by hindrances. He tried heroically and managed to reach its height by the use of an ingenious but dangerous device. He also made a careful study of the mass of related historical materials in print as well as in manuscript and spun the data thus collected into a lively narrative of an almost encyclopedic range. While the account of the relies constitute the central theme of the book, some of its sections deal with the Fort, the aristocratic quarters, shopping centres, natural springs and the climate of Delhi, and the origin and evolution of the Urdu language. The first edition of the At_har included the life-sketches of the celeb¬
rities of Delhi, both dead and living, each as the heads of religious orders, poets, calligraphists, painters, and musicians. This part was omitted from later editions. The book was translated by a French Orientalist. The translation introduced Sayyid Ahmad to the scholars of Oriental history in Europe. It is interesting to note that this clear narrative was poorly paragraphed, contained practically no punctuation marks from beginning to end, and was characterized by a certain lack of restraint in presentation. The book went through a second edition in 1270/1853, when its grosser flaws were eliminated. Its language was simplified and new materials introduced. Probably the only extant copy of this edition is to be found in the Panjab University Library, Lahore.
Sayyid Ahmad next turned his attention to the A'in-i Akbari, the principal source book for the colourful reign of Akbar who presided over an administra¬tion remarkable for its efficiency as well as its complexity. (The land-revenue system built up under the British was faithfully raised upon the foundations laid in the reign of this renowned monarch.) But the available copies of this classic were full of errors and were positively unserviceable for an under¬standing of an important epoch. Sayyid Ahmad sought to establish the text of the great work. The job was undertaken at the request of a merchant prince of Delhi. He collected all the manuscripts within his reach and prepared his own version. To this he added a glossary of difficult phrases, unfamiliar names, and obsolete terms. Legends of the coins of different denominations were reproduced together with detailed particulars about the utensils, implements, arms, and jewellery current in Akbar's time. He also corrected, wherever he could, the inaccuracies of the author himself. All this represented an immense improvement upon the utility of the original work. But unluckily a good part of the manuscript together with its printed portions was destroyed during the Mutiny.
The reign of Firfz Shah Tughlaq is another brilliant interlude in the annals of Medieval India. Firiiz Shiite was the creator of what may be described as a welfare State, and his fame justly rests on a mild and humane administration. The record of Firiiz Shah's life and achievements was preserved by a con¬temporary named 1)ia' al-Din Barni. Sayyid Abmad prepared a collated manuscript of Barni's work after consulting the four available manuscripts, one of which belonged to the private library of the Mughul royalty and was highly prized for its authenticity. In the preface of the printed book Sayyid Ahmad gave an extensive bibliography of the historical literature of the period and set down all that he had been able to gather about the life of Barni himself. The monograph, published by the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1279/1862, was encumbered with numerous printing errors for which, a high authority informs us, the responsibility must be fixed on the press and not on the editor.
Two other pamphlets reminiscent of Sayyid Abmad's family affiliations with the Court of Delhi deserve a passing mention. The first one, entitled Jam-i Jam, was a brief tabulated account of the kings of the House of Timiir,
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beginning from the founder and ending with Bahadur Shah II. The reign of each king was described under seventeen columns. It also carried a bibliography and was noticed in Elliot and Dawson's History of India as Told by Its Own Historians. The second brochure catalogued the kings of Delhi from 1400 B. C. listing Queen Victoria as the 202nd sovereign in the chronological order.
A few years before the Mutiny Sayyid Abmad offered to compile a history of the district of Bijnaur, an offer heartily accepted by his official superiors. The self-imposed obligation led him, after a diligent search for materials, to the original records on the subject dating from the times of Akbar and Jahangir. This was an achievement by itself. The work was duly completed but was lost in the rising of 1273-74/1857, like some of his other works.
Jald' al-Qulub bi Dhikr al-Mahbub was a biographical account of the Prophet, old-fashioned but based on authentic sources, written to repair the deficiency of suitable reading texts at the annual birthday celebrations of the Prophet.
TdriL.i Sarkashi-i Bijnaur is a history of the Mutiny in a particular sector. This is, in fact, an uninterrupted day-to-day diary maintained by Sayyid Ahmad which goes into great detail about the military and related events that took place in the district of Bijnaur between May 1857 and April 1858. He recorded all that he witnessed and preserved all that he wrote amidst the death-dealing conflagration. The fact that he had numerous enemies about him and lived in hourly peril of his life and yet kept calm enough to make regular entries in his journal, is significant. One has to be a historian to the marrow of one's bone to enter into the stream of history with a stoic indifference to one's personal circumstances.
Risdlah Asbab-i Baghhawat-i Hind is an outstanding contribution to con¬temporary history. It has been written with a sense of perspective which almost invariably eludes. those who chronicle the happenings they have lived through. The pamphlet represents an important landmark in the evolution of Sayyid Ahmad's mind. His former concern with history was in the nature of a disinterested intellectual and cultural pursuit. But the horrifying and humiliating consequences of the Mutiny taught him, consciously or uncon¬sciously, to resort to history for more practical ends. One of these new motiva¬tions was to promote accord between the rulers and the ruled.
The British rule in India has a credit as well as a debit side. However admir¬able the qualities of tLe British mind, it has been too sensitive about its own prerogatives and too much off the balance to make a fair estimate of the inten¬sity of Indian feeling and sentiment. No alien rule can be popular, and even when the British acted with the best of motives they earned little or no gratitude from the subject populace. Like all foreign masters they were prone to dwell glibly on the benefits and blessings of their own domination, but their claims were summarily dismissed by the Indians as mere hypocrisy. Some members of the ruling class who thought over the matter felt exasperated at the want of "appreciation"; others never bothered about questions of human psychology and declared bluntly, like Sir Micheal O'Dwyer half a century
later, that the dominion in India had been carved by the sword and that it could not be retained by the faint-hearted. Sayyid Ahmad knew the British well enough and when he sat down to record his own views about the causes of the Mutiny, the psychological factor was uppermost in his mind. But this was not all. In order to provide his readers with a panoramic view of the catastrophe he gave due weight to the sociological, economic, and historical factors in formulating his view. The product exhibits a robust sense of pro¬portion and the skill of a craftsman in making use of the raw materials of history. The book would show that Sayyid Abmad had almost an intuitive grasp of the techniques of scientific history-writing which were being de¬veloped in Europe about this time.
In Risalak Asbab-i Baghhawat-i Hind, Sayyid Ahmad spotlighted the errors of the administration of the East India Company and brought home the manifold Indian grievances against foreign rule. He called attention to the utter futility of a system of law-making which operated, so to speak, in a vacuum, unconcerned with the state of society; the unrestrained and irritating proselytizing zeal of the Christian missionaries who followed in the wake of the conquest; the well-founded popular suspicion about the Government's planning a wholesale conversion of the Indians to Christianity; the mistaken zeal of the Company's functionaries in helping missionary propaganda; and the mortal injury that all this inflicted on the pride of a people deeply attached to their religious creeds. In the economic sphere the Company rule had created financial and fiscal monopolies. The local industries had been crushed out of existence to create a market for. British imports. A high-handed revenue settlement in Upper India and the escheat of freeholds had caused widespread misery. The disbandment of princely Courts and armies had restricted the scope for Indian talent. The officials of the East India Company showed little sympathy for the people over whom they ruled. They loved to assert their authority and savagely suppressed all manifestations of discontent. Sayyid Ahmad explained all this without mincing words and attributed the outbreak to the ferocity of the British rule. Viewed differently, it was a powerful plea for humanizing the administration and making it responsive to the urges of the people.
Vast tracts of the country were subjected to declared or undeclared martial law in the months following the suppression of the Mutiny. Ruthlessness of the rulers was proverbial. Freedom of expression and opinion was unthinkable. It was an act of cold courage to have drawn up this indictment. Any English¬man who read it was likely to brand it treasonous and inflict the direct chastisement upon its author. Sayyid Ahmad had the pamphlet printed in a limited number and was on the point of sending it to the Viceroy and members of the British Parliament when some of his friends dissuaded him from the course. But Sayyid Ahmad disregarded the friendly pressure though he experienced some difficulty afterwards in clearing himself of the charges of disloyalty brought against him by his British critics.
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Dr. Hunter's The Indian Musalmans, published in 1289/1871, was avowedly intended to pave the way to a better understanding of a "persistently belli¬gerent" class of Asiatic subjects (i.e., the Indian Muslims), to bridge "the gap between the rulers and the ruled" and, thus, to safeguard the British power in India against the "chronic peril" facing it. Basing his assertions on the evidence adduced at successive State trials, he concluded that there was a close causal connection between the Wahabi activities and the perennially disturbed state of the North-Western Frontier. The underground movement, he went on to say, was skilfully organized, and its leaders arrogated to them¬selves all functions of sovereignty over their constituents. The ties which bound the members of the secret order were of extraordinary toughness and endurance. The central office, located at Patna and controlling the permanent machinery throughout the rural areas for spreading disaffection, sent out a multitude of lonely, melancholy, and wandering zealots carefully indoctrinated with treason and equipped with extensive literature on the duty of waging war against the British. An uninterrupted stream of money and ardent recruits sworn to extirpate the infidel flowed towards the frontier.
This vivid portrayal of Wahabi transgressions against law evoked a sharp protest from Sayyid Ahmad, who characterized the book as mischievous and unhistorical. In a lengthy review of The Indian Musalmans, he pointed out several inaccuracies in Hunter's statement of Wahabi tenets, and critically surveyed the history of the movement from 1239/1823 up to the publication of this book. The relentless trans-border hostility to British rule, Sayyid Ahmad declared, could not be ascribed to Wahabi fomentations. It was largely prompt¬ed by the continued presence on the Frontier of a large, disloyal, and terror¬stricken population (both Hindu and Muslim), who had fled from the British territory after the Mutiny to escape the wrath of the conqueror, sought asylum with the tribes and started life afresh amidst unfamiliar surroundings. There was nothing unusual in these migrants' receiving visitors and gifts of money from their relations in India. Finally, the tribal enmity against the con¬stituted authority in the country to the cast of the river Indus became a recurring phenomenon of Indian history. The expeditions sent in the past by the Emperors Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzib (all Muslims) had failed to subdue the over-refractory highlanders. Studying The Indian Musalmans and its review by Sayyid Abmad together, it would appear that he had the better of the argument and many fairminded Englishmen were convinced of the invalidity of Dr. Hunter's deductions.
It has been sometimes suggested that Sayyid Abmad disengaged himself from historical studies after the Mutiny and that he was engrossed more and more in the advancement of social reform and the preaching of political "quietism." But that is wide of the mark. It is true that the results of his later interest in history did not issue in big volumes. But numerous later articles from his pen deal with historical subjects, and a subtle sense of history pervades the rest of his writings. In one of his letters he spoke of the
unsavoury fruit of history. The phrase was interpreted to mean that an excessive contemplation of the past was likely to act as a dope and lead the people away from the task of reform and reconstruction. A careful study of the context, however,. makes it clear that this was far from his mind. He only called for a rational approach to history and a proper evaluation of its bequests. It would be more appropriate to say that Sayyid Ahmad discovered new uses of history. He informed one of his friends from abroad that the vilification of Islam and distortion of its history in the West were directly responsible for the political adversities of the Indian Muslims. A more objective approach to the past, he felt, would go a long way in conquering the deep¬rooted aversion of the West for Islam and its followers. While the nostrum was sorely needed for the West, it was about as necessary for the Muslims themselves. As a people they had to rediscover their own identity and their own ideals. What can be done depends much upon what has been. History, thus, became an instrument of Muslim renaissance in Sayyid Abmad's hands. History, he was careful to emphasize, was not to be treated as a jumble of useless information crammed in dusty volumes but as a continuous and meaningful record of man, living in association with his kind and toiling for the satisfaction of his material needs. This could best be brought about by integrating history with sociology. Therefore, history had to be reapproached, refathomed, and rechronicled. Sayyid Abmad was probably the first man of letters in the Indian sub-continent to make out a case for the reformulation of historical values. The task has been going on steadily. Still a lot remains to be accomplished. The same cry is heard from different platforms and institutions even today.
Sayyid Ahmad had his ideas not only on the content of history but also about its form. He made a sharp distinction between history and fiction: the two belonged to different departments of literature, each with a method of its own. Historical romance was fatal to history and fiction alike. The mere stylist must never be entrusted with the job of putting history into shape. He may be tempted to sacrifice accuracy for the sake of a few smart phrases. Sayyid Ahmad did not have a high opinion about Macaulay's talent as a historian because he (i. e., Sayyid) did not look upon history as an affair of chiselled idiom. The historiographer, according to him, must cultivate the art of expressing himself in inornate and exact prose.
Sayyid Abmad's own contribution to history was not inconsiderable. But the inspiration which two prolific yet conscientious historians received from him is equally important. The first among them was Shibli Nu'mani, Professor of Oriental Languages at the M. A.-O. College, who came into contact with Sayyid Ahmad while he was yet deeply imbued with the orthodox tradition. But he gradually outgrew his narrowness of vision under the liberalizing influence of the Master. In addition to a comprehensive biography of the Prophet, he wrote a series of works on some of the leading personalities of Muslim history such as the Caliph 'Umar, al-Mamun, Rumi, al- 'Shazali, and
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the like, and set their achievements in a clear light. He had to undertake an expensive journey to Turkey and other Muslim countries in search of material for his volumes. Written in accordance with the principles of historiography laid down by Sayyid Ahmad, Shibli's works had a great vogue and constituted an important force behind the Muslim renaissance in India initiated by the Aligarh Movement. The other scholar to imbibe Sayyid Ahmad's methodology was Professor Zaka' Allah of the Central Muir College, Allahabad, whose greatest achievement was a voluminous history of India. The preface of this work reaffirms the validity of Sayyid Ahmad's thinking and the author hastens to impress upon his readers that a fruitful study of history should enable discerning minds to discover the laws of human development. Maulawi Mehdi 'Ali, better known as Mubsin al-Mulk, reviewed ibn Khaldiin's "Pro¬legomena" in the Tahd_hib al-Akhlaq and introduced Urdu readers to the theories of the medieval savant. This served to induce realism about the past among later Indian Muslim writers.
C
THE SAYYID AS A REFORMER
The revolutionary changes, social and political, which came over the sub¬continent in the thirteenth/nineteenth century disorganized the spiritual no less than the mundane life of the Indian Muslims. The central Muslim problem was one of adjustments to an adamant political dispensation. The process entailed a fight against the persistent antagonism between the Christian rulers and their Muslim subjects. The political rivalry between Islam and Christendom was a legacy of the past and began as far back as the second/eighth century when Muslim conquests in Europe and Africa brought the followers of the two faiths in close geographical proximity. The Crusades deepened the fissure. The European Powers felt the Turkish conquest of Constantinople as a thorn in their side. No wonder that the majority of European scholars looked at Islam through coloured glasses; they were loth to make a dispassionate study of its tenets and institutions and were content to repeat popular distortions about it. Such crudities which represented Muhammad as an idol in the temple of Mecca and Muslims as blood-thirsty destroyers of the peace of the world and the cultures of its peoples gained wide credence. With such preposses¬sions, the rulers of the country were suspicious of Muslim loyalty towards the new order. There was much in Muslim thinking and conduct to confirm their misgivings. Consequently, the British would not feel secure unless they liquidated the Muslim menace. The Hindus who had lived under Muslim rule for many centuries and nursed real or fancied grievances against their former rulers were attracted by the opportunities for advancement provided by the change of masters. The leaders of thought among them discarded their ancient caste scruples and went forward to meet the British conquerors more than half way. The alliance was advantageous to both. The Muslims were slowly
Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan (Continued): Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
crushed between the two pincers. The British ignored the very existence of Muslims and felt no qualm in sacrificing Muslim rights to advance Hindu interests. As Hindu subjects drew closer and closer to the British rulers, the Muslims drifted apart. In course of time the estrangement was complete and the two found themselves separated by an unbridgeable gulf.
Sayyid Ahmad was a realist. He had been through the Mutiny and watched at close quarters the outcome of the conqueror's unappeasable wrath against the Muslims. He had witnessed vast sections of Muslim aristocracy being either obliterated or utterly impoverished. He was convinced that the British had come to stay in India and that their supremacy, along with that of the Western way of thinking, could not be challenged in any foreseeable future. The Muslims must, therefore, refashion their lives as Muslims. If they did not, they would go deeper down into the morass of degradation. In his opinion the Christian-Muslim rancour was based merely upon mutual ignorance and prejudice. His effort to mediate between the two religions took the form of an unfinished commentary on the Bible which, among other things, sought to establish that both Islam and Christianity were fed from the same spiritual spring. The identity of their history and family resemblance between their doctrines could be readily understood by anyone who studied and compared their contents. Sayyid Abmad also allowed, against the accepted Muslim belief, some sort of integrity to the existing Biblical text and showed that Christianity was a humanitarian religion which forbade all kinds of cruelty and all forms of wanton bloodshed. It would be interesting to note that this was the first commentary on the Bible in any Asian language. For obvious reasons the exposition found no favour either with Christians or with Muslims.
The Muslim society in India tabooed social intercourse with Christians under a mistaken interpretation of religion. In order to remove this social barrier, Sayyid Abmad wrote a pamphlet, entitled Ahkam-iTa`am-i Ahl-i Kitab, to explain that Muslim Law does not prevent Muslims from dining with Jews or Christians provided prohibited foods or drinks are not served.
Periods of transition are inevitably attended by confusion and perplexities. New education was a powerful ally of all isms opposed to religion and ethics. As Dr. Hunter had put it: "No young man ... passes through our schools without learning to disbelieve the faith of his forefathers. The luxuriant religions of Asia shrivel into dry sticks when brought into contact with the icy realities of Western science."
There is nothing unusual in a conservative community rejecting all new ideas which threaten its homogeneity. The older generation among Muslims had no sense of direction. It scouted all current scientific ideas as incompatible with religion. While the Hindus took to the new education avidly, it stuck in Muslim throats. The Muslim child who went to a West-oriented school was deemed to have crossed the limits of the Holy Law and placed himself outside the pale of Islam. This was the way to extinction. With his usual foresight Sayyid Abmad grasped the nature of the issue and devised a solution. In the
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Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan (Continued): Sir Sayyid Ahmad than
first place, he attempted a new synthesis of religious thought in Islam the central doctrine of which was that Islam was not opposed to the study of science and had nothing to fear from its impact; secondly, he conceived of a new system of education in which the responsibility for educating the coming generations would be thrown on the community itself and in which the scholars would receive instruction in Islam along with a grounding in Western sciences. This was the basic principle of Aligarh education which brought influential elements in the Indian Muslim society into the current of modernism. If Aligarh did not develop on the lines envisaged by Sayyid Ahmad, the failure cannot be ascribed to him. Though he said many hard things about the system of Muslim education received from the Middle Ages, it is unfair to suggest that he had set his heart on a total breach with the past. He advocated, for instance, the retention of self-perpetuating and inexpensive arrangements for elementary education. In respect of female education his ideas were not much in advance of his times. He would first have the men educated and leave the problem of women's education to solve itself.
The proselytizing activities of Christian missionaries were giving an acute cause of anxiety to the Muslim society. The missionaries who had been allowed to settle down and pursue their vocation in the territorial possessions of the East India Company by the Charter Act of 1813 enjoyed Government patronage and used a variety of methods to secure conversions. The missionary ingress virtually became an invasion. They spread a network of schools where the Bible was placed in the hands of young pupils and its study encouraged by pecuniary rewards. Their hospitals gave free medicines to visiting patients along with doses of Christian teaching. The field behaviour of missionaries was arrogant, offensive, and aggressive. In the course of their preaching they freely entered into religious and theological disputations and indulged in intemperate language about founders of other religions and their teachings. Islam was an unfailing target of their platform invective. It was also vilified in leaflets and pamphlets. The Muslim youth was confronted with a mutilated presentation of Muslim history and doctrines to shatter his faith and breed a sense of inferiority in him. The core of missionary preaching was that Islam had outlived its day, that it could not stand scientific and intellectual scrutiny, that its appeal lay to the grosser impulses of human nature, and that it had kept the Muslim communities all over the world in a state of chronic back¬wardness. The Life of Mohammed written by Sir William Muir, at the instance of a veteran missionary, amplified this thesis. The book based its argument en the information collected from a close study of some Muslim sources and was acclaimed as a great help to the missionary in his spiritual onslaught on Islam. Sir William bad pointed to the institutions of divorce, polygamy, and slavery with the finger of scorn, though towards the end he was constrained to admit that Islam had "banished for ever many of the darker elements of superstition. . . . Idolatry vanished before the battle-cry of Islam; the doctrine of the Unity and infinite perfections of God ... became a living principle in the
hearts and lives of the followers of Mohammed.... Brotherly love is inculcated ... within the circle of the faith ... orphans to be protected, and slaves treated with consideration; intoxicating drinks prohibited, so that Mol}ammadanism may boast of a degree of temperance unknown to any other creed.." s
Sayyid Abmad wrote a refutation of this book under the title Essays on the Life of Mohammed and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto. This was a scientific historical study characterized by rigorous reasoning and can be rightly regarded as a specimen of the author's ripe scholarship. The materials needed for the work could not be found in India. Sayyid Alimad undertook a voyage to Britain where he studied in the British Museum and the India Office Library, sent for rare works from Turkish and Egyptian libraries and had numerous passages from the works of European scholars translated into English for his own use. The work proved costly. He had to sell his household effects and borrow heavily to meet the expenses of the publication.
Sayyid Abmad dug deep into the canonical literature of Islam. But he was no mere respecter of authority. He freely questioned the credentials of reputed commentators. In his way of thinking IIadith did not furnish an adequate basis for the understanding of Islam. He held that the brilliant allegorical method of the Qur'an made it plain that every age had to under¬stand the Book in the light of its own requirements. Religion, Sayyid Ahmad opined, had gathered a good deal of mass in its sojourn through time. It had been inextricably mixed up with the judgments of its exponents. It needed to be combed of all exotic ideas and placed in its proper perspective. In questioning sanctified opinions Sayyid Altmad emancipated the Muslim thought in India from the bondage of prescription and in this lies his monumental achievement.
Sayyid Altmad can justly be regarded as a maker of Urdu prose and the first real prose-writer in this language. Born out of the confluence of Persian and local Indian dialects, Urdu is a cultural heritage of Muslim rule in India. But it was as yet in a state of comparative infancy. Its thought had been enriched and mode of expression refined by a long line of illustrious poets. Its prose, however, was under-developed. Its intellectual content was small and its vocabulary could grapple only with a narrow range of subjects, like religion, history, and mysticism. Written in rhymed prose, the early Urdu books abounded in similes and metaphors and represented an unscientific and lifeless assemblage of facts with a strong didactic and other-worldly flavour. Most of the writers were old-fashioned Arabic scholars whose ponderous Urdu was beyond the comprehension of those unacquainted with that language. Their phraseology leaves the modern reader cold and sneering.
Sayyid Ahmad worked a veritable revolution in literature. Primarily a reformer who wanted to raise his community to the intellectual level of the more advanced Western peoples, he sought to propagate his ideas through workmanlike, unvarnished Urdu prose. This purpose could be served only if
2 Sir William Muir, Life of Mohammad, John Grant, Edinburgh, 1912, p. 521.
1590
1591
A History of Muslim Philosophy
the language was stripped of its medieval trappings and invested with a sufficiently sensitive and expressive vocabulary to absorb and expound all shades of meaning on different subjects connected with contemporary life. He made his first effort in this sphere by founding the Scientific Society at Muradabad in 1281/1864. The Society was later headquartered at Aligarh, where it published very readable translations of standard English works on history, political economy, agriculture, mathematics, and other useful subjects. The Society also ran a weekly journal, the Aligarh Institute Gazette, in which appeared articles of popular interest on social, educational, and scientific subjects. The translations issued by the Scientific Society are far more service¬able than the unreadable laborious work done later under princely auspices and at fabulous cost. As a writer Sayyid Abmad dealt with momentous issues of the day. He often wrote on controversial and debatable subjects and began them with a provocative statement. Master of a smooth and matter-of-fact style he never burdened his writings with unfamiliar terminology. His romanti¬cism was very much subdued and was under the control of a conscious classicism. He seldom played with the feelings of his readers. He could enliven almost any subject that he chose for discussion and had all the qualities of penman¬ship which distinguish the true artist from a mere scribe. As he wrote he appeared to be engaged in an intimate conversation. By inimitable inductive methods he built up his arguments bit by bit with the help of shared experience leading the reader to his own conclusions and communicating to him his personal enthusiasm for social improvement. The galaxy of talent that sur¬rounded Sayyid A)imad included renowned intellectuals who made valuable contributions to the Urdu language in history, criticism, mathematics, and even science. Sayyid Abrmad made no direct contribution to poetry. With him, and after him, prose became a vehicle of awakening and instruction.
To sum up, before Sayyid Abmad's day Urdu was not much above the status of a dialect. It was he who transformed it into a language pulsating with life and capable of meeting the demands of a complex modern society.
An idea of Sayyid Alimad's notions about the mental and moral equipment of a social reformer and his duties and obligations can be gained from the following extracts taken from one of his best known essays:
"Most people believe that they can rid themselves of social evils by common action.... I do not subscribe to this view. The way to reform lies through discord and not through unity. Reformist ideals call for courage and perse¬verance of a high order. It is for the reformer boldly to violate the customs of his group.... In this he will incur a lot of odium and popular disappro¬bation. But ultimately he will succeed and win converts. Though he provokes opposition in the beginning he is acknowledged a benefactor in the end."3
"I wish to point out to my countrymen the futility of condemning and cursing our social heritage in the privacy of our conclaves. It is vain to look
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Maddmin-i Tahdhib al-Ak_hkiq.
Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan (Continued): Sir Sayyid Alrmad Ian
for friends and supporters in the task of regeneration. One who wishes well of his people should come out in the open, break his own chains, and put heart into others to do the same," 4
Sayyid Abmad himself lived up to these professions. He was fully imbued with the impatience of a zealot and the fervour of an iconoclast. At times he was forthright to the point of wounding others' feelings. In his reformist programme he included freedom of opinion, a critical approach to religion, the discarding of social evils imbibed from Hindu contacts, the elimination of the less desirable traits of human character such as flattery, insincerity and selfish individualism, proper observance of the cleanliness of person and environment, reforms of dress and manners of eating, the recognition of women's rights and the simplification of current forms of address in cor¬respondence.
D
THE SAYYID AS A POLITICIAN
Sayyid Alamad never presented himself as a politician. At the conscious level his life-work was primarily educational and reformative. It is usual to study his political views within a narrow sector and speak of them in colourful and hostile adjectives. It is, therefore, necessary to review his political doctrines in the context of problems facing him. This alone can make his thought intelli¬gible. For one thing, Sayyid Alrmad was often reticent on politics. But whenever he spoke he was far from polemical. His opinions were characterized by the same candour and empirical quality which permeated his discussion on social and religious questions. A recent Indian publication has pointedly stated that each one of Sayyid Almad's major projects (i.e., the Scientific Society, the M. A: O. College, the commentary on the Bible, the plea for social reform, the commentary on the Qur'an) was inspired by political considerations and was, directly or indirectly, designed to lead to the political rehabilitation of the Indian Muslims. This view is correct if the term "politics" is meant to include all that it conveyed to the ancient Greeks. But if we choose the narrower meaning, the view, though arguable, is directly disputed by his friend and biographer, Altaf Husain Hitli, who has explained at some length that Sayyid Atrmad's love of religion alone supplied the dynamic for all his activities.
The best theoretical statement on Sayyid Abmad's politics is contained in a communication which he addressed to one of his English friends. He says, "I am a Musahnan domiciled in India. Racially I am a Semite: the Arab blood still courses in my veins. The religion of Islam in which I have full and abiding faith preaches radical principles. Thus, both by blood and faith I am a true radical.... Islam is opposed to all forms of monarchy, whether hereditary or limited. It approves of the rule of a popularly elected president; it denounces the concentration of capital and insists upon the division of properties and possessions among legal heirs on the demise of their owners. (In this way) even a mine of wealth would suffer countless subdivisions in the course of two generations. But the religion which teaches me these principles also inculcates certain other principles. First, if God wills our subjection to another race, which grants us religious freedom, governs us justly, preserves peace, protects our life and belongings, as the British do in India, we should wish it well and owe it allegiance 6
The latter part of this declaration has invited strongly worded and un¬deserved criticism. Some have spoken of it as a new version of the divine right of rulers. But it should be clear, as we proceed, that the loyalty of which Sayyid Ahmad spoke was the loyalty of free men and not of helots. Sayyid Abmad throughout prided himself on his radicalism. But, generally speaking, the content of radicalism is relative to time and place. A radical of yesterday may be the conservative of today. But Sayyid Abmad's liberalism has an objective stamp which will be recognized by anyone who follows his opinions carefully.
In post-Mutiny India the ruling race, with rare exceptions, displayed ab¬normal racial arrogance. In part this could be attributed to the Mutiny which furnished a grim background to the era which it opened. Old memories rankled on both sides. The Indians soon reconciled themselves to British rule as to a decree of fate. But the British, drunk with the pride of conquest, were always squaring the past accounts with the subjugated populace. They treated their Indian subjects as half-savages and were quick and demonstrative in heaping indignities on their heads. All Britons deemed it a national duty to exact all external courtesies from the Indians they were forced to meet in the ordinary business of life. There were few points of social contact between the two. The ruling race lived a life of its own and behaved like an army of occupation. "Apartheid" was practised by rulers in India in an obnoxious form before it made its appearance elsewhere. Whatever his rank or birth, no Indian was allowed to enter restaurants, public parks, or railway compart¬ments frequented by Englishmen. If he did so even unwittingly, he found himself rudely thrown out. The passage of time did nothing to soften the haughtiness of the ruling class. Sayyid Abmad reminded them of this weak¬ness of theirs in 1294/1877 in these words: "For a whole century and more, you, gentlemen, have lived in the same country; you have breathed the same air; you have drunk the same water; you have lived on the same crops that have given nourishment to the millions of your fellow Indian subjects, yet the absence of social intercourse, which is implied by the word friendship between the English and the people of this country has been most deplorable." 6
5 Nur al-Rahman, Hayat-i Sir Sayyid, pp. 123-24.
6 G. F. I. Graham, Life and Work of Syed Ahmed Khan, London, 1885, p. 188.
The controversy which centred round the Hbert Bill (a legislative measure which sought to extend the jurisdiction of Indian magistrates and judges of a certain standing by investing them with the power of trying European criminals) called forth an aggressive and noisy agitation from the British community resident in India, who thought that the world would end if a white man was made to stand in the dock before a magistrate with a tanned complexion. Sayyid Abmad committed an irredeemable sin in their eyes by recording his vote in favour of the Bill. In the course of his speech before the Legislature, on the occasion, he made out a weighty case for equality before law and observed, "I am convinced that laws based on racial discrimination will pre¬vent the growth of friendship and amity between our two peoples. Pleasant social life and political equality are born out of subjection to a uniform system of law. It is time that all subjects of the Crown, Hindus, Muslims, Europeans, Eurasians, should enjoy the same political and constitutional rights, and be subject to the same disabilities." 7
Towards the end of his life, Sayyid Abmad grew pessimistic about the likeli¬hood of Englishmen learning to conduct themselves differently. He gave ex¬pression to his despondency in an article, a part of which runs as follows:
"In my opinion the time has not yet come, and perhaps will never come, when our European friends, conquerors of this country ... will condescend to sit on the same bench with a conquered and naturally hated Indian.... If the Indian wants to keep up his self-respect ... his life becomes unbear¬able.... If an Indian desires to obey the dictates of his conscience ... he cannot perform his duties.... It is no secret that the treatment which English people accord to their own countrymen and that which they accord to Indians are as different from one another as black is from white."s
Sayyid Abmad's dealings with the British fail to corroborate the legend of "servility" assiduously circulated by an extremely vocal coterie of propagandists in the following generation. His opposition to certain policies of the Govern¬ment was constant, consistent, and unsparing. He never hesitated to cross swords with insolent and ill-mannered bureaucrats and was impatient with the widespread habit of suffering official high-handedness meekly. He advised his countrymen not to put up with injustice and indignity even if it came straight from Caesar. Said he, "They [the Indians] have at present little or no voice in the management of the affairs of this country; and should any measure of the Government prove obnoxious to them, they brood over it, appearing outwardly satisfied and happy, whilst discontent is rankling in their hearts. You are in the habit of inveighing against various acts of Government in your homes-and amongst your friends, [but] in the course of your visits to [officials], you repre¬sent yourselves as quite satisfied with the justice and wisdom of the same acts." Sayyid Abmad did not consider such a temper dignified or helpful.
' Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Majmu`ah-i Lectures.
8 Quoted in Eminent Mu8alman8, G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras, n.d., p. 35. Sayyid Abroad Khan, Majmu`ah-i Lectures, pp. 238-39.
1594
1595
A History of Muslim Philosophy
Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan (Continued): Sir Sayyid Ahmad khan
The part played by the Urdu-Hindi controversy in shaping Hindu-Muslim relations on the political plane has often been overlooked. Sayyid Abmad was the first Muslim to sense the political implications of the linguistic wrangle. The dispute, the ashes of which have not yet been buried, forced itself on public attention in 1284/1867. The Hindus were determined to undo Urdu and have it replaced by Hindi as the language of the law-courts. They opened the front at Benares. Gradually, their demand gathered strength and momentum. The methods by which the friends of Hindi pursued their ends ripped open the wounds of the past and portended the inevitable conflict. Sayyid Ahmad abandoned all hope of co-operation between Hindus and Muslims and read with uncanny sureness the writing on the wall. His oft-quoted letter, written from London in 1286/1869 in which he talked of Hindus and Muslims parting company for good, can be read as a veritable political prophecy about the 1366/1947 partition of the Indian sub-continent.
In 1295/1878 Sayyid Abmad was nominated as a member of the Indian Legislature and sat in this body for a little over four years. As a legislator he took his duties seriously and spoke practically on every bill that came up for discussion. He was the first Indian to introduce a private bill into the Legislature which eventually found place on the statute book. His speeches displayed a firm understanding of social questions underlying legal issues. He also interested himself in the waning fortunes of the once prosperous Muslim families and sought to arrest by legislation their increasing impoverish¬ment. But his draft bill was not taken up on technical grounds.
The earliest political movements in India were local in character. But they soon coalesced under the auspices of the Indian National Congress. This body was actually founded by an Englishman, A. 0. Hume, a retired member of the Bengal Civil Service, with the active encouragement of the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. It was almost a Government-sponsored body and its relations with Authority were cordial in the earlier phase of its stormy career. The Congress met once a year and its annual festival of speech-making lasted for three days. Year after year, it passed resolutions demanding the introduction of Western electoral and representative institutions in India. As time went by, the influential reform movements in Hindu society were integrated with the political creed of the Indian National Congress which became the market¬place of Hindu ideologies and the foram of Hindu aspirations. Sayyid Abmad counselled Muslims to keep away from the Congress for several cogent reasons. In education and enlightenment they were sadly behind the times and were not experienced enough for the game of politics. They had large gaps to fill and big deficiencies to make up; politics, at this stage, would prove a distracting pursuit and upset plans of educational reform and social uplift. There was nothing baneful in asking an educationally backward and economically poor people to attend to first things first. He further argued that no political movement in India could be depended upon to produce worthwhile results in the face of growing estrangement between Hindus and Muslims. Fruitful
politics could only be raised upon consensus of opinion. The conclusion is as valid in the fourteenth/twentieth century as it was in the thirteenth/ nineteenth. Experience has taught the Muslims-if they are at all prepared to heed its warning-that consensus alone can give substance and reality to democratic forms and not a mechanical manipulation of the will of those in majority. Finally, India's size and racial and cultural diversities will always militate against the success of Western democratic institutions. He expressed this line of thought in one of his articles thus: "I seriously pondered over the suitability [or otherwise] of the representative system of government in India long before the Congress took up the matter. Having carefully gone through the [clearly expressed] opinions of John Stuart Mill, I am convinced that where majority vote is a decisive factor in a political system, it is essential for the electors to be united by ties of race, religion, manners, customs, culture, and historical traditions. In the presence of these conditions, representative government is practicable and useful. In their absence it would only injure the well-being and tranquillity of the land." to
The Muslim community could not agree to sacrifice its historic identity on the altar of a nationalism with which it had no affinities. That the Muslims formed a nation by themselves by virtue of their common adhesion to the Muslim faith, is the most recurring refrain of Sayyid Abmad's speeches and writings. A typical extract culled at random from an address to Muslim students at Lahore is as follows:
"I use the word community to include all Musahnans. Faith in God and His Prophet and proper observance of the precepts of the faith are the only bonds that hold us together. You are irrevocably lost to us if you turn your back on religion. We have no part or lot with transgressors and derelicts even if they shine like the stars of the firmament. I want you to dive deep into European literature and sciences but at the same time I expect you to be true to your faith."""
10 Idem, Akhiri Madamin, p. 46.
11 Idem, Majmu'ah-i Lectures, p. 308.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Altaf Husain Hali, Hayat-i Jawid; G. F. I. Graham, Life and Work of Syed Ahmed Khan, London, 1885; W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans, London, 1871; NSr al-Rahman, Hay&-i Sir Sayyid, Delhi, 1950; Sayyid Abmad Khan, Majmu'dh-i Lecture-ha-i Dr. Sir Sayyid, ed. Siraj al-Din, Sadhora, 1892; Ak_hiri Madamin, Lahore, 1898; Athar al-Sanadid, Cawnpore, 1904; Tarikh.i Sarkaa_M-i Biinaur, Agra, 1858; Maddmin-i Tahd_hib al-Ak_hlaq, Lahore; Review o f Dr. Hunter's Indian Muealmana, Benares, 1872; Essays on the Life o f Mohammed and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto, London, 1870; Risdlah Asbab-i Baghdwat-i Hind, published as an appendix to Hayat-i Jawid.
1596
1597
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-02-2006
`Churchill was willing to let Gandhiji die'
Hasan Suroor
Winston Churchill
LONDON: A day after he invoked the words of Mahatma Gandhi to inspire his party members, Tory leader David Cameron was facing embarrassment on Sunday as declassified documents revealed how the wartime Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill was prepared to let the Mahatma die, when he threatened a hunger strike in prison during the Quit India Movement, than make any concessions to him.
Cabinet minutes
According to the minutes of the Cabinet meetings, released by the National Archives, Churchill was vehemently opposed to handing over what he regarded as a moral victory to the Mahatma because of his threat to go on hunger strike.
<img src='http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/02/images/2006010205381301.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
"I would keep him there let him do as he likes," Churchill wrote even as his Cabinet colleagues warned that if anything happened to the Mahatma while in custody it could have serious consequences.
"He is such a semi-religious figure that his death in our hands would be a great blow and embarrassment to us," warned Stafford Cripps, who was Minister for Aircraft Production.
A similar warning came from Lord Halifax, former Foreign Secretary. He noted: "Whatever the disadvantages of letting him out, his death in detention would be worse."
The Cabinet notes which relate to the period 1942-43, reveal that Churchill was almost isolated on the issue with his colleagues strongly in favour of releasing the Mahatma before he embarked on a hunger strike. The Mahatma was detained in August 1942 and there were widespread fears for his life if he stopped eating.
As pressure on Churchill grew, he finally agreed in January 1943 to release the Mahatma on compassionate grounds noting: "Let him out as an act of State, rather than an act of submission to G' [Gandhi's] will... "
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-13-2006
It could be.
The reference book is also quoted.
But the main point is that the British studied the archeology of the Harrapa and Mohenjedharo in 1840-1890 period and much before the official discovery of the Indus valley civilization in 1920.
THe main strategic reason is that they could now create their own history with AIT and present it to the Indians a new history for them. Also they made sure that Harrapa was put as older and not belonging to the Vedic civilization so that they could fool the Indians not to claim that land as their own.
They had other plans for the land surrounding the archeological sites in Indus valley. They were planning the new nation called 'PAKISTAN' with the muslims.
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-19-2006
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/india.htm
India
History Today, The Making of the Hybrid Raj, 1700-1857
Battle at Calcutta, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clive to the Lord Chancellor, Calcutta, 23 February 1757
The Battle of Plassey, Robert Clive to the East India Company, 26 July 1757
Tipu Sultan, The Mysore Wars, 1760-1799
Raja Rammohan Roy: A Second Conference Between an Advocate for, and An Opponent of the Practice of Burning Widows Alive (1820)
The Battle of Kelat, India, Lieutenant T.W.E. Holdsworth, December 8, 1839
"Misgovernment of India," The Living Age, vol. 55, issue 698 (October 10, 1857).
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"Mind and Attitude of the Indian Mutiny," The Living Age, vol. 55, issue 703 (November 14, 1857).
Charles Creighton Hazewell, "British India," Atlantic Monthly, November 1857
Charles Creighton Hazewell, "The Indian Revolt," Atlantic Monthly, December 1857
The Indian Mutiny, 1857
"Bengal Mutiny," The Living Age, vol. 55, issue 702 (November 7, 1857).
Elisa Greathed: An Account of the Opening of the Indian Mutiny at Meerut, 1857
"The Rebellion in India," The North American Review, vol. 86, issue 179 (April 1858).
Knox, Thomas W., "The English in India," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 58, issue 346 (March 1879).
Shackleton, R, Jr, "The French in India," The New Englander, vol. 43, issue 180 (May 1884).
Roy, Amrita Lal, "English Rule in India," The North American Review, vol. 142, issue 353 (April 1886).
Arnold, Edwin, Sir, "The Duty and Destiny of England in India," The North American Review, vol. 154, issue 423 (February 1892).
Arnold, Edwin, Sir, "The Famine in India," The North American Review, vol. 164, issue 484 (March 1897).
Jones, J. P, Rev, D.D., "British Rule in India," The North American Review, vol. 168, issue 508 (March 1899).
Jones, J. P, Rev, D.D., "British Rule in India - II," The North American Review, vol. 168, issue 509 (April 1899).
Jabez T. Sunderland, "The New Nationalist Movement in India," Atlantic Monthly, October 1908
Mohandas K. Gandhi: Indian Home Rule (1909)
Rabindranath Tagore: Once There Was a King (1916)
Jawaharlal Nehru: Marxism, Capitalism and Non-Alignment, 1941
PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL'S ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OF SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS' MISSION TO INDIA, March 11, 1942.
STATEMENT AND DRAFT DECLARATION BY HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT WITH CORRESPONDENCE AND RESOLUTIONS CONNECTED THEREWITH (Sir Stafford Cripps' Mission to India), Draft Declaration for Discussion with Indian Leaders Published 30th March, 1942
TEXT ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA OF THE ORIGINAL "QUIT INDIA" RESOLUTION DRAFTED BY MOHANDAS K. GANDHI AND REJECTED BY THE ALL-INDIA CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE IN FAVOR OF THE MODIFIED VERSION SUBMITTED BY PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, The Gandhi Draft Was Presented to the Committee on April 27, 1942
SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS REVIEW OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE ALL-INDIA CONGRESS, July 26, 1942
SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS STATEMENT ON INDIA, London, August 5, 1942
MOHANDAS K. GANDHI'S SPEECH (EXCERPTS) TO THE ALL-INDIA CONGRESS, Bombay, August 7, 1942
LEOPOLD S. AMERY, BRITISH SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA BROADCAST, London, August 9, 1942
ORDERS TO AMERICAN MILITARY FORCES IN INDIA, August 12, 1942
PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL'S REPORT TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA, September 10, 1942
GANDHI'S LATEST MESSAGE TO AMERICA, October 31, 1942
Ambassador Henry Grady and Indian Independence by Robert K. Olson
History Today, The Muslims and Partition, September 1997
Arthur Bonner, "India's Masses: The Public That Can't Be Reached," Atlantic Monthly, October 1959
NEW EAST-BLOC DOCUMENTS ON THE SINO-INDIAN CONFLICT, 1959 & 1962
Leland Hazard, "Strong Medicine for India," Atlantic Monthly, December 1965
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-19-2006
<img src='http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/gifcache/moa/nora/nora0142/00362.TIF6.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-19-2006
.http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420910a.html
PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL'S REPORT TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA
September 10, 1942
Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons Official Report.
THE PRIME MINISTER (MR. CHURCHILL): The course of events in India has been improving and is, on the whole, reassuring. The broad principles of the declaration made by His Majesty's Government which formed the basis of the Mission of the Lord Privy Seal to India, must be taken as representing the settled policy of the British Crown and Parliament. These principles stand in their full scope and integrity. No one can add anything to them, and no one can take anything away. The good offices of the Lord Privy Seal were rejected by the Indian Congress Party.
MR. S. O. DAVIES: And by every party.
THE PRIME MINISTER: This, however, does not end the matter. <b>The Indian Congress Party does not represent all India. It does not represent the majority of the people of India. It does not even represent the Hindu masses.</b> It is a political organisation built around a party machine and sustained by certain manufacturing and financial interests.<b> Outside that party and fundamentally opposed to it are the 90,000,000 Moslems in British India-</b>
MR. S. O. DAVIES: Nonsense.
<b>
THE PRIME MINISTER:-who have their rights of self-expression; the 50,000,000 Depressed Classes, or the Untouchables as they are called because they are supposed to defile their Hindu co-religionists by their presence or by their shadow; and the 95,000,000 subjects of the Princes of India with whom we are bound by treaties; in all 235,000,000 in these three large groupings alone, out of about 390,000,000 in all India. </b>This takes no account of large elements among the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in British India who deplore the present policy of the Congress Party. It is necessary that these main facts should not be overlooked here or abroad, because no comprehension of the Indian problem or of the relations between Britain and India is possible without the recognition of these basic data.
The Congress Party has now abandoned in many respects the policy of non-violence which Mr. Gandhi has so long inculcated in theory, and has come into the open as a revolutionary movement designed to paralyse the communications by rail and telegraph and generally to promote disorder, the looting of shops and sporadic attacks upon the Indian police, accompanied from time to time by revolting atrocities-the whole having the intention or at any rate the effect of hampering the defence of India against the Japanese invader who stands on the frontiers of Assam and also upon the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. It may well be that these activities by the Congress Party have been aided by Japanese fifth-column work on a widely extended scale and with special direction to strategic points. It is noteworthy, for instance, that the communications of the Indian forces defending Bengal on the Assam frontier have been specially attacked.
In these circumstances the Viceroy and Government of India, with the unanimous support of the Viceroy's Council, the great majority of which are Indians, patriotic and wise men, have felt it necessary to proclaim and suppress the central and Provincial organs of this association which has become committed to hostile and criminal courses. Mr. Gandhi and other principal leaders have been interned under conditions of the highest comfort and consideration, and will be kept out of harm's way till the troubles subside.
It is fortunate, indeed, that the Congress Party has no influence whatever with the martial races, on whom the defence of India apart from British Forces largely depends. Many of these races are divided by unbridgeable religious gulfs from the Hindu Congress, and would never consent to be ruled by them. Nor shall they ever be against their will so subjugated. There is no compulsory service in India, but upwards of a million Indians have volunteered to serve the cause of the United Nations in this world struggle. The bravery of the Indian troops has been distinguished in many theatres of war, and it is satisfactory to note that in these last two months when the Congress has been measuring its strength against the Government of India, more than 140,000 new volunteers for the Army have come forward in loyal allegiance to the King-Emperor, thus surpassing all records in order to defend their native land. So far as matters have gone up to the present, they have revealed the impotence of the Congress Party either to seduce or even sway the Indian Army, to draw from their duty the enormous body of Indian officials, or still less to stir the vast Indian masses.
India is a continent, almost as large as and actually more populous than Europe and divided by racial and above all by religious differences far deeper than any that have separated Europeans.<b> The whole administration of the government of the 390,000,000 who live in India is carried on by Indians, there being under 600 British members of the Indian Civil Service. All the public services are working.</b> In five provinces, including two of the greatest and comprising 110,000,000 people, provincial ministers responsible to their Legislatures stand at their posts. In many places, both in town and country, the population has rallied to the support of the civil power. The Congress conspiracy against the communications is breaking down. Acts of pillage and arson are being repressed and punished with incredibly small loss of life. Less than 500 persons have been killed over this mighty area of territory and population and it has only been necessary to move a few brigades of British troops here and there in support of the civil power. In most cases the rioters have been successfully dealt with by the Indian police. I am sure the House would wish me to pay a tribute to the loyalty and steadfastness of these brave Indian police as well as of the Indian official classes generally whose behaviour has been deserving of the highest praise.
Colonial History of India - acharya - 01-21-2006
Last seen wearing...
LR Gupta
In recent months, The Pioneer has reported on Subhas Chandra Bose's mysterious disappearance. It has been established beyond doubt that Netaji did not die in the purported air crash on August 18, 1945, as was widely believed. A study of events, if placed in chronology, goes on to reveal some startling facts.
During the 1930s, when both Nehru and Bose were in the Congress, they did not see eye-to-eye. During this critical phase Gandhi always backed Nehru and both Gandhi and Nehru were aware that Netaji did not die in the air crash. The former stated publicly in January 1946, that he believed Bose was hiding, as did Sarat Bose. Netaji, it was thought, somehow slipped into Russia, foreseeing ensuing conflict between the erstwhile USSR and the West.
At the same time, the British, fearing the mutiny of Indian militia, had already decided to quit this country. Nehru was supposed to take over the reins of Government. It was perceived that the one man who could challenge his superiority was Subhas Bose. Consequently, in August 1946, Nehru requested Soviet agent VG Sayadiyant, living in Bombay, to personally deliver a letter to Stalin. The contents of that letter are still unknown.
There are two possibilities. First, the British were baying for Netaji's blood. Hence, Stalin might have been requested to keep Bose in custody till Independence was achieved. If that were the case, Bose would have been in India by 1950, when all hurdles were clear. So, one can infer there was nothing positive in the letter; or else Netaji would have come to participate actively in Indian politics. The second possibility hints at Nehru's offering certain sops to the Russian ruler to prefer him over Bose.
Notably, India acted as a USSR satellite during the Nehru dynastic regime. Though Nehru was hero-worshipped, his truth came to the fore when Shyama Prasad Mookerji died in mysterious circumstances in the jail of Sheikh Abdullah. No inquiry was conducted into the circumstances of his death. One tends to conclude that the conspiracy to kill Shyama Prasad Mookerji was hatched by Sheikh Abdullah with the active connivance of Nehru. Amid the humdrum, the RSS was first accused and then exonerated for Gandhi's murder.
The then Maharashtra Government was found lax in acting on intelligence reports on plots to kill Gandhi. Elsewhere, Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay died mysteriously at a time when Leftists were at the peak of their propaganda against him. The Chandrachud Commission probing the death left many questions unanswered. Strangely enough, after the receipt of Nehru's letter, Netaji was kept in confinement somewhere in Siberia. Many personalities claim to have seen him or had an authoritative report on his presence in the erstwhile USSR. Shah Nawaz played a treacherous role and the Khosla Committee report proved to be doctored. Even the cause of death of Lal Bahadur Shastri is still shrouded in mystery.
What is known, however, is that prior to the departure of the Mukherji Commission, Ms Sonia Gandhi visited Russia. Whether former USSR leaders were briefed to stall the investigation is unknown. Russians are reluctant to disclose facts about Netaji. Did Netaji leave Russia? If so when and where did he go? Did he die, and if so, who performed his last rites? If alive, where is he? The Ministry of External Affairs can pressure Russia to be more forthcoming. Only a non-Congress Government can play a constructive role in this direction.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-26-2006
<b>India's last freedom heroes recall torture under British rule</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->KOLKATA, India (AFP) - Bimal Bhowmick is 92, his voice frail and his memory failing. But unlike most of India's one billion population he still remembers the cruelty inflicted by the country's former British colonial masters.
Bhowmick is one of the few surviving Indians who went to a jail in the remote Indian Ocean Andaman and Nicobar islands built by the British a century ago as punishment centre for largely non-violent campaigns by freedom fighters against colonial rule.
He also represents a past linked to icons such as the country's father Mahatma Gandhi and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru that has all but been forgotten as the number of people left from that generation of fighters for independence approaches zero.
Bhowmick is one of only three people out of 104 families who had relatives at the jail to have answered a call from the Indian government which wants to honor them at the prison's centenary on March 10.
British rulers occupied the islands in 1857 to develop them as a penal colony. A sentence to Cellular Jail, named after its 698 cramped cells, came to be known as "Kala Pani" or black waters, because of the cruelty inflicted on the inmates.
"I was sent to Kala Pani in 1936. There were various means of torture. We used to think it was the end for us," Bhowmick recounts, speaking by telephone from Murshidabad district in eastern West Bengal state, where he lives with his son's family.
According to the jail's website, 384 freedom fighters were repatriated to the Indian mainland a few years before independence in 1947, of which only 28 were alive when the country celebrated 50 years of its independence from British rule in 1997.
Most of them are believed to have died since then.
The country still officially honors the freedom fighters. In India's grand Republic Day parade in New Delhi Thursday, a float commemorating them will be paraded along with the usual tanks, soldiers, missiles and fighter jets.
"The jail and the freedom fighters will be the theme of a tableau from the Andamans for the parade this year. We have put up statues showing people who fought for the country," says jail curator Rasheeda Iqbal from Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
<b>-- Hunger strike --</b>
Bhowmick, a member of the Jugantar (revolution) Party fighting against British occupation was arrested in 1934 under the Arms Act, from Rangpur village in what is now Bangladesh.
"Then, we were called terrorists. Now, they call us freedom fighters," he says.
"My grandfather had guns at home for self-defence. They were never needed," Bhowmick's 15-year-old grandson Mallar chimes in.
After two years in the district jail in Rangpur, Bhowmick was sent to the Andamans and said he is a witness to physical abuse by the British jailers.
"Even at district jail, we were shackled. We slept in the cold," he recalls.
"They broke an inmate's leg by beating him up. They beat two people till they died. We drank water from a dirty pit."
To protest against the harsh treatment, the inmates went on their second hunger strike in 1937. The first such strike in 1933 claimed the lives of three men, after which there was an outcry against the British rule.
According to the jail website, activists on the mainland also came out in support of the second strike.
"Doctors were asked to force us on a liquid diet. We called off the strike after Mahatama Gandhi sent us a telegram," Bhowmick says about his last days in incarceration.
The strike paved the way for the release of all the 384 inmates locked up at the time.
When Bhowmick is asked to describe his life after India's independence from British rule in 1947, his memory fails him.
His family says that the freedom fighter later joined a communist party and started private medical practice to make ends meet.
"My father gave up the prime of his life for the country. What did he get?" says his son Gautam, a primary school teacher.
"It's my sacrifice too. If my father had got a good education, today my life would have been so different."
Despite the hardships the family endured, Gautam Bhowmick is proud of what his father has done.
"There is nothing bigger for me than knowing that today a billion people celebrate their freedom because of people like my father."
Another freedom fighter Dinesh Dasgupta, 96, says the four years in the Cellular Jail still haunt him.
"We were often chained and forced to grind mustard seeds throughout the day," he said with tears welling up from his sunken eyes at his home on the outskirts of Kolkata, formerly Calcutta.
<b>"Even today I cannot use mustard oil as it reminds me of the British policy in India,"</b> he adds
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Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-27-2006
whwy didnt/doesnt the bjp actively persue the real story behind netaji's dissappearence???
that would kill 2 birds with one stone - get the real facts about netaji out in the open and also bury the congress for good.
though i am not sure of the latter - the way the indian masses rever and deify the nehru-gandhi family - we could still see a few more of this damned family on the peacock throne.
Colonial History of India - dhu - 01-27-2006
Bose and INA killed goras, which is too explosive in the indian context and is a supreme taboo. It is better to forget him.
see here for pics of goras being starved by the japanese in WW2:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/s...000/2502547.stm
I don't think Indians had the guts to set up a concentration camp for a gora fellow, let alone allow 10,000 of them to starve as the japanese did at just one prison. INA were intimately involved with these camps.
here is the gandhi statement after bhagat singh's martyrdom:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/onbhagatsingh.htm
Bhagat Singh and his two associates have been hanged. The Congress made many attempts to save their lives and the Government entertained many hopes of it, but all has been in a vain.
Bhagat Singh did not wish to live. He refused to apologize, or even file an appeal. Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence. He took to violence due to helplessness and to defend his homeland. In his last letter, Bhagat Singh wrote --" I have been arrested while waging a war. For me there can be no gallows. Put me into the mouth of a cannon and blow me off." These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism.
<b>But we should not imitate their act. In our land of millions of destitute and crippled people, if we take to the practice of seeking justice through murder, there will be a terrifying situation. </b>Our poor people will become victims of our atrocities. By making a dharma of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own actions.
<b>Hence, though we praise the courage of these brave men, we should never countenance their activities. Our dharma is to swallow our anger, abide by the discipline of non-violence and carry out our duty. </b>
March 29, 1931<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IS there any doubt GAndhi was a stooge for goras.
Just recollect that goras starved millions of Indians deliberately. Where is the punishment for these gora bastrds.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-27-2006
in the india of the 21st century, we should declare the birthdays of the folowing people (in no particular order) as national holidays.
bose, bhagat singh, nathuram godse, sarvarkar.
and rename all roads, buildingas, schools, bridges, stadiums, after these after stripping the names of beevis and butthead off them.
icing on the cake would be if india cut ties with the poms permanently, after doing to their economy what japan is doing to the american.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-27-2006
<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Jan 27 2006, 05:41 AM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ Jan 27 2006, 05:41 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the india of the 21st century, we should declare the birthdays of the folowing people (in no particular order) as national holidays.
bose, bhagat singh, nathuram godse, sarvarkar.
and rename all roads, buildingas, schools, bridges, stadiums, after these after stripping the names of beevis and butthead off them.
icing on the cake would be if india cut ties with the poms permanently, after doing to their economy what japan is doing to the american.
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Ben_ami
India already has the highest number of holidays. Do you think any of the above patriots would have recommended more holidays?
I think GOI must make it compulsory for Indians to serve atleast 6 months to 1 year in the Armed forces/other public services so that greater values of nation building in instilled from a young age. This will also help to reduce the corruption in the long run.
This will have a multiplier effect for the overall well being of the nation.
Regarding cutting off relations with POMs, it is futile if you believe in law of Karmas. From Sun never sets they are already reduced to one of the smaller countries ...and are now being overun by their progeny , our neighbour, near Rajasthan. Leave them to the law of Karmas which is infallible.
Instead of just naming roads, buildings, bridges...... GOI should build the infrastructure of the country on a war footing as if there is no tomorrow......believe me even if GOI takes care of the infrastructure of the country the economic development will be exponential.
If you believe in any of the laws of Karmas, Affirmations, and others from our scriptures.....just watch how they work...particulalry in case of India as it unfolds like a lotus from the muk.....
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-27-2006
<!--QuoteBegin-Aryawan+Jan 27 2006, 06:14 AM-->QUOTE(Aryawan @ Jan 27 2006, 06:14 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Jan 27 2006, 05:41 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ben_ami @ Jan 27 2006, 05:41 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the india of the 21st century, we should declare the birthdays of the folowing people (in no particular order) as national holidays.
bose, bhagat singh, nathuram godse, sarvarkar.
and rename all roads, buildingas, schools, bridges, stadiums, after these after stripping the names of beevis and butthead off them.
icing on the cake would be if india cut ties with the poms permanently, after doing to their economy what japan is doing to the american.
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Ben_ami
India already has the highest number of holidays. Do you think any of the above patriots would have recommended more holidays?
I think GOI must make it compulsory for Indians to serve atleast 6 months to 1 year in the Armed forces/other public services so that greater values of nation building in instilled from a young age. This will also help to reduce the corruption in the long run.
This will have a multiplier effect for the overall well being of the nation.
Regarding cutting off relations with POMs, it is futile if you believe in law of Karmas. From Sun never sets they are already reduced to one of the smaller countries ...and are now being overun by their progeny , our neighbour, near Rajasthan. Leave them to the law of Karmas which is infallible.
Instead of just naming roads, buildings, bridges...... GOI should build the infrastructure of the country on a war footing as if there is no tomorrow......believe me even if GOI takes care of the infrastructure of the country the economic development will be exponential.
If you believe in any of the laws of Karmas, Affirmations, and others from our scriptures.....just watch how they work...particulalry in case of India as it unfolds like a lotus from the muk.....
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arrey...i meant to say that in the new india we all dream of we shoudl forget all about beevis and butthead, and try to remember real heroes. not necessary that we have more holidays - though i dont see whats wrong in NOT having 2nd oct as holiday and having 23rd jan instead.
as for the rest of your suggestions - i do not think so that the country that has one of the biggest standing armies in the world needs more people in the forces - goi could make community service cumpulsory though. it could be as simple as college kids teaching civic sense to rustics (ex - chewing and spitting paan and gutka is BAD, or having more than 2 kids is criminal, esp if one cant afford them etc)
as for poms, we shoudl do the needful ourselves instead of waiting for karma to make things come full circle.
besides there is no such thing as group karma - we indians never did any crime on humanity to deserve 800 years f islamic carnage nor 200 years of colonial loot either.
i agree with you on the infrastructure bit - the goi should also allow private players to rake up a profit by pitching in with the infra structure development effort. for ex. generating and supplying electricity - where the private player CAN recover its investment.
also its hightime the maintaince and cleanliness fo cities were handed out to private playters and ngos and not on the various assclown municipal corporations.
but mpre then infrastructure, the thing that can really make india grow exponentially is PRIDE.
Colonial History of India - Bharatvarsh - 01-28-2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(ex - chewing and spitting paan and gutka is BAD, or having more than 2 kids is criminal, esp if one cant afford them etc)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Too much western propaganda about family planning and this is what happens, as G.Sub said have 5 or be forcibly islamisised, your own state will be partitioned or ethnic cleansed once again of Hindus because Muslims are outbreeding Hindus massively and add in the illegal infiltration, what is criminal is Hindus having less than 2 kids. The main reason Bengal was partitioned in the first place was because Hindus failed to have enough kids there, as late as 1800's Bengal was 65% Hindu, it was in 1881 that Muslims first gained majority in Bengal and then came partition and butchering of Hindus in East Bengal, Hindus were more educated and wealthy but all this did not matter, they all got massacred.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-28-2006
yes and the solution isnt 5 kids per hindu family but to have a uniform civil code and prevent the camel jockeys from breeding like rabbits.
as for whay bengal was partioned - thats cos the english wanted to weaken the one province from which the real (ie. un gandhian) major anti-pom battle was waged.
as to how bengal became a muslim majority state - a combination of reasons. bengal basically had the brahmhinical storoghold of Gour and a lot of lower caste people (artisans, farmers, dhakai muslin silk weavers etc) - who converted to islam en-masse. the rest is the same old story of how islamics believed in having as many wives and kids (legit and ill-legit) as possible so that the dar-ul-harb would be over run by the children of islam. for a good account read the last chapter of Nirad C Choudhury's "the east is east and the west is west" where he talks about the hindu-muslim problem in india with a h-u-g-e list of references and allusions to prove his points.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-28-2006
How is UCC supposed to prevent population growth ?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->as for whay bengal was partioned - thats cos the english wanted to weaken the one province from which the real (ie. un gandhian) major anti-pom battle was waged.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dharampals books are really interesting in this aspect. Bengal bore the brunt of the pom savagery and perhaps Bengal was the birthplace of the Macaulay Gotra.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-28-2006
by imposing a no-exceptions 2 child policy for one and all - a la china.
handing out sops like free education for lone girl child etc can also help.
bengal bore the brunt of pom economic hammering yes, and pom induced/engineered genocides yes.
and was the birthplace of the macaulay gothra yes - but that also helped in some ways in that a heavy dose of extremely euro centric education pulled bengal out of arabic darkness quickly and in many ways spawned the bengal renaissance.
Colonial History of India - Guest - 01-28-2006
<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Dec 23 2005, 01:27 AM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Dec 23 2005, 01:27 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The erosion of self-confidence and the defeat of the intellect, and the splitting of the elite from its own people (who alone could have given it any sort of spiritual or intellectual sus-tenance), naturally led to the imitation and adoption of British ideas and preferences. If William Wilberforce, the greatest Englishman of the 19th century and known as âFather of the Vic-toriansâ thought that the Indians could only be leading ignorant and wretched lives âwithout the blessings of Christian light and moral improvementsâ, it had to be treated as true. Thus a com-pletely new imagery developed about India. This imagery was given powerful literary garb by men like James Mill, one of the chief executives in the British Governance of India and the author of the voluminous History of British India. The black Englishman of Macaulay was already on the scene, and speedily being duplicated, much before Macaulay had anything to do with India. Some years before Macaulayâs arrival in India, the British Governor General Bentinck expressed satisfaction that prosperous and leading Indians were giving up the feeding of Brahmins and beggars and instead had taken âto the ostentatious entertainment of Europeansâ. Not that all resistance to the British had ceased but the resistance of the elite was no longer against British ways and preferences but rather against the British habit of not allowing the Indians to have any share in the exercise of power. The Indian elite, of the 19th and the 20th century, by and large, merely desired that the British would function as the Mughals had done earlier on when men like Raja Man Singh, or Raja Todarmal were treated like Mughal nobles and governors and were given important roles in the maintenance of imperial Mughal rule over the people of northern and western India. This attitude of the Indian elite, even of many of those who called themselves âsipa-hisâ of Mahatma Gandhi continued more or less uninterruptedly till the time when Britain decided, or was persuaded, to transfer power to Indian hands.
It is in such a context that, as time passed, the Indian elite began to look at India through British eyes. Indians began to be seen as wretched and ignorant the way they had appeared to Wil-liam Wilberforce, or to James Mill, or to Macaulay, or to Karl Marx. To Karl Marx, the commencement of Indian misery lay âin an epoch even more remote than the Christian creation of the worldâ. He stated that in spite of âwhatever may have been the crimes of Englandâ in India, England âwas the unconscious tool of His-toryâ in bringing about what Marx so anxiously looked forward to: Indiaâs Westernisation. Even Indian scriptures, the smritis, the text on law, the scholarly works had to pass through the intel-lectual and spiritual sieves of Europe. What ever received appro-bation or approval had to be accompanied with suitably selected commentaries and newer interpretations. It was not only the ostentatious entertainment of Europeans which henceforth became the aspiration of the Indian elite, but the readings of the ap-proved and acclaimed Indian texts; and even more so, an uncritical attachment to the philosophies, theories and literature of Great Britain became the new opium of the Indian elite. That this is no exaggeration is evident from continued Indian fascination not only with Plato and Aristotle, or the Roman historians, but even with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Bishop Berkeley, John Stuart Mill, or men like Bertrand Russell.
Naturally, all this had to result in movements like the Brahmo Samaj, and its various other versions in different parts of India; the long lasting fascination of the Indian elite with theosophy, a new variant of the ancient Masonic orders of Western Europe; and with the various ideologies which have come out of Europe in the past century and a half. Even when we wished to be patriotic, or wished to hark back to the past, the medium and the guide had to be the discipline of Indology or Orientalism, or some foreign traveller from the West or the East, who had hap-pened to live in or pass through India since the time of the Greek adventurer Alexander.
In such a situation, the Indian eliteâs response to the loss of freedom began to be couched in a Western idiom. Hence the West-ernised pronouncements of patriots like Ram Mohan Roy (Monstuart Elphinstone regretted that Ram Mohan Roy was presenting himself as too much of a firangi) of Keshav Chandra Sen, of the illustri-ous Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya, of Iswara Chandra Vidyasagar, or of the Indologist Rajendralal Mitra. To each one of them, the European and British intervention in India seemed a divine boon. It is possible that in comparison to what they had learnt about the oppressions of the Muslim rulers, mostly either through hearsay, or through European compiled accounts, the British rule looked like the rule of angels: tranquility and order pre-vailed and the men of property felt secure from one generation to another.
Such men perhaps had also begun to believe in the theory of the common origin of the Indo-European peoples; and in their own way, even before Frederic William Max Mueller, had begun to look forward to the day when these long parted cousins could join hands in some shared common enterprise. Explaining his works, Max Mueller had mentioned to Gladstone, many times prime minister of Great Britain, that what he was trying to do was to bring together some 1800 years after Jesus of Nazareth, those who had got separated around 1800 years before Jesusâ birth.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In this way, Swami Vivekananda brought money and inspired men and women to come from abroad. Miss Margaret Noble, or Bhagini Nive-dita, was one of those. We find that Bhagini Nivedita later helped the eminent scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose in editing his works; she also helped and translated some of the works of Bra-jendranath Seal. The conclusion from all this is that our bhadra-lok had totally lost the capacity to identify the capacities and talents of this society and take them forward. No healthy society in the world would dream of achieving functionality and regener-ating its creativity with foreign help.
Vivekananda had a great deal of confidence in Indiaâs men and women. However, even he could not escape from being seriously affected by whatever image and model, that the newly educated class had already built, of our society: the age-long depriva-tion, wretchedness and ignorance of our ordinary people.
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