Dharampal's Writings

11-26-2005, 02:36 PM

Collected writings volume 5. Essays on tradition, recovery and freedom.. page 26

on agriculture/land rights/nutrition etc..

QUOTEThere seem to have been various systems of land-rights in differ-ent parts or regions of India and also in the same region. But most of these systems seem to have assumed the supremacy of the village community over the land, its disposal, or the way it was worked. There were villages where the village community (perhaps the community of only those who cultivated land and those who held manyams and not necessarily of all the families in the village) seems to have been organised as a <i>samudayam</i>. While its members had specific shares in the land of the village, the land which any of them cultivated was changed from time to time. Such a change in the district of Thanjavur, where around 30% of the villages were classed as samudayam in 1805, was stated to be based on the assumption that a certain alteration occurs in the fertility of all land from time to time, which creates inequality amongst the members of the community; hence, occasional redistribution was considered necessary. Again in Thanjavur in 1805, the number of mirasdars (i.e. those having permanent rights in land) was put at 62,042, of which over 42,000 belonged to the sudras and castes below them. The number of cultivators of the group termed Pariah in the Baramahals (the present Salem district) was estimated at 32,474, out of a total population of around 6,00,000 just before 1800. The number of mirasdars actually listed by the Chengalpattu collector in the district in 1799 was put at 8,300. But the collector was of the view that the actual number of mirasdars there, was about ten times more i.e. around 80,000. In 1817 the number of mirasdars in 1080 villages of Tirunelveli district was estimated to be 37,494. It is unnecessary to add that throughout India, the rights of the actual cultivator were permanent and hereditary; and these began to be scrapped by the British from 1790 onwards: first, to enable them to realise a greatly enhanced land revenue; and sec-ond, because British ideas of ownership did not admit of any such cultivator rights, even in Britain.

With regard to agricultural production and the wages in agricul-ture, according to the journal Edinburgh Review (A.D.1803â1804), the wages of the Indian agricultural labourer in the Allahabad-Varanasi region around 1800 were in real terms substantially higher than the wages of his British counterpart. The jour-nal at that time wondered that if these wages were so high at this late period of great economic decline, how much higher such wages must have been when they were first established. According to a recent computation by an economist of the University of Madras, the wages of the agricultural labourer in Chengalpattu during the period 1780â1795 at 1975 prices would have been about Rs.7.50 per day, while in 1975 itself such wages were Rs.2.50 per day only. The productivity of wheat in the Allahabad-Varanasi region was more than double of that in England on similar land. Further, it may be mentioned that Bri-tain, like the rest of Europe, produced only one crop a year, while in India many lands produced more than one crop.

An idea of the Indian economy and consumption patterns is provided by some 1806 data from the district of Bellary. It is concerned with an estimation of the total consumption of the people of the district, and further indicates the detailed con-sumption pattern of the three categories of families in which the population was divided by the British authorities.

The three categories were: first, the more prosperous (total population: 2,59,568); second, the families of medium means (total population: 3,72,887); and third, the lowly (total population: 2,18,684). According to this estimate, the consumption of the first article in the schedule, food-grains, differed in quality and value between the families in the first category on the one hand, and those in the second and third categories on the other. But the quantity of food-grains estimated to have been consumed in all three was the same, i.e. half a seer of grain per person per day. The schedule included 23 other items including pulses, betel-nut, ghee, oil, tamarind, coconuts both fresh and dry, drugs and medicine, cloth, firewood and vegetables, and also betel-leaves (pans). As illustrative of the pattern of this consumption, the number of pans consumed per year in a family of six is given as 9,600 pans for the first category, 4,800 for those in the second category, and 3,600 pans for those in the third category. The consumption of ghee and oil was in the proportion of 3:1:1 ap-proximately and of pulses 8:4:3. The total per capita per annum consumption was estimated at Rs.17â3â4 for those, belonging to the first category Rs.9â2â4 for those belonging to the second category, and Rs.7â7â0 for those in the third category.

The pattern indicated in the above para is, of course, very broad. In reality a number of people may have had a much higher consumption than the average of the first category. An indication of the extent of such differential between the really high and the really low is provided by some 1799 data from the Karnataka area. After much enquiry about the incomes of the officers of the state in Tipooâs domain, the British came to the inference that the highest paid officer of Tipoo (the governor of the fort of Chitradurg) had a total salary of Rs.100 per month during Tipooâs reign. The wages of an ordinary labourer in this area at this period was about Rs.4 per month. The new differentials which were brought into being around this period by the British are indicat-ed by the salary of the British district collector (about Rs.l,500 per month) and a member of the British Governorâs Coun-cil receiving Rs.6,000âRs.8,000; while the wages of the labourer were constantly reduced during 1760 to 1850.

What the Indian labourer, craftsman, etc., received as wages around 1850 was in all probability no more than one-third or at the most one-half, of what he would have received till around 1760. The new dispari-ties, however, were not altogether limited to British salaries. Where state policy so dictated, similar decisions were taken with regard to the emoluments of Indians at high levels. An example is provided by the raising of the personal allowance of the Maharana of Udaipur. Till Udaipur came under British protection in 1818, the Maharana was supposed to have had an allowance of Rs.l,000 per month. Within a few months of British protection, while various other expenses of the kingdom were either abolished or reduced, the allowance of the Maharana was raised to Rs.l,000 per day.

11-28-2005, 06:40 AM

page 120 onwards..

QUOTEIt is not, however, as if the British and earlier the French, the Dutch and the Portuguese, had an easy time in India. From the beginning, there was constant armed as well as unarmed resistance to their conquering mission, dominance, and rule. The first 110 years, from 1748âwhen the extended British conquest began in the region around Madrasâto 1858, were like a long drawn hundred years war between the people of India and Britain (the latter supported by the military men from several Germanic countries). The climate of India was not hospitable to European men. In order to overcome that, the British began to establish military stations, garrisons and towns in the Himalayas and other high mountains of India.
Unarmed resistance was resorted to not only by the Indian peasan-try, but also by city and town people in most parts of India6 till they were wholly exhausted (especially in southern andÂ eastern India), by about 1840. Then came the great battle of 1857â1858 between India and Britain, by the end of which India had conclusively lost.

But even their conclusive victory had to be paid for by the British. From 1780 to 1857, the British had believed that if they had one Euro-pean soldier to 4 or at the most 6 Indian soldiers, all officered by Europeans, they would be militarily safe in India. 1857â1858 changed this view altogether. From 1858 till about 1910, Britain decided to have one British soldier to every two Indian soldiers in the British Indian armies. While the actual number of Indians in the army was drastically reduced in 1858, it still meant that a British force of around 100,000 soldiers had to be constantly kept in India for the next 50 years and more. It may be of interest to mention here that in 1946, the British again felt that they could only maintain their control of India with an overwhelming display of military power as neither any major sector of the Indian people nor the Indian military personnel could be depended upon. But at this time they found that after their losses in the 1939â45 war, they no longer commanded the number of personnel which was required. A different solution was, however, soon found as the Indian National Congressâa somewhat exhausted and ageing leadershipâagreed to a compromise on the question of Indian independence, and the manner of the transfer of power to Indian hands.7

After the British terror of 1857â58, for the next 10â15 years the Indians seem to have been wholly quiet, trying to heal their extensive and deep wounds. By slow degrees, however, unrest began to emerge again. One of its major manifestations was in the 1880s and early 1890s, in the shape of the anti-cow killing movement which stirred up high emotion and created an uncontrollable ferment, especially in northern, central and western India. The then British Viceroy thought that its intensity, extent and explosive power was as high as that of the events of 1857â1858.8 Queen Victoria advised the Viceroy that he must realise that this movement was aimed at them, and not at the Muslims.9

Most Indian Muslims felt so too and Indian Muslims in various places met and came to the conclusion that as the Hindus did not like the killing of cows, the Muslims by themselves should decide to abandon such killing.l0 Ultimately, from 1894 onwards, the movement got diverted to clashes between Muslims and Hindus. Thereafter, it ceased to be a major threat to British power.

But the Britishâat least in Indiaâhad always played with several cards, apparently each of them opposed to the others. In 1942, at the time the British were engaged in the armed suppression of the Quit India movement, a leader of the scheduled castes submitted a memorandum to the British and offered his support to them. The British Secretary of State for India had then written to the British Viceroy, that till then the British had one card, i.e. the Muslim card against Indian nationalism; but now, after this memorandum, they had a second card in the scheduled castes.11

The old game of acquiring such cards began to be played around the 1870s in a new way. Scholarship came to the aid of authority and began to create new images for the Indian Muslims, for the Sikhs, and also for some of the Hindu jatis. Great Christian sympathy began to be displayed, especially for the pariars of the Tamil areas, and other untouchable groups of Hindu society in various parts of India. In fact groups which had been historical-ly opposed to one another like the pariars and the chakkiliars of the Tamil areas began to be clubbed together initially under the title pariars, and later under the more extended term the scheduled castes. (The pariars in south India had belonged to what were known as the Valangaiâright handâcastes and were their guards-men; while the chakkiliars had belonged to the opposite Idangaiâleft handâcastes group, and had been the guardsmen for them). The process in due time led to the inclusion of many jatis in the âuntouchableâ category. Till at least the mid-nineteenth century, these had not been treated or labelled as such by Indian society.

Another British card was to placate the increasing number of westernised Indians: to divert their discontent and their sense of discrimination into safer channels. The purpose was to detach all possible such groups from the larger indigenous Indian polity and thus to reduce the possibility of another 1857â1858. It was then felt that one such safe channel could be a conservative-cum-moderate political platform where the grievances of the vocal westernised could be aired more publicly and thus reduce the chances of their aligning themselves with their own people. This led to the formation of the Indian National Congress under the patronage of liberal Englishmen and loyal and prosperous Indian subjects. This new card seems to have worked effectively for quite sometime and did help separate most of the westernised Indians from their own people. Most of the former only wished to be treated as English gentry.

However, the innocuous Indian National Congress of the 1880s became a great movement of the Indian people for the achievement of their freedom from 1920 onwards. Its new constitution drafted, explained and introduced by Mahatma Gandhi provided for the enrolment of every Indian, who believed in its new objective, as its member; the individual members in a locality constituting the Congress committee at the village, town, or city level; and these latter in their turn constituting Congress committees at the provincial and national levels.12 Within two years of this historical transformation, the Indian Congress had 5,000,000 members, and its annual budget had multiplied a hundredfold from around Rs.30,000 till 1920 to over Rs.3,000,000 from 1922 onwards. The 1920 constitution of theÂ Congress had also provided for the constitution of provinces based on commonality of language. It had demarcated India into 21 provinces based on this principle.

The 1920 constitution also gave the National Congress and India a new objective: the attainment of âSwarajya (complete independence) by the people of India by all legitimate and peace-ful means.â13 For the attainment of this objective, various nationwide non-cooperation and civil disobedience movements were launched under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi from 1920 to 1942. Finally in 1946, an agreement was arrived at between Britain and India to facilitate the early achievement of freedom by India. The process was not easy, however. It implied that the Indian freedom movement abandon or dilute many of its earlier aims. The result was that freedom got converted largely into a transfer of power, and India also got partitioned into two sovereign nation states.

As the free India needed a new constitutional structure, a Con-stituent Assembly was created in the later part of 1946 by means of indirect elections by the provinces and what were known as Indian states to frame a Constitution for the free India. This Constitution was completed in November 1949, and came into operation on January 26, 1950.

11-28-2005, 06:45 AM

QUOTE11. India: The Transfer of Power, Vol III, No. 280 (16.12.1942) (HMSO, London). The expression one card and the second card is in the original file (in IOLR) on the Secretary of Stateâs draft on this subject. The draft also carries a marginal comment by the Secretary of Stateâs deputy, the under Secretary of State for India, stating that the second card, i.e. the card of the sched-uled castes was weak as it had already been cut by Gandhi. A few months later the Secretary of State seems to have had some after-thought. Writing to the British Viceroy in India he then said: âThe fundamental weakness of the scheduled castes is that they are neither one thing nor the otherâ, and added: âIf they had the courage to turn Christian or Muslim en bloc it would be much easier to legislate for them. But so long as they remain a part of the Hindu system, with no separate religion or basis of organisation as such, and continue to regard themselves as Hin-dus, it does look as if their only chance of betterment lay, not on the political side, but on gradually winning their way so-cially in the Hindu Community.â This was on February 2, 1943 (India: The Transfer of Power).

12-02-2005, 04:05 AM

QUOTEIn 1813, this bold intention was publicly and powerfully expressed by William Wilberforce when he depicted Indians as being âdeeply sunk, and by their religious supersti-tions fast bound, in the lowest depths of moral and social wretchedness.â90 T.B. Macaulay expressed similar views, merely using different imagery. He commented that the totality of Indian knowledge and scholarship did not even equal the contents of âa single shelf of a good European libraryâ, and that all the his-torical information contained in books written in Sanskrit was âless valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridge-ment used at preparatory schools in England.â91 To Macaulay, all Indian knowledge, if not despicable, was at least absurd: absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology.

A little later, Karl Marx seems to have had similar impressions of Indiaâthis, despite his great study of British state papers and other extensive material relating to India. Writing in the New York Daily Tribune on 25 June 1853, he shared the view of the perennial nature of Indian misery, and approvingly quoted an ancient Indian text which according to him placed âthe commencement of Indian misery in an epoch even more remote than the Christian creation of the world.â According to him, Indian life had always been undignified, stagnatory, vegetative, and passive, given to a brutalising worship of nature instead of man being the âsovereign of natureââas contemplated in contemporary European thought. And, thus Karl Marx concluded: âWhatever may have been the crimes of Englandâ in India, âshe was the unconscious tool of historyâ in bringing aboutâwhat Marx so anxiously looked forward toâIndiaâs westernisation.

The complete denunciation and rejection of Indian culture and civilisation was, however, left to the powerful pen of James Mill. This he did in his monumental three volume History of British India, first published in 1817. Thenceforth, Millâs History became an essen-tial reading and reference book for those entrusted with adminis-tering the British Indian Empire. From the time of its publication till recently, the History in fact provided the framework for the writing of most histories of India. For this reason, the impact of his judgments on India and its people should never be underestimated.

According to Mill, âthe same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indif-ference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venalityâ were the conspicuous characteristics of both the Hindoos and the Muslims. The Muslims, however, were perfuse, when possessed of wealth, and devoted to pleasure; the Hindoos almost always penurious and ascetic; and âin truth, the Hindoo like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave.â Fur-thermore, similar to the Chinese, the Hindoos were âdissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society.â Both the Chinese and the Hindoos were âdisposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves.â Both were âcowardly and unfeeling.â Both were âin the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others.â And, above all, both were âin physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses.â
Compared to the people of India, according to Mill, the people of Europe even during the feudal ages, (andÂ notwithstanding the vices of the Roman Church and the defects of the schoolmen), were superior in philosophy. Further, the Europeans âwere greatly superior, notwithstanding the defects of the feudal system, in the institu-tions of Government and in laws.â Even their poetry was âbeyond all comparison preferable to the poetry of the Hindoos.â Mill felt that it was hardly necessary to assert that in the art of war âthe Hindoos have always been greatly inferior to the warlike nations of Europe.â The agriculture of the Europeans âsurpassed exceedingly that of the Hindoosâ, and in India the roads were little better than paths, and the rivers without bridges; there was not one original treatise on medicine, considered as a sci-ence, and surgery was unknown among the Hindoos. Further still, âcompared with the slavish and dastardly spirit of the Hindoosâ, the Europeans were to be placed in an elevated rank with regard to manners and character, and their manliness and courage.

Where the Hindoos surpassed the Europeans was in delicate manu-factures, âparticularly in spinning, weaving, and dyeingâ; in the fabrication of trinkets; and probably in the art of polishing and setting the precious stones; and more so in effeminate gentle-ness, and the winning arts of address. However, in the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture the Hindoos in no way ex-celled Europeans. Further, âthe Hindoo loom, with all its appurte-nances, is coarse and ill-fashioned, to a degree hardly less surprising than the fineness of the commodity which it is the instrument of producing.â The very dexterity in the use of their tools and implements became a point against the Indians. For as James Mill proclaimed: âA dexterity in the use of its own imper-fect tools is a common attribute of rude society.â

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEThese reflections and judgments led to the obvious conclusion, and Mill wrote:
Our ancestors, however, though rough, were sincere; but under the glossing exterior of the Hindoo lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy. In fine, it cannot be doubted that, upon the whole, the gothic nations, as soon as they became a settled people, exhibit the marks of a superior charac-ter and civilisation to those of the Hindoos.92

As to James Mill, so also to Wilberforce, Macaulay, and Karl Marx and the thought and approaches they represented (for it is more as spokesmen of such thinking and approaches that they are im-portant in the context of India rather than as outstanding indi-viduals), the manners, customs and civilisation of India were intrinsically barbarous. And to each of them, India could become civilised only by discarding its Indianness, and by adopting âutility as the object of every pursuitâ93 according to Mill; by embracing his peculiar brand of Christianity for Wilberforce; by becoming anglicised, according to Macaulay; and for Marx by becom-ing western. Prior to them, for Henry Dundas, the man who gov-erned India from London for twenty long years, Indians not only had to become subservient to British authority but also had to feel âindebted to our beneficence and wisdom for advantages they are to receiveâ; and, in like manner, âfeel solely indebted to our protection for the countenance and enjoyment of themâ94 before they could even qualify for being considered as civilised.
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12-02-2005, 06:51 AM

Dharampal offers an interesting perspective on why India languished militarily. He indicates that Indian society contributed very little revenue to the military and mostly had local systems. I cant remember where I read it but just as a note to myself. I think he mentioned that most areas had about 5% allocation for the rajyas. Aurangzeb increased revenues to about 20% of agri produce. Marathas and Vijayanagara kingdoms also tried to raise the share of revenues but in the end were not very successful. Brits had about 40-50% taxation.

12-14-2005, 08:38 AM

QUOTEA great movement was initiated for the promotion in India of western science and technology nearly a century ago. The main centre of this movement was Calcutta itself. As far as my meagre knowledge goes those intimately associated with this movement, in its early phase, included such illustrious names as Mahendra Lal Sircar, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, Gooroodas Banerjee, Ashutosh Mukerjee, Taraknath Palit, C.V. Raman, and they were followed by J.C. Ghosh, Meghnad Saha, J.N. Mukerjee, S.N. Bose, and many others.2 While reasons of patriotism, devo-tion to swadeshi, etc., played major roles in leading Mahendra Lal Sircar and others to the promotion of the new science and technology, <b>men like Sir Richard Temple, the British Governor of Bengal around this time, felt that the teaching of science in India would help in curbing the ambition and self-confidence of the educated Indian. Writing to the then British Viceroy North-brook, Temple observed: âNo doubt the alumni of our schools and colleges do become as a class discontented. But this arises partly from our higher education being too much in the direction of law, public administration, and prose literature, where they may possibly imagine, however erroneously, that they may approach to competition with us. But we shall do more and more to direct their thoughts towards practical science, where they must inevi-tably feel their utter inferiority to us.</b>â3 Temple wrote this in 1875. In 1876 Mahendra Lal Sircar and his friends established the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at Calcutta.4 In 1885 J.C. Bose was appointed junior professor of physics at Calcutta Presidency College,5 while in 1889 Prafulla Chandra Ray was appointed as assistant professor in chemistry.6

12-23-2005, 01:57 PM

QUOTEThe 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 ofÂ 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.


QUOTEIn 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.

12-23-2005, 02:00 PM

QUOTEThis image of India was not its own traditional self-image; nor had it any relation with historical facts. However, such an image was deliberately built up during the 19th century by the efforts and encouragement of the British; of theoreticians of the West; and through the policies and institutions initiated by the Brit-ish Indian State. The newly emergent elite in Bengal, as also many others, were instrumental in taking this image forward. For instance, Ram Mohan Roy was opposed tooth and nail to the idea that modern learning and science be learnt through the medium of Sanskrit and other Indian languages. He somehow had been con-vinced that these Indian languages could be the vehicle only of ancient codes and speculations on the world beyond; and that Western knowledge could only be learnt through languages of the West. This was indeed a peculiar position. The Westerners them-selves obtained knowledge of India and the East in their own languages; but India was to learn the knowledge of the West only through the language of the West. Surely, behind such a view, was a feeling of deep contempt for the Indian languages, the Indian intellect and the Indian people. Of course this is not to imply that people like Ram Mohan Roy had any hatred for the Indian people, or lacked patriotism. Quite possibly they had been lured by the power of the West, and felt that Indiaâs salvation lay in becoming like the West. Only their understanding of the West lacked any depth.

Around 1880, Keshav Chandra Sen declared in England:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEIf you look at India today you will no doubt find widespread idolatry, a system of caste such as cannot be witnessed elsewhere, social and domestic institutions of an injurious character, and prejudices, error, superstition and ignorance prevailing to a most appalling extent.

Around 1900, Rabindranath Tagore wrote:

QUOTEOur country having lost its links with the inmost truths of its being, struggled under a crushing load of unreason, in abject slavery to circum-stances. In social usage, in politics, in the realm of religion and art, we had entered the zone of uncreative habit, a decadent tradition, and ceased to exercise our humanity.

The promotion and extension of an intellectual climate with a peculiar combination of self-pity, self-condemnation and at the same time decrying the self-image of India in the fulfillment of European goals thus became, perhaps inadvertently, the job of men like Rabindranath Tagore. Such promotion ultimately led to the growth and duplication of Westernised personalities like that of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Due to their faith in theories of the progressive evolution of consciousness, persons like Jawaharlal Nehru, saw the highest stage of thought in the Western thinkers and the highest stage of society in Western society. Hence, it was that the education organised by the British was, for Jawaharlal Nehru, the only possible route to knowledge and virtue. He, therefore, could argue that there can be neither virtue nor knowledge amongst our villagers amongst whom the new education system had not spread. So he conceived that a major function of the state, with him at the helm, and run by Western educated Indians (though their Westerni-sation may have belonged to Europeâs 19th century), was to liber-ate the crores of Indians from a state of ignorance and moral degeneration; and convert them into the sort of people cherished by William Wilberforce or Karl Marx.

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12-23-2005, 02:23 PM

Comparing other countries who might have been in similar predicament as India, Dharampal talks about Japan..

QUOTESoon after Japan resumed links with the West around 1860, it sent some of its young men to the countries of the West. One of them, Maeda Masa-na, who went to France in 1869, felt very depressed for many months. Seeing Parisâs splendour, he felt that Japan would never be able to match it. But soon after the Franco-German War, France seemed to be in shambles and had to rebuild itself again. While the happening itself must have made him sad, somehow his spirits picked up, and from then on Masana could write: âI felt con-fidence in our ability to achieve what the West achieved.â

He returned to Japan in 1878, and became one of the chief archi-tects of Kogyo Iken: Japanâs ten-year plan, completed in 1884 in thirty volumes. Discussing the various constituents which were required to make such a plan functional, the document stated:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEWhich requirement should be considered as most important in the present efforts of the government in building Japanese indus-tries. It can be neither capital nor laws and regulations, be-cause both are dead things in themselves and totally ineffective. The spirit/willingness sets both capital and regulations in motion...If we assign to these three factors with respect to their effectiveness, spirit/willingness should be assigned five parts, laws and regulations four, and capital no more than one part.
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12-23-2005, 02:57 PM

QUOTEGeographically, the India of the Mahabharatam was more or less similar in extent to what is today identified as the Indian subcontinent. The Mahabharatam lists some one hundred major regions referred to as janapadas in itâaround 38 in the north west; 20 in the centre, the area of the river Ganga; 10 in the east; 12 in the mountainous central area; 12 in the south; and 10 in the centre west.l It also suggests that each region was governed by some specific, identifiable, extended kinship commun-ity. Further, besides Sanskrit, various regions together, or separately, seem to have had a language or dialect of their own. Sanskrit seems to have been used on a pan-Indian scale, and even at the domestic cultural and social level in numerous homes in all parts of India.

QUOTEWhile the Mahabharatam advises men to have a king, the king is bound not only by dharma, custom and morality, but also is to govern with the assistance of a council of ministers. The number of ministers suggested is 37 and of these 4 were to be from the Brahmanas, 8 from the Kshatriyas, 21 from the Vaisyas (the peas-ant and trading communities of the age when the Mahabharatam was composed), 3 from the Sudras (the craftsmen of the time), and one, who was versed in every field of knowledge from the Suta (charioteer) community.3

12-23-2005, 03:12 PM

QUOTEIt is not, however, as if the British and earlier the French, the Dutch and the Portuguese, had an easy time in India. From the beginning, there was constant armed as well as unarmed resistance to their conquering mission, dominance, and rule. The first 110 years, from 1748âwhen the extended British conquest began in the region around Madrasâto 1858, were like a long drawn hundred years war between the people of India and Britain (the latter supported by the military men from several Germanic countries). The climate of India was not hospitable to European men. In order to overcome that, the British began to establish military stations, garrisons and towns in the Himalayas and other high mountains of India.
Unarmed resistance was resorted to not only by the Indian peasan-try, but also by city and town people in most parts of India6 till they were wholly exhausted (especially in southern andÂ eastern India), by about 1840. Then came the great battle of 1857â1858 between India and Britain, by the end of which India had conclusively lost.

But even their conclusive victory had to be paid for by the British. From 1780 to 1857, the British had believed that if they had one Euro-pean soldier to 4 or at the most 6 Indian soldiers, all officered by Europeans, they would be militarily safe in India. 1857â1858 changed this view altogether. From 1858 till about 1910, Britain decided to have one British soldier to every two Indian soldiers in the British Indian armies. While the actual number of Indians in the army was drastically reduced in 1858, it still meant that a British force of around 100,000 soldiers had to be constantly kept in India for the next 50 years and more. It may be of interest to mention here that in 1946, the British again felt that they could only maintain their control of India with an overwhelming display of military power as neither any major sector of the Indian people nor the Indian military personnel could be depended upon. But at this time they found that after their losses in the 1939â45 war, they no longer commanded the number of personnel which was required. A different solution was, however, soon found as the Indian National Congressâa somewhat exhausted and ageing leadershipâagreed to a compromise on the question of Indian independence, and the manner of the transfer of power to Indian hands.7

12-23-2005, 03:25 PM

QUOTEThe making of the Constitution was entrusted to a senior Indian member of the British officer corps who was appointed as the Constitutional Adviser. A committee of seven members was formed, six of whom had been leading legal and administrative luminaries under the British administration. The committee was constituted on August 29, 1947. It was given the task of scrutinising the draft which emerged from the Adviserâs labour.17 This drafting and scrutiny evidently took a whole year. When the draft of the Constitution was placed before the Constituent Assembly, there was no mention in it of villages, towns, cities or even of districts.

The Law Minister who placed it before the Assembly was in fact proud that no such mention had been made in the draft. In his speech, he observed:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEâAnother criticism against the Draft Constitution is that no part of it represents the ancient polity of India. It is said that the new Constitution could have been drafted on the entire ancient Hindu model of a State and that instead of incorporating Western theories the new Constitution should have been raised and built upon village panchayats and district panchayats.â

And he added:

QUOTEâThe love of the intellectual Indian for the vil-lage community is of course infinite if not pathetic.â 

Quoting an early 19th century British authority he felt that no one could feel any pride in them. Then he added:

QUOTEThat they have survived through all vicissitudes may be a fact. But mere survival has no value. The question is on what plane they have survived. Surely on a low, on a selfish level. I hold that these village republics have been the ruination of India... What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit.18

The Law Ministerâs observations produced great anger and much anguish. Of the 32 members who spoke in the Constituent Assembly at this stage, only three came to his defence. The others, in-cluding several past, contemporary and future prime
ministers of Indian provinces, felt greatly hurt and betrayed. A member felt that the âConstitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards.â19 Another member said that âin the whole Draft Constitution we see no trace of Congress outlook, no trace of Gandhian social and political outlook. I feel the whole Constitution lacks in Congress ideal and Congress ideology.â Answering the point that âthe villages have been the ruination of India,â he said, âour villages have been starved; our villages have been strangled deliberately by the foreign governments; and the townspeople have played a will-ing tool in this ignoble task.â20 A very senior and prominent member from the south, prime minister of the Madras Presidency around 1947â1948 stated:

QUOTEI was hoping, having seen the Preamble that everything would follow in regular course and bring out a Constitution that will give food and cloth to the millions of our people and also give education and protection to all the people of the land. But to the utter disappointment of myself and some of us who think with me, this Draft Constitution has drifted from point to point until at last it has become very difficult for us to understand where we are, where the country is, where the people are, what is it that they are going to derive out of this Constitution when it is put on the statute book.21

Most members who spoke found the Draft Constitution âtotally foreignâ.22 A member even implied that when most of India was fighting for freedom, the Law Minister and his colleagues âwere applying grease on the backs of the British.â23
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Law minister is B R Ambedkar.

12-23-2005, 03:57 PM

Talking about the split in Indian society, of the westernized elite (what Ramana garu calls DIE) and the aam-aadmi, Dharampal quotes Nehru..

QUOTEIn the next 30 years, the Indian elite seemed to have surrendered to the West, completely. This is how one of them, an up and coming leader of the Indian National Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru saw it in 1928. In a letter to Mahatma Gandhi he wrote:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEYou have stated it somewhere that India has nothing to learn from the West and that she had reached a pinnacle of wisdom in the past. I certainly disagree with this viewpoint...I think that western or rather industrial civilization is bound to conqu-er India, may be with many changes and adaptations, but none the less, in the main, based on industrialism. You have criticised strongly the many obvious defects of industrialism and hardly paid any attention to its merits. Everybody knows these defects and the utopias and social theories are meant to remove them. It is the opinion of most thinkers in the West that these defects are not due to industrialism as such but to the capitalist system which is based on exploitation of others.41

17 years later, in 1945, he seemed even more convinced of his views and said:

QUOTEI do not understand why a village should necessarily embody truth and non-violence. A village, normally speaking, is backward intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a backward environment. Narrow-minded people are much more likely to be untruthful and violent.42

Given such loss of self-image and identity, accompanied by the increasing alienation of the elite from the people and the reali-ty of India, the split in Indian society became even deeper and wider.
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12-23-2005, 03:59 PM

Also quoting Gandhi on the amount of time it will take to really attain swaraj..

QUOTEDuring 1947, at the time of the departure of British power, someone had asked Mahatma Gandhi what was to be expected from the regaining of freedom. He had then written that, âwe would need at least half that much time to cleanse our body-politic of the virus that has infiltrated every cell and pore of our being during our subjectionâ, after â150 years of slaveryâ. The full letter, dated July 6, 1947, originally in Gujarati, read:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEYou are gravely mistaken in assuming that as soon as swaraj comes prosperity will flood the country. If, before assuming that, you had used your imagination a bit to see that after 150 years of slavery, we would need at least half that much time to cleanse our body-politic of the virus that has infiltrated every cell and pore of our being during our subjection, you would not have found it necessary to ask me. I am sure you will understand what I mean, namely, that far greater sacrifices will be needed after the attainment of self-government to establish good gov-ernment and raise the people than we required for the attainment of freedom by means of satyagraha.
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2020 does seem about right..

12-24-2005, 09:41 AM

Is there some place where the books by dharampal can be bought?

Bharatvarsh · (This post was last modified: 12-24-2005, 10:14 AM by Bharatvarsh.)

QUOTEInterview with Dharampal
Author: Max Martin
Publication: Down to Earth
Date: June 30, 1997
Home truths, colonial lies :

A noted Gandhian historian, Dharampal, has enquired into various facets of pre-British Indian society. He has authored several books, including Indian Science and Technology in the 18th Century and The Beautiful Tree. In a conversation with Max Martin in Delhi recently, he spoke on India's achievements in agriculture and science, the efficacy of indigenous systems of local governance and the deleterious effects of British rule

On agricultural productivity in India before the imposition of the British system:

Sketches and descriptions of tools give us an idea of productivity in agriculture and seed varieties in previous centuries. According to data collected by the British, agriculture productivity was quite high around AD 1800. In the journal Edinburgh Review, the average produce per acre in India is quoted as three times higher than Britain's.

Data from south India on paddy production in the 10th century - the Chola period - and data from the 17th century about the Chengalpattu area indicate that just 10 per cent of the cultivated land produced as much as five to six tonnes per hectare. The authenticity of the data. obtained from palm leaf inscriptions, is accepted by historians. It is not difficult to account for the high yield. We had better hybrids, better seeds, and a better climate than most countries in Europe.

On our knowledge of mathematics, and science and technology in the 18th century:

Eighteenth century British records suggest that Indians knew algebra. Their knowledge must have developed over a considerable period of time, possibly centuries.

Steel and iron were being used in some of our buildings. In Kashmir and in south India, steel was used in temple construction. Most of this was indigenously produced. We had a good knowledge of metallurgy. Data suggests that production of iron and steel was quit high. My estimate is that our production potential was about 200,000 tonnes a year. But we probably produced only about 20,000-50,000 tonnes per year. There were about 10,000 furnaces for metal-working across the country, including ones that could be transported by bullock cart to areas where iron ore was available. These could only hive been made by professionals such as the Agarias.

On living standards before British interference in the functioning of the social economy:

Around 1805-06, Lord Monroe collected data on social classes in Bellary-Cuddapah (Andhra Pradesh). On the basis of this data, he devised the income categories - upper middle and lower. However, I do not think that there was any such thing as mass poverty.

The British reduced the wages of servants and workers in urban areas. In the 18th century, wages were regulated throughout Bengal. Cases of non-compliance with the regulation were dealt with strictly. Both workers and employers could be punished: the workers for claiming more, and the employers for paying more wages than permissible. These regulations continued till about 1774.

The British went so far as to control social institutions. They took over the management of temples. Although these were not closed down, their expenditure was reduced by as much as Rs 3,000 in some cases. Similar restrictions were imposed in all areas where Indian society was developed, including medical institutions.

On tradition and the functioning of the caste system in the political economy:

There was equality among people in all communities. Although jati vyavastha or the caste system was part of the social fabric, castes were equal in political terms. There was little competition on an individual level. Members of a community were equal. Ritually, some might have been superior, but they were politically equal. Even if there were half a dozen communities in a locality, each community would function in its own capacity.

On decision-making relating to matters of social concern:

Every caste had a say in matters of social concern. P Buchanan travelled from Madras to Kanara, observing the way Indian society functioned. The journey took over two years, and the findings were published in a number of well-illustrated volumes. Buchanan points out that even the pariah or the casteless had a say in matters that affected them as a group. Historians say that Indians in the 17th century were very much given to seeking public opinion. Other travel accounts of earlier periods also reveal that Indians discussed social matters publicly.

On the status of untouchables, backward castes, and south:

In Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu in the 1820s, boys in schools were categorised as brahman, kshatriya, vaishya, shudra and 'other castes'. Still, more than 30 per cent of the boys in the schools run by the local community were included in the 'other castes'. This means dalits had access to schools. However, this was not the case in every district or state - in Andhra Pradesh the figures were lower.

On gram swaraj and the undermining of institutions of local government as a result of British rule: Schools were run by local communities. Some 20-30 per cent of the land under agriculture was set aside to fund infrastructural development and institutions in localities. This would include the setting up of irrigation tanks, schools and temples, and their maintenance. It would also include policing. The accounts of a village called Uttar Meru in Chengalpattu district are given in detail in some 10th century inscriptions. The inscriptions also give us an account of the functioning of the village assembly. It was probably a brahmanical assembly. Other assemblies might not have been so formally organised.

On the political myth of the British contribution to national infrastructure:

After the British took over, few things were left in the control of the people. Money set aside for repair and maintenance of irrigation works, as well as the revenues collected by temples, were diverted by the British. The militia was abolished. Accountants and revenue officers became servants of the government. Of the 30 per cent land devoted to infrastructural development, only three to four per cent was left at the disposal of the local community.

Besides, no development work was taken up by the British. Subsequently, tanks and canals fell into disrepair. The irrigation system in south India was ruined between 1780 and 1840. Although the British realised this, they ignored it and diverted the money to construction of roads, rest houses and palatial bungalows.

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0302/165.html
QUOTEAccording to the research done by Dharampal based on first-hand colonial reports in the British Museum (see his book The Beautiful Tree) there was a school in every village, and children of every caste were taught therein, before the British invasion of India. Illiteracy was a British gift, as in Burma (see Amitav Ghosh's Glass Palace)

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/16rajeev.htm
QUOTENow Shri Dharampal who compiled Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts in 1971 has completed a book on the state of indigenous education in India on the eve of the British conquest.1

Shri Dharampal has documented from old British archives, particularly those in Madras, that the indigenous system of education compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at about the same time. The Indian system was admittedly in a state of decay when it was surveyed by the British Collectors in Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Yet, as the data brought up by them proved conclusively, the Indian system was better than the English in terms of (1) the number of schools and colleges proportionately to the population, (2) the number of students attending these institutions, (3) the duration of time spent in school by the students, (4) the quality of teachers, (5) the diligence as well as intelligence of the students, (6) the financial support needed to see the students through school and college, (7) the high percentage of lower class (Sudra and other castes) students attending these schools as compared to the upper class (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaisya) students, and (8) in terms of subjects taught.

This indigenous system was discarded and left to die out by the British not because its educational capacity was inferior but because it was not thought fit for serving the purpose they had in mind. The purpose was, first, to introduce the same system of administration in India as was obtaining in England at that time. The English system was highly centralised, geared towards maximisation of state revenues, manned by âgentlemenâ who despised the âlower classesâ and were, therefore, ruthless in suppression of any mass discontent. Secondly, the new system of education aimed at promoting and patronising a new Indian upper class who, in turn, would hail the blessings of British Raj and cooperate in securing its stability in India. The indigenous system of education was capable neither of training such administrators nor of raising such a social elite, not at home anywhere.

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/hsus/ch4.htm

Bharatvarsh · 12-24-2005, 10:15 AM

QUOTEIs there some place where the books by dharampal can be bought?
I think you can buy them here:

QUOTEDharampal Collected Writings Vol. 1 through Vol.5

Other India Press; pp 268; Rs 1300

http://www.peopletreeonline.com/30/36/sc-36.htm

12-24-2005, 10:19 AM

QUOTE(kautilya @ Dec 23 2005, 09:11 PM)Is there some place where the books by dharampal can be bought?
[right][snapback]43713[/snapback][/right]


Kautilya,

Welcome back. Please check..

http://multiversitylibrary.com/rules.jsp?a...tring=Dharampal

12-24-2005, 10:19 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Dec 23 2005, 09:45 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEIs there some place where the books by dharampal can be bought?
I think you can buy them here:

QUOTEDharampal Collected Writings Vol. 1 through Vol.5

Other India Press; pp 268; Rs 1300

http://www.peopletreeonline.com/30/36/sc-36.htm
[right][snapback]43717[/snapback][/right]
</div>

I tried there, but they said its out of print.

12-24-2005, 10:23 AM

Bharatvarsh

What is more amazing about the Chengalpattu data, is that besides productivity even wages wise farmers were amazingly better off 200 years ago then they were at the time Dharampal did his studies. The wages in 1780 were close to 7.50 per day while in 1975 it was 2.50 per day.. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' />

For a quick overview, visit the esamskriti links i have posted earlier in this thread.

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