11-28-2005, 01:12 AM
Shaurya said <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As far as the INC being a British plan, I did say they managed this pretty poorly that they lost control of it in a single generation ! The British are not known for such shoddy management of affairs. My response to you is sarcastic becuause I do not find merit in your assertions. I will be more than glad to discuss anything more than what you feel about it. I have never read anywhere that the INC started as a british plan! <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Obviously the Brits are not going to advertise that the INC at least in the first few decades after it was founded, was their vehicle for controlling the future direction of the freedom movement and while Congress was in power for most of the time of post Independent India,they would be hardly likely to admit that the venerable INC was a plant by the Brits. That would certainly take the shine of the official version of Indian history that the Congress was primarily instrumental in securing India's freedom.
The genesis and evolution of British policy towards the Indian subcontinent(later to be referred to as South Asia) and how the Brits crystalllized their stance towards India in the nineteenth century makes for interesting reading
In a recent book by Chandrasekhar Das Gupta (War and diplomacy in Kashmir) he makes it clear that Mountbatten called the shots in the Kashmir issue even after August 15, 1947 and prevented India from overrunning Kashmir and dealing a deathblow to the infant monstrosity called Pakistan. That this was the case is of course no surprise to most discerning Indians who have long since abandoned the starry eyed nonsense about Mountbatten being a friend of India. see for instance the relevant archived thread in BR.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/phpBB2/vie....php?t=238
The question is why did Britain ( and later the US) go to such extraordinary lengths to prop up a frankenstein like Pakistan. It is commonly assumed in India that it was Nehru's tilt towards the FSU (former soviet union) that resulted in the tilt of the west towards the terrorist state of Pakistan (TSP), That may explain the US stance after Hungary and 1956 , but it does not explain why the brits took such an anti Indian stance right from 1947. After all the first GG of India , at the express request of the Indians, was Mountbatten (who outwardly claimed to despise Jinnah) and the chiefs of staff were all British till 1950, and Nehru relied extensively on Sir PMS Blackett(who was almost a scientific adviser to the GOI) till his death, on the formation of Indian science policy and the development of Nuclear weapons. These are not the actions of a man who was anti west much less distrusted them. The chronology of events certainly does not bear out such a hypothesis as the tilt by the Anglo/US alliance predates the so called tilt by Nehru towards the FSU. No, there was more to it than that.
The real answer, as far as I can discern, goes back to the aftermath of the 1857 uprising. I have attempted to answer this question after doing some extensive research (jointly with acharya). The analysis is summarized in a presentation we recently made at a joint meeting of BR and IF, titled the South Asia File . see for instance my post dated Nov 24 2005, 08:06 AM in the India US thread
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...opic=1090&st=30
The details including an extensive list of additional materials to read are available in a forthcoming book by me which can be read online here
The reason i went into the lengthy explanation was your self confessed assertion that you were being sarcastic. Well it is time to educate oneself on the subterannean strands in Indian history and if i were you, i would abandon sarcasm as a weapon of choice. It impresses neither friend nor foe
Obviously the Brits are not going to advertise that the INC at least in the first few decades after it was founded, was their vehicle for controlling the future direction of the freedom movement and while Congress was in power for most of the time of post Independent India,they would be hardly likely to admit that the venerable INC was a plant by the Brits. That would certainly take the shine of the official version of Indian history that the Congress was primarily instrumental in securing India's freedom.
The genesis and evolution of British policy towards the Indian subcontinent(later to be referred to as South Asia) and how the Brits crystalllized their stance towards India in the nineteenth century makes for interesting reading
In a recent book by Chandrasekhar Das Gupta (War and diplomacy in Kashmir) he makes it clear that Mountbatten called the shots in the Kashmir issue even after August 15, 1947 and prevented India from overrunning Kashmir and dealing a deathblow to the infant monstrosity called Pakistan. That this was the case is of course no surprise to most discerning Indians who have long since abandoned the starry eyed nonsense about Mountbatten being a friend of India. see for instance the relevant archived thread in BR.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/phpBB2/vie....php?t=238
The question is why did Britain ( and later the US) go to such extraordinary lengths to prop up a frankenstein like Pakistan. It is commonly assumed in India that it was Nehru's tilt towards the FSU (former soviet union) that resulted in the tilt of the west towards the terrorist state of Pakistan (TSP), That may explain the US stance after Hungary and 1956 , but it does not explain why the brits took such an anti Indian stance right from 1947. After all the first GG of India , at the express request of the Indians, was Mountbatten (who outwardly claimed to despise Jinnah) and the chiefs of staff were all British till 1950, and Nehru relied extensively on Sir PMS Blackett(who was almost a scientific adviser to the GOI) till his death, on the formation of Indian science policy and the development of Nuclear weapons. These are not the actions of a man who was anti west much less distrusted them. The chronology of events certainly does not bear out such a hypothesis as the tilt by the Anglo/US alliance predates the so called tilt by Nehru towards the FSU. No, there was more to it than that.
The real answer, as far as I can discern, goes back to the aftermath of the 1857 uprising. I have attempted to answer this question after doing some extensive research (jointly with acharya). The analysis is summarized in a presentation we recently made at a joint meeting of BR and IF, titled the South Asia File . see for instance my post dated Nov 24 2005, 08:06 AM in the India US thread
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...opic=1090&st=30
The details including an extensive list of additional materials to read are available in a forthcoming book by me which can be read online here
The reason i went into the lengthy explanation was your self confessed assertion that you were being sarcastic. Well it is time to educate oneself on the subterannean strands in Indian history and if i were you, i would abandon sarcasm as a weapon of choice. It impresses neither friend nor foe