03-24-2007, 09:46 AM
"The various rulers joined them against the British for their own reasons. You may all accuse me of scenario building but even if we had won, you think we would have won permanently. You think after what the British had enjoyed in India for close to 100 years, they would have let go off so lightly. Maybe they would have lost out in 1857 and 58, but would have come back again. After winning Delhi the sepoys had pretty sufficient time before the British could gather themselves and put Delhi to seige again. Was there anything happening in interim to suggest that we would put off the British permanently. "
c
The brits had said on more than one occasion that had Scindia joined the Uprising, they would not have been able to hold India. You must remember that the brits at that time were very small in number. I would be surprised if the grand total of all the brits in India in 1857 exceeded more than 20,000 possibly 40,000 . If you just do the arithmetic you will see that there were not many Brits in india at any time. It was also a matter of economics. The East India company would not have been able to make a profit had they hired more than a certain number of englishman
Not only were they small in number but at any given location there were only a few Brits. If every Indian had decided that they did not want the Brits in india they had a smaller chance of holding on to India than .
The truth is in fact very sad. it is we indians who helped the Brits stay in india. Of course we can put the blame on the Scindias and Ranjit Singh. Unpalatable though it may seem, while we may not be able to say that the English stayed with the consent of the governed, they had the support of enough Indian (rulers and soldiers)to make them feel confident that they could hold on.
It would have been a relatively easy matter to finish off all the british officers in one fell swoop in the early hours of any morning, if sufficiently well organized.. After all the soldiers knew where the officers lived .
One should call a spade a spade and Sir penderel Moon was absolutely right when we wrote in his book that
Sir Penderel Moon6
â The British conquered the country with the assistance and connivance of Indians themselves, and then ruled it for over a century with their collaboration and tacit consent. The empire was from start to finish far more of a joint Anglo-Indian enterprise than either party has usually been inclined to admit. As early as 1795 one of the companyâs servants, Sir John Shore, wrote âOur dominion of India has been established and is maintained by the natives themselvesâ
It was not to be . Because enough numbers of Indians wanted them to stay
But nothing is for ever and the brits were aware that sooner or later the Indians would realize they could drive them out on any given day if they so wished
, so they went about assuring their stay in an entirely different way which is
what we describe in the South Asia File
As for calling it the 1st war of independence, the same reasoning applies. sufficient numbers of indians did not wish the Brits to leave. After the initial antagonism carried over from europe, the Brits cottoned on to the Muslims and the Muslims reciprocated by supporting the Brits , and their share in the armed forces exceeded 30%. Many Hindus breathed a sigh of relief that there was a semblance of law and order in the subcontinent after continuous warring for 600 years. Upto 1857 there was not much distinction between the behavior of the lower castes and the higher castes (in fact the present caste system has evoved after the first census of 1871 organized by the Brits)and the recruitment into the army was based on mythical martial race theories of the British which generally favored the higher castes. The impoverishment of India was proceeding at an alarming rate and the army provided a means of sustenance for the people who were increasingly dispossessed of their land. The vast majority of the people had no opinion one way or the other about the righteusness of the Great Uprising of 1857, and were busy scratching a living. IT WAS UNDOUBTEDLY AN UPRISINGOF A MAGNITUDE TO MAKE THE BRITS VERY ALARMED coupled with the loss of life of British officers and the ultimate impact was that they would never again trust the Hindu, an attitude which persists to this day when the Anglo American Alliance deals with india over a broad range of issues.
c
The brits had said on more than one occasion that had Scindia joined the Uprising, they would not have been able to hold India. You must remember that the brits at that time were very small in number. I would be surprised if the grand total of all the brits in India in 1857 exceeded more than 20,000 possibly 40,000 . If you just do the arithmetic you will see that there were not many Brits in india at any time. It was also a matter of economics. The East India company would not have been able to make a profit had they hired more than a certain number of englishman
Not only were they small in number but at any given location there were only a few Brits. If every Indian had decided that they did not want the Brits in india they had a smaller chance of holding on to India than .
The truth is in fact very sad. it is we indians who helped the Brits stay in india. Of course we can put the blame on the Scindias and Ranjit Singh. Unpalatable though it may seem, while we may not be able to say that the English stayed with the consent of the governed, they had the support of enough Indian (rulers and soldiers)to make them feel confident that they could hold on.
It would have been a relatively easy matter to finish off all the british officers in one fell swoop in the early hours of any morning, if sufficiently well organized.. After all the soldiers knew where the officers lived .
One should call a spade a spade and Sir penderel Moon was absolutely right when we wrote in his book that
Sir Penderel Moon6
â The British conquered the country with the assistance and connivance of Indians themselves, and then ruled it for over a century with their collaboration and tacit consent. The empire was from start to finish far more of a joint Anglo-Indian enterprise than either party has usually been inclined to admit. As early as 1795 one of the companyâs servants, Sir John Shore, wrote âOur dominion of India has been established and is maintained by the natives themselvesâ
It was not to be . Because enough numbers of Indians wanted them to stay
But nothing is for ever and the brits were aware that sooner or later the Indians would realize they could drive them out on any given day if they so wished
, so they went about assuring their stay in an entirely different way which is
what we describe in the South Asia File
As for calling it the 1st war of independence, the same reasoning applies. sufficient numbers of indians did not wish the Brits to leave. After the initial antagonism carried over from europe, the Brits cottoned on to the Muslims and the Muslims reciprocated by supporting the Brits , and their share in the armed forces exceeded 30%. Many Hindus breathed a sigh of relief that there was a semblance of law and order in the subcontinent after continuous warring for 600 years. Upto 1857 there was not much distinction between the behavior of the lower castes and the higher castes (in fact the present caste system has evoved after the first census of 1871 organized by the Brits)and the recruitment into the army was based on mythical martial race theories of the British which generally favored the higher castes. The impoverishment of India was proceeding at an alarming rate and the army provided a means of sustenance for the people who were increasingly dispossessed of their land. The vast majority of the people had no opinion one way or the other about the righteusness of the Great Uprising of 1857, and were busy scratching a living. IT WAS UNDOUBTEDLY AN UPRISINGOF A MAGNITUDE TO MAKE THE BRITS VERY ALARMED coupled with the loss of life of British officers and the ultimate impact was that they would never again trust the Hindu, an attitude which persists to this day when the Anglo American Alliance deals with india over a broad range of issues.