03-24-2005, 01:45 AM
Source: The people of India
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SEEDS OF CONFLICT
IN THE fifteenth century, trade between Asia and Europe was carried on by way of Italy. Venice was the connecting link, and the Venetians imposed heavy tolls and tariffs. It was obvious to European traders that greater profit could be made if a direct route to the Indies were found.
Many expeditions were sent out to discover a new route. Finally, Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498 dropped anchor at the port of Calicut in India. The stranglehold on merchant shipping by the Venetians was broken.
Vasco de Gama's first voyage to India reaped a profit of 6,000 per cent! There was a mad scramble for trade with India and the Indies. The Portuguese were soon followed by the Dutch, the English and the French. They established small settlements on the west and east coasts of India, and built warehouses for their merchandise.
Aside from the fact that these countries in Europe were at that time in constant warfare among themselves, the very competition for trade was itself a fertile ground for conflict. Money could be made selling Indian commodities in Europe, but even more money could be made if any of the trading companies had a monopoly of certain commodities. In consequence, there was a bitter struggle among the various European trading companies for the exclusive control of merchandise and its
source. It became necessary to fortify the Indian trading posts, and carry well-trained mercenary soldiers to protect ships from piracy. There was very little distinction made, in fact, between piracy and trade. Piratical expeditions were carried on along business lines; Queen Elizabeth, for example, herself held shares in one of Drake's expeditions which brought a profit of 4,700 per cent, and the Good Queen made $1,250,000!
By the end of the seventeenth century, Portugal's star had waned, and the British, Dutch and French dominated the Far Eastern scene. The Dutch gradually confined themselves to the Malaya Archipelago, while the British and French fought it out on the plains of India. The British had trading posts in Calcutta and Madras on the east coast and Bombay and Surat in the west; the French were settled in Chundernagore and Pondicherry in the cast.
1
The East India Company's first trading post in India was established in 1612, at the west coast port of Surat, by permission of Akbar's son, Jehangir. In less than fifty years the number of these posts had increased to nineteen. The Company was originally formed to traffic in luxuries of the rich: spices, precious gems, bezoar stones (antidote to poison), silks, camphor, indigo and sulphur. But from their depots in Bengal they soon began to trade in commodities of general consumption--saltpetre, muslins and textiles.
This latter trade brought about a profound change in the method of production and exchange in Bengal. Especially was this true with regard to textile manufacture. In addition to this, when many weavers in southern and western India perished in the famine of 1630, Bengal, which escaped the famine, gained almost a monopoly in the textile market. Bengal merchants found it impossible to collect the output of individual cottage weavers quickly enough to meet the rapid increase in the demand for cloth--both for internal and external trade.
 To expedite manufacturing processes, they established places where large numbers of these weavers worked under one roof, supplied them with raw material and appropriated the finished product for purposes of trade. In many instances as many as a hundred weavers worked under one roof for individual industrialists.
It was not long before the British were encroaching on the lucrative internal trade, as well. The East India Company commenced trading in towns along the coast, bringing the merchandise in their ships from Bengal to the famine-stricken provinces. The famine had enormously boosted the price of foodstuffs such as rice, clarified butter and sugar; individual members of the company succumbed to the temptation of cornering these commodities to sell at huge profit, thereby setting a precedent which was to have tragic consequences for the Indians later on.
By the eighteenth century the economic structure of some parts of India--especially Bengal--corresponded to that stage which preceded the industrial era in Europe. Although the vast majority of the population still lived in villages, expanding internal and external trade had caused large numbers of craftsmen to migrate in the wake of the new prosperity to towns and cities. This made the peasantry dependent upon traders for the goods with which these craftsmen formerly supplied them.
Demand for Indian goods in Europe had increased considerably. The English were in the forefront of this trade. England at that time produced nothing but woolen goods for sale or exchange abroad. Since the Indians had little use for woolen goods--and produced what little they needed--English traders had to pay Indian manufacturers in precious metal. This brought to India an influx of capital in the form of silver. Money, which to some extent had been used for exchange in the cities since the time of Mohenjo-Daro at least, began to circulate in wider areas. The circulation of money also helped develop internal trade. Whereas in former times the artisans
produced goods to be exchanged for other useful goods, now they sold their products for money, with which they could buy other goods.
Emperors; too, became money conscious, and began to levy taxes on villages in terms of money rather than a portion of the produce. With the constant flow of commodities from one part of the country to another, the state treasuries were also swelled by considerably increased tolls on merchants.
The change in the economy brought great prosperity to many cities of India. In 1757 Clive found the city of Mursbidabad, in Bengal, "as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London, with this difference, that there were individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater property than in the last city." The city of Dacca had a population of 200,000 and was a large manufacturing center. The value of its muslin alone amounted to $1,500,000 a year.
None of this prosperity, however, percolated to the villagers of India. On the contrary, they were squeezed even harder than before. By the eighteenth century, in parts of Bengal, the revised form of taxation (money instead of produce) was slowly giving rise to private ownership of property and the state was beginning to assume the power to evict farmers from their land for non-payment of taxes and to sell the land to whoever was willing or able to pay the tax.
2
At the apex of the political structure was the Moghul emperor, living in his capital at Agra in the heart of India. But the Moghul empire was not a centralized state. Under the emperor were various grades of subordinates, whose ties with him were purely fiscal.
In the north and parts of the south, there were princes who had acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor and paid him an annual tribute. But within their own domains their power was absolute. In other parts of India, such as Bengal, gover-
nors appointed by the emperor looked after the interests of the State, which consisted primarily of the collection of revenue.
There were signs of the collapse of feudalism in India long before it actually happened. Outwardly, in the reign of Akbar's grandson, Shah Jehan ( 1628-1658), the Moghul empire shone at its glittering best. The famous, jewel-studded Peacock Throne was built for Shah Jehan, and the Taj Mahal was erected over the tomb of the emperor's favorite wife, Mumtaj Mahal.
But Shah Jehan did nothing to relieve the suffering of the people during the famine of 1630. This left a legacy of bitterness which was to pay dividends later. The emperor was also intolerant of non-Moslems, and vindictive in his punishment of those who were guilty of displeasing him. Intrigue was rife beneath the brilliant surface of the imperial court. Even before Shah Jehan's death there was a mad scramble for the throne. His third son, Aurangzeb, emerged victorious.
Aurangzeb put his father in prison and proclaimed himself emperor in 1659. He was an austere puritan and a bigoted Moslem. During his reign the policy of amalgamation successfully inaugurated by his great-grandfather, Akbar, was completely reversed. Aurangzeb destroyed Hindu temples, antagonized the Hindu princes, and created general resentment against his government by the imposition of the poll tax-jizya--on non-Moslems.
Enemies sprang up on all sides. The Hindus complained to him that the poll tax "is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign from good policy, as it must impoverish the country; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the laws of India."
"During your Majesty's reign," the complaint continued, "many have been alienated from the empire and further loss of territory must follow, since devastation and rapine now universally prevail without restraint. Your subjects are
trampled underfoot, and every province of your empire is impoverished, depopulation spreads, and difficulties accumulate." But the complaint fell on deaf ears.
Moslems did not escape oppression, either. They suffered from economic exploitation as much as the Hindus, and many of them were persecuted for what the puritanical Aurangzeb considered their laxity of faith.
Thus, during Aurangzeb's reign there were forces pulling at the fabric of Indian society from many directions. Canals, wells and reservoirs were falling into disrepair, adding to the suffering of the peasants. Princes who acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor, and high officials of the empire, sensed the ferment and looked for opportunities to become independent rulers. In Bengal the Indian merchants and bankers were straining at the leash of feudalistic obstacles hampering their trading activities. And the English and French merchants, with their mercenary armies, were cautiously inching into the scene.
The dream of territorial as well as commercial conquest was not absent from the plans of the various European trading companies. As Sir Alfred Lyall said: "The great companies of the seventeenth century were the champions and delegated agents of their respective nations in the competition for commerce and territory throughout the whole non-Christian world." 8 Already in the seventeenth century the English East India Company had feinted a couple of times to open up the road to conquest. They supported the opponents of a rising Indian chief named Sivaji in one encounter, and he sacked their settlement of Surat. In 1686 they recklessly declared war against Aurangzeb and sent ten armed vessels to conquer Bengal. It ended in disastrous defeat and ruined their stations in Bengal. Eventually, in 1690, when Aurangzeb's cup of trouble was filling to the brim, he consented to peace with the Company on condition that the English "behave themselves for the future" and pay an indemnity of $85,000.
But the Company did not abandon the dream of conquest; the dream only receded to the background, where it lingered to motivate the Company's future actions. In his despatch of September 25, 1687, Sir Josiah Child of the Company sized up the course of events as "forming us into the condition of a sovereign state in India," and advised the Company to lay "the foundations of a large and well-grounded sure English Dominion in India for all time to come."
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SEEDS OF CONFLICT
IN THE fifteenth century, trade between Asia and Europe was carried on by way of Italy. Venice was the connecting link, and the Venetians imposed heavy tolls and tariffs. It was obvious to European traders that greater profit could be made if a direct route to the Indies were found.
Many expeditions were sent out to discover a new route. Finally, Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498 dropped anchor at the port of Calicut in India. The stranglehold on merchant shipping by the Venetians was broken.
Vasco de Gama's first voyage to India reaped a profit of 6,000 per cent! There was a mad scramble for trade with India and the Indies. The Portuguese were soon followed by the Dutch, the English and the French. They established small settlements on the west and east coasts of India, and built warehouses for their merchandise.
Aside from the fact that these countries in Europe were at that time in constant warfare among themselves, the very competition for trade was itself a fertile ground for conflict. Money could be made selling Indian commodities in Europe, but even more money could be made if any of the trading companies had a monopoly of certain commodities. In consequence, there was a bitter struggle among the various European trading companies for the exclusive control of merchandise and its
source. It became necessary to fortify the Indian trading posts, and carry well-trained mercenary soldiers to protect ships from piracy. There was very little distinction made, in fact, between piracy and trade. Piratical expeditions were carried on along business lines; Queen Elizabeth, for example, herself held shares in one of Drake's expeditions which brought a profit of 4,700 per cent, and the Good Queen made $1,250,000!
By the end of the seventeenth century, Portugal's star had waned, and the British, Dutch and French dominated the Far Eastern scene. The Dutch gradually confined themselves to the Malaya Archipelago, while the British and French fought it out on the plains of India. The British had trading posts in Calcutta and Madras on the east coast and Bombay and Surat in the west; the French were settled in Chundernagore and Pondicherry in the cast.
1
The East India Company's first trading post in India was established in 1612, at the west coast port of Surat, by permission of Akbar's son, Jehangir. In less than fifty years the number of these posts had increased to nineteen. The Company was originally formed to traffic in luxuries of the rich: spices, precious gems, bezoar stones (antidote to poison), silks, camphor, indigo and sulphur. But from their depots in Bengal they soon began to trade in commodities of general consumption--saltpetre, muslins and textiles.
This latter trade brought about a profound change in the method of production and exchange in Bengal. Especially was this true with regard to textile manufacture. In addition to this, when many weavers in southern and western India perished in the famine of 1630, Bengal, which escaped the famine, gained almost a monopoly in the textile market. Bengal merchants found it impossible to collect the output of individual cottage weavers quickly enough to meet the rapid increase in the demand for cloth--both for internal and external trade.
 To expedite manufacturing processes, they established places where large numbers of these weavers worked under one roof, supplied them with raw material and appropriated the finished product for purposes of trade. In many instances as many as a hundred weavers worked under one roof for individual industrialists.
It was not long before the British were encroaching on the lucrative internal trade, as well. The East India Company commenced trading in towns along the coast, bringing the merchandise in their ships from Bengal to the famine-stricken provinces. The famine had enormously boosted the price of foodstuffs such as rice, clarified butter and sugar; individual members of the company succumbed to the temptation of cornering these commodities to sell at huge profit, thereby setting a precedent which was to have tragic consequences for the Indians later on.
By the eighteenth century the economic structure of some parts of India--especially Bengal--corresponded to that stage which preceded the industrial era in Europe. Although the vast majority of the population still lived in villages, expanding internal and external trade had caused large numbers of craftsmen to migrate in the wake of the new prosperity to towns and cities. This made the peasantry dependent upon traders for the goods with which these craftsmen formerly supplied them.
Demand for Indian goods in Europe had increased considerably. The English were in the forefront of this trade. England at that time produced nothing but woolen goods for sale or exchange abroad. Since the Indians had little use for woolen goods--and produced what little they needed--English traders had to pay Indian manufacturers in precious metal. This brought to India an influx of capital in the form of silver. Money, which to some extent had been used for exchange in the cities since the time of Mohenjo-Daro at least, began to circulate in wider areas. The circulation of money also helped develop internal trade. Whereas in former times the artisans
produced goods to be exchanged for other useful goods, now they sold their products for money, with which they could buy other goods.
Emperors; too, became money conscious, and began to levy taxes on villages in terms of money rather than a portion of the produce. With the constant flow of commodities from one part of the country to another, the state treasuries were also swelled by considerably increased tolls on merchants.
The change in the economy brought great prosperity to many cities of India. In 1757 Clive found the city of Mursbidabad, in Bengal, "as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London, with this difference, that there were individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater property than in the last city." The city of Dacca had a population of 200,000 and was a large manufacturing center. The value of its muslin alone amounted to $1,500,000 a year.
None of this prosperity, however, percolated to the villagers of India. On the contrary, they were squeezed even harder than before. By the eighteenth century, in parts of Bengal, the revised form of taxation (money instead of produce) was slowly giving rise to private ownership of property and the state was beginning to assume the power to evict farmers from their land for non-payment of taxes and to sell the land to whoever was willing or able to pay the tax.
2
At the apex of the political structure was the Moghul emperor, living in his capital at Agra in the heart of India. But the Moghul empire was not a centralized state. Under the emperor were various grades of subordinates, whose ties with him were purely fiscal.
In the north and parts of the south, there were princes who had acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor and paid him an annual tribute. But within their own domains their power was absolute. In other parts of India, such as Bengal, gover-
nors appointed by the emperor looked after the interests of the State, which consisted primarily of the collection of revenue.
There were signs of the collapse of feudalism in India long before it actually happened. Outwardly, in the reign of Akbar's grandson, Shah Jehan ( 1628-1658), the Moghul empire shone at its glittering best. The famous, jewel-studded Peacock Throne was built for Shah Jehan, and the Taj Mahal was erected over the tomb of the emperor's favorite wife, Mumtaj Mahal.
But Shah Jehan did nothing to relieve the suffering of the people during the famine of 1630. This left a legacy of bitterness which was to pay dividends later. The emperor was also intolerant of non-Moslems, and vindictive in his punishment of those who were guilty of displeasing him. Intrigue was rife beneath the brilliant surface of the imperial court. Even before Shah Jehan's death there was a mad scramble for the throne. His third son, Aurangzeb, emerged victorious.
Aurangzeb put his father in prison and proclaimed himself emperor in 1659. He was an austere puritan and a bigoted Moslem. During his reign the policy of amalgamation successfully inaugurated by his great-grandfather, Akbar, was completely reversed. Aurangzeb destroyed Hindu temples, antagonized the Hindu princes, and created general resentment against his government by the imposition of the poll tax-jizya--on non-Moslems.
Enemies sprang up on all sides. The Hindus complained to him that the poll tax "is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign from good policy, as it must impoverish the country; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the laws of India."
"During your Majesty's reign," the complaint continued, "many have been alienated from the empire and further loss of territory must follow, since devastation and rapine now universally prevail without restraint. Your subjects are
trampled underfoot, and every province of your empire is impoverished, depopulation spreads, and difficulties accumulate." But the complaint fell on deaf ears.
Moslems did not escape oppression, either. They suffered from economic exploitation as much as the Hindus, and many of them were persecuted for what the puritanical Aurangzeb considered their laxity of faith.
Thus, during Aurangzeb's reign there were forces pulling at the fabric of Indian society from many directions. Canals, wells and reservoirs were falling into disrepair, adding to the suffering of the peasants. Princes who acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor, and high officials of the empire, sensed the ferment and looked for opportunities to become independent rulers. In Bengal the Indian merchants and bankers were straining at the leash of feudalistic obstacles hampering their trading activities. And the English and French merchants, with their mercenary armies, were cautiously inching into the scene.
The dream of territorial as well as commercial conquest was not absent from the plans of the various European trading companies. As Sir Alfred Lyall said: "The great companies of the seventeenth century were the champions and delegated agents of their respective nations in the competition for commerce and territory throughout the whole non-Christian world." 8 Already in the seventeenth century the English East India Company had feinted a couple of times to open up the road to conquest. They supported the opponents of a rising Indian chief named Sivaji in one encounter, and he sacked their settlement of Surat. In 1686 they recklessly declared war against Aurangzeb and sent ten armed vessels to conquer Bengal. It ended in disastrous defeat and ruined their stations in Bengal. Eventually, in 1690, when Aurangzeb's cup of trouble was filling to the brim, he consented to peace with the Company on condition that the English "behave themselves for the future" and pay an indemnity of $85,000.
But the Company did not abandon the dream of conquest; the dream only receded to the background, where it lingered to motivate the Company's future actions. In his despatch of September 25, 1687, Sir Josiah Child of the Company sized up the course of events as "forming us into the condition of a sovereign state in India," and advised the Company to lay "the foundations of a large and well-grounded sure English Dominion in India for all time to come."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->