http://www.colonialvoyage.com/population.html
<b>POPULATION OF THE PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA</b>
Written by Marco Ramerini
Portuguese Flag
Diu: (20°43'N - 71°00'E)
Damao Grande or Praça de Damao (Damao, Moti Daman or Daman): (20°25'N - 72°50'E)
1634: 400 "almas entre Portugueses e nativos cristaos"
1662: 100 "casais Portugueses"
Leao "A Provincia do Norte do Estado da India"
Bassein or Baçaim (Vasai): (19°20'N - 72°49'E)
1634: 400 "casados brancos", 200 "pretos cristaos" and 1.800 slaves in the town, "fora dos muros" there were 250/300 "casados brancos" and 2.000 "nativos".
1662: 5.000 "homens de armas"
1720: the Province of Baçaim numbered 890 "europeus", 58.131 "cristaos"
Leao "A Provincia do Norte do Estado da India"
Tanà :
1634: 80 "casas de brancos" and 100 "casas de pretos"
Leao "A Provincia do Norte do Estado da India"
Bombaim:
1634: 12 "casados Portugueses" and 50 "pretos"
Leao "A Provincia do Norte do Estado da India"
Chaul:
1634: 200 "casados Portugueses" and 50 "prestos cristao",
Leao "A Provincia do Norte do Estado da India"
1666: 21 "chefes da familia Portugues",
Boxer "O Imperio colonial Portugues 1415-1825"
Goa:
1550: 2.000 "casados", 1630: 800 "casados"
cent. 16th - 17th between 1.000/2.000 and 4.000/5.000 "soldados"
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
1871: 2.500 "descendentes" or "mestiços", 1956: 1.100 "descendentes" or "mestiços"
Boxer "Relaçoes raciais no Imperio colonial Portugues"
1666: 320 "chefes da familia Portugues", 1866: 2.240 "descendentes" or "mestiços",
Boxer "O Imperio colonial Portugues 1415-1825"
Onor (Honawar): (14°17'N - 74°26'E)
1634: 30 "casados",
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Barcelor or Braçalor (Basrur): (13°38'N - 74°44'E)
1634: 30 "casados" and 35 "soldados casados"
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Mangalore (Mangalor): (12°54'N - 74°50'E)
1634: 35 "casados",
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Cannanore: (11°51'N - 75°22'E)
1630s.: 40 "casados",
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Cranganore (Kodungallor): (10°13'N - 76°13'E)
1630s.: 40 "casados" and 100 "soldados"
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Cochin, Cochin de Baixo or Santa Cruz : (09°57'N - 76°15'E)
1630s.: 500 "casados" (of whom 300 Portuguese and 200 Indians Christians),
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Coulao (Quilon): (08°53'N - 76°35'E)
1630s.: 60 "casados",
Disney "Twilight of the pepper Empire"
Tuticorin or Tutucorim: (08°48'N - 78°09'E)
1640: pequena povoaçao de "casados"
Subrahmanyam "Improvising Empire - Portuguese trade and settlements in the Bay of Bengal 1500 - 1700" or ""Comercio e conflito - A presença Portuguesa no Golfo de Bengala 1500 - 1700"
Nagapatao or Negapatao (Negapatam or Nagapattinam): (10°47'N - 79°50'E)
1533: 30 "fogos", 1540: 100 "fogos", 1630: 500 "fogos"
Subrahmanyam "Improvising Empire - Portuguese trade and settlements in the Bay of Bengal 1500 - 1700" or ""Comercio e conflito - A presença Portuguesa no Golfo de Bengala 1500 - 1700"
1577: 60 "casados", 200 "eurasiaticos", 3000 Indians Christians
Diffie-Winius "Foundation of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580"
Porto Novo (Parangi-Pettai): (11°29'N - 79°46'E)
Sao Tomé de Meliapor: (13°00'N - 80°15'E)
1530: 40 "casados", 1545: 100 "familias", 1600: 600 "casados", from 1610s. in decline.
Subrahmanyam "Improvising Empire - Portuguese trade and settlements in the Bay of Bengal 1500 - 1700" or ""Comercio e conflito - A presença Portuguesa no Golfo de Bengala 1500 - 1700"
1537: 50 "casados",
Diffie-Winius "Foundation of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580"
Paliacate or Paleacate (Pulicat): (13°24'N - 80°19'E)
1520: 200 - 300 "habitantes", 1545: 600-700 "familias", from 1565 in decline.
Subrahmanyam "Improvising Empire - Portuguese trade and settlements in the Bay of Bengal 1500 - 1700" or ""Comercio e conflito - A presença Portuguesa no Golfo de Bengala 1500 - 1700"
Masulipatam or Masulipatao: (16°11'N - 81°08'E)
Balasore or Balasor: (21°29'N - 86°57'E)
Pipli: circa (21°37'N - 87°20'E)
Tambolim (Tamluk or Tumlook): (22°18'N - 87°55'E)
Angelim (Hidgelee or Hijili): circa (22°14'N - 88°03'E)
Porto Pequeno, Sategão, Satigão, Sateguam or Satigam (Satgaon): (22°57'N - 88°24'E)
Ugolim, Golim or Dogolim (Hugli or Hooghly): (22°54'N - 88°24'E)
1603: 5.000 "portugues",
Diffie-Winius "Foundation of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580"
Fogos and Familias: Families.
Casados: Portuguese soldiers retired after marriage.
Descendentes: Euro - Asiatic or Mestizo (Mestiços) also Luso - Indians.
Pretos: Blacks (in this case Indians or African slaves brought to India and liberated after serving in the military forces with valour).
At that time every family was composed of about 5-6 persons. So the number of Casados, Familias, Fogos must be multiplied X 5 or 6.
DUTCH PORTUGUESE COLONIAL HISTORY
Historia Colonial de Portugal e Holanda
Portugese en Nederlandse Koloniale Geschiedenis
With information also about other colonial powers
http://www.colonialvoyage.com/biblioDAsia.html
x post from jeebus missionary thread:
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Jan 29 2008, 05:44 PM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Jan 29 2008, 05:44 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> http://www.icassecretariat.org/index.php?q=node/419
Sarah Claerhout
Paper Title      : The Colonial Project in India: Creating the Conditions of Conversion
Abstract        :
Except for a brief period between 1813 and 1857, colonial authorities in India generally opposed missionary activity. In 1858, the Queen ordered her representatives in India to "abstain from all interference with the religious belief, or worship, of any of our subjects on pain of our severest displeasure." Many lamented the paradox of a Christian nation supporting idolatry. Indeed, a peculiar situation emerged: genuine Protestants who were convinced that theirs was the true religion and that all should convert to God's Will nevertheless opposed evangelization.
Moreover, the very same groups engaged in a civilizing mission which aimed to make India into the mirror image of the Christian West. Given this aim, why not simply evangelize India? How to make sense of this stance? 2.<b> My paper will present this hypothesis: the educational project of the British sought gradually to create the conditions for conversion to the true religion. They desired a patient and silent transformation of Indian society: (a) the natives would become aware that their âidolatrous' traditions could not possibly represent God's Will and (b) they would recognize the call of the Holy Spirit.</b>
intensifies the problem: How could these colonials be against active conversion in order to promote the conversion of Hindus will argue that we have to examine the internal Christian process of conversion to make sense of this puzzle. âConversio' is originally an internal theological process which transforms the believer into a real member of the Christian community. It is a process with specific characteristics: it can never be fully realized in this human life; it is the only route to real happiness and towards becoming a moral human being; only God can complete the conversion of a human soul; etc.
This Christian process underwent an important shift during the Reformation period: from a process restricted to the clergy it became the norm for all human beings. So, gradually, the internal theological process assumed another form-more accessible-as it became the standard for all humans. In this form, it became central to the western cultural experience. 3. Finally, my paper will show how the nature of this process of conversion can help us explain the educational project of British colonialism in India.
The British Protestants saw conversion as the work of God, in which human beings can maximally guide unbelievers to the stage where they are able to respond to God's call. <span style='color:red'>This, I will argue, expresses the dynamic through which the Christian religion spreads itself: it cannot do so through evangelization alone, because its message is unintelligible to non-Christians.</span> Therefore, a dynamic of secularization emerges in which this religion gradually transforms a society by dispersing secularized Christian frameworks and thus creating a fertile soil for conversion. The colonial project in India embodied this dynamic.-
<b>Iskon may be one of this project</b>
[right][snapback]77786[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pakistan's uncle<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As Pakistan stands on the brink of civil war, the National Post presents excerpts from a new book that traces the country's earliest roots. In today's excerpt: how Churchill helped India's Muslims create their own nation<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pakistan's father
Mountbatten's Gamble
Jinnah's last days
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/08oct/nationmo.htm
O C T O B E R 1 9 0 8
The New Nationalist Movement in India
by Jabez T. Sunderland
THE Nationalist Movement in India may well interest Americans. Lovers of progress and humanity cannot become acquainted with it without discovering that it has large significance, not only to India and Great Britain, but to the world. That the movement is attracting much attention in England (as well as awakening some anxiety there, because of England's connection with India) is well known to all who read the British periodical press, or follow the debates of Parliament, or note the public utterances from time to time of Mr. John Morley (now Lord Morley), the British Secretary of State for India.
What is this new Indian movement? What has brought it into existence? What is its justification, if it has a justification? What does it portend as to the future of India, and the future relations between India and Great Britain?
In order to find answers to these questions we must first of all get clearly in mind the fact that India is a subject land. She is a dependency of Great Britain, not a colony. Britain has both colonies and dependencies. Many persons suppose them to be identical; but they are not. Britain's free colonies, like Canada and Australia, though nominally governed by the mother country, are really self-ruling in everything except their relations to foreign powers. Not so with dependencies like India. These are granted no self-government, no representation; they are ruled absolutely by Great Britain, which is not their "mother" country, but their conqueror and master.
Discuss this article in the Global Views forum of Post & Riposte.
Return to Flashback: Indian Passages
As the result of a pretty wide acquaintance in England, and a residence of some years in Canada, I am disposed to believe that nowhere in the world can be found governments that are more free, that better embody the intelligent will of their people, or that better serve their people's many-sided interests and wants, than those of the self-ruling colonies of Great Britain. I do not see but that these colonies are in every essential way as free as if they were full republics. Probably they are not any more free than the people of the United States, but it is no exaggeration to say that they are as free. Their connection with England, their mother country, is not one of coercion; it is one of choice; it is one of reverence and affection. That the British Government insures such liberty in its colonies, is a matter for congratulation and honorable pride. In this respect it stands on a moral elevation certainly equal to that of any government in the world.
Turn now from Britain's colonies to her dependencies. Here we find something for which there does not seem to be a natural place among British political institutions. Britons call their flag the flag of freedom. They speak of the British Constitution, largely unwritten though it is, as a constitution which guarantees freedom to every British subject in the world. Magna Charta meant self-government for the English people. Cromwell wrote on the statute books of the English Parliament, "All just powers under God are derived from the consent of the people." Since Cromwell's day this principle has been fundamental, central, undisputed, in British home politics. It took a little longer to get it recognized in colonial matters. The American Colonies in 1776 took their stand upon it. "Just government must be based on the consent of the governed." "There should be no taxation without representation." These were their affirmations. Burke and Pitt and Fox and the broaderminded leaders of public opinion in England were in sympathy with their American brethren. If Britain had been true to her principle of freedom and self-rule she would have kept her American colonies. But she was not true to it, and so she lost them. Later she came very near losing Canada in the same way. But her eyes were opened in time, and she gave Canada freedom and self-government. This prevented revolt, and fastened Canada to her with hooks of steel. Since this experience with Canada it has been a settled principle in connection with British colonial as well as home politics, that there is no just power except that which is based upon the consent of the governed.
But what are we to do with this principle when we come to dependencies? Is another and different principle to be adopted here? Are there peoples whom it is just to rule without their consent? Is justice one thing in England and Canada,and another in India? It was the belief that what is justice in England and Canada is justice everywhere that made Froude declare, "Free nations cannot govern subject provinces."
Why is England in India at all? Why did she go there at first, and why does she remain? If India had been a comparatively empty land, as America was when it was discovered, so that Englishmen had wanted to settle there and make homes, the reason would have been plain. But it was a full land; and, as a fact, no British emigrants have ever gone to India to settle and make homes. If the Indian people had been savages or barbarians, there might have seemed more reason for England's conquering and ruling them. But they were peoples with highly organized governments far older than that of Great Britain, and with a civilization that had risen to a splendid height before England's was born. Said Lord Curzon, the late Viceroy of India, in an address delivered at the great Delhi Durbar in 1901: "Powerful Empires existed and flourished here [in India] while Englishmen were still wandering painted in the woods, and while the British Colonies were a wilderness and a jungle. India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion of mankind, than any other terrestrial unit in the universe." It is such a land that England has conquered and is holding as a dependency. It is such a people that she is ruling without giving them any voice whatever in the shaping of their own destiny. The honored Canadian Premier, Sir Wilfred Laurier, at the Colonial Conference held in London in connection with the coronation of King Edward, declared, "The Empire of Rome was composed of slave states; the British Empire is a galaxy of free nations." But is India a free nation? At that London Colonial Conference which was called together for consultation about the interests of the entire Empire, was any representative invited to be present from India ? Not one. Yet Lord Curzon declared in his Durbar address in Delhi, that the "principal condition of the strength of the British throne is the possession of the Indian Empire, and the faithful attachment and service of the Indian people." British statesmen never tire of boasting of "our Indian Empire," and of speaking of India as "the brightest jewel in the British crown." Do they reflect that it is virtually a slave empire of which they are so proud; and that this so-called brightest jewel reflects no light of political freedom?
Perhaps there is nothing so dangerous, or so evil in its effects, as irresponsible power. That is what Great Britain exercises in connection with India -- absolute power, with no one to call her to account. I do not think any nation is able to endure such an ordeal better than Britain, but it is an ordeal to which neither rulers of nations nor private men should ever be subjected; the risks are too great. England avoids it in connection with her own rulers by making them strictly responsible to the English people. Canada avoids it in connection with hers by making them responsible to the Canadian people. Every free nation safeguards alike its people and its rulers by making its rulers in everything answerable to those whom they govern. Here is the anomaly of the British rule of India. Britain through her Indian government rules India, but she does not acknowledge responsibility in any degree whatever to the Indian people.
What is the result? Are the interests and the rights of India protected? Is it possible for the rights of any people to be protected without self-rule? I invite my readers to go with me to India and see. What we find will go far toward furnishing us a key to the meaning of the present Indian Nationalist Movement.
Crossing over from this side to London, we sail from there to India in a magnificent steamer. On board is a most interesting company of people, made up of merchants, travelers, and especially Englishmen who are either officials connected with the Indian Government or officers in the Indian army, who have been home on furlough with their families and are now returning. We land in Bombay, a city that reminds us of Paris or London or New York or Washington. Our hotel is conducted in English style. We go to the railway station, one of the most magnificent buildings of the kind in the world, to take the train for Calcutta, the capital, some fifteen hundred miles away. Arrived at Calcutta we hear it called the City of Palaces; nor do we wonder at the name. Who owns the steamship line by which we came to India? The British. Who built that splendid railway station in Bombay? The British. Who built the railway on which we rode to Calcutta? The British.
To whom do these palatial buildings belong? Mostly to the British. We find that Calcutta and Bombay have a large commerce. To whom does it belong? Mainly to the British. We find that the Indian Government, that is, British rule in India, has directly or indirectly built in the land some 29,000 miles of railway; has created good postal and telegraph systems, reaching nearly everywhere; has established or assisted in establishing many schools, colleges, hospitals, and other institutions of public benefit; has promoted sanitation, founded law courts after the English pattern, and done much else to bring India into line with the civilization of Europe. It is not strange if we soon begin to exclaim, "How much are the British doing for India! How great a benefit to the Indian people is British rule!" And in an important degree we are right in what we say. British rule has done much for India, and much for which India itself is profoundly grateful.
But have we seen all? Is there no other side? Have we discovered the deepest and most important that exists? If there are signs of prosperity, is it the prosperity of the Indian people, or only of their English masters? If the English are living in ease and luxury, how are the people of the land living? If there are railways and splendid buildings, who pay for them? and who get profits out of them? Have we been away from the beaten tracks of travel ? Have we been out among the Indian people themselves, in country as well as in city? Nearly nine-tenths of the people are ryots, or small farmers, who derive their sustenance directly from the land. Have we found out how they live? Do we know whether they are growing better off, or poorer? Especially have we looked into the causes of those famines, the most terrible known to the modern world, which have swept like a besom of death over the land year after year, and which drag after them another scourge scarcely less dreadful, the plague, their black shadow, their hideous child? Here is a side of India which we must acquaint ourselves with, as well as the other, if we would understand the real Indian situation.
The great, disturbing, portentous, all-overshadowing fact connected with the history of India in recent years is the succession of famines. What do these famines mean ? Here is a picture from a recent book, written by a distinguished British civilian who has had long service in India and knows the Indian situation from the inside. Since he is an Englishman we may safely count upon his prejudices, if he has any, being not upon the side of the Indian people, but upon that of his own countrymen. Mr. W. S. Lilly, in his India and Its Problems,writes as follows: --
"During the first eighty years of the nineteenth century, 18,000,000 of people perished of famine. In one year alone -- the year when her late Majesty assumed the title of Empress -- 5,000,000 of the people in Southern India were starved to death. In the District of Bellary, with which I am personally acquainted, -- a region twice the size of Wales, -- one-fourth of the population perished in the famine of 1816-77. I shall never forget my own famine experiences: how, as I rode out on horseback, morning after morning, I passed crowds of wandering skeletons, and saw human corpses by the roadside, unburied, uncared for, and half devoured by dogs and vultures; how, sadder sight still, children, 'the joy of the world,' as the old Greeks deemed, had become its ineffable sorrow, and were forsaken by the very women who had borne them, wolfish hunger killing even the maternal instinct. Those children, their bright eyes shining from hollow sockets, their nesh utterly wasted away, and only gristle and sinew and cold shivering skin remaining, their heads mere skulls, their puny frames full of loathsome diseases, engendered by the starvation in which they had been conceived and born and nurtured -- they haunt me still." Every one who has gone much about India in famine times knows how true to life is this picture.
Mr. Lilly estimates the number of deaths in the first eight decades of the last century at 18,000,000. This is nothing less than appalling, -- within a little more than two generations as many persons perishing by starvation in a single country as the whole population of Canada, New England, and the city and state of New York, or nearly half as many as the total population of France! But the most startling aspect of the case appears in the fact that the famines increased in number and severity as the century went on. Suppose we divide the past century into quarters, or periods of twenty-five years each. In the first quarter there were five famines, with an estimated loss of life of 1,000,000. During the second quarter of the century there were two famines, with an estimated mortality of 500,000. During the third quarter there were six famines, with a recorded loss of life of 5,000,000. During the last quarter of the century, what? Eighteen famines, with an estimated mortality reaching the awful totals of from 15,000,000 to 26,000,000. And this does not include the many more millions (over 6,000,000 in a single year) barely kept alive by government doles.
What is the cause of these famines, and this appalling increase in their number and destructiveness? The common answer is, the failure of the rains. But there seems to be no evidence that the rains fail worse now than they did a hundred years ago. Moreover, why should failure of rains bring famine? The rains have never failed over areas so extensive as to prevent the raising of enough food in the land to supply the needs of the entire population. Why then have people starved? Not because there was lack of food. Not because there was lack of food in the famine areas, brought by railways or otherwise within easy reach of all. There has always been plenty of food, even in the worst famine years, for those who have had money to buy it with, and generally food at moderate prices. Why, then, have all these millions of people perished? Because they were so indescribably poor. All candid and thorough investigation into the causes of the famines of India has shown that the chief and fundamental cause has been and is the poverty of the people, -- a poverty so severe and terrible that it keeps the majority of the entire population on the very verge of starvation even in years of greatest plenty, prevents them from laying up anything against times of extremity, and hence leaves them, when their crops fail, absolutely undone -- with nothing between them and death, unless some form of charity comes to their aid. Says Sir Charles Elliott long the Chief Commissioner of Assam, "Half the agricultural population do not know from one halfyear's end to another what it is to have a full meal." Says the Honorable G. K. Gokhale, of the Viceroy's Council,"From 60,000,000 to 70,000,000 of the people of India do not know what it is to have their hunger satisfied even once in a year."
And the people are growing poorer and poorer. The late Mr. William Digby, of London, long an Indian resident, in his recent book entitled "Prosperous" India,shows from official estimates and Parliamentary and Indian Blue Books, that, whereas the average daily income of the people of India in the year 1850 was estimated as four cents per person (a pittance on which one wonders that any human being can live), in 1882 it had fallen to three cents per person, and in 1900 actually to less than two cents per person. Is it any wonder that people reduced to such extremities as this can lay up nothing? Is it any wonder that when the rains do not come, and the crops of a single season fail, they are lost? And where is this to end? If the impoverishment of the people is to go on, what is there before them but growing hardship, multiplying famines, and increasing loss of life?
Here we get a glimpse of the real India. It is not the India which the traveler sees, following the usual routes of travel, stopping at the leading hotels conducted after the manner of London or Paris, and mingling with the English lords of the country. It is not the India which the British "point to with pride," and tell us about in their books of description and their official reports. This is India from the inside, the India of the people, of the men, women, and children, who were born there and die there, who bear the burdens and pay the taxes, and support the costly government carried on by foreigners, and do the starving when the famines come.
What causes this awful and growing impoverishment of the Indian people? Said John Bright, "If a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are there is some fundamental error in the government of that country."
One cause of India's impoverishment is heavy taxation. Taxation in England and Scotland is high, so high that Englishmen and Scotchmen complain bitterly. But the people of India are taxed more than twice as heavily as the people of England and three times as heavily as those of Scotland. According to the latest statistics at hand, those of 1905, the annual average income per person in India is about $6.00, and the annual tax per person about $2.00. Think of taxing the American people to the extent of one-third their total income! Yet such taxation here, unbearable as it would be, would not create a tithe of the suffering that it does in India, because incomes here are so immensely larger than there. Here it would cause great hardship, there it creates starvation.
Notice the single item of salt-taxation. Salt is an absolute necessity to the people, to the very poorest; they must have it or die. But the tax upon it which for many years they have been compelled to pay has been much greater than the cost value of the salt. Under this taxation the quantity of salt consumed has been reduced actually to one-half the quantity declared by medical authorities to be absolutely necessary for health. The mere suggestion in England of a tax on wheat sufficient to raise the price of bread by even a half-penny on the loaf, creates such a protest as to threaten the overthrow of ministries. Lately the salt-tax in India has been reduced, but it still remains well-nigh prohibitive to the poorer classes. With such facts as these before us, we do not wonder at Herbert Spencer's indignant protest against the "grievous salt-monopoly" of the Indian Government, and "the pitiless taxation which wrings from poor ryob nearly half the products of the soil."
Another cause of India's impoverishment is the destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the British first appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. The source of her wealth was largely her splendid manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were famed not only all over Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they are gone, destroyed. Hundreds of villages and towns of India in which they were carried on are now largely or wholly depopulated, and millions of the people who were supported by them have been scattered and driven back on the land, to share the already too scanty living of the poor ryot. What is the explanation? Great Britain wanted India's markets. She could not find entrance for British manufactures so long as India was supplied with manufactures of her own. So those of India must be sacrificed. England had all power in her hands, and so she proceeded to pass tariff and excise laws that ruined the manufactures of India and secured the market for her own goods. India would have protected herself if she had been able, by enacting tariff laws favorable to Indian interests, but she had no power, she was at the mercy of her conqueror.
A third cause of India's impoverishment is the enormous and wholly unnecessary cost of her government. Writers in discussing the financial situation in India have often pointed out the fact that her government is the most expensive in the world. Of course the reason why is plain: it is because it is a government carried on not by the people of the soil, but by men from a distant country. These foreigners, having all power in their own hands, including power to create such offices as they choose and to attach to them such salaries and pensions as they see fit, naturally do not err on the side of making the offices too few or the salaries and pensions too small. Nearly all the higher officials throughout India are British. To be sure, the Civil Service is nominally open to Indians. But it is hedged about with so many restrictions (among others, Indian young men being required to make the journey of seven thousand miles from India to London to take their examinations) that they are able for the most part to secure only the lowest and poorest places. The amount of money which the Indian people are required to pay as salaries to this great army of foreign civil servants and appointed higher officials, and then, later, as pensions for the same, after they have served a given number of years in India, is very large. That in three-fourths if not nine-tenths of the positions quite as good service could be obtained for the government at a fraction of the present cost, by employing educated and competent Indians, who much better understand the wants of the country, is quite true. But that would not serve the purpose of England, who wants these lucrative offices for her sons. Hence poor Indian ryots must sweat and go hungry, and if need be starve, that an ever-growing army of foreign officials may have large salaries and fat pensions. And of course much of the money paid for these salaries, and practically all paid for the pensions, goes permanently out of India.
Another burden upon the people of India which they ought not to be compelled to bear, and which does much to increase their poverty, is the enormously heavy military expenses of the government. I am not complaining of the maintenance of such an army as may be necessary for the defense of the country. But the Indian army is kept at a strength much beyond what the defense of the country requires. India is made a sort of general rendezvous and training camp for the Empire, from which soldiers may at any time be drawn for service in distant lands. If such an imperial training camp and rendezvous is needed, a part at least of the heavy expense of it ought to come out of the Imperial Treasury. But no, India is helpless, she can be compelled to pay it, she is compelled to pay it. Many English statesmen recognize this as wrong, and condemn it; yet it goes right on. Said the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman: "Justice demands that England should pay a portion of the cost of the great Indian army maintained in India for Imperial rather than Indian purposes. This has not yet been done, and famine-stricken India is being bled for the maintenance of England's worldwide empire." But there is still worse than this. Numerous wars and campaigns are carried on outside of India, the expenses of which, wholly or in part, India is compelled to bear. For such foreign wars and campaigns -- campaigns and wars in which the Indian pcople had no concern, and for which they received no benefit, the aim of which was solely conquest and the extension of British power -- India was required to pay during the last century the enormous total of more than $460,000,000. How many such burdens as these can the millions of India, who live on the average income of $6 a year, bear without being crushed?
Perhaps the greatest of all the causes of the impoverishment of the Indian people is the steady and enormous drain of wealth from India to England, which has been going on ever since the East India Company first set foot in the land, three hundred years ago, and is going on still with steadily increasing volume. England claims that India pays her no "tribute." Technically, this is true; but, really, it is very far from true. In the form of salaries spent in England, pensions sent to England, interest drawn in England on investments made in India, business profits made in India and sent to England, and various kinds of exploitation carried on in India for England's benefit, a vast stream of wealth ("tribute" in effect) is constantly pouring into England from India. Says Mr. R. C. Dutt, author of the Economic History of India(and there is no higher authority), "A sum reckoned at twenty millions of English money, or a hundred millions of American money [some other authorities put it much higher], which it should be borne in mind is equal to half the net revenues of India, is remitted annually from this country [India] to England, without a direct equivalent. Think of it! One-half of what we [in India] pay as taxes goes out of the country, and does not come back to the people. No other country on earth suffers like this at the present day; and no country on earth could bear such an annual drain without increasing impoverishment and repeated famines. We denounce ancient Rome for impoverishing Gaul and Egypt, Sicily and Palestine, to enrich herself. We denounce Spain for robbing the New World and the Netherlands to amass wealth. England is following exactly the same practice in India. Is it strange that she is converting India into a land of poverty and famine?"
But it is only a part of the wrong done to India that she is impoverished. Quite as great an injustice is her loss of liberty, -- the fact that she is allowed no part in shaping her own political destiny. As we have seen, Canada and Australia are free and self-governing. India is kept in absolute subjection. Yet her people are largely of Aryan blood, the finest race in Asia. There are not wanting men among them, men in numbers, who are the equals of their British masters, in knowledge, in ability, in trustworthiness, in every high quality. It is not strange that many Englishmen are waking up to the fact that such treatment of such a people, of any people, is tyranny: it is a violation of those ideals of freedom and justice which have been England's greatest glory. It is also short-sighted as regards Britain's own interests. It is the kind of policy which cost her her American Colonies, and later came near costing her Canada. If persisted in, it may cost her India.
What is the remedy for the evils and burdens under which the Indian people are suffering? How may the people be relieved from their abject and growing poverty? How can they be given prosperity, happiness, and content?
Many answers are suggested. One is, make the taxes lighter. This is doubtless important. But how can it be effected so long as the people have no voice in their own government? Another is, enact such legislation and set on foot such measures as may be found necessary to restore as far as possible the native industries which have been destroyed. This is good; but will an alien government, and one which has itself destroyed these industries for its own advantage, ever do this? Another is, reduce the unnecessary and illegitimate military expenses. This is easy to say, and it is most reasonable. But how can it be brought about, so long as the government favors such expenses, and the people have no power? Another thing urged is, stop the drain of wealth to England. But what steps can be taken looking in this direction so long ns India has no power to protect herself? It all comes back to this: the fundamental difficulty, the fundamental evil, the fundamental wrong, lies in the fact that the Indian people are permitted to have no voice in their own government. Thus they are unable to guard their own interests, unable to protect themselves against unjust laws, unable to inaugurate those measures for their own advancement which must always come from those immediately concerned.
It is hard to conceive of a government farther removed from the people in spirit or sympathy than is that of India. There has been a marked change for the worse in this respect within the past twenty-five years, since the vice-regal term of Lord Ripon. The whole spirit of the government has become reactionary, increasingly so, reaching its culmination in the recent administration of Lord Curzon. The present Indian Secretary, Lord Morley, has promised improvement; but, so far, the promise has had no realization. Instead of improvement, the situation has been made in important respects worse. There have been tyrannies within the past two years, within the past three months, which even Lord Curzon would have shrunk from. There is no space here to enumerate them.
Fifty years ago the people were consulted and conciliated in ways that would not now be thought of. Then the government did not hesitate to hold before the people the ideal of increasing political privileges, responsibilities, and advantages. It was freely given out that the purpose of the government was to prepare the people for self-rule. Now no promise or intimation of anything of the kind is ever heard from any one in authority. Everywhere in India one finds Englishmen -- officials and others -- with few exceptions -- regarding this kind of talk as little better than treason. The Civil Service of India is reasonably efficient, and to a gratifying degree free from peculation and corruption. But the government is as complete a bureaucracy as that of Russia. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that, as a bureaucracy, it is as autocratic, as arbitrary in its methods, as reactionary in its spirit, as far removed from sympathy with the people, as determined to keep all power in its own hands, as unwilling to consult the popular wishes, or to listen to the voice of the most enlightened portion of the nation, even when expressed through the great and widely representative Indian National Congress, as is the Russian bureaucracy. Proof of this can be furnished to any amount.
It is said that India is incapable of ruling herself. If so, what an indictment is this against England! She was not incapable of ruling herself before England came. Have one hundred and fifty years of English tutelage produced in her such deterioration? As we have seen, she was possessed of a high civilization and of developed governments long before England or any part of Europe had emerged from barbarism. For three thousand years before England's arrival, Indian kingdoms and empires had held leading places in Asia. Some of the ablest rulers, statesmen, and financiers of the world have been of India's production. How is it, then, that she loses her ability to govern herself as soon as England appears upon the scene? To be sure, at that time she was in a peculiarly disorganized and unsettled state; for it should be remembered that the Mogul Empire was just breaking up, and new political adjustments were everywhere just being made, -- a fact which accounts for England's being able to gain a political foothold in India. But everything indicates that if India had not been interfered with by European powers, she would soon have been under competent governments of her own again.
A further answer to the assertion that India cannot govern herself -- and surely one that should be conclusive -- is the fact that, in parts, she is governing herself now, and governing herself well. It is notorious that the very best government in India to-day is not that carried on by the British, but that of several of the native states, notably Baroda and Mysore. In these states, particularly Baroda, the people are more free, more prosperous, more contented, and are making more progress, than in any other part of India. Note the superiority of both these states in the important matter of popular education. Mysore is spending on education more than three times as much per capita as is British India, while Baroda has made her education free and compulsory. Both of these states, but especially Baroda, which has thus placed herself in line with the leading nations of Europe and America by making provision for the education of all her children, may well be contrasted with British India, which provides education, even of the poorest kind, for only one boy in ten and one girl in one hundred and forty-four.
The truth is, not one single fact can be cited that goes to show that India cannot govern herself, -- reasonably well at first, excellently well later, -- if only given a chance. It would not be difficult to form an Indian Parliament to-day, composed of men as able and of as high character as those that constitute the fine Parliament of Japan, or as those that will be certain to constitute the not less able national Parliament of China when the new constitutional government of that nation comes into operation. This is only another way of saying that among the leaders in the various states and provinces of India there is abundance of material to form an Indian National Parliament not inferior in intellectual ability or in moral worth to the parliaments of the Western world.
We have now before us the data for understanding, at least in a measure, the meaning of the "New National Movement in India." It is the awakening and the protest of a subject people. It is the effort of a nation, once illustrious, and still conscious of its inherent superiority, to rise from the dust, to stand once more on its feet, to shake off fetters which have become unendurable. It is the effort of the Indian people to get for themselves again a country which shall be in some true sense their own, instead of remaining, as for a century and a half it has been, a mere preserve of a foreign power, -- in John Stuart Mill's words, England's "cattle farm." The people of India want the freedom which is their right, -- freedom to shape their own institutions, their own industries, their own national life. This does not necessarily mean separation from Great Britain; but it does mean, if retaining a connection with the British Empire, becoming citizens,and not remaining forever helpless subjectsin the hands of irresponsible masters. It does mean a demand that India shall be given a place in the Empire essentially like that of Canada or Australia,with such autonomy and home rule as are enjoyed by these free, self-governing colonies. Is not this demand just? Not only the people of India, but many of the best Englishmen, answer unequivocally, Yes! In the arduous struggle upon which India has entered to attain this end (arduous indeed her struggle must be, for holders of autocratic and irresponsible power seldom in this world surrender their power without being compelled) surely she should have the sympathy of the enlightened and liberty-loving men and women of all nations.
The Atlantic Monthly; October, 1908; The New Nationalist Movement in India; Volume 102, No. 4; pages 526-535
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/india.htm
PASSAGE TO INDIA
August 30, 1997
While there is something suspect about the celebrations surrounding India's fiftieth anniversary -- after all, for a people and a culture whose roots were planted some four and a half thousand years ago, fifty years is but a blink of the eye -- August 15th was indeed a milestone of sorts. India is today at a crossroads. Although the British left in 1947, the nation continued for decades afterwards to struggle with its imperial legacy, shutting its markets to Western corporations and bristling with indignation at the slightest perception of foreign interference in its internal affairs. In 1991, however, faced with bankruptcy, the government initiated drastic economic reforms that have since ushered in a wave of consumerism and Westernization. Among all political parties -- even the communists -- there is now a consensus in favor of continuing the reforms. And so, fifty years after the end of colonialism, the nation seems finally to be coming into its own. It seems a fitting moment, then, to pause and look back at a hundred and forty years of Atlantic Monthly articles on India. They reveal as much about the world's evolving view of India as they do about India itself.
As it happens, The Atlantic's first year of publication coincided with two important occasions in Indian history. In 1857, Great Britain marked its hundredth year of rule in India. Writing in the very first issue of The Atlantic, Charles Creighton Hazewell compared that rule to "the dominion which Rome held over so large a portion of the world" but argued that the British hold over India was even more impressive. "There is nothing like the rule of the English in India to be found in history," he wrote in "British India," (November, 1857).
Also in 1857, several units of the Bengal Army arose in rebellion against their British commanders; the revolt would come to be known as the Sepoy Mutiny, after the name given to native soldiers. It was the first time that the British had been seriously challenged by their Indian subjects, and the uprising spread rapidly across northern India before it was brutally suppressed. Today scholars believe that the mutiny sowed the seeds of popular resentment against British rule. But Hazewell was more skeptical, arguing in the next issue of The Atlantic "The Indian Revolt," (December, 1857) that "this great revolt had in very small degree the character of a popular uprising . . . as the vast mass of natives are in general not discontented with the English rule." Hazewell in his earlier article had in fact attributed the violence of the failed mutiny to Indians themselves:
We think it may be safely said, that never was there a career of conquest of such extent accompanied with so little of wrong and suffering to the body of the people.... The stop that has been put to the cruelties of the native rulers ought not to be forgotten in estimating the amount of evil and of good which that conquest has brought upon India. The World has been shocked by the cruelties of which the rebellious Sepoys have been guilty; but they can astonish no one who is familiar with the history of the races to which these mutineers belong. An indifference to life, and a love of cruelty for cruelty's sake, are common characteristics of most of the Orientals, and are chiefly conspicuous in the ruling classes.
Half a century later Indian nationalist sentiment was winning many converts. In "The New Nationalist Movement in India," (October, 1908), Jabez T. Sunderland argued forcefully that India's struggle to rid itself of colonial rule "should have the sympathy of the enlightened and liberty-loving men and women of all nations." Drawing attention to India's terrible poverty, he suggested that the British were to blame: heavy taxation, the large share of British military expenditures borne by India, and the funneling out of wealth by the East India Company, he argued, had all impoverished the colony.
By 1959, twelve years after independence, the initial exuberance of freedom had been tempered by the realization that poverty would not disappear with the British. In a vivid account of the travails of "India's Masses," (October, 1959), Arthur Bonner, then the CBS correspondent in India, drew attention to government inefficiency, creaking infrastructure and communications systems, and an overreliance on heavy industrialization. "Many factories and huge new dams spring up," he wrote, yet "per-acre yields remain among the lowest in the world, and thousands of ancient minor irrigation works are falling into disrepair." A few years later, in "Strong Medicine for India," (December, 1965), Leland Hazard echoed a similar theme. "It is humiliating for India to be dependent upon the industrialized countries for better agriculture and more industry," he wrote. "But she is, utterly."
Since that time, India has made rapid strides. Whereas economic growth stagnated around a dismal 3 percent well into the 1970s, today it hovers near 7 percent -- a figure that rivals the growth rates of India's "Asian Tiger" neighbors. And whereas India's many troubles used to elicit regular predictions of democracy's impending demise, the nation remains today the largest democracy in the world. But, as journalist after journalist has noted in recent months, there remain many difficulties, not least of which are the specters of religious and separatist strife. In "Holy War Against India," (August, 1988), Conor Cruise O'Brien, an Atlantic contributing editor, took these issues on in a discussion of Sikh separatists in the state of Punjab.
O'Brien at one point in his article paused to make a general observation. "The viability of the secular and democratic system in India is a remarkable phenomenon, and one that has received less attention in the West than it deserves." If this year's celebrations and special magazine issues and new novels are anything to go by, the world is finally catching on.
# Discuss this feature in Global Views forum of Post & Riposte.
# See the Flashbacks archive.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A tale of drugs and deception
Mark Reynolds | Kunal Basu has only won one award for his writing -- so far. His nod for best journal article from the Academy of Marketing Science in 1994, for a piece on customer loyalty, might have been a sign of things to come. Trip to Thailand inspired Kunal Basu's new novel The Opium Clerk
His latest creation is far less academic -- The Opium Clerk is set in the late 19th century when trade in the addictive "mud" ruled the Far East. Spanning two generations, several decades, and much of Asia's geography, the novel traces the opium trade from the fields of India to the smoky dens of the Chinese treaty ports.
Still -- despite the book's subject, an addictive drug, being the ultimate guarantor of customer loyalty -- Basu says that writing and his day job as a business professor are fairly separate parts of his life.
"I don't see my academic life and the literary one to be convergent or conflicting," he says. "Of course, it throws in a surprise or two when people find out, but I can live with such a reputation!"
Basu splits his time between McGill, where he contributes to the International Master's Program in Practicing Management and works on course development, and Oxford. He currently resides in England. The Opium Clerk was written and researched here -- much of his background material coming from old folios in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine.
Basu says that while he was naturally interested in the business aspects of the opium trade, his real inspiration for the novel came from a trip he took to Thailand. There he stumbled over a book on the opium trade, from which he was surprised to learn that Calcutta, his hometown, was a major centre for trade in the drug.
Having already published some poetry and a short story in London Magazine in 1997, Basu set about mining the opium trade for his story.
His protagonist for much of the book is Hiran, a high-caste Hindu who breaks with Brahmin tradition to work as a clerk with a British auction house that trades in opium, much of which is shipped to China.
Hiran falls into the orbit of the Machiavellian Jonathan Crabbe and his wife, a mysterious addict. Hiran gets drawn into the Crabbes' conspiracies -- finding them a son, acting as a go-between with Chinese rebels -- but he never becomes a part of them, never fully understanding events around him even as he is central to them.
<b>This is partly allegorical -- under the rule of an often-oppressive colonial regime, India itself was often unaware of its part in the larger scheme of the British Empire. Hiran's passivity throughout the novel is much like India's status as a subject nation at this time.
</b>
<b>"Indians were kept ignorant about British designs in China. Colonialism creates horizontal silences, so the subject races are ignorant of each other while being aware of the master," says Basu. </b>Even more than half a century after India's independence some silences are only now being broken -- Basu's book is the first by an Indian writer to take place, even partially, in China.
It is tempting to make comparisons between Basu and other expatriate writers from the sub-continent that have found their home here, such as Rohinton Mistry or Michael Ondaatje, but Basu brushes aside the idea.
"I do see myself as part of this cultural crucible that has continued to nourish me. It is, however, important to remember that all writers of the sub-continent don't write similarly, they are not a part of a particular genre, and that one shouldn't fall into the trap of stereotyping them."
Part history, part allegory, The Opium Clerk is also something of a 19th century romance -- populated by pirates, beautiful maidens, wild sailors and seers (the book contains a fortune-telling duel between Hiran and a Muslim holy man).
Basu's first effort has earned him almost entirely favourable reviews -- the Times Literary Supplement called it "a novel of rare assurance, imaginatively set and richly textured...."
Basu hardly needed the encouragement. His second novel is already written. Titled The Minaturist, it is also set in India, but three hundred years earlier than The Opium Clerk.
Can we expect Basu to return to Montreal -- perhaps as an English professor?
"Fiction is my first love," he said "I still can manage a bit of time to do other things."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
03-02-2008, 09:07 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2008, 09:07 AM by dhu.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The British bled us</b>
Dina Nath Mishra (Pioneer)
In my childhood, elders said India was once known as 'sone ki chidiya'. How can I believe it, looking at the clay bird it has become today. I have read many books on how the British exploited India. Some books like that by RC Dutta did convince me of their exploitation but, like many other Indians, I did not pay heed.
<b>This column deals with a book by Will Durant, the greatest American historian of the 20th Century. </b>He shot to fame because of his 11 volumes of Story of Civilisation and another book titled Story of Philosophy.<b> The third book, about which I am going to talk, was banned by the British. Not even a single copy could be found. </b>Fortunately, someone found a copy and it was published by Strand Book Stall, Mumbai. The book put me thinking on how India would survive. But first, let's see, what Durant had to say about India just before the British came.
Quoting Sunderland he says: "This wealth was created by the Hindus' vast and varied industries. Nearly every kind of manufacture of product known to the civilised world - nearly every kind of creation of man's brain and hand, existing anywhere and prized either for its utility or beauty - had long, long being produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or than any other in Asia. Her textile goods - the fine products of her looms, in cotton, wool, linen and silk - were famous over the civilised world; so were her exquisite jewellry and her precious stones cut in every lovely form; so were her pottery, porcelain, ceramics of every kind, quality, colour and beautiful shape; so were her fine works in metal - iron, steel, silver and gold. She had great architecture - equal in beauty to any in the world. She had great engineering works. She had great merchants, great businessmen, great bankers and financers. Not only was she, the greatest ship-building nation, but she had great commerce and trade by land and sea which extended to all known civilised countries. Such was the India which the British found when they came."
In his own inimitable style, Durant built India's case, "The present caste system in India consists of four classes: the real Brahmins - ie, the British bureaucracy; the Kshatriyas - ie, the British army; the real Vaishyas - ie, the British traders; and the real Shudras - ie, the Hindus."
The story of miserable farming community has gone through a process: "Before the coming of English, the land was private property, the Government made itself the sole owner of soil and charged for it a land tax or rental now equal to 1/5th of the produce. In many cases, in the past, this land tax has amounted to half the gross produce, in some cases, to more than the entire gross produce; in general, it is two to three times as high as under pre-English rule."
Durant, further wrote, "It might have been supposed that the building of 30,000 miles of railways would have brought a measure of prosperity to India. But these railways were built not for India but for England; not for the benefit of the Hindu, but for the purposes of the British Army and trade. If this seems doubtful, observe their operation. Their greatest revenue comes, not, as in America, from the transport of goods (for the British trader controls the rates), but from the third-class passengers - the Hindus; but these passengers are herded into barren coaches like animals bound for the slaughter, 20 or more in one compartment. The rails-roads are entirely in European hands, and the Government has refused to appoint even one Hindu in the Railway Board."
The book is full of instances describing how the British destroyed India's shipping trade, how artisans producing clothes were impoverished, how the Indians bore the cost of all the wars Britain fought, how the industrial revolution of Britain and some of Europe happened at the cost of Indians, how millions of people starved to death when the British exported grains, produced by Indian farmers. How education and social fibre of the society was destroyed systematically by Lord Macauley and duly approved by the British Parliament.
This is how Durant, described the conquerors of India: "The British conquest of India was the invasion and destruction of a high civilisation by a trading company, utterly without scruple or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain, over-running with fire and sword, a country temporarily disordered and helpless, bribing and murdering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that career of illegal and 'legal' plunder which has now gone on ruthlessly for 173 years."
Durant is not an ordinary historian and the rape of India by the British is not an ordinary event either. But, we Indians are most extraordinary people: We just take everything in our stride. Time we woke up from this stupor and mould India again into a sone ki chidiya.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
03-02-2008, 10:08 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2008, 10:22 AM by Husky.)
<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Mar 2 2008, 09:07 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Mar 2 2008, 09:07 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The British bled us</b>
Dina Nath Mishra (Pioneer)
<b>This column deals with a book by Will Durant, the greatest American historian of the 20th Century. </b>He shot to fame because of his 11 volumes of Story of Civilisation and another book titled Story of Philosophy.<b> The third book, about which I am going to talk, was banned by the British. Not even a single copy could be found. </b>Fortunately, someone found a copy and it was published by Strand Book Stall, Mumbai. The book put me thinking on how India would survive. But first, let's see, what Durant had to say about India just before the British came.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]79173[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Dhu, any ideas on the book's title - that is, is he referring to Durant's "The Case for India" or some other book? (But "The Case for India" <i>could</i> be found in Amazon marketplace some years back...)
Can someone ask Mishra to get it digitised and put up on the web?
03-02-2008, 10:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2008, 10:59 AM by Husky.)
Dhu, it looks like Durant's "The Case for India" might well be the one Mishra was discussing:
hindu.com/2007/12/17/stories/2007121760990400.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Monday, Dec 17, 2007
Karnataka - Bangalore
<b>âI want more people to read itâ</b>
Staff Reporter
Will Durantâs indictment of Raj atrocities is republishedÂ
The book was first published in 1930
It was banned in the United Kingdom
[Photo caption] REAL INDIAN HISTORY: Vidya Virkar (right) of <b>Strand Book Stall</b> handing over a book, <b>The Case for India</b>, to Mohan Das Pai of Infosys, at The Strand Book Festival in Bangalore on Sunday.
Bangalore: âI have seen a great people starving to death before my eyes, and I am convinced that this exhaustion and starvation are due not, as their beneficiaries claim, to over-population and superstition, but to the most sordid and criminal exploitation of one nation by another in all recorded history.â
That is how Will Durant, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian philosopher, describes India in his book The Case for India, which has now been republished by Strand Book Stall.
Launching the book at the Stand Book Festival here on Sunday, T.V. Mohandas Pai, board member, Infosys, said he first read the book five years ago and found it fascinating.
âThe book talks about the brutality and criminality of the British Raj. I had tears in my eyes when I read it. I took photocopies of the book and distributed them to my friends. I wanted more people to read it,â he said.
He said that a sheikh from Abu Dhabi, who was commissioning a book on the Arab civilisation, sent him a copy of the book.
âI met him and during the course of our conversation, he asked me if I knew the history of Indian civilisation. When I said yes, he said he would give me a book about the ârealâ Indian history. Four months later, I received the book by post and was fascinated by it,â he said.
Mr. Pai said that âwe (Indians) lack pride in our own country. We must study the history of the country, understand our roots and cherish the democracy that we enjoy.â
<b>Vidya Virkar of Strand Book Stall said that The Case for India was first published in 1930. âThe book was banned in the U.K. and was out of print for a long time. It had not been republished because of its contents,â she said.</b>
She said that Strand Book Stall decided to republish the book because âIndia is gaining new confidence and looking to become a global power. It is time to look back and take pride in the fact that through all the hardship, we were able to maintain our dignity.â
Will Durant alludes to Indian civilisation as the greatest known to man. His book reveals Indiaâs glorious heritage and philosophical underlay in a way that leaves no doubt that the point at which India is poised today is not just a historical accident, Ms. Virkar added.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->There appear to have been a number of people who have old copies of that book.
03-02-2008, 10:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2008, 11:02 AM by dhu.)
I thought the author was talking about Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage, but it is probably the book you're talking about. I just searched out that ESnips has the entire 'Civilizations' Series:
pdf files:
Will-Durant---THE_STORY_OF_CIVILIZATION_01---Our-Oriental-Heritage
.............................................................
THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
Our Oriental Heritage.
VOL-II (1935)
link in book folder
what idiots, they banned Lagaan and 'A Case for India'. I am sure this will become a mosted wanted book in near future.
03-02-2008, 12:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2008, 01:12 PM by Husky.)
<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Mar 2 2008, 10:47 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Mar 2 2008, 10:47 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->they banned Lagaan and 'A Case for India'.[right][snapback]79179[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->They really banned Lagaan? <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Then again that's quite in line with their behaviour, when even their flagship, the BBC, is into censorship (still):
Banning songs not a rare occurrence for the BBC
Can't imagine why they <i>wouldn't</i> have banned Durant's Case for India.
Freedom of speech is only an idea they want their psecular soldiers in the "3rd World" to gobble and thus enforce/trickle down on others there. That way their psecular footmen can rush up to defend MF Hussein's "freedom of speech" to paint offensive garbage and Sonia's christo and christo-conditioned minions declaring our Rama and RamarSethu as a "myth".
Meanwhile, for themselves, the west will reserve the right to ban anything offensive or provocative - most certainly if it's something that proves the barbarity of the christobritish 'civilising' mission in India (or anything exposing the non-historicity of that 'beloved' fable jesus).
I do understand their position: because the truth <i>will</i> greatly offend them (and turn inside-out their thus-far false perception of their own history).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->WILL DURANT ASSAILS BRITISH RULE IN INDIA; Laying Revolt to Woodrow Wilson, He Calls 'Plunder' of People a Crime in New Book.
October 30, 1930, Thursday (NYT)
Woodrow Wilson started the revolution in India, Dr. Will Durant, who returned from there recently, asserts in a volume called "The Case for India," published today by<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Apologists for British rule</b> (Pioneer)
<i>Second opinion: </i>Shridhar Pant
In his article, "The British bled us, but we always forget that" (March 3), Mr Dina Nath Mishra has referred to Will Durant's book, analysing how the British destroyed India's industry, farming and education. Ironically, there are many Hindus who praise the British for their 'benevolent' rule.
Hindus have suffered the tyranny of both Muslim and British rulers. The basic difference between the two was that while loot, forced conversion and massacre were the chief concerns of Muslim rulers, the British looked for economic exploitation and colonisation. The only similarity between the two was that they were attracted to India because of its wealth.
Swiss writer Bejoran Landstorm in his book, The Discovery of India, writes, "There were many routes and means but the objective always was only one -- to reach the famous India that was overflowing with gold, silver, valuable pearls and stones, pleasant eatables, spices, clothes." Lord Clive, as reproduced by Lala Lajpat Rai in, England's Debt to India, had once observed: "India is the unparalleled store of wealth, the country that will rule India will become the richest country of the world." In 1842, by when Indian industry was declining, Captain J Kampwell wrote, "Even the best iron of England did not compare with the inferior quality iron of India."
Brooks Adams in his book, Law of Civilisation and Decay, writes, "The wealth stocked for centuries by crores of people was taken away to London by the British, like the wealth of the Greek and Pontius was usurped by the Romans." He quotes Lord Macaulay, "After the Plassey war (1757) over 900 boats were used to transfer the gold and silver coins from Murshidabad to Calcutta." Obviously this treasure finally landed in Britain. It is this capital that helped Britain develop its industry.
The apologists for British rule claim that it brought peace and order to India. One must remember Mahatma Gandhi's comment on the issue: "The peace established by the British in India is worse then warfare."
<b>The colonial rule in India ended in 1947, but with Jawaharlal Nehru at the helm, a nexus between Macaulayian and Marxist academia perpetuated the English domination. With the advent of globalisation, our distrust for traditional culture continues.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> A British Government Official Presents an Insightful
Analysis of Culture, Colonialism and Rebellion
The Heart of Aryavarta
by Lawrence J.L. Dundas
Edited by Paul Dennis Sporer
A masterpiece of psychological evaluation of culture, religion, patriotism and rebellion, The Heart of Ãryâvarta is a penetrating investigation of a complex society at a critical time in its history. At the beginning of the 20th century, Indiaâs evolving nationalist movement, led by educated and cultured men such as Gandhi, was gaining strength. The British, whose colonial agencies had dominated Indian life for generations, were unable to fathom this desire for independence. Lawrence Dundas, a statesman and administrator, unlike most of his countrymen, did not contemptuously dismiss this movement, but committed himself to fully understanding the underlying economic and political factors that drove forward its systematic rejection of British rule. However, Dundas takes the discussion much further than politics. Using first-hand observation, as well as in-depth research, he articulates the positive goals of the Indian nationalists, which were founded on the idea of a return to a golden age of peace, wisdom, and fulfilment that existed before the arrival of the colonialists. Despite his position and background, Dundas demonstrates that he has a profound knowledge of the deep-seated human need for social and cultural development free from external interference. He sympathizes with the difficulties of the Indian people, and sincerely attempts to see their desire for autonomy from their perspective. The Heart of Ãryâvarta is an excellent analysis that gives us critical information necessary for understanding the complex dynamics of colonialism and nation-building.
Available Now! To order this book, please click here.
Additional Resources:
Click here to read a free 12 page EXCERPT from the book
Click here to find out how to obtain this book from your library
Other similar titles:
Newer Ideals of Peace, by Jane Addams; Is Secession Treason?, by Albert Bledsoe.
Book Specifics
Full title: The Heart of Ãryâvarta, The Psychology of Social Unrest,
by Lawrence J.L Dundas
Revised and Enhanced Edition, with new index and preface
Imprint: Quanterness Press; 268 pages
Format: Hardcover: 6â x 9â; $26.95; ISBN: 1-932490-42-6
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http://anzapublishing.com/html/the_heart...varta.html
Thanks Capt. Looks like a lot of distortions in it.
<!--emo&:blow--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blow.gif' /><!--endemo--> Pl bring out the distotions for the benefit of readers as well as convey to author and editor.
Not many are as good history followers as you; so, can be swayed by the writers.
X-post from BRF:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A very interesting article in this week's TFT, about the Urdu poetry before, during, and after the events of 1857. Posting in full, I have bolded the parts that indicate that the seeds of Pakistan were sown in the minds of the muslim elite in the aftermath of 1857. Admins please edit if inappropriate:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rising phoenix
Rakshanda Jalil
reviews the Urdu poetry of struggle
 Â
<i>After the fall of Delhi, several poets speak of the weeping, homeless men and women, carrying bundles of precious belongings on their heads, who flee Delhi only to be robbed or murdered on the way</i>
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<i>The turbulence of 1857 was witnessed by some of the finest poets of the age â the âBloomsbury Group of Delhiâ as it has been called. They saw and commented, yet few scholars and historians have seized upon their testimony. The history of 1857 is still being constructed largely from English language accounts</i>Â
âPolitics and history are interwoven, but not commensurate,â wrote Lord Acton. So also politics and poetry. In the Delhi of the nineteenth century, everybody â from the king down to the beggar â was smitten by poetry. Before 1857, poets dominated the cityâs cultural and intellectual landscape; they were held in greater esteem than the Mughal emperors whose âruleâ did not extend beyond the shabby grandeur of the Quila-e-Moalla, or the Exalted Fort, as the Red Fort was then called. After 1857, especially in its immediate violent aftermath, the political climate became far too volatile for poets and writers to chart the course of the cityâs fortunes. They could, at best, defend or decry â depending upon their lot â the causes and effects of the year that was to change their lives irrevocably. And this they did in prodigious amounts of poetry written in Urdu during and after 1857.
However, just as there is no generalized or undifferentiated response to the Revolt of 1857 among the Muslim intelligentsia of the late nineteenth century, there is no uniform, un-variegated, one-dimensional reflection in contemporary Urdu poetry of what would later be dubbed the First War of Independence. It reflects a bewildering and often contradictory array of opinions. Reactions vary from nostalgic lament for a lost age, to fixing blame and apportioning responsibility for the terrible misfortunes that had befallen all those who had actively participated in the rebellion. <b>The Muslims in particular felt they had been singled out.</b> In the poetry of this period, heroes become villains and vice versa: the mutineering soldiers referred to as mujahid (martyrs, or those who bear witness) by some, become balwai (rioters) for others. So also the Firangi and the Mughals, both of whom invite varying degrees of criticism and approbation. Two worlds â the decaying and the emergent â fuse and merge. Pathos, confusion and conflict reign supreme. It had to take several decades for the clouds of uncertainty to part and the debate on the Old Light versus the New to usher in the Lamp of New Learning. But for that to happen, Delhi â the focus of the âDilli Chaloâ movement, the worst victim of its worst excesses and also the markaz or centre of the finest Urdu poetry of its time had to first rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of its siege and slaughter.
Given the close relationship between social reality and literary texts, it is important to re-visit and re-examine the literature produced during times of great social upheaval. Often, it gives a far more nuanced understanding of historical events than official records and documents. In Urdu, there exists a body of poetry known as shehr ashob (âmisfortunes of the cityâ) to express political and social decline and turmoil. While much of it is melodramatic, self-pitying and exaggerated, with a great deal of rhetoric and play upon words in the best traditions of elegiac poetry such as nauha, marsiya and soz, shehr ashob also affords ample opportunities for the poet to paint graphic word pictures of what he sees and experiences at first hand. Using the conventional imagery of the Persian-Arabic tradition, shehr ashob allows the poet to speak of his personal sorrows and losses while, ostensibly, bemoaning a crumbling social order. When Sirajuddaullah was killed by the British in the Battle of Plassey (1757), his friend Raja Ram Narain Maozoon expresses his anguish thus:
Oh! where have the mad lovers who once roamed the desert gone
And where have those days of love vanished
Over the years, events conspired to give plenty of fodder to the Urdu elegistâs mill. There was the decline and dismantling of the Mughal empire, subsequent invasions of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Marathas and Rohillas, establishment of British control over Delhi in 1803, and <b>the most cruel blow of all âthe annexation of Awadh in 1856 â which turned even loyal Muslim supporters of the British into discontented suspicious malcontents, if not ardent jehadis</b>. With each fresh catastrophe, the Urdu poet evolved a vocabulary to express his angst, clothing his sorrow in a time-honoured repertoire of images and metaphors. Some favourite synonyms for the Beloved sitamgar, but, kafir, yaar â now began to be used mockingly for the British.
And then the Revolt happened. It divided the Urdu poets into two camps; those for it and those against. Some were for Zafar but against the ghaddar (the traitors in the British army); others gave vent to their ire against the emperor too. Interestingly, these poets not only contradict each other, often they contradict themselves too; against the British before and during the siege of Delhi, they turn into fervent admirers of British rule in Hindustan shortly after the fall of Delhi. A great many, however, refuse to take sides, preferring instead to chronicle the end of an age and a way of life.
A staunch âroyalistâ Dagh writes:
Calamity has seized the populace, misfortune befallen the city
The coming of the Purabiyas has spelt Godâs doom for the city
Muhammad Sadruddun Khan Azurdah, a poet, scholar and magistrate, however, directly attacks the people of the Fort and holds them responsible for the calamity:
Misfortune befell the city because of the fort
Due to their evil deeds retribution came upon Delhi
Calamity arrived with the black men from Meerut
Azurdah goes on to catalogue the woes of Delhi after the kale are defeated by the gore: the massacre of innocents, men pulled out of their homes on the flimsiest of pretexts (often their being Muslim being reason enough), but his real concern is with people like himself, the aristocracy of Delhi. He mourns the loss of his friends, in particular Sehbai, the teacher, poet and scholar, the leading light of the Dilli College, who was shot dead by the British troops. Azurdah writes:
Why shouldnât Azurdah go crazy and run to the wilderness
When Sahbai is killed so brutally, though he was guiltless
The notion of âguiltâ itself is interpreted differently by different Urdu poets of this period. On the one hand you have poets accusing the Indians of being guilty, others such as Fazle Haq Khairabadi and Munir Shikohabadi <b>hold the British guilty of unleashing terror upon hapless Muslims</b>. Writing in his island prison, an unrepentant Fazle Haq says:
I did not commit any crime except this
I did not like them (the British), nor was I friendly with them
* * *
On 20 September 1857, Delhi fell. <b>British soldiers entered the Jama Masjid, desecrated it and set about unleashing the most terrible atrocities.</b> In one week, 25,000 people were killed, the rebels and their sympathizers summarily executed, 160,000 inhabitants driven out of the city limits and forced to camp in the open countryside. Qazi Fazal Husain Afsurdah holds the soldiers and spies guilty for the madness that spirals out of control and catches both the âguiltyâ and the âinnocentâ:
Calamity came with the coming of the soldiers
The spies added fire to the fury
Both the guilty and the innocent were arrested
<b>Several felt that Muslims were singled out for reprisals. Shah Ayatollah Johri rues the desecration of mosques and holy places, claiming that the Brahmins prosper while the Muslims suffer and the masjids remain desolate while in the temples the conches can now be heard:
The House of God lies in darkness whereas the lamps are lit in the temples
The traditions of the infidels thrive whereas the light of faith flickers</b>
The mystically inclined Syed Ali Tashnah, a much-loved poet of Delhi, blames the outsiders who robbed and pillaged:
The Tilangas came and looted the entire city
As the saying goes, the naked came to rob the hungry
Several poets, such as Zaheer Dehlvi, Hakim Agha Jaan Aish, Nawab Mirza Dagh, Qurban Ali Beg Saalik, Mohsin and Kaukab speak of the weeping, homeless men and women, carrying bundles of precious belongings on their heads, who flee Delhi only to be robbed or murdered on the way. Some speak of unemployment and acute poverty. <b>Dagh writes âthe only job left for Muslim men is to fill up the prisonsâ</b>, and Sehr says âit has been an age since one has seen the face of a rupaiyaâ. Ruing the slaughter of an age, Zaheer Dehlvi writes:
People have been pulled out of their homes
Corpses line the road, layers upon layers
Neither grave, nor shroud, nor mourners are left
Many of these poets belonged to the privileged classes who were the worst hit. So there is an element of personal sorrow and loss mingled with the general lament and mourning. Occasionally there is also an attempt to shift the âblameâ for the terrors and afflictions on those who opposed the British. Ghalib, the pre-eminent Urdu poet, who stayed in Delhi all through the siege and fall of Delhi, writes:
Now every English soldier that bears arms
Is sovereign, and free to work his will
Men dare not venture out into the street
And terror chills their heart within them still
Their homes enclose them as in prison walls
And in the Chauk the victors hang and kill
The city is athirst for Muslim blood
And every grain of dust must drink its fillâ¦
A self-confessed namak-khwar-e-sarkar-e-angrez (an eater of the salt of the British government on account of his pension, incidentally stopped after 1857), Ghalib tries to be diplomatic in his Persian Diary, called Dastambu meaning a âPosy of Flowersâ â an incongruous name for a document so grim. He calls the rebellious soldiers from Meerut âfaithless to the saltâ and âblack-hearted killersâ. He terms the revolt âunwarrantedâ and expresses joy when Delhi is âdivested of its madmen and conquered by the brave and wise.â But this joy is short-lived, as his letters prove: âWe live in anxious thought for bread and water, and die in anxious thought for shroud and grave.â As Delhi becomes a city without a ruler, a garden without a gardener, he writes, â<b>By God, you may search for a Muslim in this city and not find one â rich, poor, and artisans alike are gone.â He records how Hindus were allowed to return by January 1858 âbut on the walls of the homeless Muslim homes the grass grows green, and its tongues whisper every moment that the places of the Muslims are desolate.â</b> Several verses too bear testimony, albeit obliquely:
If Ghalib sings in a bitter strain, forgive him;
Today pain stabs more keenly at his heart
And
We kept writing the blood-drenched narratives of that madness
Although our hands were chopped off in the process.
Ghalibâs hands were not chopped off. He lived another twelve years after the Revolt and witnessed the confusion and disarray that followed the loss of power and patronage. With time, two groups of Muslims emerged who soon established themselves as two opposing camps. One camp made no effort to camouflage their hostility to the British, choosing to do one of two things: either, <b>establish cloistered citadels of traditional learning based on religion; or, live in the hope that one day their lost glory would be miraculously restored</b>. The other group â and here it must be said that this lot had suffered a mere clipping of wings and not the devastation that one section of Muslims had indeed experienced â took the diametrically opposite view. They figured that the old Muslim elite could never recapture their lost ground; the best they could do, under these irrevocably changed circumstances, was to build bridges between the Muslims and the British and hitch their star to the wagon of western learning which would, in turn, open the doors to employment in the government.
The champions of this second camp â Sir Syed, Hali, Azad, Nazir Ahmad and Maulvi Zakaullah â felt the need to brush the ashes of 1857 from their feet and move on. At a mushaira in Lahore in 1874, Hali read the Nauha-e-Dehli:
Dear friends, I beseech you, speak not of the Delhi that is no more
Even the traces of what reminded us of the cityâs destruction are gone
Dear Heaven, can there be greater oblivion than that?
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, a new voice arose, the satirical doubting voice of Akbar Illahabadi who could fully support neither the new nor the old, but did feel the need to admonish those who had forgotten the lessons of the Revolt:
The minstrel and the music â both have changed
Our sleep has changed, the tale we told has changed.
To conclude, the turbulence of 1857 was witnessed by some of the finest poets of the age â the âBloomsbury Group of Delhiâ as it has been called. They saw and commented, yet few scholars and historians have seized upon their testimony. The history of 1857 is still being constructed largely from English-language accounts. Elsewhere in the world, literature is increasingly being used to supplement archival material. It is therefore in the fitness of things that in both India and Pakistan the various regional literatures be used to write national narratives.
Rakhshanda Jalil is Director, Media & Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have a question about the East India company troops that were in Delhi in 1857. The poet laments "tilingas" came and looted and that lamps were lit and temple bless rung.
Was this the revenge of the Telugus for Kakatiyas?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Several felt that Muslims were singled out for reprisals.</b> Shah Ayatollah Johri rues the desecration of mosques and holy places, claiming that the Brahmins prosper while the Muslims suffer and the masjids remain desolate<b> while in the temples the conches can now be heard:</b>
The House of God lies in darkness whereas the lamps are lit in the temples
The traditions of the infidels thrive whereas the light of faith flickers
The mystically inclined Syed Ali Tashnah, a much-loved poet of Delhi, blames the outsiders who robbed and pillaged:
<b>The Tilangas came and looted the entire city</b>
As the saying goes, the naked came to rob the hungry
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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