Colonial History of India

[acharya]

Winston Churchill’s Plan for Post-war India

By: Madhusree Mukerjee

Vol XLV No.32 August 07, 2010





Leopold S Amery, Secretary of State for India from May 1940 to June 1945, has compared the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill with Adolf Hitler in his manuscript The Regeneration of India: Memorandum by the Prime Minister. This article dwells on the circumstances of this remark by Amery. It finds that Churchill’s idea of redesigning Indian society by terminating the babu class and moneylenders and his policy towards Bengal famine and the War Cabinet meetings provoked Amery to make such an explosive comment.





As the victorious end of this glorious struggle for human freedom draws near, the time is coming for a policy in relation to India more worthy of our true selves. We have had enough… of shameful pledges about Indian self- government, and of sickening surrenders to babu agitation. If we went even further two years ago in an open invitation to I ndians to unite and kick us out of India that was only because we were in a hole. That peril is over and obviously a new s ituation has arisen of which we are fully entitled to take advantage.



The above is the opening paragraph of a three-page typewritten manuscript, dated August 1944 and entitled The Regeneration of India: Memorandum by the Prime Mini ster. It is to be found among the papers of Leopold S Amery, Secretary of State for India from May 1940 to June 1945. The manuscript is appended by the initials WSC, and appears at first glance to have been written by Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill at a time when the s econd world war was coming to a bloody but triumphant end.



Two years earlier, in the spring of 1942, the shockingly rapid advance of Japanese forces onto the I ndian border had created political pressures that had induced Churchill and A mery into a desperate measure: they had sent socialist politician Sir Stafford Cripps to India with an offer of dominion status after the war, in return for the cooperation of the Indian National Congress with the war effort. According to the 1944 document, how ever, Churchill hoped to r escind the Cripps offer – the “open invitation to Indians to unite and kick us out of India” – and instead to announce a new policy on the colony:

Quote:

No more nonsense about self-government; down with all (brown) landlords and profit-making industrialists, collecti vise agriculture on Russian lines and touch up the untouchables.





Churchill’s New Dawn Vision



The scheme would commence with removing those Englishmen – including the then viceroy, Lord Archibald Wavell – who, according to this paper,

Quote:

would not only appear to have taken our pledges seriously, but to be imbued with a miserable sneaking sympathy for what are called Indian aspirations, not to speak of an inveterate and scandalous propensity to defend Indian interests as against those of their own country, and a readiness to see British workers sweat and toil for generations in order to swell even further the distended paunches of Hindu moneylenders.





The pledges would include the repeated promises of self-government for India made by the British government. The numerous babus “who infest the government offices” would also have to be disposed of, the paper continued, and replaced by a new force of English re-educators who would uphold “our historic right to govern India in accordance with our own ideas and interests”.



The regeneration of India would i nvolve uplifting the untouchable, suppressing child marriage, limiting population, and getting rid of cows. Most importantly, it would require the imposition of a radically new administrative structure. Every five villages would require “one English instructor in the new way of life”, as well as “one English head policeman with five Indian subordinates drawn from the loyal martial races”. In total, the colony would require 1,60,000 instructors, 1,60,000 English police officers and 8,00,000 I ndian policemen. Holding this system in place would also require the army and air force to be expanded, “at any rate until I ndia has become accustomed to the new regime”. Any criticism in the British parliament of the “new dawn over India” would be banned. “It will also be necessary, following an excellent Russian pre cedent, to forbid any but trusted officials to leave India or to allow any visitors from outside except under the closest supervision by an official Intourist Agency.”1



Did Winston Churchill really envision this extraordinary reconfiguration of I ndian society? The short answer is “no” and the long answer is “yes”. A finely pencilled notation reveals the paper’s immediate author: “A skit by LSA after a harangue by WSC in Cabinet – only slightly exaggerated”. The last two words are underlined. Amery had penned the paper, but he did not invent the ideas it contained. He merely caricatured the prime minister’s ramblings in the War Cabinet – no doubt to vent his anger at Churchill’s devastating colonial policies, for which the British and Indian public and press were blaming the secretary of state for India; and perhaps also to explain to shocked colleagues, why during the War Cabinet meeting of

4 August 1944, Amery had compared W inston Churchill, the beloved war l eader, to Adolf Hitler.2



War Cabinet Meetings



On that summer day, the War Cabinet had been discussing a response that Wavell had drafted to a missive from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In an overture to the viceroy, Gandhi had offered to suspend the Quit India movement (which had commenced in August 1942, following the Congress rejection of the Cripps offer) and to cooperate with the war effort in e xchange for an immediate declaration of independence. The viceroy had drafted a polite reply turning Gandhi down, but o ffer ing an olive branch: if Hindus, M­uslims, and the main Indian minorities agreed on a constitution, they could form a transitional government, under the t utelage of the existing one, until the war was over.3



The prime minister was vehemently o pposed to Indian emancipation, however, and moreover, bore immense personal animosity towards Gandhi. When the old man had been released from British custody three months earlier, in May 1944 – because he appeared to be at risk of death from a coronary or cerebral thrombosis – Churchill had instructed Wavell that u nder no circumstances should he negotiate with Gandhi, “a thoroughly evil force, hostile to us in every fibre, largely in the hands of native vested interests”.4Accordingly, when Wavell’s draft response to Gandhi had come up before the War Cabinet for the first time, “the real storm broke”, Amery wrote in his diary. The viceroy should not be interacting with“ a traitor who ought to be put back in prison”, raged the prime minister. “As for Wavell he ought never to have been appointed”. The tirade had lasted for a full hour. A committee had rewritten Wavell’s r esponse so that it bristled with hostile l egalese, but the War Cabinet had sent it back for further revision.



At the next War Cabinet meeting on I ndia, on 4 August 1944, Churchill inserted into the new draft response to Gandhi a statement of British responsibilities t owards untouchables in a land ruled by caste Hindus. Amery pointed out that this was irrelevant to the issues that Gandhi had raised – and provoked a furious res ponse from Churchill, “describing how a fter the war he was going to go back on all the shameful story of the last twenty years of surrender”. Instead of honouring repeated promises of emancipation for I ndia, Churchill continued, he would strengthen British rule and simultaneously

Quote:

carry out a great regeneration of India based on extinguishing landlords and oppressive industrialists and uplift the peasant and untouchable, probably by collectivisation on Russian lines. It might be necessary to get rid of wretched sentimentalists like Wavell and most of the present English o fficials in India, who were more Indian than the Indians, and send out new men.





Amery’s Hitler Remark



According to Amery’s diary, Churchill even attacked the patriotism of the Secretary of State for India on the grounds that he supported the interests of “Indian m oneylenders” over those of Englishmen. “Naturally I lost patience”, continued A mery in his diary, “and couldn’t help telling him that I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s which annoyed him no little. I am by no means sure whether on this subject of India he is really quite sane.”5



Amery made the Hitler remark in the heat of argument, but clearly he stood

by it. For he left much out of his diaries – notably, any hint of his Jewish heritage, a s ecret uncovered in 2000 by historian William D Rubinstein. So the retention of this explosive comment can be no accident. Given that Chaim Weizmann, the future premier of Israel, had recently told Amery about a “monstrous German blackmailing offer to release a million Jews in return for ten thousand lorries and other equipment, failing which bargain they proposed to exterminate them”, he understood as well as anyone could in those times the implications of his comparison.6 Amery may have been provoked by the reference to moneylenders – a hint that Churchill saw upper class Indians through the same lens as anti-Semites might perceive Jews. “All those arts which are the natural defence of the weak are more f amiliar to this subtle race than to… the Jew of the dark ages”, Thomas Babington Macaulay had written of the Bengali, who, in the view of this 19th century historian, compressed into his diminutive form every loathsome characteristic that he perceived in the Hindu: “as usurers, as money-changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a comparison with them”. The Bengali babu, another writer had joked in 1911, was “something of an Irishman, something of an Italian, something of a Jew: if one can conceive of an Irishman who would run away from a fight instead of into it, an Italian without a sense of beauty and a Jew who would not risk five pounds on the chance of making five hundred.”7



Amery may have had a further cause for his Hitler comment: exactly a year earlier, on 4 August 1943, the War Cabinet had made its first, and most crucial, decision to deny famine relief to Bengalis. Amery was undoubtedly aware of this anniversary, and the memory of what had transpired at that fateful War Cabinet meeting may have fuelled a simmering anger that burst forth upon Churchill’s tirade. In July 1943, the Government of India had informed the War Cabinet of outbreak of famine in Bengal, and requested emergency shipments of 5,00,000 tons of wheat by year-end. Half of that quantity would supply the army, while the other half would support the war effort by feeding urban and industrial populations; if any of the imported grain happened to be left over, it would be used for famine relief.



Outbreak of Famine



At the War Cabinet meeting of 4 August 1943, Amery had propounded the urgent Indian need for food “in as strong terms as I could”, according to his diary – but had failed to get the War Cabinet to schedule even a single shipment of wheat for India. The Secretary of State for War, Sir Percy James Grigg, who believed that the famine had been created by Bengali babus in order to make profits from speculation, had baselessly contradicted the Government of India and the then viceroy, Lord Linlithgow. Grigg asserted that wheat would not relieve the Bengal famine – apparently in the mistaken belief, expressed in descriptions of the Bengal famine by more than one British historian, that Bengalis would not or could not eat wheat. (In truth, the War Cabinet wanted to conserve wheat, which was available in Australia, for the feeding of Europeans, if and when they were liberated.) Instead of scheduling relief for Bengal, the War Cabinet had dispatched 50,000 tons of wheat to Ceylon to await instructions as to the final destination, while around 1,00,000 tons of barley – which consignments were close to useless because they would have negligible effect on food prices – were to be ordered for India from Iraq.8



Churchill did say that if the situation in India got worse, Amery could bring it up again; but the next day, 5 August 1943, he left for a conference in Quebec. The following week a committee disbursed the shipping in the Indian Ocean for the next month. In September, 10 vessels would be required to load in Australia with wheat flour, and two with other foodstuffs, but none of these consignments would be g oing to India. In October, nine or 10 vessels would be needed to load in Australia with wheat and other food, but again none would be destined for India. Around 75,000 tons of Australian wheat would be transported to Ceylon and west Asia each month, to supply the war effort, and a further 1,70,000 tons would go to a supply centre in the Mediterranean region – to be stockpiled for future consumption by the civilians of southern Europe, whom Churchill hoped to liberate. The few ships travelling to India would be filled with war-related cargo. As for the Iraqi barley promised for India, negotiations on price, being the province of the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Food, were incomplete when the War Cabinet again discussed the famine on 24 September 1943.



Later that year, Amery was able to ensure that the 50,000 tons of wheat intended for Ceylon eventually went on to India, and that a further 30,000 tons were o rdered for the colony. The first of these consignments probably arrived in November. The timing is significant, because the greater the delay, the more the number of lives lost. The quantities matter too: as a result of the War Cabinet’s priorities, the Government of India received a mere 16% of the wheat that it had requested – far from enough to meet the requirements of the Indian army, let alone that of a famine- stricken populace. As a result, the army continued to use domestic supplies that could otherwise have been used to r elieve famine: it consumed 1,15,000 tons of rice in 1943, twice the quantity it had used the previous year, because of a concurrent shortage in the supply of wheat.9



From the beginning of the war, India had exported grain for the war effort; the net quantity of wheat and rice exported in the fiscal year 1942-43 was 3,60,000 tons. Rice exports from India had come to a halt only in July 1943. But when the colony s uffered from famine – in no small part because of the scarcity and inflation r esulting from such extractions of supplies – shiploads of Australian wheat would pass it by, to be stored for future consumption in Europe. The starvation of Bengalis was of little consequence, Amery quoted Churchill as saying, because the people were of negligible value to the war effort and in any case they were “breeding like rabbits”.10



Around July or August 1943, the non-availability of grain had forced government-run relief centres in Bengal to r educe the rations provided to famine victims to about four ounces per person per day. That came to 400 calories, at the low end of the scale at which, at much the same time, inmates at the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald were being fed. The Bengal famine had drawn to an end in December 1943, when the province h arvested its own winter rice crop. It killed 1.5 million people by the official e stimate alone, and possibly twice as much by other accounts.11



It is in this context that Amery’s comparison of Churchill’s attitudes with those of Hitler must be viewed. “In the occupied territories on principle only those people are to be supplied with an adequate amount of food who work for us”, Hermann Göring, Hitler’s designated successor, had stated of the Slav countries that Germany had conquered (Poland, Czechoslovakia and tracts of the Soviet Union). Further,

Quote:

Even if one wanted to feed all the other inhabitants, one could not do it in the newly-occupied eastern areas. It is, therefore, wrong to funnel off food supplies for this purpose, if it is done at the expense of the army and necessitates increased s upplies from home.





As the Third Reich tightened its grip, the withdrawal of its colonies’ products and resources would result in the deaths, from starvation and disease, of tens of millions of ordinary Slavs, noted a Nazi policy paper formulated in 1941.12 Notably, after attending one of the War Cabinet debates on sending famine relief to India, Wavell noted in his diary that Churchill wanted to “feed only those [ Indians] actually fighting or making m unitions or working some particular railways”.13 According to Amery, the prime minister felt that feeding Bengalis, who were not making much of a contribution to the war effort, was less important than feeding Greeks, who were. Such views towards Indian non-combatants are difficult to distinguish from the Nazi attitude towards ordinary Slavs, who were d escribed as “superfluous eaters”. Amery could not have known the specifics of the Nazi scheme for exploiting the colonies, called the Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). But he had read Mein Kampf in the original German and had studied Hitler’s speeches, which made no secret of the Führer’s dreams of restoring prosperity to Germany by extending its hegemony t owards the east. Amery had even had a long conversation with Hitler in 1935, and noted in his autobiography that the G erman leader had a good grasp of economics. Amery was in any case aware that the Nazis were withdrawing resources from occupied territories (such as Greece), and leaving the natives to starve – just as Churchill had done in India.



Redesigning Indian Society



Nevertheless, the immediate provocation for Amery’s Hitler remark was not famine relief but Churchill’s scheme for the re designing Indian society. Whereas the prime minister held ordinary Indians to be expendable (and no worse) his attitude towards the Indian upper class was one of active hostility. In particular, he was convinced that native merchants and moneylenders had caused the famine (Leopold S Amery, Secretary of State for India from May 1940 to June 1945) by stockpiling grain, which belief had exacerbated his enmity. Although much about his plan for India remains vague, Churchill clearly believed that a major makeover of native s ociety, involving the termination of the babu class and its replacement by a British ruling elite, was necessary in order to e xtend British rule over India for “a few more generations” (as he had written to Viceroy Linlithgow in 1937). Churchill’s ideas for India’s future bear a passing resemblance to what is now known of Nazi plans for rendering the Slav regions into permanent slave territories by means of intellectual decapitation. In the Nazi plan, every Jew, as well as every member of the Slav intellectual and upper classes – people who, in Hitler’s view, were likely to f oment rebellions – were to be exterminated and replaced by a German ruling class. What makes Hitler’s legacy particularly horrific is that this plan was not merely theoretical: he did, in fact, largely implement the first part.14



Churchill’s ideas, as recorded by Amery, suggest also the influence of Stalin. Churchill met the dictator several times during the course of the war. He came

to admire Stalin’s decisiveness and ruthlessness – as evinced by the implementation of a scorched earth order against those S oviet citizens whose homes and fields lay in the path of the Nazis, which action had helped turn the tide against the invaders. In the early 1930s, Stalin had created in Soviet Union a collectivised society ruled by a class of party elites – in part by eliminating the kulaks, or rural moneylenders (although in practice all better-off peasants were targeted). At a meeting in 1942, Churchill had questioned Stalin about this collectivisation scheme, which, along with appropriations of grain by the state, had led to the Ukrainian famine in which about 10 million people died.15



In subsequent conversations, Churchill would return to the prospect of collectivising Indian society as well, at the expense of usurers and others – broadly, the babus, or educated Hindu males, who comprised almost the entire leadership of the Congress Party. According to Amery, in April 1945, Churchill spoke of “abolishing I ndian landlords and moneylenders, instituting a Soviet system, etc”. Since Churchill detested communism, his fixation with this project speaks to his hatred of upper class Indians. The British imperial imagination cast the babus of India in a role similar to that in which the Nazis cast the Jews and the Slavic upper class, and the Soviets cast the kulaks and Ukrainian u pper class – as enemies of the state.16The British people, who by and large were weary of imperialism, would no doubt have viewed with disfavour such measures as collectivisation and large-scale imprisonment (or even extermination, judging by the language in which Amery recorded Churchill’s diatribe of 4 August 1944) undertaken in their name – especially after having fought a war to defend freedom. According to the Amery paper, ordinary Britons would not be permitted to know. Wartime restrictions were keeping from them many details of Churchill’s India policy, including his refusal to relieve the Bengal famine, and the prime minister evidently hoped to extend such protections to the post-war period by introducing Soviet-style controls: hence the “Intourist” bureau.



As it happens, Churchill and the conservatives decisively lost the British elections of 1945, so that he could not even begin to put into practice his ideas for the post-war regeneration of India.



Notes



1 Amery Papers, AMEL 1/6/34.



2 Barnes and Nicholson, 995.



3 Mansergh, Transfer IV, 1100, 1136-8.



4 CHAR 20/165/43, 27 May 1944.



5 Barnes and Nicholson, The Empire at Bay, 992-993; Mansergh, Transfer IV, 1152-4.



6 Barnes and Nicholson, 986.



7 Joseph V Denney, Macaulay’s Essay on Warren Hastings (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1907), 36; Quoted in Chakravarty, The Raj Syndrome, 127.



8 Mansergh, Transfer IV, 157, 163; Barnes and N icholson, 933-934.



9 MT 59/631, “Note of a Meeting Held to Discuss Cross Trade Programme Requirements”, 11 August 1943.



10 Barnes and Nicholson, 950.



11 Woodhead, Famine Inquiry Commission, 109-110; Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, 102; Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War, 271.



12 Steven R Welch, “Our India”.



13 Moon, ed., Wavell, 19.



14 Welch, Nazi Plans for the East, in Adler, et al, G enocide: History and Fictions, 35-37.



15 Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, 23, 301.



16 Barnes and Nicholson, 1039.

[acharya]

No source



Telegram of Indian prime minster to prime minister of Pakistan Telegram No:-402/primin/2227 Dated 27 october 1947 “I like to make clear that the question of aiding Kashmir in this emergencey is not designed to in any way to influence the state to acceed to india. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or state must be decided in accordance with the wishes of people and we adhere to this view.



Telegram NO:-225 dated 31 october 1947 from prime minister of India to Prime minister of Pakistan. “kashmir accession to India was accepted by us at the request of Maharajah’s government and the most numerously representative popular organization in the state which predominently Muslims. Even then it was accepted on the condition that as soon as law and order had been restored, the piople of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to acceed to either dominion then.



In this radio on 2nd november 1947. Indian prime minister Jawahavlal Nehru said. “we are anxious not to finalize anything in a moment of crised and without the fullest opertunity to the given to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It is for them ullimately to decide and let me make it clear that it has been our policy that wher there is dispute abouth the accession of a state to other dominion the accession must be made by the people of that state. It is in accordance with this policy that we have added a proviso to the instrument of accession of Kasmir

[ramana]

Please post the source so it adds to the body of knowledge.



Thanks, ramana

[Bharatvarsh2]

British Paramountcy: Reaction and Response by the Nineteenth Century Poets of Rajasthan

Madhu Sethia



http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L2L37HTV

[Guest]

Guru's i need some help from you.



What i am in the process of doing is start up a table on my blog listing how many indians were killed:

1. by the british raj in man made famines (for this I have ordered Mike Davis Victorian holocuasts and downloaded RC DUTTS Economic history of British India plus the new book published by the Tope family)

2.the genocide of 1857-1859,

3.supression of various revolts since british first came in till they left and their wars with the Marathas etc.



I aim to start off with 1 & 2 first.My final aim is to get a rough total no (due to the supression of true history real numbers will never be availiable) which we can throw in their faces every time.In the table I will need to give a reference to every statistic which will encourage those who want to read more to go and look for themselves.Even sixty years of indepence we dont have a unified count for how many people died due to the British.



I do not intend to deal with the causes of the first war of independece at this juncture as I havent read much about it.I have no illusions about Hindu-Muslim unity or tripe of that sort but I neither want to let the British go scot free for their horrendous actions in India.These are two seperate aspects I believe.





I would greatly appreicate any links,names of books or even page numbers which i can quote as references.If you know of any Indian accounts of 1857 this will also be appreciated.i came across the marathi book "Maza Pravas" – by Vishnubhat Godse.This is an eye witness accoutn of the massacares at Jhansi etc.I plan to buy this book on my next trip to Pune.

Just for info my blog is this: http://jambudveep.wordpress.com which was linked here by Bharatvashji previously.

[Bharatvarsh2]

I will look around for the references and post them here including any papers on JSTOR that I can find starting tomorrow, check back on this thread.



For the Anglo-Maratha wars you may want to check this book recently published and referenced by HH on his blog:



The Anglo-Maratha campaigns and the contest for India: the struggle for control of the South Asian Military Economy By Randolf G. S. Cooper



http://books.google.ca/books?id=qweZWra_...as&f=false

[Guest]

Bharatvarshji,many thanks for your cooperation.



Here is a post I put on my blog and in BR forum as well.I have started reading Dharampal's books,I will regularly post extracts from his books to create more awareness about this great mans works.



Did the British civilise us?



The general impression carried by most British people is that they “civilised India”, whatever that means. Even the more intellectual amongst them carry this opinion. The thrust of the education system in the United Kingdom is to disseminate the myth amongst the British public that the British Raj was some kind of a charitable organisation. The general thinking is, “We gave you railways, education, telegraph, your democracy and we didn’t even charge you for it!!” (The first two were set up primarily to make the economic loot of India easier and enable rapid movement of British troops to any part of British India, their “modern education” destroyed any kind of basic educational access for millions of Indians, while the last one is an outright lie: what was the whole point of the freedom struggle if the British gave us democracy!! In my eyes justifying British colonialism is like saying: “Tough luck you got raped, but look at the bright side: now you know what sex feels like!!)

Confront any British on the atrocities committed by the British in India and all you are going to get a hostile look of disbelief. For in their mind that is simply not possible: after all the British Empire was a force for good in the world!!

Or the more common reaction from those who are more aware of the destructive nature of British rule is along the lines of, “Grow up and stop ranting about the past!” .Sanctimonious advice free of cost!

But why blame the British for covering up their genocides, rapes and loot in India? This is after all expected behaviour from a hardened criminal. They will never acknowledge their crimes till somebody brings them to book.

What should really cause us to hang our heads in shame is the utter failure of our “esteemed” historians to educate Indians in the real character of the British rule. Not that common Indians need educating in how bad British rule was. Thankfully civilisational memories are stronger than the machinations of corrupt academics and apologists of the British raj. Memories of the genocide committed by the British in the suppression of the war of independence of 1857 still linger on in the collective consciousness of Indian people.

More than the common people it is the English educated elite of India which needs to be “educated” in the history of India, whether that is of Islamic or British misrule. The statement by Dr. Manmohan Singh while accepting an honorary degree from his alma mater Oxford University in 2005 that, “Today, with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister to assert that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too ” is indicative of the mental colonisation of the Indian mind. I’m sure that the millions of perfectly avoidable deaths, the billions looted were some of the “beneficial consequences” our esteemed Prime minister had in mind when he made the statement .Physical freedom is relatively easy to obtain however becoming mentally free is another thing all together.

Coming back to our topic: How do we define the word “civilise”? A definition I picked up from the Cambridge online dictionary defines it as: “to educate a society so that its culture becomes more developed”.

So when the British gained supremacy in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were we a barbarous, primitive people who needed to be educated in the ways of modern society, science, technology, living etc? Were our educational institutions outdated and irrelevant? Was the administration system of the country a disorganised mess? Were we completely lacking in any kind of technological and scientific capability?

These and many more questions rose in my mind. And I found at least some of them answered in Shri Dharampal’s excellent books. This great son of mother India was not a professional historian but the research he did and the findings he presented in his books on the nature of Indian society in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is unmatched. His biography and quite a few of his books can be found on this site: http://www.samanvaya.com/dharampal/

As a first step I will post some of the information regarding indigenous science and technology I gleaned from Sri Dharampal’s book. Below I am posting some extracts from his book “Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century” (you can download a .pdf copy here. As far as I am aware there are no copyright restrictions. However if there are please let me know and I will take it down ASAP).

Part I: Extracts from “Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century”

Sri Dharampal’s book has original reproductions of several observations made by British administrators, travellers etc about the science and technology of the Indian people. I am only posting these here to stimulate curiosity, for a fuller appreciation reading the book is highly recommended.

1. Inoculation against Smallpox in mid and late 18th century India:

The following passage from 1767 CE is a small fragment of an eye witness account to the process of inoculation against small pox carried out in India before the British supremacy. It describes how trained Brahmins from various major cities like Varanasi etc spread out once a year all over the country to inoculate common people against small pox.

“Inoculation is performed in Indostan by a particular tribe of Bramins, who are delegated annually for this service from the different Colleges of Bindoobund, Eleabas, Benares, & c. over all the distant provinces; dividing themselves into small parties, of three or four each, they plan their travelling circuits in such wise as to arrive at the places of their respective destination some weeks before the usual return of the disease; they arrive commonly in the Bengall provinces early in February, although they some years do not begin to inoculate before March, deferring it until they consider the state of the season, and acquire information of the state of the distemper.”

The writer of the manuscript further elaborates on the actual process of inoculation, “The inhabitants of Bengall, knowing the usual time when the inoculating Bramins annually return, observe strictly the regimen enjoined, whether they determine to be inoculated or not; this preparation consists only in abstaining for a month from fish, milk, and ghee (a kind of butter made generally of buffalo’s milk); the prohibition of fish respects only the native Portuguese and Mahomedans, who abound in every province of the empire. When the Bramins begin to inoculate, they pass from house to house and operate at the door, refusing to inoculate any who have not, on a strict scrutiny, duly observed the preparatory course enjoined them. It is no uncommon thing for them to ask the parents how many pocks they choose their children should have: Vanity, we should think, urged a question on a matter seemingly so uncertain in the issue; but true it is, that they hardly ever exceed, or are deficient, in the number required. They inoculate indifferently on any part, but if left to their choice, they prefer the outside of the arm, midway between the wrist and the elbow, for the males; and the same between the elbow and the shoulder for the females. Previous to the operation the Operator takes a piece of cloth in his hand, (which becomes his perquisite if the family is opulent) and with it gives a dry friction upon the part intended for inoculation, for the space of eight or ten minutes, then with a small instrument he wounds, by many slight touches, about the compass of a silver groat, just making the smallest appearance of blood, then opening a linen double rag (which he always keeps in a cloth round his waist) takes from thence a small pledget of cotton charged with the variolous matter, which he moistens with two or three drops of the Ganges Water, an applies it to the wound, fixing it on with a slight bandage, and ordering it to remain on for six hours without being moved, then the bandage to be taken off, and the pledget to remain until it falls off itself; sometimes (but rarely) he squeezes a drop from the pledget, upon the part, before he applies it; from the time he begins the dry friction, to tying the knot of the bandage, he never ceases reciting some portions of the worship appointed, by the Aughtorrah Bhade, to be paid to the female divinity before mentioned, nor quits the most solemn countenance all the while. The cotton, which he preserves in a double callico rag, is saturated with matter from the inoculated pustules of the preceding year, for they never inoculate with fresh matter, nor with matter from the disease caught in the natural way, however distinct and mild the species” .



The description given by the Brahmins about what causes the disease is a perfect description of the small pox virus.

“They lay it down as a principle, that the immediate (or instant) cause of the smallpox exists in the mortal part of every human and animal form; that the mediate (or second) acting cause, which stirs up the first, and throws it into a state of fermentation, is multitudes of imperceptible animalculae floating in the atmosphere; that these are the cause of all epidemical diseases, but more particularly of the small pox; that they return at particular seasons in greater or lesser numbers; that these bodies, imperceptible as they are to the human organs of vision, imprison the most malignant tribes of the fallen angelic spirits: That these animalculae touch and adhere to everyhing, in greater or lesser proportions, according to the nature of the surfaces which they encounter; that they pass and repass in and out of the bodies of all animals in the act of respiration, without injury to themselves, or the bodies they pass through; that such is not the case with those that are taken in with the food, which, by mastication, and the digestive faculties of the stomach and intestines, are crushed and assimilated with the chyle, and conveyed into the blood, where, in a certain time, their malignant juices excite a fermentation peculiar to the immediate (or instant) cause, which ends in an eruption on the skin” .



2. Observatory at Varanasi:

Another account describes the existence of a large observatory at Varanasi.

“We entered this building, and went up a staircase to the top of a part of it, near to the river Ganges, that led to a large terrace, where, to my surprise and satisfaction, I saw a number of instruments yet remaining, in the greatest preservation, stupendously large, immoveable from the spot, and built of stone, some of them being upwards of twenty feet in height; and, although they are said to have been erected two hundred years ago, the graduations and divisions on the several arcs appeared as well cut, and as accurately divided, as if they had been the performance of a modern artist. The execution in the construction of these instruments exhibited a mathematical exactness in the fixing, bearing, and fitting of the several parts, in the necessary and sufficient supports to the very large stones that composed them, and in the joining and fastening each into the other by means of lead and iron.”



About the antiquity of the observatory the writer further observes, “This observatory at Benares is said to have been built by the order of the emperor Ackbar; for as this wise prince endeavoured to improve the arts, so he wished also to recover the sciences of Hindostan, and therefore directed that three such places should be erected; one at Delhi, another at Agra, and the third at Benares” .



This observatory is apparently still in existence in a very sorry state in Varanasi and is known as “Man Mandir”.



3. Process of making Ice:

A novel Indian method of making ice is described in a manuscript from 1775 CE. The writer further says that this method was used on a large scale to preserve sherbets etc.

“The methods he pursued were as follows: on a large open plain, three or four excavations were made, each about thirty feet square and two deep; the bottoms of which were strewed about eight inches or a foot thick with sugar-cane, or the stems of the large Indian corn dried. Upon this bed were placed in rows, near to each other, a number of small, shallow, earthen pans, for containing the water intended to be frozen. These are unglazed, scarce a quarter of an inch thick, about an inch and a quarter in depth, and made of an earth so porous, that it was visible, from the exterior part of the pans, the water had penetrated the whole substance. Towards the dusk of the evening, they were filled with soft water, which had been boiled, and then left in the afore-related situation. The ice-makers attended the pits usually before the sun was above the horizon, and collected in baskets what was frozen, by pouring the whole contents of the pans into them, and thereby retaining the ice, which was daily conveyed to the grand receptacle or place of preservation, prepared generally on some high dry situation, by sinking a pit of fourteen or fifteen feet deep, lined first with straw, and then with a coarse kind of blanketing, where it is beat down with rammers, till at length its own accumulated cold again freezes and forms one solid mass. The mouth of the pit is well secured from the exterior air with straw and blankets, in the manner of the lining, and a thatched roof is thrown over the whole” .



In addition to the above there are a lot of other British eye witness accounts of Indian astronomy, knowledge of the binomial theorem by Indians, paper manufacture, agricultural inventions such as the drill plough, manufacture of iron etc are detailed in the book. As Dharampal points out in his introduction, these accounts only list those everyday innovations which were useful to the British. All the accounts are clear that these activities were part of the everyday life of the people and not niche activities confined to isolated pockets.

As I said, reading the book is an absolute must for every right minded Indian. I will keep posting further extracts regarding administration, economics etc as I read Sri Dharampal’s other books.



references:

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/nic/0...speech.htm , extracted on 03/12/10.

Dharampal, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, page 154.

Dharampal, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, page 156-157.

Dharampal, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, page 160-161.

Dharampal, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, pages 39-40.

Dharampal, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, pages 171-172.

[Bharatvarsh2]

devagiri thanks for the interesting post, check post 206 at this link:



http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index....e__st__200



This Amaresh Mishra claims 10 million dead in the aftermath of 1857 and claims he gives the sources in his book. I haven't read his book so can't say whether it's true or not but this guy is a virulent Hindu hating commie if I remember correctly though even a broken clock can be right twice a day, so his book may be useful to you.

[Guest]

[quote name='devagiri' date='03 December 2010 - 10:36 AM' timestamp='1291400918' post='109650']

Guru's i need some help from you.



What i am in the process of doing is start up a table on my blog listing how many indians were killed:

1. by the british raj in man made famines (for this I have ordered Mike Davis Victorian holocuasts and downloaded RC DUTTS Economic history of British India plus the new book published by the Tope family)

2.the genocide of 1857-1859,

3.supression of various revolts since british first came in till they left and their wars with the Marathas etc.



I aim to start off with 1 & 2 first.My final aim is to get a rough total no (due to the supression of true history real numbers will never be availiable) which we can throw in their faces every time.In the table I will need to give a reference to every statistic which will encourage those who want to read more to go and look for themselves.Even sixty years of indepence we dont have a unified count for how many people died due to the British.



I do not intend to deal with the causes of the first war of independece at this juncture as I havent read much about it.I have no illusions about Hindu-Muslim unity or tripe of that sort but I neither want to let the British go scot free for their horrendous actions in India.These are two seperate aspects I believe.





I would greatly appreicate any links,names of books or even page numbers which i can quote as references.If you know of any Indian accounts of 1857 this will also be appreciated.i came across the marathi book "Maza Pravas" – by Vishnubhat Godse.This is an eye witness accoutn of the massacares at Jhansi etc.I plan to buy this book on my next trip to Pune.

Just for info my blog is this: http://jambudveep.wordpress.com which was linked here by Bharatvashji previously.

[/quote]



At one point i came up with an estimate of 50 million, the estimate of the people killed due to man made events (famine,wars, pogroms, just plain butchery) . I dont have my notes with me right now, but will try to dig them out. As a matter of comparison, when one compares with the islamic period. where the carnage was greater ( 70 million): You zll notice that the rate at which Indians were decimated 25 million per century was higher than the corresponding number durng the islamic period which comes to approximately 15 million per century

[Guest]

Kaushal Garu, I would be very grateful if you could dig up some of your notes.all contributions to the count will be gratefully acknowledged.

the figure of fifty million is very realistic.I guess British had the advantage of "modernity" to annihilate greater numbers of Indians than the Islamics could manage ( in the relative time periods of their military supremacy).



I am great follower of your articles regarding revising the timeline of of our history.I try and read the ones related to our mathematics,astronomy etc but my understanding is very limited in those subjects hence can only grasp 10% of what you write.

[Bharatvarsh2]

While it is clear that the Christian tyrants (aka British) managed to murder at a faster rate keep in mind that India also had a higher population in 19th century than it did during Muslim rule.



Let's say Muslims killed 10 million out of a total of 50 million and Christians 25 out of 150 million, that's 20% for the former and 17% for the latter.



So when you account for that the contest becomes closer though the Christians might still manage to win out in the end.



Though overall there is no doubt that the British Xtians did far more damage. Consider for example that hardly any Hindu today has a gun at home where as even at the height of Muslim tyranny India was teeming with weapons which Hindus used for their resistance. It just shows you how thoroughly successfull they were in disarming Hindus and also brainwashing them so that in so called "independent" India the same Xtian inspired laws are followed to keep Hindus unarmed.



The Brits were also far more thorough in mental colonization.

[Guest]

[quote name='devagiri' date='08 December 2010 - 12:46 PM' timestamp='1291840716' post='109730']

Kaushal Garu, I would be very grateful if you could dig up some of your notes.all contributions to the count will be gratefully acknowledged.

the figure of fifty million is very realistic.I guess British had the advantage of "modernity" to annihilate greater numbers of Indians than the Islamics could manage ( in the relative time periods of their military supremacy).



I am great follower of your articles regarding revising the timeline of of our history.I try and read the ones related to our mathematics,astronomy etc but my understanding is very limited in those subjects hence can only grasp 10% of what you write.

[/quote]



It appears that a major publisher in India will agree to publish my book on The Origins of Astronomy, the calendar and Time.I strongly recommend you get it. I say that not so much to sell my book but it contains a vast wealth of information on the History of astronomy and math in India and once you see all the data you will be wondering why we Indians let ourselves be bamboozled into believing the rubbish that has been propagated by the Oxford and Cambridge schools . I have always maintained that the key to India's history and chronology lies in investigating the history of the sciences in India.



I will try to dig out the notes on the carnage in India during British rule, but the key to that is the famines in India. The 1770 famine alone resulted in 1/3 Bengalis being killed (that is in all of Bengal). That alone resulted in 10 -15 million deaths. Then there were a series of famines between 1870 and 1906, one almost every year that resulted in 26 million deaths .. There is a UN publication that deals with famines in India.



The story of the famines in India is yet to be told in its entirety.



And then there is the 1857 war and the entire gangetic plain was depopulated. I wuld not put it past the British to have killed 3 million (per Amerish Misra)



In 1770 there was an attempt to depopulate the continent by starvation , just as they did in the Americas (by disease and starvation ) but finally the Brits came to the same conclusion as Jehangir - that they could not kill all the Indians - there were too many of them.



There is a thread in IF which asks Did the British civilize the indians. The real question is whether the Indians succeeded in civilizing the Barbarians who called themselves brits

[Bharatvarsh2]

There is a thread in IF which asks Did the British civilize the indians. The real question is whether the Indians succeeded in civilizing the Barbarians who called themselves brits

Not if we go by their more recent actions in Iraq or the actions of their great hero the fat tyrant Churchill who was similar to Hitler in many ways.



Churchill - Drunk With Thrill Of Genocide



http://www.rense.com/general47/thil.htm



Also consider their actions during the second Anglo-Boer war where they put the Boer civilians in concentration camps leading to the death of as much as 10% of the population, this was in early 1900s and was done to their fellow "whites". So one can only imagine what these brutes did to dark skinned "heathens" much earlier in 1857.



On a side note there is still a street in Delhi named after Havelock who was responsible for many atrocities while suppressing 1857.

[Guest]

Kaushal ji when your book comes out please let us know.You have one customer already,i will also try and spread the word.



I have started worknig on a prelininary spreadsheet while reading thru RC Dutts economic history of india and "Victorian Holocausts" by Mike Davis. From the grat bengal famine of 1776 till the last famine in 1943 it is one long mind numbing tale of deliberate murder of millions of Indians.I will try and get the famine ocunt out before the end of december.



Bharatvarshji,I am not surpised to see that there is a street named after "Havelock",isnt htere "Aurangzeb marg" as well in Delhi? We seem to celebrate our murderers.

[Bharatvarsh2]

There is not only a street named after Aurangzeb but also a city in Maharashtra, Shivaji's home state.



Also please drop the "ji" as I am pretty sure I am younger than you.



I have been looking on JSTOR for papers dealing with 1857 atrocities, hard to find. Instead I find much British and Indian anguish about the "Cawnpore massacre" of goras, worthless clowns.

[Guest]

I have started off on the counter.I did the count for the famines first as the sources are most easily accessible.

Has been a painful excercise.The upper end of the count comes to 85 million.i will post the references in the following post.

In 6 months ill probably move onto the next phase ie Indian casualities in the wars with British.









How many Indians died in the genocides committed by the British Raj?



In Memoriam: In memory of the countless millions of Indians who perished in the genocides conducted by their British tormentors. You shall not be forgotten.



Approximate Number of Indians Killed by the British



Cause of Deaths Number of Deaths Comments



British-made Famines

85 million (approximately) Please see Appendix I for a detailed breakup with references. An explanatory article on the famines will be added later.

Epidemics induced by Famines Information is being gathered -

Anglo-Indian Wars Information is being gathered -

Indians Killed fighting for the British Information is being gathered -

Partition of India Information is being gathered -





A short poem in memory of the dead:

You Shall not be Forgotten

Voices of the past call out to us,

“Remember us, Remember us!”



Each voice has a tale to tell,

Of English “humanity” and “justice”.



With a heavy heart I hear their tales of woe,

“Stabbed with an English bayonet was I!”

“I was raped and left to die!”

“Dying of hunger, I was left to rot,

While my crops provided fodder for the English horse!”

“Did you see my village?

The firangis burnt it down in 1857.”

“I sold myself to save my child.”

There is no end to the mountain of grief,

Which befell our people in times gone by.



“There is no justice in this world,” they say in a voice,

“But let not our memories wither away,

What is more cruel than to be forgotten by one’s own?”

“Remember us, Remember us!”



“Your memory shall be kept alive!”I say to them,

“On our shoulders the burden rests,

For we shall not let your memory fade!”



A brief Note on the rationale behind conducting this count...



“How many Indians were killed off by the British Raj?”



This deceptively simple question was asked by a gentleman in the Bharat Rakshak forum. This got me thinking, “Surely there has to be a tally of the number of Indians killed by the British?” After all haven’t other mass genocides like that of the Jews by Nazi Germany been documented? A simple internet search will give you estimates on how many Jews died in the Holocaust.

So why isn’t there any information on the total number of Indians killed off by the British in their “civilising” wars, manmade famines etc? Why have the “eminent” historians who set our educational syllabuses from their ivory towers in JNU (Jawaharlal University, Delhi) not brought out a simple tally of the Indians killed due to British imperialism? Have they done anything other than being Congress cronies and apologists for the Islamic mob? There is no surprise on their studied silence on British atrocities in India. After all some of the more “eminent” historians owe their sustenance and publicity to their lords overseas.

For the British government it is imperative that only the so called “positive” aspects of their tyranny in India are highlighted. Who would want to own up to being responsible for multiple genocides?

At the end of the Second World War, a completely shattered Germany was forced to publicly atone for its war crimes. But the British pulled out of India completely intact, hence there was no “pressure” on them to repent for their genocides in India. Additionally, British academics and historians have played a pivotal role in denying outright or defending the role of their ancestors in the genocide .For e.g. take the case of our First war of Independence of 1857.It is only recently that the Indian viewpoint has begun to emerge (“Operation Red Lotus” is a book I would recommend). For more than 150 years after the event the British version dominated mainstream narration of history.

Similarly in the case of other “Made in Britain” disasters, such as the terrible famines which hit India from 1768 till 1943 CE ( the last one occurred only four years before they left India in 1947 CE), British academia and their “brown sahibs” in India continually try to deny the British role in the deaths of millions. Case in point is the Wikipedia entry for “Famines in India”. The lowest estimate of deaths is usually presented as the true one and every effort is made to absolve the British of the blood on their hands. One wonders who is editing those entries and why aren’t our people turning out in force to tell our version of history?

But the body of evidence regarding the deliberate murder of millions in the “good” times of the British Raj continues to pile up. It is heartening to see more and more mainstream books coming out outlining in detail the racist and deliberate policies pursued by British which directly led to the genocide of millions of Indians.

I am neither a historian nor anything of that sort. I try to live by two principles in life: “Truth” and “Justice”. As far as the telling of our history is concerned, none of these two principles is present. This is my humble attempt to keep the memories of those who have passed away alive.

I have made a start on this long journey of compiling the number of our dead from a variety of different sources. The task is mind numbing and very painful for me personally, but it must be done.

I have started off with populating the total number of Indians killed in British-Made famines. As I populate each section I will add an Appendix which gives a detail break up with references and a short note from me. Each of the other casualty figures will be populated as I gather more information.



वन्दे मातरम्

[Guest]

the appendix with the break up of numbers is on my blog.



im posting rest of the appendix here:



Essential Reading:

Before we go any further, I would like to recommend a few books which are essential reading for every Indian, irrespective of whether you like history or not.

1. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Mike Davis, Verso Books.

The book has excellent research drawing on a variety of sources, both Indian and foreign to show the true nature of British rule in India. Gives detail explanations of the deliberate policy of maximising revenue while millions of Indians perished in the famines. Also explodes some myths of “progress” due to the British such as railways, telegraph etc. Get your hands on one and read from beginning till the end.



2. “Famines and Land Assessments in India”, Romesh Chunder Dutt. Available for free download from : http://www.archive.org/stream/faminesandlanda00duttgoog

R C Dutt was a brilliant Bengali economic historian who had served for as a civil servant in the British government in India. His books lay bare the British policy of funnelling wealth and food out of India at the expense of millions of Indian lives.



3. The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule. From the Rise of the British Power in 1757 to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Vol. I, Romesh Chunder Dutt.



The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age. From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century, Vol. II, Romesh Chunder Dutt.



The above two books are specifically focused on the economic loot of India from the time of East India Company (1757 CE onwards) till 1901-1902 CE.A must read to get an idea of the resources and wealth looted from India by the British.



4. Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Forgotten Indian Famine of World War II, Madhusree Mukherjee, 2010.



The above books is about the terrible Bengal Famine of 1943 and presents evidence of British deliberately starving nearly 7 million Bengalis to death.

I believe the book is available at a very reasonable rate in India. We need to buy such books to encourage Indian authors to research and write the true version of our history.

[ramana]

Great job. Also post link to your blog to ensure continuity.



Thanks, ramana

[Guest]

My blog link for the above posts : http://jambudveep.wordpress.com



thanks for the feedback Ramanaji

[Guest]

I commend you for undertaking this essential piece of history. The Brits have gotten away Scotfree with many a dastardly act and have cultivated an image of being an essentially decent people but in their obsessive and incessant quest for lucre they have forfeited all rights to have earned such a reputation based on their historical record