india on the move [being serialized on scribd] sl 02 history of colonialism & india.doc

8/14/2019 INDIA ON THE MOVE [being serialized on scribd] Sl 02 History of colonialism & India.doc

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Some Interesting Snippets of History of Colonialism & India

Empire Building Strategies

As part of making sense of India of today, it should be a profitable

exercise to try to understand the empire building strategies employed by the

British for their hegemony of a large part of the world for a considerable period of

time..

It is indeed a highly remarkable achievement that a tiny island nation of

Britain was ruling a large chunk of the world for so long, Sun never Sets on the

British mpire!, was a true popular phrase. It is said that the presence of the

British people over the two centuries that they ruled over us, never exceeded one

lac "one hundred thousand#in number.

$herefore, it should be an interesting exercise to probe the highly

innovative strategies deployed by them for the purpose. And who better than a

well known British historian to tell us the story.

Public Private Partnership

It should never be forgotten that this was how the British empire began%

in a maelstrom of seaborne violence and theft. In &ec '(() a *elshman called+enry organ sailed - miles across the /arribean to mount a spectacular raid

on a Spanish outpost 0ranada1. to find and steal Spanish gold1. $hey

plundered for '( hours, discharged the prisoners, sunk all the boats and came

away1. 2iewed from 3ondon, buccaneering was a low budget way of waging

war against ngland!s principal uropean foe% Spain. In effect the /rown

licensed the pirates as 4rivateers! , legali5ing their operation in return for a share

of the proceeds.

Around '(6. +enry organ the pirate, now Sir +enry, 1 was 2ice

Admiral , commandant of the port royal regiment and acting 0overnor of

7amaica. organ!s career perfectly illustrates the way the mpire building

process worked. It was a transition from piracy to political power that would

change the world for ever.


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?ow let us see as to how was Ireland coloni5ed by Britain.

In the early '(s, a group of intrepid pioneers sailed across the seas to

settle and they hoped to civili5e a primitive country inhabited by F as they saw it F

a barbarous people% Ireland.

$heir term for coloni5ation was 4lantation!. In the words of Sir 7ohn

&avies, the settlers were good cornand the natives were , weeds1. In reality

plantation meant what today is called, ethnic cleansing!.

$he1 printed book!, published in '(' , spelt out in detail how plantation

would work. $he land would be reallocated in neat parcels ranging from ' to

) acres. $he biggest plots would go to the ominously named, undertakers!,

whose 9ob it was to build protestant churches and fortifications1.. /atholics had

to live outside the walls1. In :ctober '(C' the Dlster /atholics rose

up against the new comers 1.. a fearful tempest of blood , around

protestants were killed1.. Get by this time the plantation had taken hold. ven

before '(C' rising, there were more than '), nglish men and women

established in the six counties of 7acobean plantation, and more than C,

Scots throughout northern Ireland111..So Ireland was the experimental laboratory of British coloni5ation and

Dlster was the prototype plantation. "-#

*hat it seemed to show was that empire could be built not only by

commerce and conuest but by migration and settlement.

?ow the challenge was to export the model further afield F not 9ust across

the Irish seas, but across the Atlantic.

As in Dlster. So in the new world plantation meant planting F not 9ust

people but also crops. And planting crops meant tilling the land. $he uestion

was whose land was itH.... As Sir =rancis *yatt, 0overnor of 2irginia put it% our

first worke is expulsion of the savages to gain the free range of the country for


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encrease of cattle, swine c which will more than restore us , for it is infinitely

better to have no heathen among us!. In order to 9ustify expropriation of

indigenous populations, the British colonists came up with the distinctive

rationali5ation, the convenient idea of terra nullis! nobody!s land. J

Religious Intervention

It is interesting to see how even religion could not keep aloof from the

exciting game of empire building.

1.. /hristopher /olumbus had laid the foundation of Spain!s American empire.. In

1493 Pope had issued a bull allocating trade in the Aericas to !pain and trade in Asia to

Portugal

$he economics of British America was precariousK and by economics

alone British America could not have been built. Something more was needed F

an additional inducement to cross the Atlantic, over and above the profit motive.

"hat soething turned out to be religious #undaentalis

ngland finally settled on a moderately 4rotestant middle way! at theaccession of Lueen li5abeth I. =or people who came to be called as puritans,

however, the Anglican stablishment was a fudge. *hen it became clear that

7ames I intended to uphold the li5abethan order, a group of self8styled pilgrims!

from Scrooby in ?ottinghamshire decided it was time to leave11 $hen they

heard about America and precisely what put other people off F the fact that it

was a wilderness F struck them as ideal. *here better to found a truly 0odly

society than amid a vast and empty chaos.

:n ;th?ovember '(, nearly eight weeks after leaving Southampton ,

the pilgrims landed in cape cod. .> "-#


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The Three East India Companies

I never knew that there were three ast India /ompanies. &id youH

'. &utch merchants had been trading with India since '-;- via cape of

good hope. "he $utch %ast India &opan'was founded in '(. ver since

they had thrown off the Spanish rule in '-6;, the &utch had been at the

cutting edge of uropean capitalism. 1. $hey were able to send out nearly

five times as many ships to Asia as the 4ortuguese and twice as many as the

nglish1. $hey had established bases in asulipatnam on the east coast of

India, at Surat in the north west and at 7affna in /eylon. But by the '(


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). And in '((C the -rench had set up their own %ast India copan'F the

/ompagnie des Indes :rientales, with its base at 4ondicherry.

$he danger that =rance would win a struggle for global mastery against

Britain was a real one for the better part of a century1. In '6C( the =rench

governor at 4ondicherry resolved to strike a blow against the nglish presence in

India. :n (th=eb ,'6C6 the =rench hurled themselves against adras1..,

captured the fort, planted their flag at the ramparts , took possession of the whole

city1 &ismayed, the nglish ast India company feared that it would be utterly

destroyed by its =rench rival1.. +owever, 0overnor &upleix of 4ondicherry had

mistimed his move. $he ending of war of Austrian succession with the peace

treaty in '6C< , forced him to relinuish adras. J "-#

ivide and Rule

:ne cannot really blame the British for using the strategy of divide and

rule so effectively. Any ruler would do the same. $he real issue for serious

introspection is as to why did we decide to get divided N why did we let them

divide usH

And of serious concern is as to why have we even today not given upthose tendencies. $ake for example the difficulties being faced in setting up an

effective one agency for the whole country to gather intelligence and investigate

terrorist attacks. Immediate short term concerns take precedence over a broader

vision for the benefit of the country as a whole. An age old narrow Silo mentality.

J And the Indians themselves. $he answer is that they allowed themselves to be

divided and ultimately ruled. ven before the seven years war "between the British the

=rench# the British and the =rench were meddling in Indian politics, trying to determine

the successors to the Subahdar of &eccan and the nawab of /arnatic. 1.

1.. *hen the seven years war broke out , the ?awab of Bengal, Sira98ud8daula,

attacked the British settlement of /alcutta1 Sira9 had =rench backing. But his rivals, the

7agat Seth banking family, subsidi5ed the British counter attack. And /live was able to

persuade the supporters of a rival ?awab, ir 7afar, to defect from Sira9!s side on nd

7une '6-6, at the battle of 4lassey. +aving won the battle and secured the


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governorship of Bengal, /live deposed ir 7afar, appointing his son8in8law ir EasimK

when the latter proved insufficiently malleable , he in turn was expelled and ir 7afar

restored. 1. ore than two thirds of ; troops of /live at 4lassey were

Indians11 /live wrote to his directors in 3ondon, 1 the Indians are indolent,

luurious, ignorant and cowards be'ond all conception .. the' attept ever'

thing b' treacher' , rather than #orce "-#

+ere is a peep into our divisive tendencies even in the sports field.

&ric/eting #ansshould find this bit of history of interest %

A proto8cricket8tournament had been initiated by +arris in '


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good and greater than their own, they will lose their self8esteem, their native

culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.!

It should be worthwhile to have a brief look at the conditions prevailing in

India prior to the arrival o# the 2ritish, as part of out 9ourney of India on the move.

In the '6thcentury, 1 there was only one outlet , the discerning nglish

shopper would buy her clothes from. =or sheer Luality , Indian fabrics , designs,

workmanship and technology were in a league of their own. *hen nglish

merchants began to buy Indian silks and calicoes and bring them back home ,

the result was nothing less than a national makeover1 an appetite that had 1swept aside a whole genre of legislation % the sumptuary laws that had

traditionally regulated what nglishmen and women could wear according to their

social rank. 1 In '((C over a uarter million pieces of calico were imported into

ngland1'6thcentury nglish merchants had little they could offer Indians that

Indians did not make themselves. $herefore, they paid for their purchases in

cash, the bullion they had earned from trade elsewhere.

India!s share of the total world output at that time had been estimated at C MK

Britain!s share was merely ) M. $he idea that Britain might one day rule India

would have struck a visitor to &elhi in late '6 thcentury as simply preposterous.!

J mpire J by ?iall =ergusaon F published . "-#

*ith regard to agricultural production and the wages in Agriculture,

according to the 9ournal %dinburgh 6eview 7A$ 1)38)4, the wages of Indian

agricultural labourer in the Allahabad82aranasi region around '


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to some -8( tons per hectare , which euals the production of paddy per hectare

in present day 7apan F the current world high.! " 6#

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An estimate of IndiaOs pre8colonial economy puts the annual revenue of

mperorAkbarOs treasury in '( at P'6.- million Qin contrast to the entire treasury of

0reat Britaintwo hundred years later in 1800, which totaled 16 million. ) The gross

domestic product of Mughal India in 1600 was estimated at aout !".#$ the world

economy, the second largest in the world.

By this time the ughal mpire had expanded to include almost ; per

cent of South Asia, and enforced a uniform customs and tax8administration

system. In '6 the excheuer of the mperor Aurang5ebreported an annual

revenue of more than P' million11111.

After gaining the right to collect revenue in Bengal in '6(-, the ast India

/ompanylargely ceased importing gold and silver, which it had hitherto used to

pay for goods shipped back to Britain. In addition, as under ughal rule, land

revenue collected in the Bengal 4residencyhelped finance the /ompanyOs wars

in other part of India. /onseuently, in the period '6(F'


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Indian Science and Technolog" in the Eighteenth Centur"

*e owe r &harampal, a 0andhian high gratitude for opening our eyes to

this sub9ect. So if one wanted to have knowledge in any detail of the society

and life of India before British dominance, the obvious thing was to carefully

peruse these British generated archives. $his now &haram 4al did. +e did not

have much of an income. $here was also a family to support. But not

withstanding all this , he became a regular visitor to the India office and the

British useum. 4hotocopying reuired money. :ftentimes old manuscripts

could not be photocopied. So he copied them in long hand ,page after page,

millions of words, day after day. $hereafter he would have the copied notes

typed. +e thus retrieved and accumulated thousands of pages of information

from the archival record. *hen he returned to India, his most pri5ed possession

was these notes, which filled several large trunks and suit cases111 $his

picture that emerged from the total archival record was nothing short of stunning.

/ontrary to what millions of us were taught in school text books, it indicated theexistence of a functioning society, extremely competent in the arts and sciences

of its day. Its interactive grasp over its immediate natural environment was

undisputed% in fact, it demanded praise. $his was reflected in both agricultural

and industrial production.

$he most impressive feature of the set up was the elaborate fiscal

arrangements made for its upkeep in perpetuity. =rom the gross produce,

amounts were allocated by tradition for the upkeep of the system, from the

engineers who looked after the irrigation tanks and channels, to the police and

the school teachers. "6#

$wo examples of such lack of comprehension pertain to the practice of

inoculation against small pox and the use of drill plough. $ill '6o, when the wife of the

then British ambassador in $urkey, having got her children successfully inoculated


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,began to advocate its introduction into Britain, the practice of inoculation was unknown

to the British medical and scientific world.

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Similarly, about the drill plough. $he drill plough is said to have been first used in

urope by one 7oseph 3ocatelli of /arithia "Austria# in '((. Its introduction in ngland

dates to '6). But it took perhaps another - years before it was used on any scale. It

was used in India from time immemorial111.. $he interest in the Indian manufacture

of ice, in the making of adras mortar, in the process of Indian iron and steel

manufacture or the observatory of 2aranasi " treated as one of the five celebrated

observatories of the world by the ncyclopedia Britannica in its editions till '


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and society1.. +e found that the British successfully initiated an intricate system

of widespread control and extortion, taking away as tax most of what land

produced , as well as the products of manufacture. +e found it horrifying that it

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was often done at the point of the bayonet111 According to &haram 4al, the

British purpose in India, perhaps after long deliberation during the '6th century

was, never to attempt on any scale the settlement of the people of Britain in

India. It was felt that in most regions of India, because of its climate, temperature

range, gifted, industrious and dense population, the settling of the people of

urope would serve little purpose.

$herefore the purpose was defined as bringing to Britain and urope , surplus products

of the varied industry of the people of India and the taxes imposed on this industry. 1. $he aimwas to transfer as much as possible of the wealth of India to urope.! "6#

In this chapter we have been witness to the naked ambitions and raw

passions of the early colonialists , arrogating to themselves the right to look down

on others as inferior beings , to dispossess them of their habitat, to aim to

destroy their civili5ation and industry and an assumed divine right to rule over

them.

$urning our attention now away from the past to the present, to our own

affairs in India F chiefly on the health of our conomy and &emocracy today.

*e, therefore, now proceed to examine increasing numbers of people in

the country, our slowing economy, our education system, our corruption problem,

our power supply problems and the like. And to examine if the current high levelof cynicism among some of the elite is 9ustified or is rather misplaced. 4ast can

only be a guide to learn about the mistakes made and to develop a focus on how

to avoid the same mistakes again. And for those who choose not to learn from

the past, the saying, +istory repeats itself! is perfectly valid. So an important


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theme of the reader should be to assess as to how much of a learning nation are

we. And what steps are needed at this stage.

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!ur Population

:ver the last few decades we have been concerned about our burgeoning

population. Ges, it is a problem, but then the expanding numbers are only one

aspect of the issue. 3et us take a scan of some relevant data and see some

other emerging perspectives. And to what extent do these impact the

phenomenon of India on the ove.!

GA@ 4:4D3A$I:?

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india on the move [being serialized on scribd] sl 02 history of colonialism & india.doc

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