*** Excerpts from 1857: History and Propaganda by 2ndLook ***

…A man who is much (wrongly) admired in India today – Max Mueller. For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half-legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.

Aiding Max Mueller, English poets were press ganged into this propaganda war.

…Just before 1857 War, the writing of another ‘influential’ poet, John Keats, became popular. In a hubristic haze, Keats wrote how,

The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale.

Much of modern history’s debates and questions were born during this time – verily created to wage a propaganda war against India – and the world. India’s cultural stature in the pantheon of world’s societies was reduced to a minimal role – and the Greek Miracle was born.

This propaganda war continued well for another 100 years. In the middle of WW2, Britain pulled out a general from the Italian theatre of war and sent him to India – to head colonial India archaeological operations.

One evening in early August 1943, Brigadier General Mortimer Wheeler was resting in his tent after a long day of poring over maps, drawing up plans for invasion of Siciliy. Mortimer Wheeler was invited to become the director general of archaeology by the India Office of the British government in its last years of rule in South Asia … Summoning a general from the battlefields of Europe was an extraordinary measure, an admission both of the desperate condition of Indian archaeology and an acknowledgment of its vital importance. (from The Strides of Vishnu: Hindu Culture … – Google Books).

Amazing!

Why would the glorious British Empire, on which the sun never set, struggling for its very existence, in the middle of WW2, suddenly pull a general back from the battlefield – and put him into archaeology! Especially, when it was clear that they would be departing from India – sooner than later.

Considering what theories came from Mortimer Wheeler’s rather fertile ‘imagination’ and his rigourous archaeological process, raises even more questions. There may be the facile answer that the British were after all ‘searching for history and truth’.

And it led Mortimer Wheeler to remark,

“They demonstrate with astonishing clarity the extent to which the brief transit of Alexander did in fact Hellenize almost instantly vast tracts of Asia populated previously by nomads or semi-nomads and villagers”

It is this one incident which possibly has answers to many unanswered questions like: -

1. The amount of energy expended by the West in defending the Aryan Invasion /Migration Theory,
2. The lack of access to Indian scholars of the archaeological sites in Pakistan,
3. The many myths in Indian history,
4. The clues to the partition of India
5. The dating problems

et al.

Just why did the world’s foremost imperial power, struggling for its very existence, suddenly pull a general from the battle field, in the middle of WW2 – and put him on the job of digging dirt.

Only one explanation fits – it had to be a struggle for its own existence at a higher level!

5000 Years Of Poverty

By the end of the 19th century, Colonial India was de-urbanising. Populations in Indian agrarian network was increasing. Agricultural taxes were high. Hence, food production declined. Famines had become a regular feature. Industrial production was a distant memory. British colonial rule – especially from 1925 onwards, drastically changed the economic situation in India. From the richest to the poorest in a short period of a 100 years.

Tragically, our illustrious Finance Minister, P.Chidambaram says “I want to end 5000 years of poverty” in the Parliament and the media. In contrast, at various fora, there are discussions about how India will become a super power in this century.

While Chidambaram is factually incorrect, Indophiles are unrealistic. They fondly hope and believe that India is a one step away from being a super power. At best, we have a unique history. To improve the outlook on India’s uncertain future, a better understanding of our situation and more investments (not only money) are required.

*** End of Excerpts***

Related Posts: Max Meuller and Correcting History, A Restorative Account of Victorian Holocausts. Also Read: We Are, What We Know and why I am no longer sure if 1857 was a Revolt? a Mutiny? a War of Independence? or Jihad? ..or indeed all the above…

This will very likely be a 2-part chat. The topics that I intend to touch upon are:

• An Overview of Indian History
• Why Bother with History?
• What could be wrong with History?
• The History that is Not Told
• The History that is Distorted
• The Conspicuous Omissions
• The State of History in India and finally,
• What can you Do?

I will start by sharing some specific facts & ideas related to the sub-topics above. This will be followed by a moderated Q&A. Please use the hashtag #itihAs while mentioning this chat on twitter. This will help us aggregate & view the comments later..

“ItihAs: A Discussion on Indian History, its Omissions and Distortions”

Time: 8pm IST
Date: 10th Mar ’12 (Saturday)

Please do leave a note below (via comments) if you have a specific question or wish me to address a specific point.

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There are entire categories of posts on Indian History on the blog if you want to read something by way of background…If you plan to join, please note the time and make sure you are online a few minutes before we initiate the chat.

You should be able to set a reminder in the box above by entering your email. Looking forward to seeing many of you online this Saturday evening…Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

Past live chats are here (archived; can be “replayed”):

20th Jan ’12 on Youth, Politics and Systemic Change

3rd Jan ’12 on Illegal Infiltration and Impact on Demographics in North-East

29th Nov ’11 on Corruption, in conjunction with Indian Army Fans

5th Jun ’11 on Midnight Drama and Police Action at Ramlila Maidan

22nd Mar ’11 on Arunachal, Tibet and China

2nd Jul ’10 on Media and Distortions

2nd Oct ’10 on J&K

21st Nov ’10 on Corruption and What can You and I do?

*** Excerpts from “Why is England in India at all?” by Jabez T Sutherland ***

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 people 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?”

*** End of Excerpts ***

And if you think Mr Sutherland is exaggerating, think again and take a brief tour of the points made in these posts: A Restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts...  Also look at The Myth of a Benevolent “Raj”, The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj” (recommended)

Sadly, most Indians still retain a very rose-tinted image of the “Raj” and such talk is heresy in most “educated” circles in India. Yet this is recorded history – and cannot be denied (indeed has not been denied). How long can the truth be hidden? Read the article in full here (its long but worth it) and please share this with friends and family – especially the younger ones. They remain our hope.

*** A restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts by Amitabh Soni ***

Over the past few months I have been reading horrid accounts of British Imperialism in India.  I think, the greatest achievement of British Imperialism, was to tone down the “dislike” of the Indians towards them to such drastic levels that it started bordering towards “liking” them in many a ways. Don’t we always get to hear that the British gave us Railways, Parliamentary democracy, an administrative structure, an international language, science & technology, modernity etc . Most of us have very little idea about what & how much they took away from us. At school , I often heard my teachers saying in one way or the other, ‘Thank God ! The British came to India.” Truth be told, the ills of the Raj heavily out weigh its benefits. It is like somebody taking everything away from your house, burning it down & saying. “Hey ! Dont worry, have got this bike for you”. Would you then debate the benefits of the bike ? Unless you are made to believe that the worth of whatever you had was much less than that of the bike.

It isn’t that the British wanted to serve us some good & noble purpose & faltered midway. On April 29, 1875 Marquis of Salisbury, former Prime Minister of Great Britain,remarked,“As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested, or, at least is sufficient , not to those which are already feeble from the want of it”

We believe that the British did provide us with an education system, but this is what John Bright said in the British Parliament in 1853, “While the government has overthrown almost entirely the native education that had subsisted throughout the country so universally, that a schoolmaster was so regular a feature in every village as the ‘Patil’ or headman, it had done next to nothing to supply the deficiency which had been created , or to substitute a better system.” (1)

The following is an extract from India Resource website on South Asian History,

The literacy in British India in 1911 was only 6%, in 1931 it was 8%, and by 1947 it had crawled to 11%! …… Perhaps – the British had concentrated on higher education ….? But in 1935, only 4 in 10,000 were enrolled in universities or higher educational institutes. In a nation of then over 350 million people only 16,000 books (no circulation figures) were published in that year (i.e. 1 per 20,000).( 2)

Some of us may think that famines could have been caused due to lack of rain or poor farming practices. But one of the main reasons for famines was over taxation.  ”It is anything but a moderate tax, for I have shown in the above mentioned work , it is in all cases exorbitant ; and strange to say , in some instances even exceeds the gross produce of the lands or plantations on which it is.” Robert Rickards in evidence before Committee on East India Company’s affairs” 1831 (3)

The famine of Bengal in 1770 caused 10 million deaths (5).  And yet the East India Company continued to urge “rigour” in tax collection. By then the famine was in full force.(6)  ”All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on dying. The husbandmen sold their cattle;they sold their implements of agriculture; they devoured their seed grain; they sold their sons & daughters, till at length no buyer of children could be found; they ate leaves of trees and the grass of the field ; and in June 1770 the Resident at (Murshidabad) affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead… A third of the people of Bengal, numbering about 10 million, perished.”(7)

The famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900 killed 15 million of people. “The poverty of the Indian population at the present day is unparalleled in any civilised country; the famines which have desolated India within the last quarter of the nineteenth century are unexampled in their extent and intensity in the history of ancient or modern times. By a moderate calculation, the famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900, have carried off fifteen millions of people. The population of a faired-sized European country has been swept away from India within twenty-five years. A population equal to half of that of England has perished in India within a period which men and women, still in middle age, can remember.” Romesh Dutt, Lecturer in Indian history at University College London in (UCL) in 1901 (4)

Further, this is what Lord Curzon had to say in 1902 :

There is no spectacle which finds less favour in my eyes or which I have done more to discourage than that of a cluster of Europeans settling down upon a Native State and sucking from it the moisture which ought to give sustenance to its own people.(8)

The British sailed back to England in 1947  but chose to keep mum about the Victorian Holocausts they caused in India. But have our governments done any better? Has any effort been made till date to bring the causes these deaths in millions into mainstream public discourse? I can only recall my history books vaguely mentioning the Bengal famine. Why were these chapters not discussed in the Modern History of India? Were the British still ruling us even after their last ship reached London?

Nehru (First Prime Minister of India ) who studied at the posh Harrow School in London & then at Cambridge, went on to say that he would be the last British to rule India. Did he, and after him his people kept under the wraps the ugliest face of British Imperialism? Before, the British rule, India’s global output was about 25% & when the British left it was even less than 1 %.  Clearly, even the British public was kept in the dark about the prosperity that that Imperialists brought back home. George Monbiot, who writes for “The Guardian” remarks, “It is not illegal to discuss the millions who were killed under our empire. So why do so few people know about them?”  Most of the people born in “free India” lead exceedingly underprivileged  lives with confused & broken beliefs about their prosperous past.

We grew up, with very little sense of history about what we owned & how much and when & to whom  we lost our prosperity ?

Where did the prosperity chain break ? or did we always belong to the poorest of the poor in India ?

This confusion is understandable as this issue has been completely absent from mainstream discourse. Post independence, the Indian government wanted us to continue with sustaining our trivial & inconsequential lives & not bother with anything else. The Marxist, Leninist  economists fed by Nehru did everything to keep us feeling ashamed and apologetic about  our  “Hindu social evils & stigmas” at different levels of our learning & education. As a result, generation after generations were brought up upon covertly administered injections of  “Thank God the British came to India”. This essentially meant “Thank God they came & civilised us”.

After almost 65 years of Independence, one may ask, what is the way forward ? What are we to gain by merely exposing what has already happened, when it can’t be undone ?  I have just 2 points to make :

1: Looks like now every citizen has to have a  ”right to history”. Sounds absurd ? Yes it does, but what is more absurd that we are being made to  demand the right to right history; Pure & unadulterated history !  History can not be deleted or added to suit a person’s or a group’s/ nation’s  interests or shall we say disinterests. Of course, there can be different takes on history but the complete deletion of distinguishable  historical events (like this one) or addition of fictitious  events ( like the Aryan Invasion Theory) is unacceptable   & criminal.

2: The natural flow of a nation is disrupted when it’s people have a perverted sense of history. A people who don’t know where they are coming from can’t determine where they are headed. They may well be headed backwards again, as during a nation’s journey many a big & complex round-abouts need to be negotiated & woven through.

During its past, a nation could have been dharmically (righteously) powerful & prosperous. After a deep slumber, it needs to know WHY & HOW could it sustain that status of eminence over long periods of time? What were the set of values and attitudes it was endowed with to achieve such grand prominence? What  core  competencies are naturally embedded in its civilisational genealogy that can be revived to reclaim that lost grandeur? Similarly, in its  past, a nation could have been a victim or could have victimised another,  needs to know WHY & HOW much it had bled or how much blood was/is on its hands ?

Which of its philosophies & policies gave the impression to other nations that its boundaries & the minds of its people were penetrable ? Or, which of its philosophies & policies gave it the impression that it had the burden to civilize “savages” of other nations? What set of doctrines, prompted them to kick the savages in their faces, to knock some sense into their brains ? What kind of “sense of being civilised’ was it to rob people of their wealth and make them crawl generation after generation for every single piece of bread ? Could people be said to have been civilised if they were devoid of any form of dignity, for centuries ? A nation that wishes to reflect back in time, will always get a flawed image of its own, if it sticks to ruptured & adulterated history. Hence, creating a false “self image”. It may appear be too beautiful or too ugly, but not necessarily true & genuine.

Unaltered & non perverted history enables a nation to re-align & retain its civilisational balance & momentum. The alignment of its fathomable past with it’s foreseeable future, precipitates learning for its own good & the greater good of humanity.  Bearing all of the above in mind, we have made a humble beginning to  bring to light the dark chapters of British imperialism in India. In due course we hope that the people & governments of both countries will make more serious & profound efforts in this direction. Until then we urge people to follow us on our Facebook page.

References:

1. John Bright, “Debates in Parliament on the India question in 1853
2. http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html. Statistics and data for the colonial period taken from Rajni-Palme Dutt’s India Today (Indian Edition published in 1947); also see N.K. Sinha’s Economic History of Bengal (Published in Calcutta, 1956); and “Late Victorian Holocausts” by Mike Davis
3. Robert Rickards in evidence before Committee on East India Company’s affairs” 1831. Report of Committee, vol. V, Answer to Question 2827
4. Preface pg VI, London 1901 “The Economic History of India under early British rule” sixth edition.  From the rise of the British power in 1757 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837  by Romesh Dutt, CLE. Lecturer in Indian history at University College London (UCL), former  commissioner of Orissa and member of the Bengal Legislative Council.
5. Churchill’s Secret War – Madhusree Mukerjee, p xv
6. Bose, Peasant Labour & Colonial Capital, 18
7. Hunter – The Annals of Rural Bengal,26; Kumar & Raychaudhari, The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol II,229
8. Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, in a speech  at Jaipur in November 1902.

*** End ***

Related Posts: The Myth of a Benevolent “Raj”, The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj” (recommended)

Also read: Late Victorian Holocausts: The Indian Famines

*** Excerpts from “Indus girl and Indra loka have remnants in the South West Americas? by Jayasree ***

As more and more information is flowing from different parts of world on their past cultures, I am surprised to see a similarity between them and what we see in the depictions and narrations in Hindu texts. The Puranic narrations seem to be true on many counts in revealing the history of very olden times. The researches by  Stephen Oppenheimer on genetic trail of man, by Glen Milne on the sea level in the past and by Graham Hancock on water-buried civilizations are giving credence to what Hindu texts have recorded through the words of visionary sages of an undated past.