Clearing the dust off Macaulay’s “famous quote”
Many of you must have come across this “famous quote” of Macaulay in which he appears to be praising the wealth, cultural and spiritual heritage of India:
I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.
Some of you may have also tried to locate the original source of this quote – a search that most likely ended in frustration.
I had my doubts about the quote ever since I first read it and I also wrote about this once before -specifically mentioning that the accuracy of the quote was questionable and it needed further verification.
A few days ago, Anirban forwarded me this email by Michel Danino which suggests that my doubts were correct and the quote is actually fiction.
Read on below:
Image courtesy: http://www.indiansinfrance.com/images/lord-macaulay-1835.jpg
***** Excerpts from Michel Danino’s email *****
“Respected friends,
Permit me to point out that this quotation of Lord Macaulay is a spurious one, faked in recent years and massively circulated on the Internet (even Dr Abdul Kalam put it on his presidential website at some point).
The quotation is a fake one because:
- No one has been able to give a proper reference for it, pointing to an original source of Macaulay’s speeches or writings.
- Macaulay was not in England on the purported date of this “speech in Parliament” but in India.
- In fact the date (2 February 1835) is the date of his famous Minute, which was aimed at convincing the colonial authorities that English education was the ideal for India, and not an education in Indian languages as a group of Orientalists (including Prinsep) wanted. I attach the Minute’s full text.
- The very text of the alleged quote could never have been written by Macaulay. “India’s spiritual and cultural heritage” is a phrase he would never have used: he denied the very existence — or at least value — of such a heritage, as his Minute makes clear again and again. Nor would he have acknowledged Indians’ “caliber” or spoken of India’s “old and ancient education system” (were it only for the bad English of the last phrase).
- Finally, the question of “ever conquering this country” had no meaning in 1835, when Britain was in nearly full control of the subcontinent.
The alleged quotation is a poor fabrication. Please do not circulate it without due warning. On the other hand, it would be worthwhile to study Macaulay’s Minute and to generate a debate on what India has done in the 60 years of her independence to reform her educational system.”
***** End *****
Michel added that:
“Macaulay had no intention whatsoever to “break the very backbone of India”, but was convinced that Indians (both Hindus & Muslims) were steeped in hopeless superstition, and that English education was the only way to bring them out of this dark stagnation. That was the usual colonial conceit, but he sincerely wanted to help Indians (which goes to show that sincerity is good only if enlightened !)”
Thanks a lot Michel, for setting the record straight.
Related post: The importance of accurate referencing
*** COMMENT EDITED ***
The false quatation of Macauley came originally from N.S.Rajaram… Macauley never wrote that. The minutes of the lectures and speach of Macauley is available in the Internet, one can verify ( link ).
However Hindutva people continue to quote this false quotation of Macauley to prove that India was a very prosperous country full of schools everywhere during the rule of the East India company.
*** NOTE by MODERATOR ***
Pl. refrain from personal insults and abuse.
Anrban: Thanks for your comment.
I would just like to make one point. It is very likely that the socio-economic condition of India before, and during the early days of British rule was a lot better than what it was by the turn of the 20th centurty.
See this links for some further reading on this subject:
The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”
India in the 1820s…
Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts)
and
Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj”
Anirban Sen:
1. By name, you are a Bengali speaking Bharatiya. If you are younger than 35 years, you are born and brought up in a virus infected environment called communist environment. Even you are older than 35, most Bengalis are spoiled by the deadly virus called Communism (which teaches Self-hatredness). You are no exception (as your language shows it).
2. If NS Rajaram is an infamous fraud, what about Swami Vivekananda? Do you call him another infamous fraud? Swami Vivekananda deplored the malicious propaganda that had been unleashed by the Christian missionaries in India (Macauley was one; he was son of a Christian missionary). Did you every study Swami Vivekananda? If not, study Him. You will get enlightenment (and liberate you from communism virus infection).
3. OK, as per your opinion, Hindutva people wrongly following and saying this quotation is correct. Now my question to you: Could you please prove this quotation is WRONG? Nor anyone out there, to prove thiat quotation is wrong? NS Rajaram didn’t invented that quotation, it is there over last one hundred years writings. First do home work, before putting bad words on others.
4. To me, neither you nor me can prove its right or wrong. But, surely history will prove its truthness (even it is bitter to your or my taste). We, if observe independenly, can only imagine the cunningness of British (and christian missionary) mind. And truth will prevail, Satyameva Jayate nanrittam.
5. Read this artcle, publihsed in 1953.
The Background of Macaulay’s Minute
Elmer H. Cutts
The American Historical Review, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Jul., 1953), pp. 824-853.
6. About economic history: Did you every study Economic History of India, pre-British Economic History and post-British economic History? If not, be silent and not try to show you are a sarvagya (all-knowing personality). First do homework, before writing on important issues like economic history of India.
7. Read here: British deindustrialised India in 18th and 19th century. While India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900.
Between 1750 and 1938, India’s world manufacturing output share dropped from 24.5 percentage points in 1750 to 2.4 percent 1938. Corresponding drops for China was from 32.8 percent to 3.1 percent (1750 to 1938).
World Manufacturing Output 1750-1938
(in percent)
Year =India, China
1750 =24.5, 32.8
1800= 19.7, 33.3
1830 =17.6, 29.8
1880= 2.8, 12.5
1913= 1.4, 3.6
1938= 2.4, 3.1
Source: Simmons 1985, Table 1, p. 600, based on Bairoch 1982, Tables 10 and 13, pp.296 and 304.
Note: India refers to the entire subcontinent.
Bharat
====
“Between 1750 and 1938, India’s world manufacturing output share dropped from 24.5 percentage points in 1750 to 2.4 percent 1938. Corresponding drops for China was from 32.8 percent to 3.1 percent (1750 to 1938).”
Ummmmmm ……… I wonder if that could have had anything to do with Industrialisation in Europe, besides the colonisation of India? The industrialisation suddenly turned world economies on its head, like globalisation is doing today, again.
Sometimes, the effect that you observe can have many causes, and we do ourselves an injustice if we refuse to explore all of them.
This is N.S. Rajaram. I don’t believe I have ever used the Macaulay quote: “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief…”
On the other hand I have on several occasions used the quote beginning with: “Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully… if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence…”
On page 105 of my book THE POLITICS OF HISTORY (footnote), I cite the reference MACAULAY, THE SHAPING OF THE HISTORIAN, pages 412-13.
I hope this clears up the ‘confusion,’ which is not of my making.
N.S. Rajaram
Dear Rajaram-ji: Thanks a lot for your comment and for clearing the confusion.
I am glad to set the record straight.
Please accept my apologies for inadvertantly hurting your feelings and reputation.
Shantanu
Hello, this is N.S. Rajaram again. Please see the January-March 2008 issue of DIALOGUE, a public affairs magazine from New Delhi edited by B.B. Kumar. The issue focus is “India’s encounter with the West.” I draw attention in particular to the article: “British Raj in India: Myths and Relaities ” by B.B. Kumar. It has some interesting details.
There are other useful article by Lokesh Chandra, David Frawley, myself and others looking at different aspects of the encounter.
Although I have never used it, I am not prepared to dismiss the well-known Macaulay quote as spurious. I find it difficult to believe that a recent fabrication would gain such widespread acceptance in such a short time. It might be inaccurate but I doubt that a recent worker fabricated the whole thing.
Even if Macaulay was not in England at the time, someone else might have read his speech in the Parliament. Or it might have been scheduled on that day but delivered on a different day, but recorded as February 2. So it is worth tracing it to the source– even if it is spurious.
I would request Mr. Anirban Sen to use a more dignified tone in exchanges. It means nothing to me, for I don’t need a certificate from him, but reflects poorly on your blog.
Sincere regards,
N.S. Rajaram
Dear Sir,
I hope you would go throught the latest issue of the Business India Magazine, the cover being that of the Ranbaxy MD.
In it, a totally livid non “Hindutva” columnist has highlighted the fact that India was EXTREMELY PROSPEROUS BEFORE THE BRITISH RULE!!
Page 8. Issue dated June 29, 2008.
Regards,
vck
Dear Shri Rajaram: Thank you for alerting me to the magazine. Is it available online?
As for your views on Macaulay’s quote, it might well be inaccurate (or distorted) rather than a fabrication…
The key issue (I think) is that given Macaulay’s views about India (and Indians), it is hard to believe that he would have said anything like that…
Having said that, I completely agree with you: “it is worth tracing it to the source– even if it is spurious.”
Thanks also for alerting me to the tone (and content) of Anrban’s comment…I realise that I should have moderated it and requested Anrbna to refrain from sweeping accusations of fraud…
I apologise for the hurt that this may have caused you and the damage to your reputation.
Rest assured, I will do my best that this is not repeated…
Thanks
***
@ vck: Thanks. Will have a look at the issue.
1. There are some creatures in this planet, their behaviour is like todays Islamist Jihadis, Hit and Run, Blasts and Hide. By that time, damage has been done. These creatures are called Character Assassinators.
2. There are another group of creatures, they see right in wrong, sat in asat, honesty in dishonesty, truth in untruth, peace in violence, love in hate, and so on. Their armament is full of weapons of mass-destructions, that is, indecent, vulger, intimidating vocabularies. They used them as Brahmastras (Divine weapons) to bombard others, without realising they have turned themselves into self (suicide) bombers.
As Bhagavan Buddha said, “A fool who knows his foolishness is wise atleast to that extent, but a fool who thinks himself wise is a fool indeed.”
3. At the end: “What you speak, what you are. Words will measure the character and quality.”
Bharat
=====
It is true that Macaulay wrote in his minute to British parliament.
Why should some body try to malign his name ?
It is also true that the version that is being alleged is exactly the one which fits his true style.
I have his original report submitted to his parliament which I got in 1998. Of late there are some blog site version which quote a little differently from the original but not countering his original report. It may be that all these years many educationalists believed and spread the idea that but for his bringing in English education to India we would have been lagging behind the rest of the world.
Probably they had been exposed to “sensored” version.
Do you know that we Indians are indebted to Colonial rule in one other way i.e. bringing hydel power generation (Shimsha) for the first time in Asia in the year 1902 in Mysore state.
That they did to tap power to run the gold mines in world famous Kolar Gold Fields of Karnataka!
Where did they take the gold from here?
You may believe at least this. No one has kept an account of the enormous amount of Gold they have dug out and used it as their property, because India was their country.
Bharath minus English would have probably prospered in different way and be a model to the whole world in its own way. Definitely the present day is not what India would have become.
Dear Sh. Basu,
Thank you for your comment. I would be very interested in the quote from the original..
If it is not too much trouble, please feel free to post it here or you can send me an email at jai.dharma AT gmail.com
As for the “drain of wealth” from India by the British, you may find these few articles interesting:
The Myth of a Benevolent “Rajâ€
The “truth†about a “benevolent Empireâ€
Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts)
and Economic Exploitation and Drain of Wealth During the British “Rajâ€.
Here is a link to Macaulay’s Minute referred to above.
Dear Sir,
I went through the minute and I am convinced that what has been attributed to Macaulay as untrue by our blue blooded Engblishmen is a summary of the obfuscation that existed in the minute.
The minute is so noxious in its content and so blatently anti Arabic and smacks of Chrisrtian hatred of Hindu knowledge, that somebody had the understanding of the English language to go deeply into this minute and summarise it, to bring out the truth in it.
The minute is so full of untruths and pure hatred against the ancient way of life in Bharat that it smacks of sheer arrogance.
Thanks fore the connection. It convinces me more and more that the English did more harm to our way of life than really build a new strong nation.
Regards,
vck
Those Bharatiya and Hindus defend that Macauley or Cacauley are nothing but the decendents of firangee British slaves. Basu is undoubtedly a decendent of firangee slaves, thats why it hurts him so much and came out to defend his firangee masters. These Basus, Sens, Roys belong to same self-hater slave groups.
More they defend their firangee masters, more they expose their own slavic mentality. Most Bengalis are transformed into self-haters by the Communism virus, they speak nothing good of Hindu dharma, Bharatiya culture, heritage. They learn it as part of their school courses at early age. Read the book of Arun Shourie: Eminent Historians, you will find self-hatred and invador gloriflying course curriculms of Bengal primary, middle and high schools.
I wonder how does it hurts these Basus, Sens, Roys for someone writing on Macauley or any invador/coloniser firangees. It is clear, they (communists) are the agents of British masters. It is a fact that Communist Bengal still get lots money from UK on diffrent projects. We have to weed out these fifth columns, the real traitors of Bharat.
Even if we grant that those comments by McCaulay are genuine, they give credit to the Mughal and other various muslim rulers who were controlling most parts of the country until the end of the 18th century, not the ancient culture of India – and what would he know of our ancient culture? McCaulay as many have already commented was one with all colonial conceits and wouldn’t even be ready to acknowledge the merits of a non-Christian land. And, isn’t it evident from the very language that it is not written by a native English speaker?
BTW, we can say it is a good summary of what actually happened as a result of McCaulay’s efforts.
N.S. Rajaram, are you the N.S Rajaram of the “Harappa horse” scandal?
Prasad,
Instead of arguing, why don’t we just refer Hansard?
There was a difference between the previous rulers of India and the British. Whatever their provenance, China, Scythia, Fargana, they came as (mostly impoverished) migrants to this country, much in the way the whites traveled to the New World. This was in contrast from the people who came as raiders, the Pindaris, the Ghaznavids, Nadir Shah etc. who, in the time-honored tradition, came, looted and scooted. These people came to settle down. So the wealth stayed in India. They had the normal aspirations of the normal immigrants. So they tried to take over the country, in much the same way we and the Chinese are swamping the world, albeit in a much slower fashion.
Now, when you intend your children and grandchildren to live in a country, your method of loot is the one we see in the politicians and industrialists of India, with a slight difference. They could not send their children abroad and there were no Swiss banks. So, perforce, they had to maintain the country in such a fashion that their children could also live peacefully. It is a wise king who sees to the welfare of his people – his head is safe and he
needs to fear only his brothers.
The British had a place to take all the money to. So the loot started. And it was greater than the Spaniards ever got from America – this is well documented, thanks. We were lucky we got the English, if we had got the Belgians, we would have known what loot was. Some butchers are kinder. They had better technology and an industrial economy turning out cheap stuff which needed a market. They were the present China, so we suffered globalization then. Our industry simply got swamped by volumes, it needed no conspiracy. Which is why that wily bania Gandhi hit them where it hurt, in their wallets, with his Swadeshi movement.
So what are we complaining about? They came to fill their pockets – they did it in all possible ways. Sirajaddaulah’s estimate of the loss to the Moghul exchequer by fraudulent evasion of duties by the Company was only 15 million rupees. Clive’s personal share of the loot at Plassey was only 234000 pounds. Heavily biased tariffs was another way pf loot. That they let a few million die in famines instead of starting the time-honored relief works is another issue.
And there was no shortage of Indians willing to sell their souls. The native princes who claimed descent from the Sun and the Moon, the Rao Bahadurs, the ICS wallas. And we blame the Commies? Forgot the Ghadar party, Bhagat Singh, the mill workers in Bombay, Punnapra Vayalar, the armed insurrection in Telengana? India’s freedom was not won by the people who now claim to be the real patriots. It was won by the lowly commoners, who had no place in our great culture. When you cannot see the truth, it is time you took off your glasses.
Minor comment in response to Prasad above:
“they give credit to the Mughal and other various muslim rulers who were controlling most parts of the country until the end of the 18th century”
That is not true. By early 18th century, the marathas were the dominant military power in India. The maratha army had entered Delhi in 1737, and for a period of 5 years around 1760, the mughal ruler even paid tax to them.
I found a map of India in 1760 on dharmaveer’s blogsite (dharmaveer.blogspot.com).
Again, this is relatively minor to the point Prasad-ji was making, but thought I should add this note anyway. Jai Hind.
Additional note: If you look at the map of India in 1760 (on dharmaveer.blogspot.com), you will also see the regions to the north and west of the maratha empire in green. Those were under Afghan rule. This was the cause of the Maratha-Afghan wars, which led to the 3rd battle of Panipat in 1761. The Marathas wanted to bring all of the areas (yellow + green) under the HIndu flag. They almost succeeded. Had they won at Panipat, all of today’s India + Pakistan would have been a large Hindu empire.
While they lost at Panipat, it was a pyrrhic victory for the Afghans too (under Ahmad Shah Abdali, the founder of modern Afghanistan). THey never ventured back into Indian Punjab, which left a major power vacuum there where years later the sikhs were able to establish a kingdom for 50 years.
Read the Encyclopaedia brittanica for the Maratha-Afghan wars for control of Punjab. Interesting reading. The maratha empire ruled India for almost 120 years. The british conquered most of India from them after the second Anglo Maratha wars in 1818. That was the end of their imperial ambitions.
Nice to see some enlightening information in this current blog.
My regards to Shree N S Rajaram.
regards,
RV
Now I know what the Harappan horse means, now. Prasad, when you make references,please show some consideration for oldies like us, who find it difficult to remember, or even do not know things in the first place. Here is a link.
http://www.safarmer.com/frontline/horseplay.pdf
Oh, by the way, I spent some time with Hansard. Couldn’t find the quoted quote. Now, either my search was not very thorough, or the poor guy never said such a thing. Hansard is not censored and does not lie.
And, again, did the Marathas rule India any better than the British? I remember vaguely that they were only interested in their chautha and left things in the hands of the local kings and self-appointed Peshwas, much like the British did.
Jayadevan: it is very easy to dismiss the Marathas as being a oppressive regime as has been started by the British/Muslims and readily latched on by the with uber-secularists and left wings. The Mughals by comparison imposed 40% or greater tax if you were a non muslim. USA by comparison imposes a slabbed tax structure that can go as high as 41% (excluding SOcial Security and Medicare). India imposes 30% tax. Don’t the Marathas compare favourably against all these?
It would also help to remember that Maratha confederacy started as a small kingdom under Shivaji which eventually grew with time but was at constat war with Mughals in North/East, variaous muslim Bahamani kingdoms in south (AdilShah, Nizamshah, Kutubshah etc) Portuguese and British. The Marathas never had a standing army, their army was always part time farmers. Such were the circumstances and it would not have been possible to sustain the empire with chauth. In the end they protected Hinduism and the Dharmic way of life. So thank God for Shivaji and the brave Marathas.
@JayaGoebbels,
That you have quoted a website belonging to Steve A.Farmer (the white Aryan racist and self-styled “scholar” who tried to play his anti-Hindu tricks in the California Textbooks controversy) speaks a lot about your intent and mindset.
Bengal Voice,
Thanks for the surname, which my parents never gave me. (My parents named me after a Bengali, who sang of love. You know, we sing the Geeta Govinda in temples in Kerala, call it the Ashtapadhi.) And the intent and mindset which you attribute to me. I suppose I will now need to find out what these are. I really do not know who taught you your manners. Any way, I don’t know this guy Steve A.Farmer from Adam, this was one of the sites that came up when I Googled “Harappan Horse”. So does the colour of the messenger determine the veracity of the message? I thought N S Rajaram looked quite an interesting person. And in any case, the white Aryan racist pointed me to a Frontline article. The Frontline, if you remember, is an Indian publication, belonging to the Hindu group.
I only asking, man, why you getting so hot hot under your collar? Black Madrassis not allowed to ask? Is the truth like the Gayathri mantra, not meant for Anaryas?
And Santosh, I learned history from Nilakantha Shastri. I was only saying that the Marathas were not really active as administrators. Now when even the most die-hard capitalists are asking for the Government to play a role in the economy, that wasn’t really a very bad bad question. Your Freudian slip maybe, but when were there Muslim historians to write the history of the Maratha Empire? Muslims seem to pervade your post like salt in the sambar. Only the Americans saw a Commie under every bed.
@JayaGoebbels,
The truth be told – the credit for your Goebbelsian appellation goes to Reena Singh. Remember her? She’s the reader who gave you a sharp tongue-lashing (which hopefully you will never forget) for behaving rudely with her. That sent you scampering away with your tail between your legs.
Her retorts taught me an interesting lesson – that a senile whack-job like you who does not show manners (when talking to women) does not deserve to ask for proper manners from anyone else, manasulayo?
You facetiously claim to read Nilakanta Sastri’ books on history. But your pompous highness does not even know the basic fact that the immortal poet Jayadeva lived in Orissa. He was not a Bengali, as you falsely claim. I hope you know enough about the linguistic geography of eastern India to know the difference.
You wave and thump a Communist newsletter (Frontline) and a racist, redneck, white Aryan supremacist’s rants just as a Christian Padri would wave and thump his bible to “prove†that all of us are sinners. Such biased and bigoted rags don’t mean anything to my generation, gotcha?
For someone like yourself who seems to know an awful lot of details about Ahmedabad’s brothels (by your own admission), you seem to think the rest of India’s younger generation is as pathetically ignorant about other parts of India as your generation was.
As far as your pathetic attempt to portray yourself as a stereotypical underdog by using cheap terms like “Black Madrassi†and “Anaryaâ€, I just feel deeply sorry for you. I have nothing but the deepest pity for you.
How do you know I am not a “Black Madrassi†myself? Thamizil paesi paarkalaama, thalaivarey?
Bengal Voice,
Jayadevan most likely is a troll suffering from senioritis with a mission of creating moral equivalence at any cost. Best to ignore than engage.
Bengal Voice,
My dear, when young people show a lack of manners in public, they need to be told. And when they cannot see anything except labels, they need to be told to take the blinkers off their eyes. This applies to you and your brothers/sisters-in-arms. It does not really matter if they can listen. Because they are in a defensive mood, they will just tune you out. But that does not mean that we, who are supposed to know better, shut up. Want to do a count of the epithets you kids use? This is verbal violence. Violence is resorted to when you run out of ideas. We do not mind this, so there is no need for me to even forgive. Kids are permitted quite a lot of things.
It is natural for young people to be impetuous and impatient. But to feel that you know all the answers is dangerous to your self-development. It is said that you are your own guru. Open your mind to yourself. And drop the compulsion to classify humans into convenient categories. The human mind is quite a complex thing. It has many facets, but the problem is again that these also reflect the observer, so a certain level of uncertainty remains between what is and what is perceived. If you ask me now, if I am not guilty of the same labeling sin, I am. It is difficult for a human being to get rid of this, however hard he tries.
And as for the sex industry part, I feel you still have to develop a bit of empathy for these people. Your delicate phrasing of words admits of charity and sympathy for the “fallen women”. To get over that and to come to have respect for them as human beings takes some time. You will, I am sure. You have feeling, which is evident from your outbursts of anger. Anger is, in the end, directed towards the self, which takes upon itself all the sins of the world. Then you learn to have compassion for yourself, and through that for your brother.
This is a road, man. We pass and we meet and we talk to many people going in various directions, running after various Holy Grails. We impinge, we bounce off, each imparting a bit of his properties and momentum to the other. We have hope in you. We bloody well have to. After all, we achieve immortality through our children.
Oh, and thanks for the Jayadeva origin info.
I understand that personal remarks hurts! Lets remain out of it and hit the points where we dont agree in the comments. Sorry guys, I know I am no one to say anything to anyone here. But I felt like it so… I said.
*** COMMENT EDITED ***
@JayaGoebbels,
Please take your homilies…[elsewhere]…Those friends of yours need your unsolicited advice more than anyone else.
Stop trying to convert the lambs to Ahimsa….Try preaching to the wolves for a change.
*** NOTE by MODERATOR ***
@ BV: Pl. be mindful of your language and insinuations. Thanks.
Dear Sirs,
After reading the circulated write-up of Lord Mecaulay’s address to the British Parliament I really felt exhalted and I immediately circulated to other friends. And soon thereafter messages started coming to me that it was all concocted and incorrect. I, thereafter, went through this blog and now find myself totally confused as there are so many counter and counter to counter comments from various readers that the accuracy appears to have been lost altogether. Is there any one well read into history who can dig out the correct/genuine write-up and put it up on this blog for correct perspective. A response in decent language will generate good feelings among us Indian brotherens.
Jairath (Delhi)
Dear Capt Jairath: Pl. see my comment # 13 above which has a link to the original Minute.
Thanks.
This article was written in 1908. The whole article is a very good analyis by Jabez T. Sutherland.
Why is England in India at all?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/190810/nationalist-india
WHERE DOES MACAULAY FIT INTO THIS THOUGHT PROVOKING INCISIVE ESSAY?
Extract 1 from the above web site.
“In order to find answers to these questions we must first of all get clearly in mind the fact that India is a subject land. She is a dependency of Great Britain, not a colony. Britain has both colonies and dependencies. Many persons suppose them to be identical; but they are not. Britain’s free colonies, like Canada and Australia, though nominally governed by the mother country, are really self-ruling in everything except their relations to foreign powers. Not so with dependencies like India. These are granted no self-government, no representation; they are ruled absolutely by Great Britain, which is not their “mother” country, but their conqueror and master”
Extract 2
“Why is England in India at all? Why did she go there at first, and why does she remain? If India had been a comparatively empty land, as America was when it was discovered, so that Englishmen had wanted to settle there and make homes, the reason would have been plain. But it was a full land; and, as a fact, no British emigrants have ever gone to India to settle and make homes. If the Indian people had been savages or barbarians, there might have seemed more reason for England’s conquering and ruling them. But they were peoples with highly organized governments far older than that of Great Britain, and with a civilization that had risen to a splendid height before England’s was born. Said Lord Curzon, the late Viceroy of India, in an address delivered at the great Delhi Durbar in 1901: “Powerful Empires existed and flourished here [in India] while Englishmen were still wandering painted in the woods, and while the British Colonies were a wilderness and a jungle. India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion of mankind, than any other terrestrial unit in the universe.”
Extract 3
Mr. W. S. Lilly, in his India and Its Problems,writes as follows:—
“During the first eighty years of the nineteenth century, 18,000,000 of people perished of famine. In one year alone—the year when her late Majesty assumed the title of Empress—5,000,000 of the people in Southern India were starved to death. In the District of Bellary, with which I am personally acquainted,—a region twice the size of Wales,—one-fourth of the population perished in the famine of 1816-77. I shall never forget my own famine experiences: how, as I rode out on horseback, morning after morning, I passed crowds of wandering skeletons, and saw human corpses by the roadside, unburied, uncared for, and half devoured by dogs and vultures; how, sadder sight still, children, ‘the joy of the world,’ as the old Greeks deemed, had become its ineffable sorrow, and were forsaken by the very women who had borne them, wolfish hunger killing even the maternal instinct. Those children, their bright eyes shining from hollow sockets, their nesh utterly wasted away, and only gristle and sinew and cold shivering skin remaining, their heads mere skulls, their puny frames full of loathsome diseases, engendered by the starvation in which they had been conceived and born and nurtured—they haunt me still.” Every one who has gone much about India in famine times knows how true to life is this picture.
Mr. Lilly estimates the number of deaths in the first eight decades of the last century at 18,000,000. This is nothing less than appalling,—within a little more than two generations as many persons perishing by starvation in a single country as the whole population of Canada, New England, and the city and state of New York, or nearly half as many as the total population of France! But the most startling aspect of the case appears in the fact that the famines increased in number and severity as the century went on. Suppose we divide the past century into quarters, or periods of twenty-five years each. In the first quarter there were five famines, with an estimated loss of life of 1,000,000. During the second quarter of the century there were two famines, with an estimated mortality of 500,000. During the third quarter there were six famines, with a recorded loss of life of 5,000,000. During the last quarter of the century, what? Eighteen famines, with an estimated mortality reaching the awful totals of from 15,000,000 to 26,000,000. And this does not include the many more millions (over 6,000,000 in a single year) barely kept alive by government doles.
Extract 4
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.
Extract 5
“It is said that India is incapable of ruling herself. If so, what an indictment is this against England! She was not incapable of ruling herself before England came. Have one hundred and fifty years of English tutelage produced in her such deterioration? As we have seen, she was possessed of a high civilization and of developed governments long before England or any part of Europe had emerged from barbarism. For three thousand years before England’s arrival, Indian kingdoms and empires had held leading places in Asia. Some of the ablest rulers, statesmen, and financiers of the world have been of India’s production. How is it, then, that she loses her ability to govern herself as soon as England appears upon the scene? To be sure, at that time she was in a peculiarly disorganized and unsettled state; for it should be remembered that the Mogul Empire was just breaking up, and new political adjustments were everywhere just being made,—a fact which accounts for England’s being able to gain a political foothold in India. But everything indicates that if India had not been interfered with by European powers, she would soon have been under competent governments of her own agaiN”
This quote is purely fake. I don’t think an Englishman from 1800s would use such simple English specially addressing the parliament on an important issue. It is so modern and simple.
I have not read all that is written about this quote by Lord Macaulay, which is flowing through the internet, but I came to this site as I was trying to find out the validity of the quote. As soon as I read the very first sentence and saw the misspelling of the word traveled, I had the feeling it was not valid. I would not imagine a Lord would make such a mistake in writing.
It may not be easy to prove whether Macaulay really said that in the British Parliament or not, but one thing we should not forget why after all Britishers, French, Portugese and so on came to India in the first place. Why Vasco de Gama had to find India. Why Columbus was coming to India, got lost and found America instead?. Why?
Lord Macaulay’s Comment, how does it make a difference NOW! Why all this brouhaha! When would we overcome our fascination of everything WHITE?
What about the politicians of today, the so called public-servants who are infact our local masters today?
Is it not our mindset that has become a slave? We prostrate so much before power…
Any country is as good as its citizens; their ethos,their values and their character will be reflected in the country’s make-up
“www.abdulkalam.com “
Dharampals ” Beautiful Tree ” is loaded in this web site.
Read this “Beautiful Tree” book. It reveals a lot.
http://www.samanvaya.com/dharampal/
Very well written and presented book. Excellent.
Go to publlished works site in the
http://www.samanvaya.com/dharampal/
and you will get the right information and “Beautiful tree”
@manish
The British, or for that matter any other rule of India in historical terms has to be fixed for India to move forward. Off course for more than half a century India has been writing its own chapter. In historical terms 50 years is too short a time for the sort of evaluation not to get mixed up with the fog of the present.
Seeing that Lord Macaulay’s administration of India goes back two centuries, the dust on that chapter should have been settled long ago. The reason that his period of British rule is in hot contention is for the same reason that just about everything in Bharat’s history is a long catalogue of ills and emotional turmoil as far as the psyche of any Hindu is concerned. When change of the power equation of 3,000-5,000 years distant still today provides a discourse for political divisions in the country, arguing about what Lord Macaulay may or may not have said, is in comparison only very recent.
As a people when countries have deigned as checks and balances in constitutional arrangements, Hindu society has developed an intricate set of checks so that no one can move forward. This affects our entire Hindu body politic and society.
For the record and at the risk of being consigned as British, I have to agree with Lord Macaulay on his analysis of the condition of India. If we are unwilling to accept the truth for what it is, I see no way that the people of India can moved forward.
It is a rigorous book. well written. Reading this book takes time. But please , do not ignore this great work by the late Dharampalji.
From the Beautiful Tree by Dharampal, extracts.
Mahatma Gandhi’s long address at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London on 20 October, 1931, stated that literacy had declined in India in the past 50-100 years and held the British responsible for it. The statement provided a real edge to the observations of Adam, Leitner, and others and to the view which Indians had held for decades. It was then that all the above sources relating to indigenous education in the earlier part of the nineteenth century assumed their great importance. The person who, perhaps not only as an individual, but also as a representative of British rule in India, contested what Gandhiji had said was Sir Philip Hartog, one time vice-chancellor of Dacca University, and chairman of the ‘auxiliary committee of the Indian Statutory Commission’. He asked Gandhiji for ‘precise references to the printed documents on which’ Gandhiji’s ‘state¬ments were based.’14 Not finding satisfaction (during much of this period Gandhiji and his colleagues were in prison) Hartog, four
Years later delivered a series of three lectures at the University of London Institute of Education with the aim of countering Gandhiji’s statement. After adding three memoranda and necessary references, Hartog got these published in book form in 1939.15
Countering Gandhiji and the earlier sources in this manner, Sir Philip Hartog was really not being original. He was merely following a well-trodden British path in defence of British acts and po¬licies in India; a path which had been charted some 125 years earlier by William Wilberforce, later considered as the father of Victorian England, in the British House of Commons.16 Hartog had been preceded in his own time in a similar enterprise by W.H. Moreland, who could not accept Vincent Smith’s observation that ‘the hired labourer in the time of Akbar and Jahangir probably had more to eat in ordinary years than he has now.’17 Smith’s challenge appears to have led Moreland from the life of a retired senior revenue settlement officer into the role of an economic historian of India.18 Quite understandably, at least till the 1940s, and burdened as they were with a sense of mission, the British could not accept any criticism of their actions, deliberate, or otherwise, in India (or elsewhere) during the two centuries of their rule.
A great quote of the Mahatma in Beautiful Tree.
The title of this book has been taken from the speech which Mahatma Gandhi had made at Chatham House, London, on 20 October, 1931. He had said:
…the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree per¬ished.
17. V.A. Smith: Akbar: The Great Mogul, Clarendon Press, 1917, p.394.
BEFORE THE british india was the richest land on earth …then 300years later it became the poorest on earth////do you think the money was taken back to england??????…cos i do.
Arjen: Have a look at these posts:
Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts)
Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj”
Dear Mr so called “Bharat”…
1. Please refer to ur blog posted regarding Lord Macaulay on 19 feb 2008.
2. First of all i must inform u that i m a “proud Indian” and for ur further satisfaction m a Bengali by birth too. I trust , i being an Army officer that too served nearly a decade fighting the terrorists in jammu and Kashmere , i had proved my mettel and salt of being a son of “mother India”…(Though i dnt hold a pseudo Indian name called “Bharat” ). i hav given my prelude like that because i wanted u to knw that there are lot many patriotic men apart from u kind of “racists” characters. If after going through this very prelude u hav got any enthusiasm left to go through my rest of the blog..then please scroll down.
3. Secondly, i must tell u brother.. i was hurt(as many would hav been) seeing u thrash Anirban left right and centre because he is a Bengali. The words u have used against Bengalis (Refer to ur para no.1 bengalis are infected by deadly virus called Communism ..all bengalis are infected with self hatred..what not..!!)..are not very polite and it was indecent enough to rage the anger of anybody who hates racism. i dnt knw whether u r a fan of that so called Pseudo dharmatma called Raj Thakarey who didnt had the spunks enough to stand against the odds Mumbai was facing during the attack but could easily mislead some men to beat up Biharis and UP ites. Ur language shows clear cut racism and hatred for some people of our country. calling somebody by his cast creed or region itself is a crime in India and it reflects poorly on ur way of upbringing in the society. i would say, my friend , its rather “You” who hav been suffering from a deadly virus called hatred. When this simple fact wil go inside the brains of people like u that Firstly we all are Indians and then we r Bengalis , Marathis, Punjabis Tamilians and whatever it is..!! My Friend U cannot be an Indian just by keeping ur name “Bharat”..u got to feel it with ur mind, body and soul.
4. Thirdly, if there is any altercation regarding this so called Lord Macaulay’s qoute..thats because people on the other side has also got something to say.. listen to them… u might come face to face with something new to learn. why close ur eyes and mind to new thoughts and opinions..?? Everyone of us is a proud Indian but that doesnt mean that we will keep placing our trusts on some fabricated things..!! if somebody has got a point , please listen to it rather than reacting wrongly and in a hostile way. let the theories and studies come upand let us face the facts rather than clinging to some beliefs and opinions. U talk about studying Swami Vivekananda..My dear..swami Vivekananda himself was a Bengali and he only preached..”Utthistata Jagrata..”.. “wake up from old beliefs ad superstitions and accept the truth”.
5. Fifthly and lastly..Brother, Communism is a political belief..and not a way of life..hence please dnt misinterprete. All Bengalis are not Comunists and for that matter not always brought up in a Communal atmosphere.. there r more Bengalis in foreign countries and other states than in West Bengal itself. please do ur Homework and keep ur mind out of wrong beliefs before commenting on a public site like this..!!
Thanks for bearing me for so long..& please be an Indian. Regards
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Each and Every conflict in this planet, especially since the 18th Century points to one and only direction, the Monelenders (Banks). We have been running on a wild goose chase, but if you want to know (about)…Bank of England…why Herbert Hoover and the British wanted Hitler to Start WW 11, Why Hitler saved the British at Dunkirk…Why each and every conflict is profitable.etc etc. start by visiting this site: http://www.whale.to/b/eustace.html. Also do some reasearch with the following “who owns the Federal Reserve”. It’s shocking.
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Sir I got a scanned copy of the above said letter and the sender said this letter orginal is kept in the heritage museum near Mamalapuram Indicohotels. You can searach http://www.indicohotels.com or e-mail to them for further information
This is my reflection on the comments on the subject I made last year. As a former student of history and much else, there is little argument against the facts. A country (if indeed Bharat could then be properly described as a country) of contintental dimensions was laid low by almost any power with ambitions enough to enrich themselves of the industry of its labours. Of course it could be said if the truth be told that Bharat was a victum of own success. The Romans as far as the time of Caesar bemoaned that they had to pay with gold for the luxury they wanted. That was no less true of the Europeans that first traded in India. But India’s good fortune was founded on the success of others. It was the silk routes etsablished by the military power of the Huns that made India prosperous. This was oiled by Arab traders that took India’s manufactures to the world. The West and the Arabs had an understanding of the strategic importance of trade and its position in the power equation which was absent from Indian thinking. As a country, Bharat is bound to fall a victim time and time again if it continues to delude itself that living a life of luxury is a guarantee against of ill-fortune befalling it. Quite, the contrary, it has had the opposite of the intended consequences. When the loot is given up, servitude and abuse has followed. True masters of the world, do not judge their greatness by the measure of the lap of luxury in which they are intoxicated but their mastery that makes for greatness in their force of arms and of their willingness to pay the price of sacrifice for the greater glory of their people and nation. I have no doubt that Bharat’s armed forces can and have measured up these yardsticks. But they have been failed by their leaders who in their lap of luxury have been self-indulgent and deluded.
Khandu Patel,
I mostly agree. But Bharatbhasis were not just the people living in luxurious well depending on Europeans or Arabs to provide the supply routes. If you start along the coast line from Gujrat to Bengal, each state close to sea has their old story of business venture through sea route. A good portion of India’s wealth came from this trades too. I find this odd that really very low amount of records exist for the adventure of the powers that governed land locked northern states on the other side of Sindh. Multiple records of large scale conflict exists in that area, but nobody tried to research it well.
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The truth is truth. …fake intellectuals from the BJP cannot change it.
Macauley never wrote this quotation. Look at the website for Macauley. Most possibly (someone)…invented it as he has invented( or someone else from the Hindutva brigade) another quotation of MaxMuller, which was never written by MaxMuller either.
Swami Vivekananda said that he is a Socialist. If he would be alive, he would fight against these Hindutva and BJP as these people are not propagating Hinduism at all, but are against Hinduism.
There are too much lies and false propaganda in the Hindutva brigade.
Yes, we Bengalis are Hindu, but we are against Hindutva of Savarkar, as Savarkar was not a Hindu. Also, certainly we are against BJP as Jaswant Nepali Jinnah Singh has taken up his Marwari sword against us.
Happy???
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If he would be alive, he would fight against these Hindutva and BJP as these people are not propagating Hinduism at all, but are against Hinduism.Was not your socialist clan runing after the great man and calling him Biwi-ka-nanda? And now you guys are trying to claim his legacy as socialist? The propaganda of your socialist clan is living on borrowed time, it may be a cause of heart-burn for you, but many of us actually understands the stupidity of your propaganda today.
There are too much lies and false propaganda in the Hindutva brigade.We even lost count how many propaganda your clan has sold to us in last 60 years.
Yes, we Bengalis are Hindu, but we are against Hindutva of Savarkar, as Savarkar was not a Hindu. Also, certainly we are against BJP as Jaswant Nepali Jinnah Singh has taken up his Marwari sword against us.Speak for yourself, not all Bengalis. I am a Bengali and I have zero sympathy for your socialist clan. A man beaten by cobra is in a better position than a communist/socialist because cobra poisons the body, results in a quick death and there is an antidote. Communism poisons the mind, pushes it’s victim towards a slow death and there is no remedy in sight. Anyone needs an example, state of west bengal is a grand case in point. For the interest of India, I do not want WB to be repeated anywhere.
Also, get your facts correct. Jaswant Singh is a Baloch by origin and regardless of whatever he thought of Jinnah, his writing does not stink of bigotic regionalism like your writing does.
If Savarkar was not a Hindu, who was Hindu in your opinion: Pramod Dasgupta (an IB installed mole in communist party) or Jyoti Basu (the man who used to have a summer vacation in London every year with his sister-in-law using public funds while poor workers in the state could not feed the family because trade unions threw out every private investment out of state)? In 1946, when Hussain Shah Suhrawardy government promoted merciless “Calcutta Killing” of Hindus, who was the partner in the government? Communist party with Basu as the young MP. When SP Mukherjee tried to present the reality of riot in Noakhali (60000 hindus were cleansed in just three days to establish Dar-ul-harb in then east Pakistan, now Bangladesh) in the assembly, did not your party call him fool and accuse him of fear mongering? Hindus? yes, Hindus you are, definitely. For only Hindus like you could do this to us. I do not have to write so much, but people think Bengal and communism are happy together, it is necessary to recall those events to show who and what your clan stand for. Whatever your clan stand for is definitely not Bengal or Bengalis or Hinduism. I am not even going to describe the behavior of your fellow travelers during 1962 war or emergency in 1975.
Happy?I would be happy the day your vile ideology is declared as a cruel joke on human suffering it actually is.
It is very funny to see that people are asking references for this quote by Macaulay.
All of us know that british were cruel,they dugged out wealth from our nation.Now if you ask for a reference on how much gold they dugged out,you will never get that.If you will like to get reference on how many women were raped by britishers during their rule,you will never get that,if you will like to get reference on how many innocent people were killed and with what cruel methods,you will never get that.They hadn’t left any printed traces of their cruelty.They tried and removed every footprints of their cruelty.Instead they called themselves the developers of this nation.
The britishers compiled our history and they told that “Sati Pratha” and “Child marriage” were stagnant practices in our culture,and uptill today many educated fools in India (over 99%) believe that they were evil practices,but hardly anyone talks that both “Sati pratha” and “Child marriages” came up during mughal and british rule because widows and girl child were made prostitutes in their empire and to prevent it,our ancestors felt it better to sacrifice a widow (sati pratha) rather them making her a sex symbol for the rulers.
In a country where first 25 years of life was “Bramhacharya Ashram”,then how had “Child marriage” came.It came during the invasion so as to marry a girl earlier to protect her.
The link is correct as given below:
Introduction of English —-> Youth diverted to western tradition —–> Declination in moral and ethical values ——–> Breakdown of society (live in realtioship,premarital sex and many more) ——–> current corrupt and unstabilized india.
I came to this page by chance.
Since very early age I have stayed abroad and I have heard about the British Rule in India.
First let me point out that the Indians, Chinese, South East Asians, Africans and the Americans ( I mean the Incas, Mayans, Aztecs and many many others) were all self sufficient. They were not fortune hunters. The Europeans were seeking fortunes. So this settles the argument as to whether India was prosperous or not.
The good thing the British did – Yes there was India – a huge subcontinent – but not a single unit and no central administartion. There were almost 650 kingdoms – fighting against each other. The British brought these fighting and quarrelling princesw under one umbrella, unified the country and gave people a common Identitiy – Indians – right from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and Bombay to Manipur – infact upto 1936 even Burma was being administered from India.
Following the departure of the British what did the Indians do?
They divided the counntry that was created as a single unit.
Please do not blame Britain for dividing the country – If they did so it was a political game and there is nothing wrong in that because that is being done from time immemorial by all rulers and governments.
It was the fault of Indians of those days that they did not sacrifice their personal interests for a united India.
Even now separatist movements are all over the country.
The question is how come that they were all Indians during British administartion?
The British conquered and ruled India with the the help of Indians.
Almost all great leaders who obtained freedom for India were all educated in Britain – what it means is that it was the British education that laid the foundation for the freedom of India.
“The good thing the British did – Yes there was India – a huge subcontinent – but not a single unit and no central administartion. There were almost 650 kingdoms – fighting against each other. The British brought these fighting and quarrelling princesw under one umbrella, unified the country and gave people a common Identitiy – Indians – right from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and Bombay to Manipur – infact upto 1936 even Burma was being administered from India.”
__
If you look at India through the recent and modern concept of nationhood, then the above has some validity. But Adi Shankaracharya didn’t need that concept of nationhood when he established chaar dhaam in four corners of India in the 8th century. The people living on the other side of Indus were called Hindus by Persians without any aid of the modern-day nation concept.
Good point Kaffir…and while we are at it, many of you will enjoy reading these excerpts from Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s valedictory speech on January 11 at the International Conference on Indian History, Civilisation and Geopolitics 2009 (ICIH-2009) at New Delhi’s India International Centre, titled, “Defalsify India’s history as a first step in national renaissance“.
Sunil
The britishers were not marauding conquerers like Chengiz Khan. Their ingress was more subtle, more insiduous, they came through trade.
I don’t think rape was an institutional practice of British imperialism. Remember the empire was under the reign of Queen Victoria till 1901. You seem to have written your own version of history 🙂
As to your interesting theory on Child marriage and Sati, you might want to understand caste dynamics before coming up with wild surmises.
It is amazing how nationalists easily brush aside THE dominant theme of Indian society and politics – caste
@twistleton,
I am not sure if Sunil has written his own history or not, but you are required to read some. India did not come under British royal crown till the revolution of 1857 threatened the existence of crown jewel under British East India company. Till 1947 it remained under monarchy after which our first PM had to write a formal letter to “humbly beg your majesty” to grant her Indian subjects the right of self-governance. The experience was so humiliating that an anglophile such as Nehru was profoundly disturbed. Even after the “humble request” was granted, in a newly formed United Nations (and in other considerations), India was not a new nation, merely a succession state (as if there was not a foreign occupation, the nation merely changed the ruling system).
yes, I am sure, rapists check whether rape was institutionally sanctioned or not before getting into the act. Please do read about the behavior of British who won tea estates in Darjeeling or Assam or the Indigo farming zones in whole of eastern India and how gracefully they behaved with the women they kidnapped in front of the eyes of their family. I am sure certain Hindu nationalists have a tendency to write their own version of history, but so do Raj apologists.
Both Sati and Child marriage were legalized by British in the name of protecting the native practices. Before them, other rulers grudgingly tolerated the practice although there were lesser kings who tried to prevent it. It actually took Hindus to start a movement against these and other practices. Only then it got abolished. May be a little more information is harmful to supposedly benign face of the Raj.
It is quiet amazing how anti-Hindus and anti-nationalists find only caste as the “dominant” theme. Show me how many rulers of the British Raj actually tried to legislate caste or untouchability out of existence. Then look at how many nationalists tried to get rid of caste and still does today.
@Sid
Pray how do i become anti-national if i choose to bring up that taboo subject- caste? Also i will overlook the fact that you credit “Hindus” to have started a movement against Sati and etc..
It was certainly Hindus, but only some Hindus, actually a mere handful.
Did not really try to defend the British. No need to go kablooey.
>> yes, I am sure, rapists check whether rape was institutionally sanctioned or not before getting into the act.
That is exactly my point. You cannot classify a rapist as British or non-British. Especially as India today is hardly a safe haven for women. Women always face the worst forms of exploitation even in a so-called sovereign, independent nation. I dare not mention the role of caste in this in case you explode again :D.
But you are right, it does not lessen their crime and the Raj itself CAN be held responsible for the crimes committed against its subjects.
Why would the British try to abolish caste? They were not crazy to do something like that! I have never said they were do-gooder rulers, all I objected to was Sunil’s simplistic explanation which is dangerous in this kind of situation as it, very demonstrably, leads us to acquit ourselves of all blame.
My point is this: enough with the fallacy that the British are to blame for everything that’s wrong with the country, they only, as you very rightly pointed out exploited – they did so easily by taking advantage of the deep prejudices already extant. Could they have really managed to corrupt present (in their time) and future generations of Indians? And if we choose to “ape the west” today whose fault is that?
The British have undoubtedly left a legacy of loot and exploitation, but one does not have to be British to exploit. Morality is not linked to national identity or national pride – more’s the pity.
63 years is long enough to make the “British did it” excuse a stale one. Besides this particular article seems to point out that the British did not consciously try to brain-wash us. In which case we must have been even more gullible than usual…
@twist-leton,
I am curious about how you can overlook something when you mention about it. As I said, you folks are quiet amusing.
Now, am I to understand that my perceived effort of crediting Hindus was misguided or wrong? Well, then in the next sentence, I see:
So “some” “mere handful” Hindus are not Hindus, you mean!!! As I said, the “twist”ed world view is quiet amusing. But I digress, I should have taken the hint from your id.
[1] So, now that you dared to mention it (presumably unwillingly or somehow forced to), let us hear about those low caste women who were regularly raped by all upper caste men across the entire sub-continent. Or “some” upper caste men. Were they more than “mere handful” to be qualified as upper caste or Hindu in your world view? Since you appear to have such ready statistics at hand to make such sweeping statements, would we, the mere mortal of “explosive” kind, can be enlightened with that statistics?
[2] Comparing caste based discrimination with the atrocities committed by “civilized” jolly good fellows from small European island is the kind of reductionism that can only be expected from folks with a world view of certain “twist”ed kind.
The “British did it” argument is very valid because the system British left was not mostly changed. When someone compares India’s independence with the independence of a country that threw off colonial powers, the comparison is invalid. A revolution is usually higher in terms of human cost but it also destroys the old system which eventually results in something new. Indian independence is half-done because most systems British established was never changed. Heck, even today, in a worm country like ours, lawyers can not argue without wearing British style black courts. How stupid can that be?
I had assumed that the quot is a mere hindutwa fabrication by some fellow But when i saw this I also decided to do a search
I came across this OFFICIAL Document of the Planning Commission
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=vi571t1eWLYC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=%22i+have+travelled+across+the+length%22&source=bl&ots=r5JAF5Imm0&sig=pB0ckW0UFD4NYQNoRQ281NeZlFs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KyhyVInyKtGVuASotYCoCw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=I%20have%20travelled&f=false
This quote is there in pages 16&35 Indi Vision 2020 document of Planning commission of india. i do not think such an august body would botch up things that badly.