A Restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts..
Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post by Amitabh Soni on “A restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts“…and how these Holocausts though bigger than Hitler’s Holocaust were kept a secret by the holier than thou British establishment. Read on…
***Â 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 youâ€. 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. Â “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.â€(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 Â 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 Indiaâ€. 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 imageâ€. 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:
- John Bright, “Debates in Parliament on the India question in 1853
- 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
- Robert Rickards in evidence before Committee on East India Company’s affairs” 1831. Report of Committee, vol. V, Answer to Question 2827
- 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.
- Churchill’s Secret War – Madhusree Mukerjee, p xv
- Bose, Peasant Labour & Colonial Capital, 18
- Hunter – The Annals of Rural Bengal,26; Kumar & Raychaudhari, The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol II,229
- Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, in a speech  at Jaipur in November 1902.
*** End ***
Related Posts: The Myth of a Benevolent “Rajâ€, The “truth†about a “benevolent Empireâ€
Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj†(recommended)
Amitabh,
I have not commented in SJ for a long time although I used to read the blog. Your articulation is so wonderful that I had to break my deep slumber and congratulate you.
Very well done and more power to you.
Thanks for the kind words Sid. I draw satv shakti from very few people like yourself !
A very informative read. I totally agree that history should be accurate and should have a certain emphasis, which has been missing post 1947.
The disconcerting thing is that there has been more ‘westernisation’ of India in the past 20 years than probably in the previous 200 years. The Indian film industry and the Sonia Maino family have projected the west as a panacea, again. That is not to say there are no nationalists in India, but they are a rare breed. Disheartening
Amitabh Soni,
Congratulations for giving the above article in Satyameva-Jayate. You may open the eyes of many who thank British that they came here, and make them see the true picture!
You certainly opened mine!
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for such an ‘investigative’ write-up. With all due regards to your beast in writing, let me clear that I am always proud of my past/history. Undoubtedly British have snatched much more from us than giving. They were traders only. It didn’t make any difference when the Imperialism took the control from East India Co in 1857. The Exploiters had changed their constumes only.
Still don’t U think that present map of India on the Globe could ever take the present shape if british were not there to rule us over 200 years. Kindly go through the history prior to british, 550+ kings. There could be much more divisions of these riyasats and and number could be much more. Could we ever know the ‘democracy’ during such emperors. They kept quarrerlling amongst them, inviting invaders from outside India. I am sure if British were not were, someone else were there. Ofcourse British exploited, but whatever they have ‘given’ (sorry to use the word ‘given’) was not for us. It was for themself. The railway to carry arms and army to suppress the ‘vidroh’, post office to communicate between govt.departments and british coloniers themself, parliament to pacify people only, law and order acts to hang the revolutionaries etc. Still what we did, we just opted it, a tested ‘structure’, ‘organisations’ etc. We didn’t even change the colour of the uniform of Police, Lawyers, Armymen etc.
So it was blessing in disguise for us. Ofcourse we paid lot, our self respect, resources, cultural richness etc. Still just imagine the condition/map of the country if british were not there.
Let me again clear that I am against the colonism, imperialism and not at all favour their two decades’ rule.
Mukesh: Hurried comment (I will respond in more detail). What you mention is one of the most enduring myths of colonial rule viz. the British “united” India in its present shape..
I say this is a myth because there have been at least five or six kingdoms in the past whose reign and extant matched, exceeded the British “Empire” (starting with Chandragupta and ending with Aurangzeb and to a slightly lesser extent, the Marathas).
The adjunct to this argument is that India was never a single entity – which is demonstrably false – at least on the cultural, social and civilization level..
More on this hopefully soon.
Sudhav, Gyan & Mukesh thanks for your invaluable feedback & comments.
Mukesh : Again, we always studied at school & later that,”Indian kings always kept fighting amongst each other”. Our subconscious was fed a multiple number of times with such information, that we believe this to be literally true, which was not the case, as stated by Shantanu ji. I shall comment further, if you like, after Shantanu ji has made his point.
That is certainly some new information. Information like this needs to be spread to all our people. Never knew that the brits had scooped to such low levels.
Congrats & best wishes. What an eye-opener article, You have done a great service to put the facts and information on record. I hope very soon the distortion and falsification of Indian History about British Raj will be corrected.Look forward more articles from you in the future.
Shantanu,
Do you really think it is such a good idea to be bashing the British like this?
For all their faults, they probably weren’t as bad as the Islamic invaders, and modern Westerners treat Hindu minorities better than the Islamic countries do.
Like Sid I too am commenting after a long time. Thanks to Amitabh for the excellent article.
A number of commentators take up cudgels on behalf of the british. This is partly because of two factors.
i. lack of knowledge of traditional history of india.
ii. internalization of european (including british) worldviews (including views about india).
while the plea to go soft on british for being kinder than the islam is a specious plea. Economic impoverishment and subversion of traditional ideas of identity and community relationships, destruction of the indegenous institutions (like education, medicine etc) were all brought about by them. The british managed accomplish much the same as Islam with more sophisticated methods. But we have so internalized the british worldviews that we continue blame ourselves for these. The greatest success of the British lies in thier being able to convince us of thier innocence.
Much of what we learn is the product of colonial historiography – subliminally we also tend to imbibe colonial methodologies and objectives. One of the defining features of colonial historiography of India was its depiction of India as sedentary society whose driver was always injection of progress from outside via invasions. Another was the propensity to keep Indian history safely within biblical timelines and afterwards as latter to the greeks. British historiography of India was a calculated exercise of identity engineering. Our current percieved history is therefore flawed.
As an illustration according to Puranas there were at least 3 Ashokas – the last of whom belonging to the Gupta dynasty would have been a late contemporary of Alexander. Similarly how many would know that Vikramaditya of Ujjayani who until a few centuries ago was considered historical and have been relegated by the british to mythology – is said to have ruled over all of India and beyond. The vedas has mention of Chakravartins who were sovereigns of lands stretching from ‘ocean to ocean’.
The British erased the awareness of these traditional histories from our collective consciousness – and as was their intent many of us believed (and continue to believe) that India was a creation of the British.
The reasons why authentic history is not taught are: (1) The Transfer of Power Agreement with the British which is supposed to have placed some 1500+ restriction on the newly formed nation of India. (2) The extra-ordinary zeal of the Communists in erasing our history.
Please note that neither the rotten KKkangress nor the morally bankrupt Communists could exist otherwise.
The research of Dharampal, the speeches of Rajiv Dixit and books by sundry authors including Dadabhoy Naoroji do not even skim the surface.
Comment on what Ramesh said: “The issue is not either/or. While we talk about what the British did to India, we also talk about what the Islamists did. Etc. Also, what the British did to India is not so well known, and our good Prime Minister goes to the UK and praises about the supposed benefits of colonialism.”
Various Indians have documented the harm and the loot by the colonial regime, even while they were ruling. Some of this has been covered by the historian, Will Durrant, in the book “Case for India”, originally published in 1930. It was republished by Strand Book Stall in 2007.
Namaste
Ashok Chowgule
Response to Ramesh’s below comment (comment no.10 )
“Do you really think it is such a good idea to be bashing the British like this?
For all their faults, they probably weren’t as bad as the Islamic invaders, and modern Westerners treat Hindu minorities better than the Islamic countries do.”
My response:
Thanks for your comment Ramesh ! I agree that, in many a ways the British rule would have come in as a relief to the Hindus & other non muslims. However, can we deny the fact that the British Raj had its own problems ? About 45 Million people perished in 15 major famines, mostly caused due to the British Imperialist policies and they simply chose to keep quite about it. They go on demonising Hitler alone, right till this day for the Jewish Holocaust ( about 9 million Jewish people were killed), when much of the blood is on “holier than thou’s” hands. To say the least, the Indian economy was down on its knees when the British left. I think, what is true & factual can not be termed as “bashing” ?
Islamic invaders and the British Imperialists were worse off than each another in different ways. This does not make one better than the other. It’s just like saying that Duryodhan was better than Ravan for xyz reasons.
However, we have to concede that the British people in general respect fair play. There are many accounts of British MPs, officers & observers exposing the misdoings of the Raj. ( can be found on my Facebook page ). However, I have yet to come across Muslims in general who would objectively evaluate & comment on the Islamic period in India. I have often heard the British openly apologising about the Raj but I am yet to hear a single word, from the Muslims.
Again, we need to distinguish between common westerns & their Imperialist governments. In Britain, there is an “equal opportunities policy ” , which basically means that a person can not be discriminated on the grounds of his religion, race, gender,ethnic / cultural background and sexuality. However, this policy seems to wither away the further you go away from Britain’s geographical boundaries. i.e. “equal opportunities” does not apply, when it comes to matters of foreign policy. On many occasions, the British then become “equal oppressors” with their American cousins. How much have the western powers supported India on the Kashmir issue, the destruction of terrorist camps in Pakistan, against nation wide coercive Christian conversions & Christian terrorism in North East India ? Is it not the western powers who have supplied Pakistan with sophisticated defence equipment since its inception ? Do we have an account of the lives ours soldiers have lost in wars & insurgency areas ? and the number of lives of civilians, when sophisticated bombs are triggered by people who neither have the resources nor the intelligence, even to make candles.
When the British left they gifted the Americans the Deigo Garcia Island to use as a military base to snoop around in the Indian ocean & the Indian Navy. Now, where is fair play ?
Please do not confuse what western powers do in their domestic territory with what they do outside or their foreign policy. It is unfortunate that even the western people in general do not understand foreign policy issues, as much we would expect them to. Hence, they can’t lobby strongly on certain issues & have little say on foreign policies. In the end, it is unto overseas Indians to dispassionately & objectively promote India’s cause in western democracies. The more we sweat outside the less our people would bleed back home.
The idea that pre-British (or even pre-Islamic rulers) India was a harmonious united country is just as fanciful as the idea of a compassionate British sahib.
The truth is that Indian history is full of conflicts ever since ancient times. Chandragupta Maurya’s conquest of the Nanda empire is not a “British/Islamic fabrication”. I grew up in Paithan, a small rural town in Maharashtra that used to be the capital of Satavahana dynasty, which was in perpetual conflict with many other challengers, most prominent of them included the Magadha, Yavana and Ksharapa empires. King Ashoka’s conflict with Kalinga is well known to the most of us…
Such was the nature of geo-politics in those days and India was not immune to it. To say otherwise is simply laughable.
Having said that, I don’t think we needed the British to unite India. India could have united itself on its own (just as the Americans did a couple of centuries ago. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the British managed to unite India any more than the earlier empires – many parts of present-day India were ruled by other Europeans (Goa, Pondicherry) or by indigenous rulers (Hyderabad, Kashmir etc.) A far greater credit of uniting India goes to Vallabhbhai Patel in my opinion).
The problem I have with the ‘every-ruler-other-than-Indian-was-savage’ view is that it’s extremely lop-sided and delusional. I don’t see much point in living in such self-denial.
It’s true that the British didn’t intend to do India any favours but it’s also true that not every legacy they left behind is contemptible. I prefer to see the bright side of every story – the blessing in disguise is that we got the English language from them (which I happen to believe stands us in good stead today); the system of parliamentary democracy is one of the very few good things that’s going for modern India; and perhaps to a moderate extent the judicial system…
I think it’s high time we make peace with our history and move on. The longer we keep stoking this sense of victim-hood, the worse it is for us.
One thing many British-lovers are forgetting here. As far as hostility to native religions (Hinduism/Sikhism/Buddhism/Jainism) are concerned, British were less hostile than Muslims. However, they was religious bigotry among officers. For example, one time British governor of Sindh ordered all temples and mosques to be destroyed to satisfy his catholic wife. Muslims threatened an all around destruction if a single mosque is touched. Most temples were damaged because Hindus simply avoided that responsibility.
However, this is not my point. British completely compensated this perceived lack of hostility against religions by being extremely hostile to native thoughts and native people. From Maculay to Churchill, the amount of abuse heaped on the very people whose wealth enabled them to create a world-wide empire is mind boggling. The constant mis-representation of “Bhatratiyata” (for the lack of a better word) achieved something that is beyond the wild dreams of moollahs and missionaries.
They completely destroyed whatever self-respect is left after devastating years of Muslim conquest and then filled us with respect for white skin. This is the biggest loot. Who wants to rob the people who will give their wealth to you without demanding anything and later thank you for it? Muslim rulers never got this idea, they were believers in good old school of religious butchers. This is the exact idea that enabled British to continue their empire for so long and if mad Hitler did not arrive on the scene, they would have continued this loot for at least one more century and hide it.
For a good understanding of how this biggest loot was achieved, just start with Dharampal’s Beautiful Tree
After reading all the comments in this thread, I realized that those who once advised me to shove my own culture came here again to teach us about true history and justify the glorious British empire. Oh my, what a highly inflated sense of self-worth.
Not too long ago even the countries of Europe were feuding with each other, so this idea that had the British not come to India the various Indian principalities would have peacefully coexisted sounds extremely unlikely.
The reason India is one entity today is due to two factors. First, British bringing the large area of India in a single governing unit and Second, due to extraordinary idealism of the leaders of freedom movement. Both of these conditions are equally important for India having its borders the way she has today.
India does not gain anything lot by wallowing in real or perceived atrocities carried out by the British during their rather short rule.
Remember British ruled India less than 100 years. The Muslims ruled more than 400 years.
“The idea that pre-British (or even pre-Islamic rulers) India was a harmonious united country is just as fanciful as the idea of a compassionate British sahib.
The truth is that Indian history is full of conflicts ever since ancient times. Chandragupta Maurya’s conquest of the Nanda empire is not a “British/Islamic fabricationâ€. I grew up in Paithan, a small rural town in Maharashtra that used to be the capital of Satavahana dynasty, which was in perpetual conflict with many other challengers, most prominent of them included the Magadha, Yavana and Ksharapa empires. King Ashoka’s conflict with Kalinga is well known to the most of us…”
Indian kingdoms did fight against each other, but their conduct in war was much more humane than that of their British or Islamic counterparts. See here:
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/War_in_Ancient_India.htm#The%20Laws%20of%20War
“Having said that, I don’t think we needed the British to unite India. India could have united itself on its own (just as the Americans did a couple of centuries ago. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the British managed to unite India any more than the earlier empires – many parts of present-day India were ruled by other Europeans (Goa, Pondicherry) or by indigenous rulers (Hyderabad, Kashmir etc.) A far greater credit of uniting India goes to Vallabhbhai Patel in my opinion).”
The reason Patel (or indeed, any other Indian ruler) was able to unite India politically is because the sense of a pan Indian identity has pervaded the subcontinent for a long time.
This article is a nice introduction into that issue: http://sankrant.org/2003/10/why-india-is-a-nation/
as is this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=_0x5pkIfsV4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=fundamental+unity+of+India&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hkYTT727GYbd0QHkxZSTAw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=fundamental%20unity%20of%20India&f=false
“It’s true that the British didn’t intend to do India any favours but it’s also true that not every legacy they left behind is contemptible. I prefer to see the bright side of every story – the blessing in disguise is that we got the English language from them (which I happen to believe stands us in good stead today); the system of parliamentary democracy is one of the very few good things that’s going for modern India; and perhaps to a moderate extent the judicial system…”
India could have gotten all those things on her own too. That’s what Japan did, after all via the Meiji Restoration. The fact that British influence may have given India some good things is hardly justification for British imperialism in and of itself. The British bankrupted India, treated Indians with racist contempt in their own country, pit Hindu against Muslim, doctored the Indian historical record to fit their own racist presumptions, created a class of Hindu hating Anglophilic Macauley’s children, among other things. This isn’t griping, its acknowledging reality, a reality that continues to affect India today. The only way that India can solve these problems is by understanding where they came from, which means accepting British history warts and all.
“I think it’s high time we make peace with our history and move on. The longer we keep stoking this sense of victim-hood, the worse it is for us.”
There is a gulf of difference between stoking a sense of victimhood and understanding and accepting the grim realities of India’s past. It is clarifying, not Anglophilic whitewashing, of the British imperialism (or indeed any other imperialism) in India makes India’s current freedom that much more valuable and meaningful. Truly comprehending what suffering India has been through can provide inspiration and impetus for Indians to build a better, brighter future for India.
It is because Indians have silently swallowed humiliation after humiliation that India today continues to humiliate herself, whether it is Himalayan theft that puts Robert Clive to shame, horrific poverty, spineless responses to terrorism and war, shameless votebank politics and pseudo secularism, etc and Indians just shrug it off apathetically.
The Jews remembered their suffering. They got together in a tiny slice of land the dismembered Ottoman Empire and said “Never Again.” And now Israel is one of the most prosperous states in the Middle East, a thriving democracy, and a military power, feared and respected by everyone. And that too, despite being surrounded by hateful enemies and possessing no natural resources. The Chinese labeled the period from roughly 1850 to 1950 as a Century of Humiliation, and the reason that China is growing from strength to strength is because the Chinese have resolved that, while they were shortchanged during the last century, they are going to make up for it by dominating this century and becoming the world’s next superpower.
To quote Mao Zedong “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up!” The Indians too must stand up. But in order to do that, they must accept that they have been shoved to the ground again and again and again. Coming to terms with the past is a necessary step for nation building, and can hardly be dismissed so cavalierly.
Sasank
“Indian kingdoms did fight against each other, but their conduct in war was much more humane than that of their British or Islamic counterparts.”
Funny you say this because the average goe here in Britain thinks that the British raj had been very humane and helped spread everything from democracy and rule of law to modern medicine around the world from Africa to India. A matter of individual perspective, I suppose, but that doesn’t change the history.
It is said that king Ashoka was so depressed after seeing the mindless bloodshed in the Kalinga war that he gave up his kingdom and adopted Buddhism. Must’ve been some bloodshed, don’t you think? Humane? 🙂
“The reason Patel (or indeed, any other Indian ruler) was able to unite India politically is because the sense of a pan Indian identity has pervaded the subcontinent for a long time.”
True and that’s why I said that India could’ve united itself anyway without the British.
“The fact that British influence may have given India some good things is hardly justification for British imperialism in and of itself.”
No it isn’t and you didn’t suppose I was justifying the British imperialism, did you? I wish India was never ruled by the British; I wish India was never ruled by the Muslims. But my wishing for something doesn’t change the history. It is what it is but, as I said, I prefer to see the silver lining instead of the cloud.
“There is a gulf of difference between stoking a sense of victimhood and understanding and accepting the grim realities of India’s past.”
I think we’ve “understood the grim realities of India’s past” to death already. I remember growing up disliking Muslims and anyone with a white skin. (And as if the history books weren’t enough to spread the fear and hatred of the white man, most of the villians and vamps in bollywood movies had white skins and Christian names.) Isn’t that enough for you already?
“It is because Indians have silently swallowed humiliation after humiliation that India today continues to humiliate herself, whether it is Himalayan theft that puts Robert Clive to shame, horrific poverty, spineless responses to terrorism and war, shameless votebank politics and pseudo secularism, etc and Indians just shrug it off apathetically.”
Non-sequitur. Do you really think that India remains poor or can’t prevent terrorist acts because it feels humiliated by the British? I think it is a shame that even after 60+ years of independence, we keep passing on the blame of our shortcomings onto the British and Muslims so conveniently. That’s our real problem – the ardent belief that everyone else other than our own selves is responsible for our misery!
I do not know why the attention is diverted from the damage the British did to India. As far as the ‘controversy’ whether India was one country or not, we are only considering a political boundary and not the cultural boundary. This is what Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
“The English have taught us that we were not one nation before and that it will require centuries before we became one nation. This is without founda¬tion. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided us.
“I do not wish to suggest that because we were one nation we had no dif¬ference, but it is submitted that our leading men traveled India either on foot or in bullock-carts. They learned one another’s languages and there was no aloofness between them. What do you think could have been the intention of those far-seeing ancestors who established Setubandha (Rameshwar) in the South, Jaganath in the East and Hardwar in the North as places of pilgrimage? You will admit that they were not fools. They knew that worship of God could have been performed just as well at home. They taught us that those hearts were aglow with righteousness had the Ganga in their own homes. But they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore, argued that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy places in various parts of India, and fired the people with an idea of nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the world.â€
Mahatma Gandhi: Hind Swaraj, Chapter IX, Page 56.
And there have been many others who wrote on the same lines.
Namaste
Ashok Chowgule
It is to the credit of Eurocentric values that we have imbibed that we feel compelled to believe that India must necessarily have followed the european historical trajectory of political consolidation. Hence the belief that since europe was feuding until recently so should most of the states of India. Hence we need to remain profusely thankful to the British for apparently unifying us. Subliminal to this idea is the belief that Indians would not or simply could not have achieved this by themselves since Indians do not have any indegenous agency. This follows from the Hegelian belief of India as a sedentary society where progress is only brought about by invaders from outside.
It is also not surprising that those who remind us that the british were only around for 100 years and the muslims for 400 would deny any credit to the latter for giving us a shared sense of identity. And in the same vein the Hindus who have lived thousands of years in the same geographical region – and co-developed such a collossal and unique socio-cultural complex get absolutely no credit for thier own common political identitiy.
Missing the woods for the trees most commentators simply choose to overlook the fact that muslim / europeans by thier own admission saw most of present day India and beyond as a single contradistinct entity comnpared to themselves. This alone demonstrates that these outsiders saw India as distinct and different from themselves. Prior to these invaders, Indian rulers sought to politically consolidate all of India under the ideal of the ‘Chakravartin’. This demonstrates an indegenous recognition of distinction from outsiders and a sentiment to unify from within.
Modern nation states are a relatively new phenomena emerging in the 1800s in europe. The major nation states of europe ie UK or Germany – formed in 1801 and 1871 respectively have no great antiquity in precedence over the Indian nation state which became a republic in 1950. Granted that formation of Indian nation state was a latter developement of political consolidation based on the same european ideas. But once we consider that most nations of europe are culturally and ethnically monolithic we see the similarities end and contrast with India emerge.
When considering European nation states , ethnic and cultural loyalties of people seems a natural cauase for the formation of these. Given its long co-dependent history would it not be natural for indians to have developed similar pan-indian loyalties – especially given Hindu gods, rituals, holy places, lore, much of history etc are drawn from various places all over India. It would seem logical that Indian nation state’s consolidated is a reflection of a similar pan-indian sentiment within India’s people and ethnicities – however that is an abbhorent notion to eurocentrists. According to them India does not exist except as a collection of disparate, mutually antagonistic ethnicities.
Hence per Hegelian hypothesis it has to have been formed by external intervention. The underlying assumption here is that since there is no real justification for India to exist – India is sooner or later has to collapse and dissolve into oblivion.
Various fissiparious ideoleagues as well as well-meaning but tendentiously educated people have bought into this philosophy. What is clear to other perceptive people who are not dazzled by european ideas, is that by propagating and perpetuating absurd european notions of India these people are bringing about a self fulfilling prophecy.
Regarding why remembering the past is equated to “wallowing” in a sense of grievance about “real or perceived atrocities” one can always quote the well worn cliche that those who forget history and condemned to relive it. But I fear this may be passe – instead we may say that they are condemned to proselytize the victors version of history forever.
Just try to think this in a different way. I am not condoning what
Britishers did here in India during their rule.
One of the biggest problem our country facing is polpulation of
1.2 billion. Suppose these 45 million had not perished due to
famine.Now just imagine what would have been our population. These 45 million would multiplied manifold and our population would have
perhaps been around 1.5 billion.
First of all, India being one single large political unit the way it is, is not necessarily a good thing. Ask more than 40% of the children who are malnourished and about 80% who live on less than Rs 30 per day.
Being a big country is not helpful but a curse of mal-governance.
In the beginning of 1960s Singapore was feeling sorry to be not part of Malaysia due to political differences. How do you all think that worked out??
Assuming that all the various regions of India giving up their sovereignty albeit not completely (thanks to the linguistic divisions), for the good of a united large area so that rulers in Delhi have a larger fiefdom to rule over, has to be a good thing to restore some mythical “Akhand Bharat” notion is ridiculous.
This false faith in the mythical unity of India makes people tolerate statist economic policy and lack of freedom that has resulted in dire poverty.
Tell me one thing, what is more important a large country that meets aspirations of the elites mythical notions of past grandeur or a nation where people are free and prosperous.
Colonial Justice in British India – White Violence and the Rule of Law by Elizabeth Kolsky (Cambridge University Press), 2010; pp 252, £ 55.
http://beta.epw.in/newsItem/comment/190857/
“The author rescues scholarship from the airbrushed triumphalism of Pax Britannica by pointing out that all forms of imperial power have violence and nothing but violence at its core. This book should be a wake-up call for those who genuflect before the majesty of imperial justice and the benefits of benign British imperialism.”
Moderator,
I am surprised that my comments have been removed. Niether I had
abused anyone nor I had used any offensive words. I had just written
my thoughts on the subject which was being discussed.
Different views are not allowed on your website ?
@Mohan (#26): Your comment was not removed. It was in the moderation queue (since this is the first time you have commented here – or are using your email id on the site for the first time)
As for different views not being allowed on my website, the above discussion hopefully has answered your question..
While on this, pl do have a look at my comments policy here
Aa an aside, I noticed that you appear to think our population is a “problem”. I don’t think so. It can be a huge asset – provided it it well-fed, healthy and skilled. Unfortunately our vast millions are under-nourished, have practically no health-care and continue to suffer for lack of literacy and skills. But this probably calls for a separate post. For now, lets stick to history, British Raj etc. Thanks
“Funny you say this because the average goe here in Britain thinks that the British raj had been very humane and helped spread everything from democracy and rule of law to modern medicine around the world from Africa to India. A matter of individual perspective, I suppose, but that doesn’t change the history.”
I never said that they didn’t do those things. I LIKE those things. I just don’t like all the aforementioned hateful things that they did. And I don’t think that they ought to be whitewashed or ignored, as this book says that they were. I think it is the memory of the past suffering India has gone through that should motivate Indians to ensure that India becomes wealthy and powerful. Instead, today’s Indians seem more than happy to allow India to rot in the hands of the Congress. People who remembered their suffering, like those in South Korea, Israel, China, America, etc have used it to fuel nationalism and become wealthy and powerful. India could do the same if today’s blinkered, myopic leadership actually behaved like proud Indians rather than slavish Anglophilic sepoys, exactly as the British wished.
“It is said that king Ashoka was so depressed after seeing the mindless bloodshed in the Kalinga war that he gave up his kingdom and adopted Buddhism. Must’ve been some bloodshed, don’t you think? Humane?”
Yes, Ashoka did kill civilians, but that was the exception to the rule; generally, civilians were not to be harmed as per the rules of war, and Megasthenes noted. However, being sorry for it is one thing, but Ashoka was a pussy. He adopted Buddhism and oops there went the empire’s military strength, and with it, the empire itself once he was dead. Chanakya would not be pleased; as he told Chandragupta,
“Pataliputra reposes each night in peaceful comfort secure in the belief that the distant borders of Magadha are inviolate and the interiors are safe and secure, thanks only to the Mauryan Army standing vigil with naked swords and eyes peeled for action, day and night, in weather fair and foul, all eight praharas (round the clock), quite unmindful of personal discomfort and hardship, all through the year, year after year. While the citizenry of the State contributes to see that the State prospers and flourishes, the soldier guarantees it continues to exist as a State! The day when the soldier has to demand his dues or, worse, plead for them, will also bode ill for the State. For then, on that day, you, My Lord, will have lost all moral sanction to be the King! It will also be the beginning of the end of the Mauryan Empire!â€
That’s exactly India’s problem in this regard; the Indian leadership has tried to inject ahimsa and nonviolence into India’s foreign policy, whether it is the ceasefire in Kashmir, or the oblivious Hindi-China Bhai Bhai nonsense, and has always suffered for it.
“I think we’ve “understood the grim realities of India’s past†to death already. I remember growing up disliking Muslims and anyone with a white skin. (And as if the history books weren’t enough to spread the fear and hatred of the white man, most of the villians and vamps in bollywood movies had white skins and Christian names.) Isn’t that enough for you already?”
Did you waste that rage in pointless acts of hate? Or did you use it to better your country? If the former, then, no, its not enough. There’s a difference between racist anger what I’m proposing: a clear, unambiguous understanding of what went wrong in India, and therefore, how to fix it. Israel, for instances, doesn’t hate Germany. But they don’t forget the Holocaust. South Korea doesn’t hate Japan anymore. But they still remember the suffering of Korean “comfort women.” Indians have this vague, fuzzy sense that the British did some bad stuff, and that’s about it. There’s no impetus to enact social change anymore.
“Non-sequitur. Do you really think that India remains poor or can’t prevent terrorist acts because it feels humiliated by the British? I think it is a shame that even after 60+ years of independence, we keep passing on the blame of our shortcomings onto the British and Muslims so conveniently. That’s our real problem – the ardent belief that everyone else other than our own selves is responsible for our misery!”
Yes. Indians still behave as though they ought to be subservient to the powers that be, as though Sonia Gandhi was some kind of empress. Perhaps it originated as a survival mechanism in the face of foreign brutality. But it has survived past its expiration date. That four generations of incompetent Gandhis and their corrupt, spineless, incompetent Congress court has driven India into the gutter in literally everything (economy, security, quality of governance etc) is in and of itself proof that Indians, like I previously mentioned, ought to shout “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up!â€
@RC
“First of all, India being one single large political unit the way it is, is not necessarily a good thing. Ask more than 40% of the children who are malnourished and about 80% who live on less than Rs 30 per day.”
What does that have to do with India’s size? China has more land and people than India, and it seems to manage just fine. India’s problem is not its size, but its idiot rulers.
“Being a big country is not helpful but a curse of mal-governance.
In the beginning of 1960s Singapore was feeling sorry to be not part of Malaysia due to political differences. How do you all think that worked out??”
In 1947, Pakistan didn’t want to be part of India; How do you think THAT worked out?
“Assuming that all the various regions of India giving up their sovereignty albeit not completely (thanks to the linguistic divisions), for the good of a united large area so that rulers in Delhi have a larger fiefdom to rule over, has to be a good thing to restore some mythical “Akhand Bharat†notion is ridiculous.”
The various regions gave up their sovereignty because there is strength in unity. The reason that the British, and earlier, the Muslims, were able to invade and brutalize India was because Indians were too busy bickering with each other.
“This false faith in the mythical unity of India makes people tolerate statist economic policy and lack of freedom that has resulted in dire poverty.”
You’re making an INCREDIBLE leap of faith here. What exactly does having faith in India’s “mythical” unity have to do with tolerating statist economic policies? Here, even you admit that India’s problem is statism, not political unity. The solution, therefore, is not to break India into pieces, but to simply eliminate statism! It is India’s unity that gives India what power and prosperity it currently has. Does anyone care about the Buddhist nations of Southeast Asia? No, because they are all divided and have little geopolitical clout.
“Tell me one thing, what is more important a large country that meets aspirations of the elites mythical notions of past grandeur or a nation where people are free and prosperous.”
Balkanizing India will only make India a bunch of Nepals and Bangaldeshs. They have neither prosperity, nor freedom, nor aspirations of the elites mythical notions of past grandeur. But if they rejoined India, they’d have all that and then some. Remember that it was only when Bismarck united Germany that Germany became a world power. If making such a large area prosper is somehow that hard, how did dynasties like the Maurya and Han manage to thrive? They had wiser, more pragmatic leadership. India’s current leaders are myopic, idealistic, and corrupt. Hence, there are problems.
Sasank
“I never said that they didn’t do those things. I LIKE those things. I just don’t like all the aforementioned hateful things that they did.”
We don’t have much to disagree on then 🙂
“However, being sorry for it is one thing, but Ashoka was a pussy. He adopted Buddhism and oops there went the empire’s military strength…”
😀 No comments!
“Indians have this vague, fuzzy sense that the British did some bad stuff, and that’s about it. There’s no impetus to enact social change anymore.”
Change in modern India and the atrocities of the British rule are not related in the least. What went wrong in India in the past has absolutely nothing to do with how to fix our problems today. That’s the whole summary of my argument. If you want to understand India’s problems today, look to the socialist model of governance and not the British rule.
“Perhaps it originated as a survival mechanism in the face of foreign brutality. But it has survived past its expiration date. That four generations of incompetent Gandhis and their corrupt, spineless, incompetent Congress court has driven India into the gutter in literally everything (economy, security, quality of governance etc) is in and of itself proof that Indians, like I previously mentioned, ought to shout “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up!â€
I think you are barking on the wrong tree. How you reached to the conclusion that the Gandhis’ hold on power has something to do with British raj is beyond me. That family has mastered the art of cheap politics in India and most of us fall for it – that’s that. Raise the level of political debate in India (above vote-bank politics and empty jingoism) and you will see the change.
“Change in modern India and the atrocities of the British rule are not related in the least. What went wrong in India in the past has absolutely nothing to do with how to fix our problems today. That’s the whole summary of my argument. If you want to understand India’s problems today, look to the socialist model of governance and not the British rule.”
The only way that you can fix problems is by understanding that they exist in the first place. Indians don’t. They’ve adapted a defeatist mindset in the face of centuries of foreign exploitation. That’s why they’ve been indifferent to 60 years of incompetence and humiliation. Btw the socialist model of governance involved retaining British state control over the economy.
“I think you are barking on the wrong tree. How you reached to the conclusion that the Gandhis’ hold on power has something to do with British raj is beyond me. That family has mastered the art of cheap politics in India and most of us fall for it – that’s that. Raise the level of political debate in India (above vote-bank politics and empty jingoism) and you will see the change.”
And why do people fall for it? Why do they treat the Gandhis like they are some sort of monarchy? Because they have yet to shed the servile mentality acquired as a result of centuries of foreign domination.
@Shantanu, Amitabh Soni,
Excellent write up to keep civilizational memories alive.
This book ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’ by Mike Davis should be made compulsory reading for Indians in schools/colleges. Then we will see a more assertive Indians and will not fall for the crap of British Historians and their followers in India. Here is a gem from the same book:
“1878 study published in prestigious Journal Of Statistical Society that contrasted 31 serious famines in 120 years of British rule against only 17 recorded famines in the entire 2 previous millennia.”
So much for the kind benevolence of British. Actually our ‘feudal’, ‘corrupt’, ‘evil’ Hindus like Marathas were far more liberal humane than the believers of ‘White man’s burden’. According to their(British) own:
“Food security was probably better in Deccan during the Maratta period. Mountstuart Elphinstone admitted retrospectively after British Conquest. “The Maratta Country flourished, and the people seemed to have been exempt from some of the evils which exist under our govt.” His contemporary, Sir John MAlcolm, “claimed between 1770 and 1820 there had been only 3 very bad seasons.” D.E.U. Baker cites a british administrative report from central provinces which contrasted Maratta enlightened treatment during famines. Marartha policy consisted of forcing local elites to feed the poor(enforced charity). The resilient Maratta social order was founded on a militarized free peasantry and very few landless laborers existed. Incontrast to the raiyatwari system, Maratta taxes varied according to the actual harvest.”
Pg 286-287, Late Victorian Holocausts
This talk by Sarvesh ji seems very relevant to the topic of this post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0qASWj3X1Y
BTW, an excellent post by Amitabh.
Excerpts from How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years by Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel, 2nd Dec 2022:
…(the)..rosy picture of colonialism conflicts dramatically with the historical record. According to research by the economic historian Robert C Allen, extreme poverty in India increased under British rule, from 23 percent in 1810 to more than 50 percent in the mid-20th century. Real wages declined during the British colonial period, reaching a nadir in the 19th century, while famines became more frequent and more deadly. Far from benefitting the Indian people, colonialism was a human tragedy with few parallels in recorded history.
…
Experts agree that the period from 1880 to 1920 – the height of Britain’s imperial power – was particularly devastating for India. Comprehensive population censuses carried out by the colonial regime beginning in the 1880s reveal that the death rate increased considerably during this period, from 37.2 deaths per 1,000 people in the 1880s to 44.2 in the 1910s. Life expectancy declined from 26.7 years to 21.9 years.
In a recent paper in the journal World Development, we used census data to estimate the number of people killed by British imperial policies during these four brutal decades. Robust data on mortality rates in India only exists from the 1880s. If we use this as the baseline for “normal” mortality, we find that some 50 million excess deaths occurred under the aegis of British colonialism during the period from 1891 to 1920.
Fifty million deaths is a staggering figure, and yet this is a conservative estimate. Data on real wages indicates that by 1880, living standards in colonial India had already declined dramatically from their previous levels. Allen and other scholars argue that prior to colonialism, Indian living standards may have been “on a par with the developing parts of Western Europe.” We do not know for sure what India’s pre-colonial mortality rate was, but if we assume it was similar to that of England in the 16th and 17th centuries (27.18 deaths per 1,000 people), we find that 165 million excess deaths occurred in India during the period from 1881 to 1920.
While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia.
….
The historian Mike Davis argues that Britain’s imperial policies “were often the exact moral equivalents of bombs dropped from 18,000 feet.”
Our research finds that Britain’s exploitative policies were associated with approximately 100 million excess deaths during the 1881-1920 period. This is a straightforward case for reparations, with strong precedent in international law. Following World War II, Germany signed reparations agreements to compensate the victims of the Holocaust and more recently agreed to pay reparations to Namibia for colonial crimes perpetrated there in the early 1900s.