What the Brits did to us
Friday, 6. March 2009 - 3:37 PM
To their credit, the British were good at recording every minute thing they saw even if these things were seemingly-useless. They wrote in long hand about the colour of mud, number of leaves fallen on the ground, size and shape of stones and pebbles, clusters of bushes and such other useless detail. In the long run, these details helped them win wars and keep India subjugated from 1858-1947.
Equally, some Brits also recorded things like the tidbit below.
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.
(W. S. Lilly, India and Its Problems)
6. March 2009 - 7:46 PM
This should be shown to all those jackasses who claim that the British rule did India some good . GTH , all anglophiles .
6. March 2009 - 10:33 PM
On the whole, there can be no doubt that British rule in India was a calamity in so far as the peculation of India was concerned. In addition to Bellary – my thoughts go to the golden land of Bangla; home to a series of very devastating famines. These were not merely historical events – they were events that destroyed India’s human capital and left the land and the people to remain stunted in every way (physical, technological, cultural etc.)
However, it is churlish not to admit the duality of British imperialism. British scholarship (counting of leaves and noting the color of mud – in your parlance) also has to be admitted. It is another thing that the scholarship was tainted with the imperial slant (e.g. the Aryan Invasion Theory); but it took a great deal to produce men such as William Jones or Alexander Cunningham. We must not run their work down, even when we disagree with it.Have you wondered why the Muslim imperialists never produced even slanted scholarship on Indian culture?
Finally – even in famine; the British period did allow the Hindus some respite from Islamic tyranny and terror. It led to renewed energy for the Hindus; best exemplified by the Bengal renaissance. Such a movement would never have come about in the Islamic period. Even an independent India alas – has not produced such giants!
Not too long ago (read my rather long comment here – http://rajeev2007.wordpress.com/2007/01/25/uttarayanam/); I felt much as you do. I have had a few occasions to reassess
7. March 2009 - 2:09 AM
Ghost,
Read your comment. Very informative. Will get hold of that book. BTW, any idea if it’s available in India??
7. March 2009 - 10:14 PM
Sandeep – I do not know if the book is available in India at this time. You may be interested in reading the central idea of the book, as written by author himself here – https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/project-x/2006-August/013580.html
7. March 2009 - 11:20 PM
@Sandeep,
Seems like it’s available in India. Published by Permanent Black. http://permanent-black.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-in-paperback.html
8. March 2009 - 4:24 AM
Just to further add to the overall line of thought presented by Ghostwriter – isn’t it not true that its the British actually preserved whatever has remained of Hinduism? Not that they intended to do it, but without the British, I don’t see what could have prevented a long taliban rule from Iran to Burma.
Unfortunately few Indians realize that the original theme of the novel Anandamath from which our national song is derived, was to invite the Brits to help the hindus fight islamic rule in Bengal.
8. March 2009 - 8:11 AM
Long time reader here. I’ll like to address the points raised by Ghostwriter and Bhavananda that it was British rule that caused a Hindu revival. Such a view is highly mistaken and dangerous.
By the 1750′s the Marathas were in control of most of present day India. The Mughal Emperor was their puppet. Their writ ran from The Deccan to Delhi, from Gujarat to Orissa. At the same time the Sikhs were coming into their own and by the early 18th century they would control most of north-western India (including the present day badlands of FATA and NWFP).
So by the 18th century Islamic rule as a dominant force had mostly ceased in India and Hindus were on the upswing. The baton was then snatched by the British from the Marathas and Sikhs.
After Macaulay’s minute and 1857 the British went ahead full steam with historical revisionism and divide and rule. This produced things like the AIT and the limeys as a saviour of Hindu culture and finally ended in a horrific partition.
Please read this excellent article by Brannon Parker here:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26990&Itemid=1
esp the section “British Erase Indian History”.
If the Islamic conquests scarred our national soul the British enslaved and colonized our minds. Take your pick on which is more preferable.
8. March 2009 - 7:38 PM
@ Bhavananda
>>’… isn’t it not true that its the British actually preserved whatever has remained of Hinduism? Not that they intended to do it, but without the British, I don’t see what could have prevented a long taliban rule from Iran to Burma….’
Is there a sarcasm hidden in this comment …?
If not, it is a sad indicator of stockholm syndrom.
8. March 2009 - 8:38 PM
There is truth in bhavanas claim.
The British were racists.Yet they united india politically.English was eagerly lapped up by Hindus.Modern thought,education,science and technology was introduced.
Yes they favoured mohammedans,converted indians to christism and favoured tamils and instigated jat sikhs.
But can you deny TN and karnataka are different or marathas and rajputs are different.
Give the selfish racists their due and let us also acknowledge that we are hardly homogenous.
8. March 2009 - 11:37 PM
Unfortunately, there was no sarcasm in my last comment. I’m not claiming that the British *tried* to do any good for the Hindus. They didn’t! But we need to admit the hard truth – Hindus were just not strong enough to usurp power from the united Mohammedans. Not that no one tried – there were the Rajputs, Marathas, Vijayanagar empire,etc etc. Then why were we ruled for so long?
For the same reason that we elected Nehru as PM or that Sonia is so popular. The same reason why the hindus kicked out of bangladesh comes to WB and votes for communists who are hand in gloves with the islamic extremists. The list is painful and long …
The teestas and anganas of today are not new – there were always people who misguided our rulers and the masses. Unless we can *first* admit it, there is no hope.
10. March 2009 - 8:08 AM
@ Bhavananda,
>>…Hindus were just not strong enough to usurp power from the united Mohammedans…
Contents of the comment no 7 above indicate otherwise.
>>…Not that no one tried – there were the Rajputs, Marathas, Vijayanagar empire,etc etc.
Rajputs, Marathas, Vijayanagar empire, etc had their own victories. The british had their victories too. But none can have victories all the time.
WWII weakened britain so much that holding on to colonies was beyond its military power and they left India.
>>..Then why were we ruled for so long?..
‘so long’ is subjective. british ruled for about 200 years. That time period is maybe 2 percent of the total time that Indian civilisation is known to have existed. Mughals ruled for about 300 years, but their power did not extent to all parts of the country, moreover, that time period is also only a fraction of time that Indian civilisation has been around.
Therefore it is incorrect to conclude that we have been ruled for ‘so long’.
>>…For the same reason that we elected Nehru as PM
Education in those times were british provided and designed to make indians lose respect for their own culture and turn servile. Products of such education system were likely to vote for people who aped the west and that is what happened.
>>…or that Sonia is so popular.
Is she …?
I think she has presence only in the minds of congressmen. And that is easily understood in the light of what was discussed above regarding people who let themselves be led up the path of disrespect for indian culture and indianness through the remnants of the education system that was created by british and kept alive by those indians who were trained by them.
>>…The same reason why the hindus kicked out of bangladesh comes to WB and votes for communists who are hand in gloves with the islamic extremists.
Are there facts that validate this statement?
>>…The list is painful and long …
The list of achievements of indians is mind boggling, in art, sculptures, dance forms, literature, story telling, science, astronomy, metallurgy, spirituality and above all, human values- mutual respect, openness towards diverse views, respect for women etc.
In all these fields achievements of Indians surpass that of every other nation by a huge margin.
Indians rightfully discerned the purpose of life to be spiritual advancement and engaged in activities that promoted that end.
Sometimes this attitude made it easier for people who did not share similar humane values to defeat Indians in war.
However, no conqueror prevailed for long as Indians rose up against the conquerors.
>>…there were always people who misguided our rulers and the masses. Unless we can *first* admit it, there is no hope.
Well, the restrictions on free speech in india being what it is today, without taking names, let us admit that there are people who are paid to mislead people.
But there is no reason why they should succeed in spreading lies, so long as we exercise our intelligence and discerning power.
I think taking everything into consideration, indians have more than enough reason to feel proud of their culture.
Yes, we need to dismantle the mal-intented education system that is in place and engage in our heritage of intellectual enquiry and societial development.
Thanks
11. March 2009 - 8:54 PM
Dharampal has published extensively on the state of science, technology and education in the immediate prelude to British rule. He compares the state of such subjects in India and Britain in the 1700s. He used materials available in the English archives for that purpose. It makes interesting reading.
The breakdown of the irrigation system in the Madras Presidency helped explain not just the repeated famine but the end of village-level patronage for education. The entire rural economy went into what we would now call a recession.
I recommend his works. I refer to his ‘Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century’, ‘The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century’, ‘Despoliation and Defaming India: The Early Nineteenth Century British Crusade’, and the ‘Madras Panchayat System’.
This said, similar studies are needed to assess the impact of land tax policy under the Deccan sultanates on agriculture. That too would also explain the long term decline in India’s rural economy.
18. March 2009 - 1:02 AM
Were the British supposed to take care of and protect/nurture us in the first place, is the question.
That they did not do more damage than they managed to do is to their credit and I would say springs from their civilized sensibilities.
On the other hand, I do not know how far Hindus would have gone to assert their Hindu rights. As early as 1857, the Marathas were ready to fight under Shah Zafar’s banner.
I have another take on the subject of British Imperialism and how Hindus may view it.
I feel we should boldly allow that the more virile and organized race won that time.
This will do two things;
1. We are psychologically in better shape to look at our weaknesses and address them
2. We will not be pointlessly guilt tripping another worthy race. (But, too late. As a matter of fact, this is already done and the damage to Britain’s self-esteem has become too great and dangerous. I will go so far as to say that Britain’s subjects have done battle with the British but have failed to destroy it utterly and left it to rot. Maybe we have proved incapable of ruling over the British like they ruled over us? Still, the British today, are a people so guilt ridden that they do not recognize threats to themselves. They believe they deserve extinction. And dear friends, it’s not the Hindu again, who wants to stay till the party ends, but the Muslim.)
21. March 2009 - 12:00 AM
What the British did was reopen contact with the WEst. India had become isolated under Islam and contact between East and WEst stopped with Islam in between, the West knowing India through Arabs, who take credit for most of India’s inventions such as the numerals and such…Before Islam and Christianity, there was a great deal of contact between East and West…The Greco-Roman religions were syncretic and the Romans never fought over religion but over territory. If they had not become Christians they most likely would have developed like the Hindus in terms of religion–from polythheism, to henotheism, to monotheism, to the philosophical conceptions of the Upanishads…The Muslims used religion as a way to plunder the infidels and seize their riches–this is why they came to India, from a land of sheep and camels, fighting over water. Can you name of anything great India created under Islam? No philosophy, no art, no literature, no great schools and universities… Just some architecture like the Taj Mahal–I do not think it an architectural masterpiece–just a pretty building built of marble and stones…and some love poetry in a degenerate Islamic court…
The British were in India to make money…so what to expect? However, the gave birth to Indian nationalism.
3. April 2009 - 2:45 PM
I just want to point out that Palahalli is mistaken in his belief that Brits feel guilty over the British Raj. There is no evidence for this and frankly many of them are proud of it. Phrases like “colonial guilt” are just made up for the purpose of appearing moral and respectable.
3. April 2009 - 2:56 PM
Anand – I must disagree with you on the basis of what we see of the White English people today.
How would you illustrate British pride in their former Empire?
How is that pride reflected in their governance and Foreign Policy?