Introduction to India
India is not merely a country but a continent. Its population, which is in excess of one billion (1.2 billion) and may soon exceed that of China, presents the most extraordinary contrasts. The people of this vast country speak nearly a thousand languages, follow several different faiths -- including Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Sikhism -- and are congregated in hundreds of different ethnic and caste communities. India is, as is commonly recognized, the world’s largest electoral democracy, and its elections, scattered over a month, represent a triumph of organizational skill. The country has several dozen communist parties, some of which operate outside formal politics and rely on armed struggle, while others are very much part of the traditions of Indian parliamentary democracy. Indian landscapes are just as diverse, from the towering Himalayan peaks in the north to the vast Gangetic plains in north-central India to the coastal regions further south.
The social realities of India, notwithstanding the advances of recent years and the attempt to project India as a rising global power, suggest a rather grim picture: working conditions for the greater majority of the people are still exceedingly poor, levels of poverty remain very high, and the oppression of women, the poor, and other marginalized groups constitutes the most formidable obstacle to egalitarian aspirations.
Early History
The Indus Valley civilization, one of the world's oldest, flourished during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. and extended into northwestern India. The Maurya Empire of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. - which reached its zenith under Ashoka - united much of South Asia. The Golden Age ushered in by the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th centuries A.D.) saw a flowering of Indian science, art, and culture. Islam spread across the subcontinent over a period of 700 years. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Turks and Afghans invaded India and established the Delhi Sultanate. In the early 16th century, the Emperor Babur established the Mughal Dynasty which ruled India for more than three centuries and reached its height under Emperor Aurangjeb. European explorers began establishing footholds in India during the 16th century. By the 19th century, Great Britain had become the dominant political power on the subcontinent. In 1848 the British took over India and ended Mughal rule over the subcontinent.
British East India Company
While Europeans were laying claim to only small parts of Africa between 1750 and 1870, nearly all of India (with three times the population of all of Africa) came under British rule. During the 250 years after the founding of the East India Company in 1600, British interests picked up the pieces of the decaying Mughal Empire. Between 1601-13, merchants of theEast India Companytook twelve voyages to India, and in 1609 William Hawkins arrived at the court ofMughal Emperor Jahangirto seek permission to establish a British presence in India. Despite some setbacks, such as the Company's utter humiliation at the hands of the Mughal EmperorAurangzeb, with whom the Company went to war between 1688-91, the Company never really looked back. Such far-flung European trading companies were speculative and risky ventures. Their success depended on ambitious young “company men,” who used hard bargaining, and hard fighting when necessary, to persuade Indian rulers to allow them to establish trading posts at strategic points along the coast. To protect their fortified warehouses from attack, they trained Indian troops known as sepoys. In divided India these private armies came to hold the balance of power.
Gateway of India, Bombay
In 1691 Great Britain’s East India Company (EIC) had convinced the nawab of the large state of Bengal in northeast India to let the company establish a fortified outpost at the fishing port of Calcutta. A new nawab[1], pressing claims for additional tribute from the prospering port, overran the fort in 1756 and imprisoned a group of EIC men in a cell so small that many died of suffocation.
To avenge their deaths in this “Black Hole of Calcutta,” a large EIC force from Madras, led by Robert Clive, overthrew the nawab. The weak Mughal emperor was persuaded to acknowledge the East India Company’s right to rule Bengal in 1765. The EIC profited from the tax revenues of Bengal as well as from trade. Calcutta grew into a city of 250,000 by 1788.
Along with Calcutta and Madras, the third major center of British power in India was Bombay. There, in 1818, the East India Company annexed large territories to form the core of what was called the “Bombay Presidency.” Some states were taken over completely, as Bengal had been, but very many others remained in the hands of local princes who accepted the political control of the company.
The consolidation of British rule after the initial military victories fell toWarren Hastings, who tried to undermine the Mughal Emperor and claim that the Company was responsible for India. Hastings also set about to make the British more acquainted with Indian history, culture, and social customs; but upon his return to England, he would be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. His numerous successors, though fired by the ambition to expand British territories in India, were also faced with the task of governance.
In 1818 the East India Company controlled an empire with more people than in all of westernEurope and with fifty times the population of the colonies the British had lost in North America. One goal of the British Raj (reign) was to remake India on a British model through administrative and social reform, economic development, and the introduction of new technology. The EIC’s main goal was to create a powerful and efficient system of government, backed by military power.
The transformation of British India’s economy was also doubled-edged. On the one hand, British raj created many new jobs as a result of the growth of trade and expanded crop production, such as opium in Bengal, largely for export to China coffee in Ceylon; and tea in Assam in northeastern India. On the other hand, competition from cheap cotton goods produced in Britain’s industrial mills drove many Indians out of the handicraft textile industry.
In the eighteenth century India had been the world’s greatest exporter of cotton textiles; in the nineteenth century India increasingly shipped raw cotton fiber to Britain. Even the beneficial economic changes introduced under British rule were disruptive, and local rebellions were common. During the first half of the nineteenth century, British rulersreadily handled these isolated uprisings, but they were more concerned about the continuing loyalty of Indian sepoys in the East India Company’s army.
Sepoy Rebellion
The EIC employed 200,000 sepoys in 1857, along with 38,000 British troops. Armed with modern rifles and disciplined in fighting methods, the sepoys had a potential for successful rebellion that other groups lacked. In fact, discontent was growing among Indian soldiers. The replacement of the standard military musket by the far more accurate Enfield rifle in 1857 also caused problems.Soldiers were ordered to use their teeth to tear open the ammunition cartridges, which were greased with animal fat. Hindus were offended by this order if the fat came from cattle, which they considered sacred. Muslims were offended if the fat came from pigs, which they considered unclean.
The initial discontent grew into rebellion by Hindu sepoys in May 1857. British troubles mushroomed when Muslim sepoys, peasants, and discontented elites joined in. The rebels asserted old traditions to challenge Britishauthority: sepoy officers in Delhi proclaimed their loyalty to the Mughal emperor; others rallied behind the Maratha leader. The rebellion was put down by March 1858, but it shook the empire to its core.
India Becomes a British Colony
As a result of the Sepoy Rebellion, the East India Company was abolished and India became a Crown colony, to be governed directly by Parliament, and henceforth responsibility for Indian affairs would fall upon a member of the British cabinet, the Secretary of State for India. In India itself the man in control would continue to be the Governor-General, known otherwise in his capacity as the representative of the monarch as the Viceroy of India.
The proclamation of Queen Victoria, in which she promised that she and her officers would work for the welfare of their Indian subjects, ushered in the final phase of theBritish Raj[2]. Among Indians, there were debates surrounding female education, widow remarriage, the age of consent for marriage, and more generally the status of women; and in the meanwhile, with increasing emphasis on English education, and the expansion of the government, larger numbers of Indians joined government service(Indian Civil Service)[3]. However, few qualified for more important positions because of British racism. In 1885 the Indian NationalCongress[4], at first an association comprised largely of lawyers and some other professionals, was founded in order that educated Indians might gain something of a voice in the governance of their own country.
British rule was justified, in part, by the claims that the Indians required to be civilized, and that British rule would introduce in place of anarchy a reliable system of justice, the rule of law, and the notion of 'fair play'. Certain Indian social or religious practices that the British found to be abhorrent were outlawed, such as sati[5]in 1829, and an ethic of 'improvement' was said to dictate British social policies.
Though India was modernizing few locals benefitted. Canals, trains, canals, and telegraph lines were constructed by the British, but profits remained in colonial hands. Indian nationalism spread as elite Indians became aware of British racism.
1
[1]nawab: A Muslim prince of the Mughal Empire, sometimes allied to the British
[2]British Raj: the British rule over India from 1765-1947 by the British East India Company and then by the British government
[3]Indian Civil Service: The elite professional class of officials who governed India under the British. Originally it excluded Indians and then allowed them into lower positions.
[4]Indian National Congress: A movement started in 1885 to demand greater Indian participation in government. Though started by middle class and elite Hindus, it later appealed to the poor and organized mass protests demanding self government and independence.
[5] sati: when a wife burns herself on a husband’s funeral pyre