India as Colony: 1850 to 1947

British Rule’s Mixed Blessings

HINDUISM TODAY’S Teaching Standards

If YOU lived then...

You are a Hindu sepoy in the Indian army in 1857. New rifle cartridges have been issued. To use them, you have to bite off the tip, which is smeared with beef fat. You have never eaten or even tasted meat, as killing animals, especially cows, goes against your religious beliefs. If you refuse, you will be arrested—and possibly executed. If you run away, you risk the same fate.

What do you do, and why?

Understanding Colonialism

As we learned in the last lesson, the British East India Company came to dominate India through its clever use of political strategy, intrigue and military force. In 1858 India became a colony of the British Empire. Powerful nations, including England, Spain, Portugal, France and Holland, had used their financial and military power to establish colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Many colonies, such as in North America and in Australia, were created by military conquest. The conquerors drove out or killed the native peoples, whom they regarded as subhuman. They then settled the land with immigrants from their own countries. Other colonies, such as India, were first opened through trade and commerce which eventually led to their foreign economic domination and political control. England’s colonies included India, Burma, Ceylon, Malaysia, Singapore and hundreds of other territories large and small worldwide. The English defended their conquests by claiming that they were a superior race with a noble mission: to spread Western civilization. This sounds very racist today. But it was then a firm belief of most Englishmen.

While England profited from its colonies, the colonies suffered oppression and disease. In the 19th century, the British did bring notable advances of the Industrial Revolution to India. But a century of British rule drove a wealthy and vital India into poverty and weakness.

Britain introduced English education in 1835 to strengthen its power. Indians excelled in the new education system, with unintended results. They read, in English, how the American colonies banded together in 1776 to free themselves from Britain and establish a democracy. They learned how the French gained freedom by overthrowing their king in 1789. Indians rightly concluded that their ancient land—Bharat Mata, “Mother India”—had the same right as America and France to be free and independent. But it would take a century to achieve this goal.

The red areas were under direct British control. The yellow areas, called “Princely States,” had local Indian rulers who answered to the British.

The 1857 Revolt

The East India Company dominated India until the 1850s. A huge uprising in 1857 led to the direct and official takeover of India by the British government.

Many Indians were unhappy with the Company. It took over previously independent kingdoms within India. Its economic policies made most people poor. Its British-run police and law courts were inadequate or corrupt. Within their army, the British officers had little respect for their Indian soldiers or sepoys, and in some cases promoted their conversion to Christianity.

A relatively simple incident triggered the massive revolt. A new type of greased cartridge was issued for the sepoys’ Enfield rifles. Word spread that the grease was beef and pork fat. To load a cartridge, one had to bite off the greased tip. The sepoys refused to use them: the Hindus because they considered the cow sacred; the Muslims because they considered the pig unclean. The sepoys mutinied, attacking and killing their British officers.

The revolt spread across North India, as Hindus and Muslims, elites and commoners, joined forces against the British. Many landlords, left impoverished, joined the rebellion. Within a year, the British ruthlessly crushed the revolt, killing hundreds of thousands (some say millions) of soldiers and civilians.

Stories (some true, some false) of British women and children being killed by the rebels inflamed public opinion in England. Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol and other famous stories, wrote that if he were commander-in-chief in India he would “strike that Oriental Race ...proceeding, with merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth.” Although Dickens championed the poor in England and opposed slavery in America, he held a rabidly racist view of Indians.

The British were shocked by the uprising, which recalled the American Revolution. To protect their power, investment and income, they tightened their grip on the subcontinent by transferring rule from the East India Company to the British government.

The British Raj

The new government of India was called the Raj, a Sanskrit word meaning to reign or rule. Its first steps were to ensure that no future rebellion would take place. The ratio of English soldiers in the army was greatly increased. Sepoys of various castes, religions and regions were assigned to separate units to prevent possible conspiracy. The population was disarmed. Ownership of guns was allowed by license only. Generally, Indians had no rights and no voice in their own rule.

The Raj expanded the rail and road system which allowed duty-free British products to be sold all over India. This, unfortunately, caused the collapse of major native industries such as cotton textiles.

Tax revenues from agriculture and industry that should have benefitted India instead went to England. Between 1770 and 1857, mismanagement worsened the effects of twelve major famines and many minor ones. According to official figures, 28 million Indians starved to death between 1854 and 1901. India’s share of world income shrank from 22.6% in 1700 to 3.8% in 1952.

As early as the 1820s, many Indians wrote about the need to end British rule in India. The peaceful demand for freedom by nationalist political organizations continued decade after decade, at times turning into violent but unsuccessful uprisings.

The British improved India’s legal, justice and civil service systems, introduced better military training, built a few universities and created telegraph, postal, rail and road networks. They did so primarily for their own political and economic gain, not to benefit the Indian people.

The Road to Independence

Mohandas K. Gandhi, born in 1869, is honored in India as the “father of the nation.” After becoming a lawyer in England, he moved to South Africa. There he won political rights for Indian immigrants by nonviolent means. In 1915 he returned home to India and joined the freedom struggle.

On April 13, 1919, British General Dyer led an attack upon a peaceful political meeting of unarmed men, women and children at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. In ten minutes, 400 people were shot dead and 1,200 seriously injured. Instead of being pun­ished for his crime, Dyer was honored as a hero.

The ruthless massacre in Amritsar convinced Gandhi that only a mass struggle against foreign rule would save India. From 1920 on, he led a national movement for freedom based on his philosophy of nonviolent resistance called satyagraha, “force of truth.” Indian nationalists stopped cooperating with the government, refused to pay taxes and burned English goods in public. Gandhi and his followers were repeatedly beaten and jailed.

During the freedom movement, Hindus and Muslims disagreed about the democratic government they hoped to build. Muslims did not want to be a permanent minority in India and demanded their own country, an idea that Gandhi opposed.

World War II began in 1939 as Germany and Japan sought to add countries to their empires by force, just as Britain had done a century earlier. The war put Britain in the awkward position of defending its own freedom and democracy against Germany while continuing to deprive India of hers.

The Quit India movement was launched in 1942. Soon afterwards, Gandhi and other leaders were arrested. The movement became violent at some places, with hundreds shot and killed by police.

Britain’s military force in India was composed of Indian soldiers and sailors commanded by British officers. By the 1940s, the loyalty of these hired servicemen to their foreign masters diminished as the demand for freedom swept over India. A 1946 mutiny by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy convinced the British that it was only a matter of time before the entire military might revolt.

Crippled by World War II and nearly bankrupt, Britain gave up India and other colonies, including Burma and Ceylon. India’s transition to freedom on August 15, 1947, brought with it a terrible tragedy. Pakistan was partitioned from India on the basis of religion. A huge relocation followed as 7.5 million Muslims moved to Pakistan from India and an equal number of Hindus and Sikhs fled Pakistan. A million died from hardship, attacks and riots. On January 30, 1948, a Hindu, enraged over the partition, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

intrigue

secret planning to harm another

mutiny

a revolt by soldiers or sailors against their officers

inflame

to cause strong emotions

raze

to destroy completely

rabid

extreme or fanatical support of a belief

conspiracy

secret plotting by a group

duty free

being exempt from import and other taxes

famine

extreme shortage of food

ruthless

cruel; lacking pity for other’s suffering

partition

to set off or divide from