It's a subject which has intrigued me for some years now, how we're a handful of foreigners able to rule over millions of Indians for so long? Are the Indians inherently pliant and servile by nature? Or did the Indian see some clear benefit from the new master race?
The author starts from 1600, when the East India Company applied for their first warehouse in Surat from a drunken and debauched Emperor Jehangir. One of the first differences to be noted by English ambassador Hawkins was the nature of law in India, Kings word was law and his noble men were noble because they were his favourites, and also that Muslim law ran only when the Emperor wished. But surprisingly, the English started working within the Moghul law like any other local strongmen of the day, the only difference being that their allegiance lay with their parent company based in London.
The book doesn't disappoint for long as a base feature definition of an Englishman in India late 1780's...
Proud and tenacious
He feels himself a conqueror amongst vanquished people and looks down upon them.
Indolent.
A cool apathy a listless inattention and improvident carelessness accompanies most of his actions.
Secure of today, he thinks not of tomorrow.
Ambitious of splendour, he expends freely.
Generosity is a feature of character.
Minutely just and inflexibly upright even when prone to calumny & distractions.
Matchless Integrity.
Another interesting historical cross-roads was the fact that in the early 1800's, a hot debate between colonisation and debate was waging in India. The debate was
whether large number of Englishmen invited to settle in the waste lands of India against the continuance of old education policy to educate the native Indians.
Fascinating that opting the later course changed the course of India instead of direct colonisation which could have resulted in another Africa or South America like India. It also demonstrates that colluding with the master race can have some benefits for the colonised races in the long run as opposed to fighting them incessantly.
I also found it fascinating that around the same time education to the ordinary was about the same standard in England as in India, where the government policy was to teach the people to read and write only, that implies that modern education foundation in India and England was kept around the same time. This clearly explains the huge number of Anglophiles in India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh.
This book has to be taken with a pinch of salt though as it harps on about how good the British overlords were for India and Indians only, with little mention of the revenues made from the tax collected directly because of the new developments. For example mentions of great changes and developments are made with great fanfare but any direct reference to benefits to the Company profits is masked slightly. The author squeamish attempt to portray Sepoy Mutiny as merely an army rebellion is a case in point. If the Mutiny was organised by Brahmins than why was the Moghul king in Delhi dishonoured and exiled to Rangoon? Why were all Muslims exiled from their homes for upto a period of three years after the fall of Delhi if the Mutiny was led by high caste Hindus? If the Mutiny was caused by the machinations of the upper cast Hindus than why did these Hindus decide to form a partnership with an almost defunct Mughuls who should have been equally hated by them? As the author slithers and justifies the 'local' nature of Mutiny I could almost feel the brevity of the chapter as he obviously wanted to get it over and done with as quickly as possible.
Mutiny brought the worst atrocities out of gallant English, in one incident alone a certain civil servant Cooper bound and killed around 286 mutinous soldiers in Amritsar. These ex-soldiers all hailing from central India were having first being subdued by local Sikh villagers were killed in batches of ten by an unapologetic Cooper citing that this wanton extermination was necessary as it probably saved the lives of thousands in the long run. Similar argument was later made by Dyer seventy years later.
Met the Titans of Punjab as well, Henry Lawrence, Herbert Edwards (Bannu) , John Nicholson (Rawalpindi), James Abbot (Hazara) , Lumsden (Yusufzai) , Reynel Taylor, George Lawrence, Vans Agnew and Arthur Cocks. Whatever their reason might have been, these select coterie of gentlemen with almost superhuman dedication and infinite amount of valour, were able to make lasting changes in the most arable province of India, affects of which can still be felt in the Punjab of now. The most significant park in Lahore is still Lawrence gardens and a whole city is named after Abbot called Abbotabad, now infamous after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Bet Abbot sahib never imagined such fate.
By the end the author had made a pretty significant defence of the British takeover of India, and I stand convinced that all of the on e colonised benefited from the 350 year relationship between the two. Yes Britain benefited from the arrangement in trade and commerce but so did the Indians, for the education policy and for breaking g the archaic traditions like sati, daughter killings and human sacrifice. But most of all they learned about nationalism, which helped them attain independence. There is an understanding of sorts between the masters and slaves, that both needs are to me met. The relationship breaks if either one of them is not keeping their part of the bargain.
Also the way India and Pakistan got independence says a lot about different roads taken after independence as well. Hindus/Indians managed to construe a bigger country using democracy than their greatest leader Ashoka while Muslims/Pakistanis got a country by lobbying the British into giving them one. Funny how both countries choose to keep faith in democracy and lobbying even after so many years of independence!
The author starts from 1600, when the East India Company applied for their first warehouse in Surat from a drunken and debauched Emperor Jehangir. One of the first differences to be noted by English ambassador Hawkins was the nature of law in India, Kings word was law and his noble men were noble because they were his favourites, and also that Muslim law ran only when the Emperor wished. But surprisingly, the English started working within the Moghul law like any other local strongmen of the day, the only difference being that their allegiance lay with their parent company based in London.
The book doesn't disappoint for long as a base feature definition of an Englishman in India late 1780's...
Proud and tenacious
He feels himself a conqueror amongst vanquished people and looks down upon them.
Indolent.
A cool apathy a listless inattention and improvident carelessness accompanies most of his actions.
Secure of today, he thinks not of tomorrow.
Ambitious of splendour, he expends freely.
Generosity is a feature of character.
Minutely just and inflexibly upright even when prone to calumny & distractions.
Matchless Integrity.
Another interesting historical cross-roads was the fact that in the early 1800's, a hot debate between colonisation and debate was waging in India. The debate was
whether large number of Englishmen invited to settle in the waste lands of India against the continuance of old education policy to educate the native Indians.
Fascinating that opting the later course changed the course of India instead of direct colonisation which could have resulted in another Africa or South America like India. It also demonstrates that colluding with the master race can have some benefits for the colonised races in the long run as opposed to fighting them incessantly.
I also found it fascinating that around the same time education to the ordinary was about the same standard in England as in India, where the government policy was to teach the people to read and write only, that implies that modern education foundation in India and England was kept around the same time. This clearly explains the huge number of Anglophiles in India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh.
This book has to be taken with a pinch of salt though as it harps on about how good the British overlords were for India and Indians only, with little mention of the revenues made from the tax collected directly because of the new developments. For example mentions of great changes and developments are made with great fanfare but any direct reference to benefits to the Company profits is masked slightly. The author squeamish attempt to portray Sepoy Mutiny as merely an army rebellion is a case in point. If the Mutiny was organised by Brahmins than why was the Moghul king in Delhi dishonoured and exiled to Rangoon? Why were all Muslims exiled from their homes for upto a period of three years after the fall of Delhi if the Mutiny was led by high caste Hindus? If the Mutiny was caused by the machinations of the upper cast Hindus than why did these Hindus decide to form a partnership with an almost defunct Mughuls who should have been equally hated by them? As the author slithers and justifies the 'local' nature of Mutiny I could almost feel the brevity of the chapter as he obviously wanted to get it over and done with as quickly as possible.
Mutiny brought the worst atrocities out of gallant English, in one incident alone a certain civil servant Cooper bound and killed around 286 mutinous soldiers in Amritsar. These ex-soldiers all hailing from central India were having first being subdued by local Sikh villagers were killed in batches of ten by an unapologetic Cooper citing that this wanton extermination was necessary as it probably saved the lives of thousands in the long run. Similar argument was later made by Dyer seventy years later.
Met the Titans of Punjab as well, Henry Lawrence, Herbert Edwards (Bannu) , John Nicholson (Rawalpindi), James Abbot (Hazara) , Lumsden (Yusufzai) , Reynel Taylor, George Lawrence, Vans Agnew and Arthur Cocks. Whatever their reason might have been, these select coterie of gentlemen with almost superhuman dedication and infinite amount of valour, were able to make lasting changes in the most arable province of India, affects of which can still be felt in the Punjab of now. The most significant park in Lahore is still Lawrence gardens and a whole city is named after Abbot called Abbotabad, now infamous after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Bet Abbot sahib never imagined such fate.
By the end the author had made a pretty significant defence of the British takeover of India, and I stand convinced that all of the on e colonised benefited from the 350 year relationship between the two. Yes Britain benefited from the arrangement in trade and commerce but so did the Indians, for the education policy and for breaking g the archaic traditions like sati, daughter killings and human sacrifice. But most of all they learned about nationalism, which helped them attain independence. There is an understanding of sorts between the masters and slaves, that both needs are to me met. The relationship breaks if either one of them is not keeping their part of the bargain.
Also the way India and Pakistan got independence says a lot about different roads taken after independence as well. Hindus/Indians managed to construe a bigger country using democracy than their greatest leader Ashoka while Muslims/Pakistanis got a country by lobbying the British into giving them one. Funny how both countries choose to keep faith in democracy and lobbying even after so many years of independence!
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