India~Colonial History

Time Line of Colonial Period

1498 – Vasco De Gama lands in India via the sea route during this time there existed an elaborate Indian ocean economy.
1599 – English East India Company formed
1602 – Dutch East Indian Company formed.
1658 – French East Indian Company formed
1707 – Death of Aurangzeb and end of Mughal rule
1785 – Robert Clive in India

1835 – Maculay plans for civilizing the natives so that a class of people is created who think and do exactly like their masters.

His words were to this effect: I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief.
Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.
(Source: The Awakening Ray, Vol. 4 No. 5, The Gnostic Centre)

The main philosophy was to incrementally indoctrinate the children with principles that are sympathetic to colonisers philosophy. Make future generations weak in mind, body and spirit. Avoid teaching children the basic facts about their own history. Teach them that natural aggression is wrong and docile submission is right. Teach them that any basis of a moral foundation, like the principles of religion, is a weakness to be avoided in the name of freedom and also redefine the concept of patriotism to support colonisers views.

1853 - Sir Arthur Cunningham was the first to archeologicaly examine Harappa in 1853 and 1856. Finding some Kushana coins in the site, he attributed the city to the Kushana period (Imam 1966)

It is shocking to note that about one hundred miles of the Lahore-Multan railway was ballasted by bricks retrieved from the ruins at Harappa by rapacious railroad contractors;
“ No invader of India had ever so ruthlessly and wantonly destroyed her ancient remains as did the railway contractors in the civilized 19th century ”
(Edwin Bryant – Quest for the origins of the vedic culture Page 331-332)

This made the Anglo Saxon realize that the Indians have the remains of civilization just like the Mesopotamia.

The big plan for India was created to eradicate & change the course of history of India.

The British by this time were already doing research on all the other ancient civilization such as Egypt, Mesopotamia etc.

1857 – First War of independence ~ the Sepoy mutiny made British feel against the Muslim Punjabi's of India and also fear of them in the future. This laid the groundwork for a divide and rule policy for the Indian sub-continent.

After the war, Whitehall assumed direct responsibility for the administration of India, ending 250 years of rule by the British East India Company.

This war changed the resolve of the British towards Indians and made them racist towards the native population.

Till then the practice of marriage with the local women was considered normal (especially punjabis and Muslims) and mixed blood was not frowned upon.

After the change in attitude the British made sure that they segregated the native population from themselves and their family and created a class system for previleges and favour.

1863 – Max Muller proposes the Aryan Invasion Theory – Probably due to the absence of any civilization finding this concocted theory was proposed and it took a life of its own. Since the native version of the history was discarded the Harappan phase of Indian civilization was brushed aside.

1867 - Creation of Deoband Muslim school so that ashrafs can come closer to the rest of the local Muslim converts and create a united Muslim front against the British. Till then the ashrafs looked themselves as the higher and the ruling class.

Syed Ali starts the Aligarh Muslim education center to bring Muslims to the forefront of the european education. Deobandis were Muslim reformers who setup the first madrassahs for the purpose of training future clerics.

1875 – First seals of Indian civilization found by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1875( Source: Ancient Civilizations by Hugh Bowden) – This made the Anglo Saxons realize that the Indians have the remains of civilization just like the Mesopotamia.

The big plan for India was created to change the course of history of India by influencing the elite class of the indian soceity and to shape future generations, control the schools.

The British by this time were already doing research on all the other ancient civilization such as Egypt, Mesopotamia etc. They had for the last few centuries already studied the islamic civilization (the first Arabic chair in the west was set up in 1630s).

Indus civilization was not pursued rigorously in case a large section of Indians get nationalistic feelings.

1857 ~ The British had committed a great mistake by accidentally uniting Moslems and Hindus against them in some areas by their policies. They were more careful in their game after that. However, they saw that the true danger to their dominance were the educated Hindus who were in possession of both Western and traditional Indic knowledge.

This was the class that could easily challenge them as it was still wedded to the Hindu ways and capable of using the power of the newly acquired Western knowledge against the British.

1874 ~ Sir John Stratchey (FInance minister): “The existence side by side of these (Hindu and Muslim) hostile creeds is one of the strong points in our political position in India. The better classes of Mohammedans are a source of strength and not weakness. They constitute a comparatively small but an energetic minority of the population whose political interests are identical with ours.”

1879 ~ Sir James Caird of Thanjavur: "There was no class except Brahmins, which was so hostile to the English."

1881 – The first census in British India done. This is a massive project to really classify the largest human group into various classes by their origins and social strata supposidly for benign motive. This has helped the british and later the west to target individual groups for various reliogious and military purposes.

1885 – Indian National Conference formed as a tool of the British government to influence the course of the Independence movement and for the emancipation of the suffering Indians.

The main reason for forming this organization is to create a platform to dissipate the nationalistic sentiments and to control the nature of the debate and pace of the changes in the political class of the Indians.

The political conciousness of the hindus could be moulded and controlled with such platform.

The terms of debate between the Hindus and Muslims were also influenced with the help of key people in the party as it evolved in the next 50 years.

The main philosphy was to shape the political philosophy, infiltrate the government: Whenever and wherever possible place those sympathetic to your philosophy into office at all levels—the higher, the better—so they can sway the direction of the country within every function of government, promising solutions and benefits for all. In such a way you can tilt legislation toward incrementally increasing the control of and dependency on government—a government that you are shaping.

1906 - split of Bengal during Great Game at the heights between the Russians and the British in the Eurasian landmass.

The British needed an ally who would be able to resist the thrust of the Tsars.

Russian expansion started in 1582 and continued to central asia and the pacific till late 1700s.

The next target of the British was Tibet and British were worried about Tibet coming under the influence of Russia.

The plan was to keep India under the British dominion for the next 500 years and was expressed in commonwealth speeches in early 1900-1910.

1911 – Capital shift from Calcutta to New Delhi. This was to reduce the increasing demands for independence in the enlightened Bengal which had the most interaction with the west .

This was a diversion so that the seat of power should be perceived similar to the Mughal empire.
This also broke the deep intellectual nationalist discourse in Bengal and weakened it. The ultimate aim is to make sure that the Muslims would also start seeing a Muslim homeland in Indian sub-continent.

1917 – First World war. Fall of Ottoman empire and creation of middle eastern states under the direct influence of the British. British looked at the Muslims of the middle east and the Muslims of the India as one and buitl relationship with the arabs and the ashrafs of the sub-continent.

1920s - Discovery of mohenjedaro, harrapa – final confirmation of the existence and history of Indian civilization. This may have made the British to push through the plans for division of India.

1930 – Plans to divide the country hatched when the middle east was secure after the first world war and Saudi arabia was already a state. The assessment of the colonial powers was that the history of the natives has been discovered with archeology and they would find their true belonging. It would be difficult to keep the country colonized for a long time.

1939 – Second world war – British still to recover from the first world war and willing to lessen their burden in the empire.

1940 - Lahore resolution for a separate Muslim homeland. Secretly British were siding with the Muslim league/ashrafs to create a homeland for them for future collaboration. There is increasing evidence that Lahore resolution was made in that location and time so that the future homeland of the Pakistan will have Punjab as the cultural/political and military center.

1947 – Indian Independence/partition. And Pakistan formation.
1971 – Split of Pakistan the largest Muslim nation into Pakistan and Bangladesh