INDIA SINCE 1857 - A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Though the British conquest of India began in 1757 with the Battle of Plassey and the overthrow of the then independent King of Bengal, Nawab Sirajudowla, it was only by slow and gradual stages that the British occupation of India made progress. For instance, after the Battle of Plassey, only the financial administration of Bengal passed into the hands of the British — the political administration remaining in the hands of Nawab Mir Jaffar, the man who had betrayed Nawab Sirajudowla at the last moment and gone over to the British. It was only by stages that the British could take over the entire administration of Bengal. Likewise it was only by slow and gradual stages that the British rule could be extended over other parts of India. While this process of gradual annexation was going on, the British still formally recognised the suzerainty of the Emperor at Delhi. It should be noted that in the occupation of India, the British used not only arms — but more than arms, the weapons of bribery, treachery and every form of corruption. For instance, the founder of the British Empire in India, Robert Clive, who was later made a Lord, has been proved by historians to have been guilty of forgery. Likewise Warren Hastings, a Governor-General of India, was accused before the British Parliament by Edmund Burke, a member of the House of Commons, as being guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanours".

Contents

1. India since 1857 - A bird's eye view
2. From January 1935, to September 1939
3. From September 1939, to August 1942

The greatest folly and mistake of our predecessors was their inability to realise at the very beginning, the real character and role of the Britishers who came to India. They probably thought that like the innumerable tribes that had wandered to India in the past and had made India their home, the British were just another such tribe. It was much later that they realised that the British had come to conquer and plunder and not to settle down in India. As soon as this was generally understood all over the country, a mighty revolution broke out in 1857, which has been incorrectly called by English historians "the Sepoy Mutiny", but which is regarded by the Indian people as the First War of Independence. In the Great Revolution of 1857, the British were on the point of being thrown out of the country — but partly through superior strategy and partly through luck — they won at the end. Then there followed a reign of terror, the parallel of which it is difficult to find in history. Wholesale massacres took place in the course of which innocent men were bound hand and foot and were blown up from the mouths of cannon.

After the Revolution of 1857, the British realised that by sheer brutal force, they could not hold India long. They, therefore, proceeded to disarm the country. And the second greatest folly and mistake that our predecessors committed was to submit to disarmament. If they had not given up their arms so easily, probably the history of India since 1857 would have been different from what it has been. Having once disarmed the country completely, it has been possible for the British to hold India with the help of a small but efficient modern army.

During the last World War, when the British found that further political concessions would have to be made to the Indian people, they realised that it was not enough to try and divide the Muslims from the rest of the population and they then set about trying to divide the Hindus themselves. In this way, they discovered the caste problem in 1918 and suddenly became the champions and liberators of the so-called depressed classes. Till the year 1937, Britain had hoped to keep India divided by posing as the champions of the Princes, the Muslims, and the so-called depressed classes. In the general election held under the new constitution of 1935 — they found, however, to their great surprise, that all their tricks and bluffs had failed and that a strong nationalist feeling permeated the whole nation and every section of it. Consequently, British policy has now fallen back on its last hope. If the Indian people cannot be divided, then the country — India — has to be divided geographically and politically. This is the plan, called Pakistan, which emanated from the fertile brain of a Britisher and which has precedents in other parts of the British Empire. For instance, Ceylon which belonged geographically and culturally to India, was separated from India long ago. Immediately after the last war, Ireland which was always a unified state, .was divided into Ulster and the Irish Free State. After the new constitution of 1935, Burma was separated from India. And if the present war had not intervened, Palestine would already have been divided into a Jewish State, an Arab State, and a British corridor running between the two. Having themselves invented Pakistan — or the plan for dividing India — the British have been doing a colossal, but skilful, propaganda in support of it. Though the vast majority of the Indian Muslims want a free and independent India — though the President of the Indian National Congress is Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, a Muslim — and though only a minority of the Indian Muslims supports the idea of Pakistan — British propaganda throughout the world gives the impression that the Indian Muslims are not behind the national struggle for liberty and want India to be divided up. The British themselves know that what they propagate is quite false — but they, nevertheless, hope that by repeating a falsehood, again and again, they will be able to make the world believe it. When Pakistan was originally invented, the idea was to divide India in a so-called Hindu India and a so-called Muslim India, however fantastic the plan might have been. Since then the fertile brains of the Britishers have developed the plan still further and if they could have their own way, they would now divide India not into two states, but into five or six. For instance, British politicians say that if the Indian Princes want to secede from the rest of India, they should have a separate state called Rajasthan. If the Sikhs want to secede, they should also have a separate state called Khalsistan. And these cunning Britishers are showing special solicitude for the Pathans — that section of the Indian Muslims living in the North-West of India — and they are urging that there should be a separate state in the North-West of India, called Pathanistan. Pathanistan seems to be the hot favourite of British politicians at the present moment. They hope that through this plan of Pathanistan they would win over some of the most troublesome people in India — namely, the people of the North-West Frontier Province of India and the independent tribes living between India and Afghanistan — and at the same time, get the sympathy of the Afghan people.

Pakistan is, of course, a fantastic plan and an unpractical proposition — for more reasons than one. India is geographically, historically, culturally, politically and economically an indivisible unit. Secondly, in most parts of India, Hindus and Muslims are so mixed up that it is not possible to separate them. Thirdly, if Muslim states were forcibly set up, new minority problems would be created in these states which would present new difficulties. Fourthly, unless Hindus and Muslims join hands and fight the British, they cannot liberate themselves and their unity is possible only on the basis of a free and undivided India. An independent Pakistan is an impossibility and Pakistan, therefore, means in practice, dividing India in order to ensure British domination for all. It is noteworthy that in his latest utterances, Mr Jinnah, the President of the Muslim League, and a champion of Pakistan, has acknowledged that the creation and maintenance of Pakistan is possible only with the help of the British.

Now to resume our story. The struggle that is now going on in India is, in reality, a continuation of the Great Revolution of 1857. In the last four decades of the nineteenth century, the Indian movement expressed itself in agitation in the press and on the platform. This movement was crystallised into one organisation when the Indian National Congress was inaugurated in 1885. The beginning of this century saw a new awakening in India and along with it, new methods of struggle were devised. Thus, during the first two decades, we see the economic boycott of British goods, on the one side, and revolutionary terrorism on the other. The Indian revolutionaries made a desperate attempt to overthrow British rule with the help of arms during the last war — at a time when Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey were fighting our enemy — but they, the Indian revolutionaries, were crushed. After the war, India needed a new weapon of struggle — and at this psychological moment, Mahatma Gandhi came forward with his method of Satyagraha or passive resistance or civil disobedience.

Notes

1. The preceding pages were written in English in the original in 1934 and deal with the period upto 1934. The following pages were written in 1943  and bring the  book  up  to date—Writer.
2. Lord Morley, who was the Secretary of State for India in the British Cabinet when Lord Minto was the Viceroy of India, stated that Lord Minio "had started the Moslem Hare" in  1906.