87- No storm in the tea cup

एक दुखी परिवार-87

Indian independence movement

The Indian independence movement did not start off all of a sudden, much less like any storm in the tea cup. It had a chequered history that did not emerge from any single region.

Materially and substantially, it was authored by an overtly imperceptible chasm between two undefined classes, that stood poles apart in the Indian society, one that represented European culture, either by belonging or by admiration or whatever. The other that got distanced. The latter constituted the majority which decried being bossed over by the former, constituting a minority but a class apart.

Europeans stood depicted in the psyche of the Indians as shrewd traders whose outfit had suddenly changed , without letting either the common populace or even the then ruling class suspect their lethal personality that their class and sophistication furtively concealed.

It was known at the grass roots level, how those European traders had first reached Indian shores with the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 AD at the port of Calicut, in search of the lucrative spice trade. 

Just over a century later, the Dutch and English established trading outposts on the subcontinent, with the first English trading post set up at Surat in 1612. 

Over the course of the 17th and early 19th centuries, the British defeated the Portuguese and Dutch militarily, but remained in conflict with the French, who had by then sought to establish themselves in the subcontinent. 

The decline of the Mughal empire in the first half of the 18th century provided the British with the opportunity to seize a firm foothold in Indian politics. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757 AD, during which the East India Company's Indian army under Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, the Company established itself as a major player in Indian affairs, and soon afterwards gained administrative rights over the regions of Bengal, Bihar and Midnapur part of Odissa, following the Battle of Buxar in 1764.

After the defeat of Tipu Sultan, most of South India came either under the Company's direct rule, or under its indirect political control as princely states got into subsidiary alliances.After the defeat of Tipu Sultan, most of South India was now either under the company's direct rule, or under its indirect political control

 The Company subsequently gained control of regions ruled by the Maratha Empire, after defeating them in a series of wars. 

Punjab was annexed in 1849, after the defeat of the Sikh armies in the First (1845–1846) and Second (1848–49) Anglo-Sikh Wars.

In 1835, English was made the medium of instruction in India's schools. Western-educated Hindu elites sought to rid Hinduism of controversial social practices, including the varna caste system, child marriage, and sati. 

Literary and debating societies were established in Calcutta (Kolkata) and Bombay (Mumbai) which became forum for open political discourse.

Even while these modernising trends influenced Indian society, many Indians increasingly disliked British rule. With the British now dominating most of the subcontinent, many Brits increasingly disregarded local customs by, for example, staging parties in mosques, dancing to the music of regimental bands on the terrace of the Taj Mahal, using whips to force their way through crowded bazaars (as recounted by General Henry Blake), and mistreating Indians (including the sepoys).

In the years after the annexation of Punjab in 1849, several mutinies broke out among the sepoys; these were put down by force. 

(Cont....)

86-Mass-based independence movement

एक दुखी परिवार -86

The Indian independence movement was a mass-based movement that encompassed various sections of society. It also underwent a process of constant ideological evolution.

Although the basic ideology of the movement was anti-colonial, it was supported by a vision of independent capitalist economic development coupled with a secular, democratic, republican, and civil-libertarian political structure.

After the 1930s, the movement took on a strong socialist orientation, due to the increasing influence of left-wing elements in the INC as well as the rise and growth of the Communist Party of India.

The All-India Muslim League was formed in 1906 as a separate Muslim party which later in 1940 called for separate state of Pakistan.

 (Cont.....)

85-Indian Independence Movement

एक दुखी परिवार -85

The term Indian Independence Movement encompasses activities and ideas aiming to end , first East India Company rule (1757–1858), called the first (failed) battle for independence, followed by the second one , against  the British Raj(1858–1947). 

The independence movement saw various national and regional campaigns, agitations and efforts, some non-violent and some couched in gross acts of aggression bearing the nomenclature 'revolutionary', to accord it respectability.

The first organized militant movements were in Bengal, but they later took to the political stage in the form of a mainstream movement in the then newly formed Indian National Congress (INC), with prominent moderate leaders, seeking only their basic right to appear for Indian Civil Service examinations, as well as for more civil  rights, economic in nature, for the people of the soil. 

The early part of the 20th century saw a more radical approach towards political independence proposed by leaders such as the 'Lal, Bal, Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh'.

The last stages of the independence struggle from the 1920s onwards saw Congress adopt Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's policy of nonviolence and civil resistance, Muhammad Ali Jinnah's constitutional struggle for the rights of minorities in India, and several other campaigns. 

Militant leaders  such as Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh preached armed revolution as a means to achieve independence.

 Poets & writers such as Allama Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Jouhar,Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam used literature, poetry and speech as a tool for political awareness. Feminists such as Sarojini Naidu and Begum Rokeya championed the emancipation of Indian women and their participation in national politics. 

Babasaheb Ambedkar championed the cause of the disadvantaged sections of Indian society within the larger independence movement. 

The period of the Second World War saw the peak of the campaigns by the Quit India movement (led by Mahatma Gandhi) and the Indian National Army (INA) movement (led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose) and others, eventually resulting in the withdrawal of the British.

The work of these various movements led ultimately to the Indian Independence Act 1947, which created the independent dominions of India and Pakistan. 

India remained a Dominion of the Crown until 26 January 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, establishing the Republic of India; Pakistan was a dominion until 1956, when it adopted its first republican constitution.

 In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence as the People's Republic of Bangladesh, as a climax to the Indo-pak war that was fought over the pressure created in India by the huge exodus of refugees from East Pakistan to escape unbearable ordeals which the military rulers had created in gross violation of human values and human right norms.

(Cont.    .)

Ibrahimi, the condemned vs one commended.

This is about a bygone divisional commissioner but a budding entrepreneur in the kind of politics that likes of Kejriwal weave.
Besides sharing the post, let me share a trivial experience about Ibrahimi as divisional commissioner of bhagalpur.
Ibrahimi as a divisional commissioner had a brief encounter with a lawyer who argued a house control revision in his court.
The present GP Gopal Bhushan Prasad stood in opposition, as the opposite party was a government department , tenant under the revision petitioner.
After brief hearing, ibrahimi passed a cryptic order, "heard, dismissed".
The lawyer took the matter to High Court and argued that the divisional commissioner had violated fundamental judicial norms, by his rejection without assigning reason.
The argument so much impressed the bench presided by Justice Gerg that he not only set aside Ibrahimi's order, but also wrote in strong terms the fundamental shortcoming on the part of the divisional commissioner, imparting some basic lessons about writing judicial orders, as if a novice was there at the receiving end. Justice Gerg expressed his pain that struck him on seeing such an order passed by no less an officer than a divisional commissioner. The high court gave direction to circulate the order to all divisional commissioners for enlightenment.
Mukutdhariji being so close to Ibrahimi, may compliment him for such a testimonial which any high official could rarely dream of.
And that quality of his, makes him all the more eligible for even a better place in Arvind Kejriwal's party.
For kind information, the lawyer under reference is a friend of yours, that is me.

मुकुटधारीजी के पोस्ट से गुरूजी याद आ गए,  वरीय अधिवक्ता और लॉ  टीचर  सतीश प्रसाद दुबे.अब वे हमारे बीच नहीं है, सिर्फ उनकी याद है. अक्सर शाम में मै उनके यहाँ चला जाता था. शिव शंकर सहाय रोड के दक्षिणी छोर स्थित अपने चैम्बर में वे बैठे मिलते थे, दरवाज़े खिड़कियां खोले, बगल गंदे नाले से मच्छरों को न्योता देते.
आष्चर्य से मैंने एक दिन पूछ दिया, सर ये क्या केर रहे हैं, हम लोग जिनसे बचने के लिए इतने जातन करते हैं, उनको आप न्योता देते हैं.
हँस्ते हुए उन्होंने सामने के टेबल पर रखे लोहे के स्टैंड को दिखाते हुए कहते हैं, इसे बताओ ये क्या है?
मुझे क्या पता, मैने कहा.
तब उन्होंने दिखाया, वह क्या था, एक अद्भुत मोमबत्ती स्टैंड, जिसमे लौ के लेवल पर एक स्टील प्लेट था जिसे ऊपर नीचे किया जा सकता था ताकि मोम्बत्ती के लौ के अनुरुप उसे एडजस्ट किया जा सके. और उस छोटे से स्लाइडिंग प्लेट पर गुड नाईट का मैट रखा होता था.
यह था गुरूजी का 2 in one. जब बिजली ग़ुम तो रौशनी तो गायब साथ बिजली पर चलने वाला गुड नाईट भी ग़ुम. तो गुरुजी ने दोनों का इंतेज़ाम यूं केर लिया, लेकिन असल बात तो रह ही गयी, मच्छरों को न्योता वाली.
इसपर उन्होंने बताया की शाम के बेला में वे मच्छरों को कमरे में ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा संख्या में जमा करने के बाद, दरवाज़े खिड़की बन्द कर देते हैं ताकि गुड नाईट का भरपूर उपयोग हो सके.
मज़ाकिया अंदाज़ में उन्होंने कहा कि देख लो अब तो मच्छर भी होशियार हो गए हैं, कुछ ही बेवकूफ़ बचे हैं जो निमंत्रण स्वीकार केर रहे हैं, क्योकि ज़्यादातर पड़ोस के घर को प्रेफर करने लगे हैं.
तो अगर मच्छर मक्खियों को फेस बुक पर धुर छी करेंगे तो उनको पहचानेंगे कैसे और इलाज भी.
गलत कहा क्या?

बात यहाँ से निकली कि बुद्धिजीवी कौन , तो मेरे एक मित्र ने उलटे पूछ दिया , बुद्धि मायने क्या?
मै बड़े सोंच में पड़ गया. कभी सोंचा नहीं था कि कोई कभी ऐसा बेतुका प्रश्न पूछेगा , यह जानते हुए भी कि हर सवाल का जवाब नहीं होता है, क्योंकि अगर होता तो बताइए कि जितने प्रश्न मोदी से पूछे जा रहे है क्या उसके आधे भी नेहरु , इंदिरा, राजीव, देवेगौडा , गुजराल , मनमोहन सिंह से साल सवा साल के भीतर पूछे गये थे क्या. नेहरु का नाम तो गलती से ले लिया. उनके लिए तो भारतीयों ने आजन्म दूध भात लिख दिया है, हमें मुफ्त में स्वतंत्रता, भारत को बटवारा और खुद को सत्ता का असीम दुख दर्द देकर जो उनका वंश आज तक भारतीयों के दर्द को साझा करने के लिए झेल रहा है, इंदिरा और राजीव के प्राण गवां कर .

तो बेशर्मो की तरह मैंने तो पूछ ही दिया, अपने मित्र से जो मनोविज्ञान के पण्डित हैं.
अब बता भी दीजिये, बुद्धि किसे कहते हैं, मैंने झिझक ताके पर रख कर पूछ ही दिया.
तो लो , उत्तर सुन लो. उन्होंने उलटे मुह दूसरा सवाल दाग दिया , ‘दिगंबर साधू ‘ किसे कहते है?
साधू जो निर्वस्त्र हो , नंग धरंग. ये कौन नहीं जनता, मैंने भी उल्टा सवाल दाग दिया, उन्ही की तरह और मूंचो को तलाशते हुए होठों के ऊपर हाथ फेर कर शर्मिंदगी झेल ली , क्योंकि बाद में अहसास हुआ कि मेरी तो मूंछे है ही नहीं.
खैर, अपनी वीरता पर दीवाना मैं, अपने मित्र के चेहरे पर मुस्कुराते हुए नज़र गडाए था. किन्तु देखा कि वे उल्टा यूं मुस्कुरा रहे थे मनो वो नहीं , मैं ही हार गया.
ताज्जुब तब हुआ जब चहक कर उन्होंने कहा, ‘गलत, बिलकुल उलट’
कैसे, मैंने पुछा ?
तो उन्होंने कहा, दिगम्बर यानि इतने पोशाक जितने हम आप पहन क्या पहनने की कल्पना भी नहीं कर सकते, वो अम्बर जिसकी दिशाए अम्बर हो , वो दिगंबर .
अब मैं हांफ रहा था, हाथ भी जोड़े हुए था, पूछ रहा था, नहीं नहीं, सविनय निवेदन कर रहा था कि गुरुदेव, इसके बाद मेरे छोटे से प्रश्न का तो उत्तर दे दो, कि बुद्धि क्या होती है जिसके उपर बुद्धिजीवी महले दोम्हले खड़े कर लेते हैं.
जो उत्तर उन्होंने दिया, उसके बाद कोई प्रश्न बचा नहीं. उन्होंने बुद्धिजीवी बन जाने का बड़ा ही सरल मार्ग समझा दिया. आप भी समझ लें .
पान का एक बीड़ा मुह में रख लो, पान का एक बीड़ा अपनी खिलबट्टी से निकाल कर बढ़ाते हुए उन्होंने खुद मेरे मुह में डाल दिया. और बोला , इसे मुह में पड़ा रहने दो. चबाओ मत. फिर कोई और बात निकल दी , और कुछ मिनट यूंही गुज़र गये, फिर उन्होंने मुझसे एक छोटा प्रश्न पुछा , जिसका उत्तर मैंने दे तो दिया किन्तु बोलने में कुछ कठिनाई हुई क्योंकि मुह आधा भरा हुआ था.
कठिनाई हो रही है, उन्होंने पुछा, मैंने कहा हाँ , मुह में पान कि पीक ......  , और दो चार टपक भी गये, रोकते रोकते भी.
लेकिन जब पान मुह में डाला था तब तो मुह खली था, पीक तो था नहीं, तो आ गया कहाँ से.
मैं क्या जवाब देता, इतने में जवाब देने से मुह खुद जवाब दे रहा था. बस ऊं आं में इशारों से कुछ बोल लिया और इंतजार किया कि वो कुछ बोंले.
बुद्धि, intellect , पान के इस बीड़े की तरह है. पान खाया करो, सीख जाओगे कि कैसे एक विचार को पान के बीड़े कि तरह दिमाग में तैरने के लिए छोड़ दो, जैसे, मोदी, मोदी सुरक्षा , नितीश, लालू , सोनिया, नेहरु ,   और फिर देखो जो पीक विचारों से विचारों का तैयार होता हैं उसी को बुद्धिजीवी कि खेती कहते हैं. इस फसल को कुछ अच्छी कुछ बुरी फसल कहेंगे. बस घबराना नहीं. अच्छी बुरी , जैसी हवा निकले , निकलते जाओ , सूंघने वालों को बकने दो, कोई सेंट बोलेंगे कोई बदबू . दुनिया ऐसे ही चलती है.
कायदे से मैं उठ कर प्रणाम कर लौट जाता, किन्तु इस बार मैंने साक्षात् दंडवत किया और तब से मैं फेस बुक के कई मित्रों को ढूँढ रहा हूँ, साक्षात्, दंडवत करने हेतु.

बुद्धिजीवी कौन ? वो जिनके जीने का आधार बुद्धि या फिर वो जिनके जीविका का आधार बुद्धि?
लगता है ,ये दोनों ही परिभाषा आज के परिपेक्ष्य में सही है. इसका प्रमाण फेस बुक पर देखने को मिलता है , भरपूर.
कैसे कैसे प्रश्न उठाये जाते हैं, ज़रा देखे.
मैं ऐरे गैरों की बात नहीं कर रहा. उनकी कर रहा हूं जिन्हें आप हम माने ना माने , खुद को वे प्रकाण्ड पण्डित समझते हैं.
उदाहरण सामने है.
नरेन्द्र मोदी उनके लिए चिंता का विषय हैं.
या यूं कहिये, उन्हें चिंता है कि उनके सिक्यूरिटी के लिए इतने इंतजामात आखिर क्यों?
भले ही बोंले नहीँ , सोचने का अंदाज़ यह है कि आखिर इंदिरा गाँधी भी तो शहीद ही हुईं थी , और राजीव भी, तो ये क्यों नहीं. क्या होगा? ज्यादा से ज्यादा ? यही न कि लाखों लाख चाय बेचने वालों में एक खर्च हो जायेगा?
उनके सोंच से , खास कर , उनके अव्यक्त सोंच से मेरे जैसे कम समझ वाले सहमत हों न हों, प्रभावित तो हैं ही . तो हमने विचार किया कि क्यों नहीं मोदी को हम सब मिल कर कुछ अच्छी सलाह दे डालें, ताकि उनके भागलपुर आगमन का लाभ कम से कम उन्हें, यानी मोदीजी को तो मिल ही जाये , क्योंकि जुमलों से हमें तो कुछ मिलेगा ही नहीं  क्योंकि नितीश मिलने देंगे नहीं, पर अगर कुछ लाभ उस पानी के तरह मिल भी जाये जो बरसाती बोहे की तरह खेतो को स्वतः सींच देता है , तो भी , लालूजी हमे समझा देंगे कि इसमें केंद्र सरकार का नहीं बल्कि राबड़ी सरकार की बची खुची मेहेरबानी है . और जो सिर पहले से स्वीकारुक्ति में झूल रहा है उसे इस बात को समझाने की आवश्यकता थोड़े ही पड़ेगी.
चलिए, विचार किया जाये कि सलाह क्या देनी है मोदीजी को.
सर्व प्रथम उन्हें नेहरु जैसा बनने की सलाह देनी चाहिए. उन्हें अपना और देश के समय की बचत करनी चाहिए.
नेहरु की तरह उन मुद्दों को संयुक्त राष्ट्र के हवाले कर देना चाहिए जो नेहरु से लेकर मनमोहन ने खड़ा किया या पाला पोसा.
आखिर नेहरु एक अकेले ऐसे कद्दावर भारतीय प्रधान मंत्री हुए जिनके एहसानों के आगे देश का सिर कमर सब झुका हुआ है, तो क्यों नही कश्मीर समस्या को नेहरु फार्मूले पर सुलझा ही लिया जाये? नेहरु कश्मीरी पण्डित थे, कोई मुसलमान थोड़े ही, जो उन्होंने प्लेबीसाईट  के लिए हामी भर दी थी, वो भी कोई sandys compound के चुनावी मंच से नहीं, UN में , क्योंकि कश्मीरी और कश्मीरी पण्डित क्या , शेख अब्दुल्ला खानदान से खून के रिश्ते से भी करीबी रिश्ता रखने वाले नेहरु को कश्मीरियो के नब्ज़ की असली पहचान है. वे मोदी के माफिक प्रधान मंत्री थोड़े ही थे जो दिवाली में बाढ़ का आनंद लेने कश्मीर पहुँच कर समय नष्ट करते, कश्मीर जा कर वे कश्मीर का लुत्फ़ क्या होता है इस बात से अपना परिचय कराया करते थे, ताकि कश्मिरिओ की सोंच से वे वाकिफ राह सके.
नेहरु ने जैसे चीन के साथ मित्रता निभाई, मोदी को चाहिए कि वैसे ही पाकिस्तान चीन सब के साथ निभानी चाहिए. ये क्या सीमा पर रोज़ रोज़ पटाखेबाजी करवा रहे हैं. जंग छेद दे, और सेना के हाथ में बन्दूक की जगह लाठी थमा दे. दुश्मन को जो चाहिए, एक बार में ले लेगा और बस, पठाखेबाज़ी की फिर क्या आवश्यकता पड़ेगी? फिर शायद नेहरु से भी बड़े शांति के दूत कहलायेंगे मोदी.
और इसके बाद भी बहुत कुछ है जो मोदी को करना चाहिए, जैसे अपनी security का जिम्मा नितीश पर छोड़ दे , केवल उनसे यह कसम ले लें कि गाँधी मैदान जैसा हमला अबकी जब करवाएं तो उस वक्त मोदी की मौजूदगी अवश्य रहे.
अलावे इसके, सोनिया को लीडर ऑफ़ opposition का दर्जा तो दे ही दे , सोनिया को अपना मुख्या सलाहकार भी मान ले.
ताकि  हमारे बुद्धिजीवी गाना गायेंगे , ‘तुम्हारी भी जय जय , हमारी भी जय जय, न तुम जीते , न हम हर

82-Heavy investments by British

एक दुखी परिवार - 82

Irrigation in India

The British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, including canals and irrigation systems in addition to railways, telegraphy, roads and ports.

The Ganges Canal reached 350 miles from Hardwar to Cawnpore, and supplied thousands of miles of distribution canals. By 1900 the Raj had the largest irrigation system in the world. One success story was Assam, a jungle in 1840 that by 1900 had 4,000,000 acres under cultivation, especially in tea plantations. In all, the amount of irrigated land multiplied by a factor of eight. 

Historian David Gilmour says:

By the 1870s the peasantry in the districts irrigated by the Ganges Canal were visibly better fed, housed and dressed than before; by the end of the century the new network of canals in the Punjab at producing even more prosperous peasantry there.

Policies

In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British Crown and the technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Great Britain.

In fact many of the major changes in transport and communications (that are typically associated with Crown Rule of India) had already begun before the Mutiny. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological revolution underway in Britain, India too saw rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links equally rapidly established in order that raw materials, such as cotton, from India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England.

Likewise, finished goods from England, were transported back, just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets. Massive railway projects were begun in earnest and government railway jobs and pensions attracted a large number of upper caste Hindus into the civil service for the first time. The Indian Civil Service was prestigious and paid well, but it remained politically neutral.[86] Imports of British cotton covered 55% of the Indian market by 1875.

Industrial production as it developed in European factories was unknown until the 1850s when the first cotton mills were opened in Bombay, posing a challenge to the cottage-based home production system based on family labour.

(Cont.   .)

81- British India-Post Mutiny 

एक दुखी परिवार - 81

Railways-symbol of industrial modernity

India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well built system designed for military reasons (after the Mutiny of 1857), with the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. However, it did capture the imagination of the Indians, who saw their railways as the symbol of an industrial modernity—but one that was not realised until after Independence. Christensen (1996), who looked at colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests, concluded that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the timely needs of the railways or their passengers

(cont.   .)

80-Railway network in 1870
एक दुखी परिवार - 80
British India-Post 1857 Mutiny

Extent of Great Indian Peninsular Railway network in 1870. The GIPR was one of the largest rail companies at that time.

The railway network in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world.

"The most magnificent railway station in the world." says the caption of the stereographic tourist picture of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888.

British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century which was the fourth largest in the world. The railways at first were privately owned and operated. It was run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians.

The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier.

Two new railway companies, Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR) began in 1853–54 to construct and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta. The first passenger railway line in North India between Allahabad and Kanpur opened in 1859.

In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India.Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The route mileage of this network increased from 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.

Most of the railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers.The system was heavily built, using a wide gauge, sturdy tracks and strong bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of rail services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge networks. In 1900, the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to manage it.[73] During the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grains to the ports of Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia, and East Africa. With shipments of equipment and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the army; workshops were converted to making artillery; some locomotives and cars were shipped to the Middle East. The railways could barely keep up with the increased demand.[74] By the end of the war, the railways had deteriorated for lack of maintenance and were not profitable. In 1923, both GIPR and EIR were nationalised.

Headrick shows that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms.The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO steel could not obtain orders for rails until the war emergency.

The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. After independence in 1947, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated to form a single nationalised unit named the Indian Railways
(Cont.    .)

(78-79)

78-English court system, legal procedures, and statutes.
एक दुखी परिवार - 78
New penal code introduced-British India.
After 1857 , the British Governance exhibited no signs of its being an agency , alien to the soil, though it's elitist outlook created grave contradiction in the Indian psyche. The contradiction was one of two extremes, one set pertaining to the affluent section, was enamoured by the British genre, whereas the majority constituted by the rustics and the unlettered assumed a refractory distance.
The   colonial government strengthened and expanded its infrastructure via the court system, legal procedures, and statutes which further widened the above chasm , the resourceful found it efficacious for an advanced life style, whereas the down trodden saw it as a tool to alienate them and rather smother them.
 New legislation merged the Crown and the old East India Company courts and introduced a new penal code as well as new codes of civil and criminal procedure, based largely on English law. These were effective means of governance without necessitatingk large man power. The ruling intermediaries, Raja , rajvadas , zamindars and their deputies or subservient agencies acted within apparently uniform legal format that offered enough of covert flexibility to the intermediaries to keep the rest constituting vast majority to stay well under control of the rulers.
 In the 1860s–1880s the Raj set up compulsory registration of births, deaths, and marriages, as well as adoptions, property deeds, and wills.
These were incomprehensible introductions for the above said alienated majority over which the minority elite found new weapons of rule without the frequent use or invocation of muscle power, law coming already  handy for the creamy segments.
The goal was to create a stable, usable public record and verifiable identities.

However, seeds of agitation in the aftermath of 1857, had not abated, but were still brewing in the masses that harboured have-not mindset, which the elements opposed to the ruling segments kept exploiting in subdued manner, hence  there was opposition from both Muslim and Hindu elements who invented pretexts for airing their grievances, complaining that the new procedures for census-taking and registration threatened to uncover female privacy. Purdah rules prohibited women from saying their husband's name or having their photograph taken. An all-India census was conducted between 1868 and 1871, often using total numbers of females in a household rather than individual names. Select groups which the Raj reformers wanted to monitor statistically included those reputed to practice female infanticide, prostitutes, lepers, and eunuchs.

Increasingly officials discovered that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily. There were a few new social interventions, especially not in matters dealing with religion, even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows).
Women were in some ways more restricted by the modernisation of the laws. They remained tied to the strictures of their religion, caste, and customs, but now they were  with an overlay of British Victorian attitudes. Their inheritance rights to own and manage property were curtailed; the new English laws were somewhat harsher. Court rulings restricted the rights of second wives and their children regarding inheritance. A woman had to belong to either a father or a husband to have any rights.
(Cont.   .)

79-TISCO at Jamshedpur 

एक दुखी परिवार - 79

Industry in British India

The entrepreneur Jamshedji  Tata (1839–1904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian mills produced cheap coarse yarn (and later cloth) using local short-staple cotton and cheap machinery imported from Britain, Tata did much better by importing expensive longer-stapled cotton from Egypt and buying more complex ring-spindle machinery from the United States to spin finer yarn that could compete with imports from Britain.

In the 1890s, he launched plans to move into heavy industry using Indian funding.

 The Raj did not provide capital, but, aware of Britain's declining position against the US and Germany in the steel industry, it wanted steel mills in India. It promised to purchase any surplus steel Tata could not otherwise sell.The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), now headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859–1932), opened its plant at Jamshedpur in Bihar in 1908. It used American technology, not British and became the leading iron and steel producer in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945. TISCO became India's proud symbol of technical skill, managerial competence, entrepreneurial flair, and high pay for industrial workers.The Tata family, like most of India's big businessmen, were Indian nationalists but did not trust the Congress because it seemed too aggressively hostile to the Raj, too socialist, and too supportive of trade unions.

(Cont.    .)

77-Aftermath of- Great Uprising of 1857

एक दुखी परिवार - 77

British circumspection

Although the Great Uprising of 1857 had shaken the British enterprise in India, it had not derailed it. 

After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn.

 At a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indians—not just between British army officers and their Indian staff but in civilian life as well. 

The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded. New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. From then on, the Indian army was to remain unchanged in its organisation until 1947. 

The 1861 Census had revealed that the English population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army. 

In 1880, the standing Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.

It was also felt that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm". 

They too were rewarded in the new British Raj by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.

At the same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).

Lastly, the British felt disenchanted with Indian reaction to social change. Until the rebellion, they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on suttee by Lord William Bentinck.  It was now felt that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily; consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in matters dealing with religion.

(Cont.    .)

(75-76)

75 Democratic British Governance -

in Autocratic Format.

एक दुखी परिवार - 75

Viceroy and Governor-General

The Viceroy and Governor-General was also the head of the bicameral Indian Legislature, consisting of an upper house (the Council of State) and a lower house (the Legislative Assembly). 

The Viceroy was the head of the Council of State, while the Legislative Assembly, which was first opened in 1921, was headed by an elected President (appointed by the Viceroy from 1921-1925). The Council of State consisted of 58 members (32 elected, 26 nominated), while the Legislative Assembly comprised 141 members (26 nominated officials, 13 others nominated and 102 elected). 

The Council of State existed in five-year periods and the Legislative Assembly for three-year periods, though either could be dissolved earlier or later by the Viceroy. 

The Indian Legislature was empowered to make laws for all persons resident in British India including all British subjects resident in India, and for all British Indian subjects residing outside India. With the assent of the King-Emperor and after copies of a proposed enactment had been submitted to both houses of the British Parliament, the Viceroy could overrule the legislature and directly enact any measures in the perceived interests of British India or its residents if the need arose.

The British also exercised a general influence over the states' internal politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. 

Although there were nearly 600 princely states, the great majority were very small and contracted out the business of government to the British. Some two hundred of the states had an area of less than 25 square kilometres .

(Cont....)

76 The mighty sprawl- British India

एक दुखी परिवार - 76

The Government of India Act

Effective from 1 April 1936, the Government of India Act created the new provinces of Sind (separated from the Bombay Presidency) and Orissa (separated from the Province of Bihar and Orissa). Burma and Aden became separate Crown Colonies under the Act from 1 April 1937, thereby ceasing to be part of the Indian Empire. From 1937 onwards, British India was divided into 17 administrations: the three Presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Bengal, and the 14 provinces of the United Provinces, Punjab, Bihar, the Central Provinces and Berar, Assam, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Orissa, Sind, British Baluchistan, Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, Coorg, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Panth Piploda. The Presidencies and the first eight provinces were each under a Governor, while the latter six provinces were each under a Chief Commissioner. The Viceroy directly governed the Chief Commissioner provinces through each respective Chief Commissioner, while the Presidencies and the provinces under Governors were allowed greater autonomy under the Government of India Act.Each Presidency or province headed by a Governor had either a provincial bicameral legislature (in the Presidencies, the United Provinces, Bihar and Assam) or a unicameral legislature (in the Punjab, Central Provinces and Berar, NWFP, Orissa and Sind). The Governor of each presidency or province represented the Crown in his capacity, and was assisted by a ministers appointed from the members of each provincial legislature. Each provincial legislature had a life of five years, barring any special circumstances such as wartime conditions. All bills passed by the provincial legislature were either signed or rejected by the Governor, who could also issue proclamations or promulgate ordinances while the legislature was in recess, as the need arose.

Each province or presidency comprised a number of divisions, each headed by a Commissioner and subdivided into districts, which were the basic administrative units and each headed by a Collector and Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner; in 1947, British India comprised 230 districts.

(Cont.   .)

74 Presidencies, provinces and Princely states

एक दुखी परिवार - 74

British India

Presidencies and provinces of British India and Princely state

India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory: 

British India and;

 the Native States (or Princely States).

 In its Interpretation Act 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions:

(1.)  The expression "British India" shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India.

(2.)  The expression "India" shall mean British India together with any territories of any native prince or chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India.

In general, the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to refer also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. The term has also been used to refer to the "British in India".

The terms "Indian Empire" and "Empire of India" (like the term "British Empire") were not used in legislation. The monarch was known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in Queen Victoria's Queen's Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. The passports issued by the British Indian government had the words "Indian Empire" on the cover and "Empire of India" on the inside. In addition, an order of knighthood, the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was set up in 1878.

(Cont.    .)

73- Mughals vs. the British

एक दुखी परिवार - 73

Historians' comparative account

In 1780, the conservative British politician Edmund Burke raised the issue of India's position: he vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. 

Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray says, the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of the Mughal Empire. Ray indirectly admired the Mughals and  accused the British of depleting the food and money stocks and of imposing high taxes that compounded  the terrible Bengal famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.

P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. He argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past, which largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.

Many historians agree that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators. Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation (supported by many scholars in India and the West) that the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent co-operation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still highly controversial among many historians.

(Cont.    .)

72-The British Raj

एक दुखी परिवार - 72

1858 to 1947

The British Raj, in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947 refer to the period of dominion. The region under British control—commonly called India—included areas directly administered by Britain as well as the princely states, ruled by individual rulers, under the paramountcy of the British Crown. 

British India or the Indian Empire was officially created by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli for Queen Victoria in 1876. 

The system of governance was instituted on June 28, 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (and who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India), and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh).

 At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its own independence in 1948, close on the heels of freedom India gained.

The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, with exceptions such as Goa and Pondicherry.

 In addition, at various times, it included Aden (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). 

Burma was separated from India and was directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. 

The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf were theoretically princely states as well as Presidencies and provinces of British India until 1946 and used the rupee as their unit of currency.[10]

Among other countries in the region, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens.

 Ceylon was part of Madras Presidency between 1793 and 1798.

Nepal and Bhutan- at war with the British

 The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognised by the British as independent states.

 The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861; however, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined.

 The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965 but not part of British India.

(Cont.    .)

71 Metamorphosis-

from Company to British Rule

एक दुखी परिवार - 71

Nine decades of British Rule

The company which had received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth on 31 December 1600, making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies constituted by  wealthy merchants and aristocrats , with British Government owning or holding no shares , except only indirect control, had 

thus eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.

 Company rule in India which effectively had begun  in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey , lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.

That is how metamorphosis occurred , from hitherto Company rule, India came under the direct control of the British Government.

 The company was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act passed one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete. The official government machinery of British India had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its all assets.

(Cont.     .)

I,II&III

I- हम अपने दुःख से कम, दूसरों के सुख से ज़्यादा दुखी क्यों हैं? क्या इसका कोई निदान है?
मुकुटधारीजी के उपरोक्त कथन या प्रश्न को साझा करते हुए मेरे मन में प्रश्नों और उत्तरों की झड़ी सी लग गयी है जिसे मैं साझा करना चाहूँगा, किन्तु इसके लिए हिंदी भाषा का प्रयोग टाइपिंग समस्या बन रही रही है अतः ट्रैक् चेंज करने की इजाज़त चाहूँगा.

In order to resolve a question, asking another helps, at times, like this time too.

What exactly is pleasure and pain? How warranted or unwarranted are these? 

That is important to first find out. Warranted or unwarranted? Voluntary or involuntary, or partly both?

Let me state an analogy, for ready comprehension.

A man sought a boon that was granted, to his great achievement or peril? Let's see.

The boon he sought was to become elevated, so elevated in life as to become free from pains, permitting only pleasures to visit experiences.

The grantee got nearly emancipated, freed from all experiences of pain, whereby the term 'dukh' bid  him adieu, once for all, leaving the man immersed in waves of pleasure that never got interfered by any experience of pain toward which he had turned absolutely insensitive.

Coming back to the moot issue, do we not crave for this heightened state? Where pleasures would flood and pains would desert in absolute terms?

But the see what happened to the man so enamoured in the pain-free experience of his pleasures.

One fine morning, the man found nothing at all to complain, while his wife screamed. Why, didn't , better say couldn't make out, so he was quick to console his wife with soft assurance that he would fix  every thing in place, so she shouldn't worry. He then asked her to tell him what exactly was so distressing as to evoke such noisy screams. 

While this episode was still half way through, their children arrived, joining the scene with louder screams that far excelled their mother's.

The man, so immersed in the waves of pleasure under the influence of divine boon he had been granted, stood utterly confused, completely failing to tune himself up to the ongoing confusing scene, more so because no body was answering in preference to their continued screams that turned loser with each passing minute. This attracted a large crowd of neighbours who too got into the same mode of screaming.

Why? Every one had its answer, but the man who was now at his wit's end, had his patience flagged, but being an emancipated soul now, he found it hard to shout and to ask what caused all the fools around to behave like jokers, telling nothing except foolishly screaming inexplicably.

There was one saving grace. The emancipated grantee of the boon was not devoid of a basic intelligence to notice the goggled focus of each screaming member of the family and neighbourhood .

He noticed that every eye was focused no where else, but on him, to be specific on his left foot.

That took his attention to his own left foot. The sight did not evoke any scream, but he stood puzzled , failing to tap his own logic system to tell him what he was seeing and how he should react .

He found his left toe half eaten, by something like rat, it were a ready-to-eat food stuff. 

The villain of the piece, the predator rat was instantly spotted, leaving the bed room where the man slept, free from all experiences of pain, letting in only the experience of pleasures.

(Cont.     .)

(Cont.   .) Pleasure-pain- 2

हम अपने दुःख से कम, दूसरों के सुख से ज़्यादा दुखी क्यों हैं? क्या इसका कोई निदान है?

If I say, moral codes are deceptive, you might be quick in visiting me , not with bouquet, but with brickbats. Isn't it? 

So that I say everything without actually or exactly saying anything offensive, offensive from your point of view rather than in any absolute sense, I have to to take a longer route, avoiding shortcuts that might enrage the generally misconceived opinions that over saturate us.

Let me cite an apparently stupid poser. Moral code forbids use of way sides for the purpose of easing, urination especially. A yet-to-be-diagnosed diabetic , perturbed by the excretory pressures, finds no alternative than to take a wayside stand and ease himself every few minutes he gets to answer call of nature.

How uncultured or immoral is he in your enlightened reckoning.

The inhibition-free answer that you might honestly discover, would be a discovery about the moot question at issue.

One who is cultured or not by conduct or is moral or immoral, may be inferred by two broad sets of human conduct, one that is voluntary and the other that is involuntary . Latter refers to that which may be instinctive or something not exactly instinctive but akin to it , over which human controls are generally feeble, if not within efficacious reach. 

It is these inaccessible terrains of human personality that fetch unpredictability about experiences in please and pain . These unpredictable experience impel human activities in action and reaction that create ongoing cycle of what Bhagwat Gita defines as the cycle of Karma.

(Cont.   .)

III- हम अपने दुःख से कम, दूसरों के सुख से ज़्यादा दुखी क्यों हैं? क्या इसका कोई निदान है?

(Cont.   .) Pleasure-pain- 3

Contrary to the moral codes, man envies others prospering . That is a fact. It's contrary is a fiction, if not a pretension.

Isn't it against moral code that tells us not to envy, rather to find pleasure therein. 

Religions perhaps prescribe this very moral code. 

Whether we do or whether we can follow this moral code or not, isn't material to be answered.

It may be better to invent another route for this, to cite a question that might seem hypothetical or even uncalled for or that with is irrelevant or an act in sophistry. Be that as it may.

Just conjure up a utopian situation. Pakistan, our next door neighbour developing into a world power, achieves an all round development on every count. India does not envy it. Rather buck up Pakistan, without any sensitivity of competition , much less envy. 

In contrast, India envies and speeds itself up in the race. Some , who subscribe to the utopian ideals mentioned above, call it a rat race and denounce it vehemently.

Now you tell which side would you take, especially visualising in your projections, how would the two countries stand vid a vid one another , after a decade, in either case, one being that which is utopian and the other which is not.

If the moot question still out stands, unresolved, I am there to add more posts, though from this end it seems unnecessary any more.

(Concluded, provisionally though)

70 Battles , as trading enterprise.
एक दुखी परिवार - 70
Territorial expansion- East India Co.
The conquests that had begun in the 1750s had never been sanctioned in Britain , as both, the national government as well as the directors of the Company , insisted that further territorial expansion must be curbed. Neither of the two had the vision of sprawling the Company's control to as large  geographical territory as the British India ultimately enlarged itself into.
This anti-expansionist vision went in  vain by reason of attending circumstances in India, occasioned by  the complex politics of post-Mughal India. There existed compelling circumstances for the Company to keep potential enemies at bay,  by forming alliances with neighbouring states. It were these alliances that had to be made under compulsion of self preservation that  led to increasing intervention in the affairs of such states and to wars fought on their behalf.
Now the Company had begun , not only to trade in arms or in army, but in battles too.
In Warren Hastings's period the British were drawn into expensive and indecisive wars on several fronts, which had a dire effect on the Company's finances and were strongly condemned at home.
 By the end of the century, however, the Company's governor general, Richard Wellesley, soon to be Marquess Wellesley, was willing to abandon policies of limited commitment and to use war as an instrument for imposing British hegemony on all the major states in the subcontinent.
A series of intermittent wars was beginning which would take British authority over the next fifty years up to the mountains of Afghanistan in the west and into Burma in the east.
(Cont.  .)

69 East India Company- Government

एक दुखी परिवार - 69

Company governance

The new Company governments were based on those of the Indian states that they had displaced and much of the effective work of administration was initially still done by Indians.

 Collection of taxes was the main function of government. About one third of the produce of the land was extracted from the cultivators and passed up to the state through a range of intermediaries, who were entitled to keep a proportion for themselves.

In addition to enforcing a system whose yield provided the Company with the resources to maintain its armies and finance its trade, British officials tried to fix what seemed to them to be an appropriate balance between the rights of the cultivating peasants and those of the intermediaries, who resembled landlords. 

British judges also supervised the courts, which applied Hindu or Islamic rather than British law. 

There was as yet little belief in the need for outright innovation. On the contrary, men like Warren Hastings, who ruled British Bengal from 1772 to 1785, believed that Indian institutions were well adapted to Indian needs and that the new British governments should try to restore an 'ancient constitution', which had been subverted during the upheavals of the 18th century. If this were done, provinces like Bengal would naturally recover their legendary past prosperity.

By the end of the century, however, opinions were changing. 

India seemed to be suffering not merely from an unfortunate recent history but from deeply ingrained backwardness. It needed to be 'improved' by firm, benevolent foreign rule. Various strategies for improvement were being discussed. Property relations should be reformed to give greater security to the ownership of land. Laws should be codified on scientific principles. All obstacles to free trade between Britain and India should be removed, thus opening India's economy to the stimulus of an expanding trade with Europe. 

Education should be remodelled. The ignorance and superstition thought to be inculcated by Asian religions should be challenged by missionaries propagating the rationality embodied in Christianity. The implementation of improvement in any systematic way lay in the future, but commitment to governing in Indian ways through Indians was waning fast.

(Cont.     .)

68 Waning Mughal Empire 

British conflicts with French ends

एक दुखी परिवार - 68

A new empire in India

French conflicts that began in the 1750s ended in 1763 with a British ascendancy in the southeast and most significantly in Bengal. There the local ruler actually took the Company's Calcutta settlement in 1756, only to be driven out of it by British troops under Robert Clive, whose victory at Plassey in the following year enabled a new British satellite ruler to be installed. British influence quickly gave way to outright rule over Bengal, formally conceded to Clive in 1765 by the still symbolically important, if militarily impotent, Mughal emperor.

What opinion in Britain came to recognise as a new British empire in India remained under the authority of the East India Company, even if the importance of the national concerns now involved meant that the Company had to submit to increasingly close supervision by the British state and to periodical inquiries by parliament. 

In India, the governors of the Company's commercial settlements became governors of provinces and, although the East India Company continued to trade, many of its servants became administrators in the new British regimes.

 Huge armies were created, largely composed of Indian sepoys but with some regular British regiments. 

These armies were used to defend the Company's territories, to coerce neighbouring Indian states and to crush any potential internal resistance.

(Cont.    .)

67 Mughal Empire on the wane

British and French vying with one another

एक दुखी परिवार - 67

By the 1740s , rivalry between the British and the French (who were late comers to Indian trade) was becoming acute. 

In southern India , the British and the French allied with opposed political factions , within the successor states to the Mughals , to extract gains for their own companies and to weaken the position of their opponents. Private ambitions were also involved. Great personal rewards were promised to the European commanders who succeeded in placing their Indian clients on the thrones for which they were contending.

 A successful kingmaker, like Robert Clive, could become prodigiously rich.All this was pure business. 

(Cont.   .)

66 Enlargement of East India Company's

power base

एक दुखी परिवार - 66

Erosion of the Mughal empire on the one hand and enlargement of the East India Company's power base , on the other, was going hand in hand.

 Company's rich technology and armoury was increasingly making it high in demand for the states that were falling apart , from the control of the perishing Mughal dynasty.

The fragmented powers which were getting disintegrated , did not see the British as its rival, since their immediate priority was to establish themselves as independent kingdoms, freed from the Mughal tentacles , least concerned that it amounted to release from the captivity of one to fall into another's.

However, shift in loyalties did fetch shift in the power structures, as the new fragmented kingdoms were emerging as new control centres of power.

There were conflicts within some of the new states. 

Contestants for power in certain coastal states were thus seeking willing European support for their ambitions and Europeans were only too willing to give it, for twin reasons. One was that it promoted its business. Not just arm business, call it army business. Besides, it suited their future objectives which had already begun to take shape, to expand itself and capture larger areas militarily, first by alliances followed by covert usurpation in complete sense.

(Cont.   .)

65 East India Company

एक दुखी परिवार - 65

The Mughal empire had disintegrated...

Regional politics

The East India Company's trade was built on a sophisticated Indian economy. India offered foreign traders the skills of its artisans in weaving cloth and winding raw silk, agricultural products for export, such as sugar, the indigo dye or opium, and the services of substantial merchants and rich bankers. During the 17th century at least, the effective rule maintained by the Mughal emperors throughout much of the subcontinent provided a secure framework for trade.

The Company's Indian trade in the first half of the 18th century seemed to be established on a stable and profitable basis. Those who directed its affairs in London could see no case for military or political intervention to try to change the status quo. The British did, however, start to intervene in Indian politics from the 1750s, and revolutionary changes in their role in India were to follow. This change of course can best be explained partly in terms of changed conditions in India and partly as a consequence of the aggressive ambitions of the local British themselves.

Conditions in India were certainly changing. The Mughal empire had disintegrated and was being replaced by a variety of regional states. This did not produce a situation of anarchy and chaos, as used once to be assumed. Some of the regional states maintained stable rule and there was no marked overall economic decline throughout India.

((Cont.   .)

64 British  establish a military dominance

East India Company

एक दुखी परिवार - 64

Professor Peter Marshall is Professor Emeritus at King's College, London University,has done extensive research on British involvement in India during the 18th century can be divided into two phases, one ending and the other beginning at mid-century. In the first half of the century, the British were a trading presence at certain points along the coast; from the 1750s they began to wage war on land in eastern and south-eastern India and to reap the reward of successful warfare, which was the exercise of political power, notably over the rich province of Bengal. By the end of the century British rule had been consolidated over the first conquests and it was being extended up the Ganges valley to Delhi and over most of the peninsula of southern India. By then the British had established a military dominance that would enable them in the next fifty years to subdue all the remaining Indian states of any consequence, either conquering them or forcing their rulers to become subordinate allies.

...India became the focal point of the Company's trade.

At the beginning of the 18th century English commerce with India was nearly a hundred years old. It was transacted by the East India Company, which had been given a monopoly of all English trade to Asia by royal grant at its foundation in 1600. Through many vicissitudes, the Company had evolved into a commercial concern only matched in size by its Dutch rival. Some 3000 shareholders subscribed to a stock of £3 200 000; a further £6 million was borrowed on short-term bonds; twenty or thirty ships a year were sent to Asia and annual sales in London were worth up to £2 million. Twenty-four directors, elected annually by the shareholders ran the Company's operations from its headquarters in the City of London.

Towards the end of the 17th century India became the focal point of the Company's trade. Cotton cloth woven by Indian weavers was being imported into Britain in huge quantities to supply a worldwide demand for cheap, washable, lightweight fabrics for dresses and furnishings. The Company's main settlements, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta were established in the Indian provinces where cotton textiles for export were most readily available. These settlements had evolved from 'factories' or trading posts into major commercial towns under British jurisdiction, as Indian merchants and artisans moved in to do business with the Company and with the British inhabitants who lived there.

(Cont.     .)

63. British Government take over

एक दुखी परिवार - 63

The first Governor-General of India

The first Governor-General of India was Warren Hastings. Under his dispensation, the expansion of British rule in India was pursued vigorously, and the British sought to master indigenous systems of knowledge. 

Hastings remained in India until 1784 and was succeeded by Cornwallis, who initiated the Permanent Settlement, whereby an agreement in perpetuity was reached with zamindars or landlords for the collection of revenue. 

For the next fifty years, the British were engaged in attempts to eliminate Indian rivals, and it is under the administration of Wellesley that British territorial expansion was achieved with ruthless efficiency. 

Major victories were achieved against Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Marathas, and finally the subjugation and conquest of the Sikhs in a series of Anglo- Sikh Wars led to British occupation over the entirety of India. 

In some places, the British practiced indirect rule, placing a Resident at the court of the native ruler who was allowed sovereignty in domestic matters. 

Lord Dalhousie's notorious doctrine of lapse, whereby Jhansi, a native state, became part of British India if there was no male heir at the death of the ruler, was one of the principal means by which native states were annexed; but often the annexation, such as that of Awadh [Oudh] in 1856, was justified on the grounds that the native prince was of evil disposition, indifferent to the welfare of his subjects. 

The annexation of native states, harsh revenue policies, and the plight of the Indian peasantry all contributed to the Rebellion of 1857-58, referred to previously as the Sepoy Mutiny. In 1858 the East India Company was dissolved, despite a valiant defense of its purported achievements by John Stuart Mill, and the administration of India became the responsibility of the Crown.

(cont...)

62

The East India Company-2

एक दुखी परिवार - 62

The Company saw the rise of its fortunes, and its transformation from a trading venture to a ruling enterprise, when one of its military officials, Robert Clive, defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah , at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. 

A few years later the Company acquired the right to collect revenues on behalf of the Mughal Emperor, but the initial years of its administration were calamitous for the people of Bengal. The Company's servants were largely a rapacious and self-aggrandizing lot, causing the plunder of Bengal that left the formerly rich province in a state of utter destitution. 

The famine of 1769-70, which the Company's policies did nothing to alleviate, may have taken the lives of as many as a third of the population. 

The Company, despite the increase in trade and the revenues coming in from other sources, found itself burdened with massive military expenditures, thereby its destruction seemed imminent. 

State intervention put the ailing Company back on its feet, and Lord North's India Bill, also known as the Regulating Act of 1773, provided for greater parliamentary control over the affairs of the Company, besides placing India under the rule of a Governor-General.

That is how transition ocurred from company control to the control of the British Monarch. India’s slavery under the British monarch began from here, in that formerly the command stayed in the hands of a joint stock company, i.e., in the corporate hands.

((Cont.   .)

61 Onset of the colonial rule in India

एक दुखी परिवार - 61

The East India Company

The East India Company had the unusual distinction of ruling an entire country. Its origins were much humbler. 

On 31 December 1600, a group of merchants who had incorporated themselves into the East India Company , as a joint stick company of traders, having no concern with tje British Government , obtained monopoly privileges on all trade with the East Indies. 

The Company's ships first arrived in India, at the port of Surat, in 1608. 

It was Sir Thomas Roe whi  reached the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, as the emissary of King James I in 1615, and gained for the British the right to establish a factory at Surat. 

Gradually the British eclipsed the Portugese, whose presence in India had preceded the British. 

Over the years the British saw a massive expansion of their trading operations in India. Numerous trading posts were established along the east and west coasts of India, and considerable English communities developed around the three presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. 

In 1717, the Company achieved its hitherto most notable success when it received a firman or royal dictat from the Mughal Emperor, exempting the Company from the payment of custom duties in Bengal.

The Company saw the rise of its fortunes, and its transformation from a trading venture to a ruling enterprise, when one of its military officials, Robert Clive, defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah , at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. 

(Cont.      .)

60 Mughals and Muslims, got mixed up?
एक दुखी परिवार –  60
Moughals in British India-2

It may be gain said that the two , Mughals and Muslims, got mixed up and assumed a single inseparable identity in course of time.
Nevertheless, what happened to its that intrinsic identity with which it had conquered and moughalised Rajputana?
Research data are obscure in that regard but it may be assumed that the fate of the moughalised Rajput women who were consigned in service of the moughals alongside all their offsprings were clothed in the religious colour of Islam.
Nevertheless, the moughalisation of the Rajputana species have since been accorded respectability by inventing appreciation for the moughals, who are distinguished from the British in a queer logic.
It is said, the moughals became Indians whereas the British stayed at a distance, maintaining their separate identity.
So what exactly the British failed to do which the Moughals obliged their Indian counterparts with?
The answer is a pity. To state that as a matter of factly, the British did not import the honour of the Indians into their harem, nor did formulate strategy to indulge in the procreation engineering.
Just see. What we have been educated into admiring and what have been taught into decrying.
Whom to thank, our historians?
No. That will be wrong. The reason is entirely different, the same as that which compels Nitish to embrace Lalu, to wage battle against Modi. We will deal this aspect later, in more detail.

(Cont.   .)

58-59

एक दुखी परिवार –  58

Marital alliances and moughal harems

Why did not any Mughal Royal go for a Christian, Sikh, Parsi or Jain queen? 

Surely their harems had women from different religions and also foreigners. 

Only that the Hindu queens came out of Rajput royal alliances, is a fact that requires analysis which may lead to an astonishing inference that the Mughals did not stay in power merely by its gun power. It was their systematically executed strategy that worked. The strategy involved marital alliances that won a fool proof loyalty of the Rajputana kingdoms , one against the other.

The link offers an insight.

http://creative.sulekha.com/mughal-kings-and-hindu-wives_554450_blog

एक दुखी परिवार –  59

Moughals in British India

When it comes to comparing the Indian slavery under the Mughals and under the British, the logic that has been advanced is that the mughals became Indians, whereas the British maintained their separate identity as Britishers.

The logic advanced for the Mughals and against the British, hides a converse logic, that the British did not commit sacrilege on the honour of Indian women , contrary to what the Mughals did. The Mughal emperors used marital alliances and Mughal harems as a political strategy to ensure the loyalty of the fragmented Hindu kingdoms, especially Rajputana which the Britishers  abstained from. 

It was not that Mughals got mixed up into the Indian populace. The position was contrary. It grotesquely mughalised the Indian populace , by systematically carried out marital alliances and through an obnoxious mechanism called harem management. Was this not worse than conversion? Whereas conversion implies shifting of belief system but the mechanism followed by the Mughals was indeed ignoble. It created completely a new but loyal breed. That loyalty was pegged toward the empire. It was this loyalty which came to Akbar's avail against the mite of Maharana Pratap. It will simply be imbecile to presume that it were the Mughals imported from any outlandish territories to conquer Rajputana. It were the dissident commanders whose loyalty Akbar down below the line had won by the above acts of sacrilege that brought ultimate success to the Mughals. 

It was not the case of the Mughals becoming thick and thin with the local populace. It was a case of the large local populace getting systematically mughalised by the exercise of marital alliances and concubine management at every level of governance . These despised practices , on the one hand necessitated Sati pratha , whereas on the other hand gained respectability  because the empire bestowed special privileges, status and emoluments for the class that fell or that volunteered to fall in its tentacles .

Harems were obnoxious to  the Hindu pride which gave rise to sati system, but as Mughals succeeded in formulating its strategies in that regard, harems subsequently became a coveted status in which official status accompanied , to balance the repugnance occasioned   by a concomitant    image , that of a royal concubine.

These alliances and harems were so numerous over a vast span of a century or two, at every level of governance from where power stemmed to travel upwards up to the monarch. 

This big factor has been overlooked from the standpoint of the resultant demography .

Think. Who fought against Maharana pratap ? Mughals, out and out? No. The contingent that sent the Maharana in exile, included even those whose loyalty had been ensured by the Mughals by means of the above said alliances and stratagems of the mechanism of harems and alliances resulting therefrom. 

It were these devices by which the Hindu populace had been mughalised even without forcing any religious conversions. This is what is admired as religious tolerance, oblivious of its cost factor in terms of honour and pride which suffered systematic subrogation intended at subservience to the Mughal empire.

Britishers' benevolence by means of abstention against interference with the honour and pride of women, led to maintenance of moral distance . The fact that the British did not mix up at the cost of indian's honour, is thus deprecated in comparison to the way Mughals conducted themselves . 

Historians as analysts have distorted these projections, keeping in mind objectives of the freedom struggle, in which a critical stand as a matter of factly against the Mughals and admiration of the Britishers, would have proved counter productive. 

No one would, therefore, mention with admiration that  they created the railways, they bought in education and various reforms and systems , but as and when it is mentioned, it is argued that even that was not due to any goodwill or kindness . These things helped them rule a troublesome nation more easily.

(Cont.     .)