MAKING OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Until 1813, the British East India company still followed a major ideal that did not interfere with religion, society and the cultural life of India. After 1813 the British began to take steps to change social and cultural change in this colony. Policies for social and cultural modernization India is encouraged by missionaries and in major change religious books of the British East India Company.

There are two main bases to establish: one is, the main purpose of the platform it is upholding the law, order and the sustainability of the ruler; second, the British in India are foreign powers, they are very hard to hope to receive sympathy and support from the indigenous people. Therefore, it is necessary to rely on forces standing higher than the people to maintain their control over Indian territory. We could be seen in ‘Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge”, The underlying implication of college data is to form these parts of the population to generate hatred among religious groups instead of focusing on British rule and the exploitation of Indian resources. It can be said that the most serious and long-term consequences of the owner colonialism in India is a conflict of religion, ethnicity, nation; is division; is decades of enmity between nations – nations on the Indian subcontinent; are the contradictions long-term conflict with neighboring countries.

The impossibility of an Indian state without racial, religious, and social discrimination has been nearly entirely caused by British meddling in Indian politics since the 1700s, stemming from the institutionalization of a foreign power in Bengal. This Bengalese takeover began the widespread misappropriation of “native” people, also known as the entire population of India. After a liberalist form of governing collapsed following the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British radically oversimplified the diverse religious and ethnic demographics of India. This caused a new form of hatred between newly separated social orders, or castes, sparking tensions by region, by birthplace, and by religion. Muslims and Hindus were pitted against each other, with Hindi nationalist movements beginning due to an overextending world power reaching their hands into the lives of millions that they did not understand.

World War I signified a great deal of disdain brewing for the British by the Indians, specifically the end of the war forgetting about the Indians that fought as British soldiers. After these soldiers were forgotten about, reparations left unpaid and recognition left behind, nationalism grew even stronger. Once the British realized the threat of their subjugated population turning against them, they enacted an emergency measures act to attempt to limit the power of the people. This began protests to the silencing of an angry, frustrated population, eventually ending in the Amritsar massacre of hundreds of civilians. Not until the end of the Second World War did India finally declare their independence from Britain, but not without their own issues of government structure, right-wing nationalists, and strife between social classes constructed by the British. The Indian people may not have experienced certain levels of industrial growth as early as they did without British economic demand, but it is almost certain that these oversimplifications created an artificial internal discourse in the once much more harmonious South Asian continent.

From Monday’s lecture, South Asia makes about 1/4 of the world’s population. It consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. India was the valuable colony for the British as it was even termed as the ‘jewel in the crown’. This is because India provided a lot of the manpower of British military as well as a lot of cash crops . and goods that favored them.

In 1600,  the British East India Company is . established .In 1707- Mughal Empire collapsing; Indian states begin breaking away from Mughal control. In 1757- Robert Clive leads victory at Battle of Plassey; begins East India Company (British) leading power in India. In 1800s- Many Indians begin thinking more modernly, changing traditional ideas. Some take ideas wanting to govern themselves. On May 10, 1857- Indian Rebellion of 1857 (Sepoy Mutiny) starts. Challenges East India Company as fierce fighting breaks out. In 1858- British government takes direct command of India, from East India Company.

In the article, “Colonialism and its forms of knowledge”, by Bernard Cohn, he provides a philosophic stance on how and why the British colonized India in terms of modalities namely; historiography, observational, survey, enumerative, museological, surveillance and investigative. He argues that the colonial experience was mutual stating on page 10 that “Everyone-rulers and ruled-had proper roles to play in the colonial sociological theater.” suggesting that the blame of imperialism or colonialism should also face the colonized.

The  articles by Gilmartin and Pankaj both state the fact that the independence of India was a very significant moment in India’s history after 350 years of British presence in the country. They both acknowledge the fact that the trigger of independence was due to religious tensions especially between the Hindus and the Muslims.

Pankaj in “India at 70, and the Passing of Another Illusion”, demonstrates disillusionments of India’s political, social and economic development since 1947 giving an example of the declining relationship between India and Africa due to ‘xenophobic and racial attacks’ inflicted upon them.

Gilmartin talks about the partition of India which incidentally occurred on the day of Independence. India was divided into India and Pakistan. He discusses the long term and short term causes of the partition which he claims are largely religious. Muslim conquest of northern India began as far back as the 1100s.British Imperialism cause for nationalism which leads to the formation of the Indian National Congress as well as the muslim League. WW2 weakens European colonial empires and paves the way for independence. Pressure from Indian nationalists increases insistence by Jinnah and the Muslim League that Muslims have their own state. Later on, Gandhi is assassinated by Hindu extremists and India and Pakistan become centers of Cold war rivalry.

The Partition was so significant that it has connections to today. There is a continuing clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.There is also Nuclear arms race as India and Pakistan  refuse to sign Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 

As previously discussed in class this week, South Asia carries a heavy history of the massive divide between religions and races. When the British established power in the 19th, a divide was also established between Pakistan and India, creating great indifferences among the two cultures (Indian and Pakistan war of 1947). This divide was created in order for the British to establish some sort of dominance and control over the state. Colonialism formed by the British harmed South Asia in many ways, but most importantly they crippled the ties between religious cultures of the Indian communities and the Muslim communities. In India’s government, false powers were given by the British, to leaders who had very little knowledge about running a government. One of these leaders was Nehru. With the help of the British colonial powers, a divide between Pakistan and India created a massive massive war over frivolous discrepancies, mainly prompted by British intervention. However, for Nehru, “the driving forces of the modern transformation were science and secularism, which were in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the most powerful forces transforming the world. But the progressive effects of these forces on India had been deformed – particularly when it came to religion – by the structure of colonialism itself, through which the British had manipulated religion and distorted India’s modern development to serve their own exploitative purposes” (Gilmartin Page 25). As described by Gilmartin, Nehrus inexperience and the British intervention caused chaos. This establishment of power founded by colonialism is also described in India at 70, and the Passing of Another Illusion. This reading mentions “Nehru’s economic policies boosted India’s monopoly capitalists. His priorities were heavy industries and elite polytechnics, which precluded major investments in primary education, health, and land reform.” Again we see the established ties of colonialism and the reign of incoherent leaders such as Nehru driving major decisions for South Asia during the 19th century, and onward.

Colonialism in India entered through the British East India company purely for trade over lucrative goods like spices. But as the British dominion grew and following a revolt the government took direct ownership over the majority of the subcontinent. Through a imperialist policy of specifically dividing the myriad of religions into specific groups either through census or general education on the differences made it so that each group no longer had a fluid identity. The British had fixed a specific identity for each religion and grouped in thousands under one umbrella. From there as seen in “Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge”, we understood how the British collected this data in an effort to properly administer the region but the underlying subtext was to form these divisions within the population in order to ferment hatred between religious groups instead of focusing on British rule and their extraction of the resources of India. Yet, even when the British left the Indian subcontinent, those ethnic divisions fermented by their rule remained. Resulting in the eventual splitting of the continent down Islamic and Hindu lines, in which the majority of the populations were of those specific religious groups. The splitting itself resulted in the death and displacement of millions through violent conflict at the border. The hatred and resentment built directly as a result of British rule has lasting consequences, with two wars fought and continuing nuclear tensions to this day.

The British colonialism of India was an ambitious venture consisting of liberalism and the attempt to government with not mainly force but with manipulation of religion and impartial understandings of local customs. This was a poor attempt towards a humane approach of colonialism that had reverberated negative effects that still shape India’s policital and social engagements. As read in “Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge”, Britian was extensive and cherished the collections of “facts” and “data” to later be interpreted by preconcieved british officals into useful forms such as to “effectively” use on the colonization of India.  A census was perfomed in which mass amounts of information such as caste systems, names, age, religion and much more was collected which introduced the creation of social categories. The British assumed that this reflected the basic socialogical facts of India to which could be used to better rule. This lead to a historical drift from secularism in which a already socialy diverse and religously divided continent became ever more divided into a hierarchy of religions constructed to benefit the british rule. However, as mentioned in “India at 70, and Passing of Another Illusion” demonstrates that even with the removal of british rule, India still practices the injustice seen in modern civilizations as a persons quality of life is dependent on their social and religous uprising which predeterminately places them on the higher or lower ends of the religous and political hierarchies.