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Page 7 of 9
THE CLIMAX AND THE DEMISE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
1800-1947
1816, The English defeat the Gurkhas. Gurkhas is the name given to an
Indian tribe from near Nepal who because of their fighting skills have
been in the British army ever since. A Gurkha regiment of the British
Army is, even today, respected worldwide.
1818, the English defeated the huge Hindu Maratha territories in
central India and thence became the rulers of India via the non
government but commercial trading body the British East India company.
In the next 30 years the English, now dominant and arrogant, enlarged
their "Indian" domain to fortify the centre: -
1824 The English take Burma on the eastern frontier. (now called
Myanmar)
1843 The English conquer Sind (Now southern Pakistan)
1849 The English conquer the Punjab (now split between India and
northern Pakistan) This is the main centre of the Sikh community who
now came under British rule.
English rule of the Indian sub Continent now stretched from the Afghan
border (North West Frontier) in the west into Malaysia then called
Malaya in the East with a total population of some 350 million subjects
to England's 20 million.
Thus all religions in India now come under Christian rule and British
Protestant missionaries abound. Conversion is low other than a few in
the lower Hindu castes who obviously see an instant opportunity to get
to heaven rather than the 1000s of years of reincarnation ahead of
them. Hindus and particularly Sikhs are heavily influenced by the
Christian values of their rulers which they feel must be good as they
are the values of the all powerful conquerors. However no mass
conversions ensue. The majority of English sent to India by the East
India Company remain superior and disinterested or even disgusted with
these "primitive faiths" but a small minority are highly moved.
Particularly they find Hindu women much better in bed than the prudish
and sexually ignorant English girls back home and some set up mini
harems and even arrive home with an extra Islamic Indian bride or two
to the consternation of their English wife.
1857 Mutiny. India at this time had been invaded by zealot missionary
Christians as Britain was in the throes of a fundamentalist fervour. A
good example was the Scottish missionary and explorer Doctor David
Livingstone (1813-73) who was the first white man to fully explore the
most inner parts of "Darkest" Africa. Many like Livingstone tried to
spread Protestant fundamentalism and Victorian prudish values in India
and like Livingstone in Africa they failed to get any converts and
generally antagonise the locals. So English attitudes to their colonial
subjects in Victorian times was, high and mighty, with little regard to
local customs and cultures, little regard also for developing a local
economy indeed exploiting it would be the general objective. Christian
dogma states clearly that the only route to salvation is through Jesus
Christ the son of God, which means that all other faiths must be wrong
and their followers second class and indeed heretics. By comparison
both Islam and Hinduism were at this time, welcoming and interested in
other faiths. Islamic rulers generally allowed non Muslims to live in
peace in their territories. Even though English generated trade and
much improved the gross trading position of the Indians, the English
saw that all the value added goods were manufactured in England leaving
the Indians the tasks of unskilled peasants. Indeed by 1853 India had
lost its worldwide market for textiles and was actually importing cloth
from England. Finally the Indians revolted which commenced as a mutiny
in the East India Company's army which was largely manned by locals
controlled by "Victorian" British officers. The British officers failed
to consider that the pig and cow fat used to lubricate the rifles might
be religiously impossible to accept for Muslim and Hindu soldiers. A
bitter revolt lasted 14 months and when finally subdued the government
in London decided to end the long period of rule by the East India
Company and administration was taken over by the British Crown in
London.
The next 100 years
1857-1947
Queen Victoria was enthroned as Empress of India in 1877 by the British
of course. However Queen Victoria never visited India. By 1885 the
Indians were sufficiently fed up with British rule and confident in
their own abilities to set up their own Indian National Congress.
However independence was not gained until 1947, after the Second World
War. Then the English were no longer in a military, financial or mental
position to resist the pressures from India for independence and all
military forces "East of Suez" were withdrawn.
During the previous 150 years the English rulers had tried to
Europeanise the Indian society with Christian values and Victorian
bureaucracy. At least there was relative peace between Hindus and
Muslims but the overall benefit to India in general is very
questionable but the benefits to England were considerable. The British
Indian Army manned mainly by Indians, defended all British interests
from East Africa to China. This was particularly important in the
Second World War not against the Germans but the Japanese who marched
into many British territories east of India. (Burma, Singapore, Malaya
etc) Of particular interest to the Japanese was the oil and rubber
production in Burma and Malaya. The British centre for Burmese defence
was Calcutta. It was touch and go whether the Japanese who, easily over
ran Malaya, Singapore and Burma reached India. After huge losses on
both sides the British, with much help from the Indians, finally
prevailed.
The influence of Christianity
Christian influence prompted new thinking amongst Hindus rather than
conversion to Christianity. In 1820 Indian Hindu, Ram Mohan Roy founded
Brahmo Samaj to develop Hindu worship towards a single God. Ram Roy
spent much time in England where he finally died. In the same way the
Indian Muslim Saiyid Khan formed Aligarh and intended to modernise
Islam. After the end of the First World War 1918, when the English were
seen by all Muslims as responsible for the downfall of the huge Islamic
Ottoman Empire, Muslims in India persuaded their Hindu friends to
commence the elimination of the British in India. The British retained
their authority by developing a repressive semi police state which only
made matters worse.
Gandhi-Indian Hindu 1869-1948
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma) One of the best known names in any
part of the world, Mahatma Gandhi led the push to get the British out
of India by his peaceful policy of non-cooperation which largely meant
non payment of taxes. When he was 20 he studied law in England and
practiced initially in British South Africa defending the rights of
Indian immigrants in that country. His vision for India without the
British was for Muslims and Hindus to live peacefully together but in
this he failed. When the English left there was an immediate
Hindu-Muslim blood bath which resulted in the splitting of India into
three, Muslim Pakistan in the west, Muslim Bangladesh in the east plus
India. In the Second World War against the Japanese, the British only
gained support from Gandhi and the Indian Army by promising that the
British would give India back to the Indians at the end of the war. In
1948 Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fundamentalist for letting down
the Hindu people. Likewise Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi, daughter
of Mahatma Gandhi's political partner Jawaharlal Nehru was assassinated
in 1984 by a Sikh member of her bodyguard. The Sikhs were angry that
she had promised them their own land in the Punjab and not delivered.
Her Prime Minister son Rajiv Gandhi was also assassinated by religious
extremists.
Today India, compared with almost 100% Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh,
has about 200 million Muslims living amongst 800 million Hindus and 10
million Sikhs. That is the Muslim population of India is greater than
either of its two Muslim neighbours which were created to be Islamic
states. Not surprisingly tension between India and Pakistan has always
been high and is now of some concern to the rest of the world, as both
are Nuclear powers. A solution is now very difficult because of
heightened rivalries between the more fundamental Hindu and Muslim
sects, together with the disputed border territories of Sikh Punjab and
mountainous Kashmir. Pakistan was early in aligning with USA and
likewise India chose Russia. The fall of Soviet power has made the
Indians all the more nervous.
Buddhism once the faith of the Indian rulers now hardly exists in any
of these three countries and in the general region is confined to the
neighbouring countries of Nepal, Burma and Sri Lanka.
FUTHER INFORMATION AND SUMMARY ON SIKHISM, BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM.
Hinduism, a summary
- A religion or better a philosophy
which evolved over 4000 years. No founder like Moses, Jesus or Mohammed.
- Life is an illusion or similar to a
dream. When
you wake it will be in heaven. There are many ways to heaven. For
example Christianity. That is Hindus accept the ideas of Christianity
but Christians do not accept the Hindu customs.
- Many gods plus one supreme deity
Brahma. Priests
are called Brahmins. The Gods do not look after you. You must find your
own way.
- Scriptures are the Vedas which are a
series of
poems or hymns plus a commentary. The oldest have origins going back
over 3000 years.
- Men are not born equal. Your status on
earth
depends on your past life. Good people go up and vice versa , the
principle of Karma. This is the Caste system. A priest is the highest
and the lowest is an Untouchable. Note do not confuse Karma with Kama
as in Kama Sutra which is the enjoyment of sex and other good things in
life.
- There are three recognized paths to
heaven or the release(Moksha) from the cycle of Reincarnation
- A path of good works (dharma)
- The path of knowledge (inana)
- The path of devotion (Bhakti)
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