Episode 26 The British Raj and Early Nationalism

A History of India

Michael Fisher (2016)

Film Review

After the British government took over running India from the British East India Company in 1857, the British Indian Civil Service (ICS) directly ran two-thirds of India. The other third was governed by independent principalities loyal to the British Crown and “advised” by agents of the ICS.

The vast majority of ICS civil servants were British-born and returned to the UK when they retired. A few native Indians traveled to London to take the civil service exam, which was in English and required a knowledge of Greek, Latin and other European languages. Surendranath Banerjee passed the exam in 1869 but was failed for poor horsemanship.

By 1900, only 11 native Indians had passed the exam. Recruitment of native Indian bureaucrats increase significantly (owing to large numbers of British casualties) following World War I. By the time India declared independence in 1947, it had increased to 50%.

To improve their export efficiency, Britain built an underseas telegraph cable to Britain in 1865 and a national railroad network (with all railway cars, track and ties manufactured in Britain. They also built irrigation canals, bringing agriculture to the arid Punjab and Sindh for the first time.

The British conducted India’s first census in 1871, repeating it every ten years until Indian independence (1947). By then, India had 390 million people, run by an ICS of 980 British overseeing millions of Indian clerks and laborers.

Since they were excluded from the ICS, most middle class Indians worked for the railroads. Under the Alienation Act of 1890, only agricultural castes were allowed to purchase land.

Native Indians had no real sense of Indian national identity prior to 1885, when 70 members of the “Anglicized” Indian elite convened the first meeting of the Indian National Congress in Bombay.

Nevertheless to thwart growing Indian nationalism, in 1905 the British split Bengal into East and West Bengal. East Bengal consisted mainly of Muslims, eager for protection from the Hindu majority. The British also created separate Muslim electorates throughout India, where only Muslims were eligible to run for office or vote. They also moved the capitol of the British Raj from Bengal to Delhi to reduce the influence of Bengali nationalists.

Fisher believes these actions led to the formation of the Muslim League in 1906, despite participation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and a few supporters in the mainly Hindu Indian National Congress.

With the arrival of World War I, Gandhi and other nationalists encouraged native Indians to enlist to prove their right to full citizenship. 1.7 million Indians enlisted, with many achieving officer rank for the first time. The British Raj also required India to contribute food, clothing and money to the European war effort, significantly weakening the country’s economy.

The end of the war saw a major British crackdown on Indian nationalism, with a 1919 law authorizing detention of native Indians without trial and the Jallianwall Bagh Massacre, when troops fired on a peaceful crowd assembled in Amritsar to protest the new law.

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https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/366254/366223