India was the first and essentially the only state of such a large scale (or rather, even a group of states united by the civilization that united them, religious tradition and common social-caste principles of internal structure) that was turned into a colony. Taking advantage of the characteristic weakness of administrative and political ties in India, the British relatively easily, without much expense or loss, even mainly through the hands of the Indians themselves, seized power and established their dominance. But once this was achieved (in 1849, after the victory over the Sikhs in the Punjab), a new problem arose before the conquerors: how to manage a giant colony? The previous conquerors did not have such a problem. Without further ado, all of them, right up to the Great Mughals, ruled in a way that had been determined for centuries and was clear to everyone. But the British represented a fundamentally different structure, which was also on a steep rise and was making increasingly decisive and far-reaching demands for its successful development. In a sense, the problem was similar to the one that Alexander solved after his conquest of the Middle East: how to synthesize one’s own and someone else’s, the West and the East? But there were also new circumstances that were fundamentally different from antiquity. The fact is that the annexation of India to Britain was not so much a political act, the result of a war or a series of wars, but rather a consequence of complex economic and social processes throughout the world, the essence of which boiled down to the formation of a world capitalist market and the forced inclusion of colonized countries in world market relations .
It is unlikely that at first, the British colonialists thought about the mentioned problem. Colonization was carried out by the hands of the East India Company, which sought, above all, active trade, huge profits, and high rates of enrichment. But in the course of trade operations and in the name of increasingly guaranteed security, other people's property was taken over, new lands were seized, and successful wars were fought. Colonial trade was increasingly outgrowing its original framework; it was spurred on by the fact that the rapidly growing English capitalist industry at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. was already in dire need of ever-increasing markets for manufactured goods. India was the ideal place for this effort. It is not surprising that, under changing circumstances, Indian affairs gradually ceased to be the prerogative of the company, or at any rate of the company alone. From the end of the 18th century, especially after the trial of W. Hastings, the first Governor-General of India (1774–1785), the company's activities began to be increasingly controlled by the government and parliament.
In 1813, the company's monopoly on trade with India was officially abolished, and over the 15 years after that, the import of cotton factory fabrics increased 4 times. An Act of Parliament in 1833 further limited the company's functions, leaving it essentially the status of an administrative organization that practically governed India, now under the very strict control of the London Board of Control. India, step by step, became more and more obviously a colony of Great Britain, turned into a part of the British Empire, into the jewel of its crown.
But the final part of the colonization process proved to be the most difficult. The interference of the company administration in the internal affairs of the country and, above all, in the agrarian relations that had developed over centuries (English administrators clearly did not understand the real and very difficult relationships between the owning and non-owning strata in India) led to painful conflicts in the country. The influx of factory fabrics and the ruin of many of the aristocrats accustomed to prestigious consumption affected the well-being of Indian artisans. In a word, the usual norm of relations that had been functioning for centuries was cracking at all the seams, and a painful crisis was becoming more and more obvious in the country.
The huge country did not want to put up with this. There was growing dissatisfaction with the new order, which posed a threat to the usual existence of almost everyone. And although due to the weakness of internal ties and the dominance of numerous ethno-caste, linguistic, political and religious barriers that separated people, this discontent was not too strong, much less organized enough, it nevertheless quickly increased and turned into open resistance to the British authorities. An explosion was brewing.
One of the important immediate reasons that provoked it was the annexation by the Governor-General of Dalhousie in 1856 of the large principality of Oudh in the north of the country. The fact is that, along with the lands officially and directly subordinate to the administration of the company, in India there were 500–600 large and small principalities, the status and rights of which were very different. Each of the principalities was associated with the administration of the company by a special contractual act, but their number gradually decreased due to the liquidation of those where the line of direct inheritance was interrupted or a state of crisis ensued. Oudh was annexed to the company's lands under the pretext of "poor management", which caused sharp discontent among the local Muslim population (talukdars), as well as the privileged Rajput zamindars, who were greatly offended by this decision.
The center of the company's military power was the Bengal army of sepoys, two-thirds recruited from the Rajputs, Brahmins and Jats of Oudh. Sepoys from these high castes felt especially painfully their inferior position in the army in comparison with the British who served next to them. Ferment in their ranks gradually increased due to the fact that after the conquest of India, the company, contrary to what was promised, not only reduced their salaries, but also began to use them in wars outside India - in Afghanistan, Burma, even in China. The last straw and the immediate cause for the uprising was the introduction in 1857 of new cartridges, the winding of which was lubricated with beef or pork fat (by biting it, both Hindus who revered the sacred cow and Muslims who did not eat pork were desecrated). Outraged by the punishment of those who opposed the new patrons, on May 10, 1857, three regiments of sepoys mutinied at Merath near Delhi. Other units joined the rebels and soon the sepoys approached Delhi and occupied the city. The British were partially exterminated, partially fled in panic, and the sepoys proclaimed the elderly Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah II, who was living out his days on a company pension, as emperor.
The uprising lasted almost two years and was ultimately drowned in blood by the British, who were able to rely on the help of the Sikhs, Gurkhas and other forces who feared the revival of the Mughal Empire. Having rightly assessed the uprising as a powerful popular explosion of discontent not only with the rule of the colonialists, but also with the brutal breakdown of the traditional forms of existence of many layers of Indian society, the British colonial authorities were forced to seriously think about what to do next. The question was what methods and means would be used to achieve the destruction of the traditional structure. Only one thing was clear: a sharp violent break is unacceptable here; it should be replaced by a gradual and carefully thought-out transformation - with an orientation, of course, towards the European model. Actually, this is what the subsequent policy of the British in India boiled down to.
“If we lose India, the British, who for generations have considered themselves masters of the world, will overnight lose their status as the greatest nation and fall into the third category,” said Lord George Curzon, India’s most famous viceroy. During the heyday of the empire at the end of the 19th century, this land was the fulcrum on which Great Britain controlled the entire hemisphere - from Malta to Hong Kong. So why, just two years after the Allied victory in World War II, thanks to which the British, at incredible cost and sacrifice, managed to completely restore their position in Asia, did she abandon India, dividing it into two independent states?
The secret of the British success in Asia is that they went there not to conquer it, but to make money. This does not mean that their regime in India was consciously conceived as a commercial enterprise: its emergence was not planned at all. The Mistress of the Seas in the 18th and 19th centuries herself watched with amazement the strengthening of her influence on the subcontinent, while not taking any part in the process and formally denying the fact of territorial expansion. It’s just that the British from the East India Company, established by Elizabeth I back in 1600 with the right to a fifteen-year monopoly on trade in “East India,” turned out to be beyond the control of their government. Note that this Company was by no means the only one: under the same Elizabeth, for example, the “Mystery and Company of Traveling Salesmen-Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands and Unknown Places” appeared, which was later transformed into the Moscow Company. Others also worked - for monopoly trade with Turkey, West Africa, Canada and Spanish America. Among all of them, the East Indian at first did not stand out for its particular successes. But everything changed when England entered into a political union with Holland after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (King James II Stuart was deposed and the Dutch Prince William III of Orange ascended the throne). An agreement followed with new allies, who had their own East India Company, which was even more successful. The deal allowed the British to work freely in the Indian textile market, while the Dutch began exporting spices and transit transportation to Indonesia. By 1720, the British company's income was greater than that of its competitors. This logically led to the establishment of English rule in Hindustan, where the East India Company operated through a system of bases and fortified forts. Around these springboards of British entrepreneurial genius grew over time big cities: Bombay, Madras and the main outpost of the Company - Calcutta. At the beginning of the 18th century, India's population was twenty times that of Britain's, and the subcontinent's share of world trade was 24 percent to Britain's three. Until the middle of the 18th century, the role of English merchants in the struggle for the market was modest, and they, like all their “colleagues,” had to prostrate themselves before the throne of the Great Mughals in Delhi - the success of their business was still entirely dependent on the imperial will.
But in 1740, regular invasions of the peninsula by the Persians and Afghans began, as well as severe internal strife. Successful figures like the Nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad grabbed pieces of the Mughal possessions, in the west the Marathas declared their rights to independence from Delhi, in general, the grip of the central government began to weaken. It was then that the Company raised its head, sensing the prospects for territorial expansion. She also had a mercenary army, which was recruited from local military castes.
First of all, Britain then sought to win the battle with its main European enemy - France, and not only in India, but also in the rest of the world. And soon the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) undermined Paris's global position. Back in 1757, there was a breakthrough on the Indian “front”: General Robert Clive won a decisive victory at Plassey in Bengal. Eight years later, the emperor of the Mughal dynasty was forced to provide East India Company law of diwani (civil administration) in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Over the course of half a century, the power of successful British traders spread throughout the subcontinent - as if on their own, without the support of official London.
By 1818 the Company dominated most of Indian territory, a form of government that changed only after the famous Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, when the Crown established direct control of the state. There is no doubt that this turned out to be beneficial for the British. Simple, uncontrolled looting was a fairly typical occurrence in the early years of the Company's power, when representatives such as Thomas Pitt, nicknamed the Diamond, smuggled piles of precious stones into England.
However, more often than not, his compatriots still resorted to more complex schemes than the Spaniards in South America. They prepared the fate of the great eastern country as a raw materials appendage, a huge market for the sale of finished products of the early industrial British economy and a food supplier. Until the 17th century, Indian textile production was so developed that British manufactories could only copy the style of oriental fabrics imported from Hindustan. However, due to their cost, they, of course, always remained very expensive. All that changed when the East India Company flooded the subcontinent with cheap calico, calico and cotton from Lancashire mills.
It was a real triumph of the colonial-market concept of Britain. The metropolis forced the subcontinent to open up to the import of new, waste goods, hitherto unknown to it (it fell even more in price in 1813, when a law was passed that ended the absolute monopoly of the Company - now the “East India” duty restrictions also disappeared). On the one hand, India found itself in the tenacious embrace of free trade, on the other, the colonialists, emphasizing their technical competitiveness in every possible way, prohibited the introduction of any duties on the import of their products into the subject country. The result was a kind of “free market imperialism” (this is the term used by modern English historians). In this economic way, the fate of the colony for the coming centuries was determined; and it is no coincidence that Gandhi subsequently placed a spinning wheel - the chakra - in the center of the flag of the independent state, and swadeshi - the boycott of foreign goods - became the favorite demand and slogan of the first nationalists...
In addition, India opened up unprecedented opportunities for storing and increasing capital with its conqueror. By 1880, total investment in the country amounted to 270 million pounds - a fifth of Britain's huge investment portfolio; by 1914 this figure had risen to 400 million. Investments in India in relative terms turned out (unprecedented in history) even more profitable than long-term operations in the domestic economy of the United Kingdom: the colonial authorities assured a huge mass of businessmen in the reliability of the new market and did not disappoint their expectations.
The colony, as best it could, returned its “care” to the mother country a hundredfold - for example, by military force. The famous Indian regiments performed well in the battles of the 19th century. The new subjects faithfully served the empire in various parts of the world, from South Africa to Western Europe - here they took part in both world wars: about a million volunteers participated in the First and almost twice as many in the Second... And in peacetime, the number of Indian There were also considerable numbers of reservists. In 1881, 69,477 British troops served in the colonial army - “against” 125,000 natives, recruited from those Indians whom the conquerors considered “natural warriors”: Muslims and Sikhs. In total, these troops accounted for 62 percent of Great Britain's total land power at the end of the 19th century. In general, with with good reason noted Prime Minister Lord Salisbury: India is “an English barracks on the eastern seas, from where we can always call up any number of free soldiers.”
Of course, British society as a whole tended to justify its rule in more noble terms as the fulfillment of its civilizing mission. This idea was perhaps most clearly formulated by the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay at one of the parliamentary meetings in 1835. He expressed the wish that in the colony there would be formed “a layer of Indians by blood and skin color, but Englishmen by tastes, worldview, morality and intellect.” The idea that the purpose of the English presence was the improvement of the aborigines, in general, was comprehensive. It was believed that the static, amorphous Indian society in all areas should learn from the most advanced power in the world. Naturally, this implied the absolute degeneration of the local ancient culture. The same Macaulay, with unimaginable arrogance, asserted that “a single shelf from a good European library is worth the entire national literature of India and Arabia.” Protestant missionaries were also guided by similar considerations. The Asian lands, they believed, were given to Britain “not for immediate gain, but to spread the light and beneficial influence of the Truth among the aborigines, wandering in the darkness of disgusting and corrupting prejudices!” And William Wilberforce, an enlightened and noble man, founder of the Anti-Slave Trade Movement, spoke even more harshly: “This is the religion of savages. All its rituals must be eliminated."
What do modern historians think about this? Some believe that the occupying power, scattered geographically and lacking long-term potential, did not have any particular impact on the native society, with which it interacted in a historical perspective for only a short time.
Others still see in the British influence a life-giving renewal that had a completely beneficial effect on the people of India: the harsh laws of the caste system were softened and even the emergence of a united India, the idea of national unity was indirectly suggested by the colonialists. Remembering those who sweated, got sick and died in the vastness of India, the famous “singer of imperialism” Kipling wrote: “... as if life-giving moisture we gave this land the best, and if there is a country that flourished on the blood of martyrs, then this country is India.” The authorities dealt not only with general health care, such as the prevention of malaria and vaccination against smallpox (which the Hindus strongly opposed as ritually polluting!). To feed a country with an ever-growing population, during their activities they increased the area of irrigated land eightfold. The well-being of different classes also began to level out slightly: total after-tax income in agriculture increased from 45 to 54 percent, which actually meant that inequality had decreased to some extent. True, then no one really cared about these numbers... The 20th century and great upheavals were approaching.
Paid in bloodThe First World War appears in history as the starting point from which the national self-awareness of Indians was formed into a clear political movement capable of setting goals and fighting for them. Natural riots have happened before, of course. For example, in 1912, when administrative reform was being planned in Bengal, the radical nationalist Rash Behari Bose threw a bomb at the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge. The Indian National Congress Party, founded back in 1885 (having transformed many times, it would later come to power in the new India), also struggled to achieve self-government, not yet demanding independence. But it was the war that changed everything - the colony paid too high a bloody price: the names of 60 thousand dead are inscribed on the India Gate arch in New Delhi.
In 1917, the British had to set a course for the “gradual formation of a plenipotentiary government of India as an integral part of the British Empire” - a government “recruited” from Indians and for Indians. In 1919, a new Law on Administration was released - the first step on the path that the colonialists were now following. He proclaimed the principle of diarchy - dual government, in which the central power in Calcutta remained undivided in British hands, and the local authorities would be led by members of national parties like the INC - they were counted on primarily in terms of “working with the population,” as they would say Today. To explain to them, the population, the decisions taken by the authorities. Such a cunning and cautious concession, although seemingly insignificant, unexpectedly turned out to be a bomb in the solid foundation of the empire. Having received little, the natives thought about their situation in general. It didn’t take long to look for a reason for indignation - the new laws retained restrictions on civil liberties introduced back in war time(eg the power of the police to detain anyone without trial). A new form of protest, the hartal, an analogue of a Western strike, spread throughout the peninsula, and in some areas resulted in conflicts so serious that local administrations had to introduce martial law.
Public flogging is a common method of punishing disobedient people everywhere and always. April 1919
One of these areas was the traditionally troubled Punjab, where in April 1919 General Reginald Dyer commanded one of the infantry brigades. Heavy smoker, irritable and cocky; A bully who, according to the descriptions of his contemporaries, “was happy only when he was climbing the enemy’s fortifications with a revolver in his teeth,” he was the worst person to lead troops in such delicate circumstances. Upon arrival at the command post in Amritsar, the first thing he did was to prohibit any meetings of citizens in his area of responsibility. The next day, the general, accompanied by a drummer and a military guard, marched through the streets to the main shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple, stopping every now and then to shout an announcement: fire would be opened on any gatherings of people. Nevertheless, towards evening, a crowd of 10 or 20 thousand people gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh square, surrounded on three sides by blank high walls. Fulfilling his own promise, Dyer appeared there, accompanied by 50 riflemen, and without any warning opened fire. “I fired and continued to shoot until the crowd had dispersed,” he later recalled. But the fact is that the crowd had nowhere to “disperse” - some of the doomed tried to climb the steep fortifications out of despair, someone jumped into the well and drowned there, because others were jumping from above... In total, 379 people died and a thousand were injured. Subsequently, the frantic general practiced public flogging of representatives of the upper castes, forced Hindus to crawl on their stomachs along the street on which a crowd once beat the English doctor Marcella Sherwood (by the way, the natives themselves saved her). In his twilight years, he smugly admitted that his intention was “to strike fear into the whole Punjab.”
But instead, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “the foundations of the empire were shaken.” Another great Indian, Jawaharlal Nehru, later the first Prime Minister of India, recalled how his political position changed greatly when, during one of his trips around the country on behalf of the INC, he heard Dyer justifying his own atrocities without the slightest regret in the next carriage.
Henceforth, for most Indians, the British Raj was stained with blood. Only the opponents of the Hindus, the Sikhs, rejoiced at the beating, proclaiming the “butcher of Amritsar” an honorary representative of their people...
What is sub-imperialism?
When we talk about the British Raj in India, we are dealing with a phenomenon that historians often call “sub-imperialism” (“secondary imperialism”). The classic scheme of relations between the metropolis, personified by the government of the colonizing country, and the colony in this case includes an intermediary to whom the metropolis delegates its powers “on the spot.” This delegation took place unplanned. For example, the British government could issue laws like the Indian Act of 1784 as much as it wanted, which stated: “The policy of conquest and the extension of our dominion in India is incompatible with the aspirations, policy and honor of this state,” but the remoteness of India reduced the influence of London on the actions of its subjects “on the spot.” events" to zero. The sea voyage to Calcutta via Cape Town took about six months, and it should have started only in the spring, in accordance with the wind rose, and the return journey could only be started in the fall. The governor has been waiting for an answer to his most urgent request for more than two years! Despite his accountability to parliament, the degree of freedom of his actions was enormous, and he cared about the security of trade in British India much more than his superiors in the metropolis. Take, for example, the sharp rebuke of the governor, Earl Wellesley, admonishing one stubborn admiral who was afraid to move against the French without a royal order: “If I had been guided by the same principle as Your Excellency, Misor would never have been taken.” And Wellesley did not discover America. Sub-imperialism flourished already under his predecessor Lord Cornwallis, who nurtured a galaxy of officials - “Asian conquistadors”. The British won not so much by force as by traditional political cunning, taking advantage of the disunity of the country. The Indian historian G.H. spoke about this. Kann: “...the fact that almost the entire Hindustan passed into the hands of the British is a consequence of the disunity of the Indian rulers.” Take, for example, General Clive's struggle with the Nawab (Mughal governor) of Bengal and his French allies in 1757. The Briton was supported not only by the local banking house Jaget Seth: before the decisive battle of Plassey, Clive managed to win over to his side the initially hostile major military leader Mir Jafar. The army of the East India Company, which Clive commanded that day, was generally two-thirds Indian. Such remarkable examples of English politics led to the emergence of the so-called “Company Raj” - “Company Dominion”. There was a joke about this “unplanned child” that the empire was growing “in a fit of unconsciousness.”
"Mahatma" means "great soul"
The massacre in Amritsar opened the eyes of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to the essence of what was happening, to whom rumor bestowed the authority of the Mahatma (“Great Soul”). Arriving in 1914 from South Africa, Gandhi, who was educated in London, spent the next few years at all corners confessing his “love for the British Empire,” but reality could not help but shake his views. His transformation from a lawyer dressed like a dandy into a freedom fighter into an almost saint in light clothes is textbook and, one might say, constitutes the cornerstone of modern Indian political history. Gandhi managed to become a national leader in the full sense of the word, and called his strategic method, the political technology used for this, “satyagraha” - literally “strength of spirit.” That is, the renunciation of all violence in the struggle and such everyday behavior that will ensure the purity of each individual, and through it the purity of the people.
The most striking action of satyagraha was the famous “Salt March” of 1930 - a peaceful march from the Mahatma’s ashram (monastery) on the Sabarmati River to the shore of the Indian Ocean, where it was supposed to fill pots with water, light a fire and “extract” salt, thereby violating the famous British monopoly , one of the foundations of the colonial regime. Similarly, by repeatedly calling for peaceful civil disobedience in the 20s and 30s of the last century, the INC, under the informal leadership of Gandhi, put effective pressure on the authorities. As a result, a Commission was created in 1927 to develop draft constitutions, and in 1930 and 1931 two round tables were held in London with the participation of representatives of interested parties. At the first meeting, the Mahatma was absent (he was in prison), and the Congress refused to participate. He arrived at the second - but only to state, to his own regret, that the positions were irreconcilable...
Indian Act
In 1935, Parliament in Westminster finally passed the India Act - the longest of all acts issued by the British government in the entire history of this government. It granted the great colony the status of a self-governing dominion. Moreover, this document gave Delhi autonomy in matters of taxes and duties - that is, the end of that very “free trade imperialism” came, a system in which Britain freely flooded India with the products of its textile industry. By and large, it gradually became clear that the national liberation movement was forcing Britain to make such concessions that the very purpose of its dominance was undermined, and it had no choice but to prepare for own care. It is worth noting, however, that the value of India as a “colonial asset” had already fallen somewhat: the decline in the share of agriculture in the economy after the Great Depression of 1929 played a role. So the 1935 Act appears to be a simple pragmatic reaction to reality, a recognition: “Hindustan as a capital is being depleted.”
Of course, you shouldn’t simplify it. The document was also developed for another purpose: to keep anti-British forces from radical actions, and to keep India itself under control. Supporters of the Law were confident that the INC, lacking internal structural unity, could well collapse under “delicate” pressure from the government. The new nationalism was supposed to be weakened - this time not by repression, but by cooperation. For example, under the new situation, the power of the rajas was maintained, with the help of which England in all past times indirectly controlled one third of the subcontinent. Thus the reformist tendencies among those who were to be elected to the new free Parliament of India were slightly subdued, and the "feudal element" among them was encouraged. Moreover, in reality it turned out that the articles of the Law, which stipulated the functions of the central government of the Indian Dominion, could not come into force without the consent of half of the princes.
But despite the craftiness and unsatisfactory nature of the proposed conditions, they still convinced the majority of Indian nationalists. All major parties took part in the 1937 elections instead of boycotting them. Thus, the British, regardless of considerations of economic expediency, suppressed for the time being the demands for “purna swaraj” - complete self-government for India. Of course, this does not mean that in the London political kitchen they believed that power over the country would be eternal. But in the 1930s they still enjoyed sufficient authority in Hindustan to postpone the resolution of the issue - as it seemed then, for an indefinite period of time...
Towards independence step by step
On July 14, 1942, the Indian National Congress demanded full independence for India, promising large-scale civil disobedience if refused. In early August, Gandhi called on his countrymen to their promised disobedience, urging them to behave worthy of a free nation and not carry out the orders of the colonialists. Inflamed by the approach of Japanese troops to the Indo-Burmese border, the British responded by arresting Gandhi and all members of the INC Working Committee. A young activist, Aruna Asaf-Ali, came to lead the forces of independence, and on August 9, 1942, she raised the Congress flag in a Bombay park, where Gandhi had called for freedom the day before. The authorities' next move simply banned the Congress, which only caused an explosion of sympathy for it. A wave of protests, strikes and demonstrations swept across the country - not always peaceful. In some areas, bombs exploded, government buildings were set on fire, electricity was cut off, and transport systems and communications were destroyed. The British responded with new repression: more than 100 thousand people were taken into custody throughout the country, and demonstrators were subjected to public floggings. Hundreds of people were injured by police and army gunfire. The leaders of the National Movement went underground, but managed to speak on the radio, distribute leaflets and create parallel governments. The colonialists even sent a Navy ship to take Gandhi and other leaders somewhere far away - to South Africa or Yemen, but it didn’t come to that. Congress leaders spent more than three years behind bars. Gandhi himself, however, was released in 1944 due to his deteriorating health, undermined, in particular, by a 21-day hunger strike. The Mahatma did not give up and demanded the release of his comrades. In general, by the beginning of 1944 the situation in India had become relatively calm. Only discord among Muslims, communists and extremists continued. In 1945, the situation was aggravated by a series of unrest among the Indian military - officers, soldiers and sailors. In particular, there was the Bombay Mutiny, in which, among others, crews of 78 ships (a total of 20 thousand people) took part. By early 1946, the authorities released all political prisoners, entering into an open dialogue with the INC on the issue of transfer of leadership. It all ended on August 15, 1947, when India was declared independent. “When the clock strikes midnight, when the whole world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom. Such moments are very rare in history: we take a step from the old to the new. India finds itself again,” Jawaharlal Nehru wrote about India’s Independence Day.
Intangible factor
...But history decreed otherwise. London's authority was irrevocably damaged tragic events Second World War. It began to shake, along with Britain’s prestige, already in 1941-1942, when the empire suffered defeats from the newly-minted “Asian tiger”, Japan. As you know, immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her troops attacked Malaysia, Burma, Singapore and in a short time captured these British territories. This caused mixed feelings of panic and joy in Indian society. The wartime London Cabinet hastily sent its special representative, Sir Stafford Cripps, to consult with the INC, the purpose of which was to secure the full support of the party in military matters, and thus prevent the formation of a “fifth column”. The Gandhiists, however, refused to cooperate on the grounds that the Viceroy had announced India's entry into the war back in 1939, without warning them a word about it.
And as soon as Cripps left home “empty-handed,” the INC organized (in August 1942) the “Get Out of India” movement demanding the immediate departure of the British. The latter had no choice but to immediately arrest Gandhi and his closest associates. The Indians responded with widespread riots, although the British subsequently claimed that the Congress had pre-planned a mutiny if its leadership was detained, in fact the nature of the uprisings was spontaneous. Thousands of natives believed that the crown was tottering. British intelligence archives dating back to this time contain reports of the most fantastic rumors. Here's what people said, say, about the extraordinary military skill of the Japanese: they say, in Madras, for example, a Japanese paratrooper landed right into a crowd of people, talked to eyewitnesses in their native language, and then... soared by parachute back to the plane! The unambiguously racial overtones of this reaction are also noticeable in the Indian press. Being under the strict control of military censorship, which vigilantly monitored defeatist sentiments, the newspapers nevertheless amaze with some of the wording. The Allahabad Leader called the fall of Singapore "the most important historical event that has ever happened in our lifetime - the victory of the non-whites over the whites." The Amrita Bazaar Patrika in Calcutta agreed that “the peoples of Asia, having suffered for so long under the European race, cannot go back to the old days of planter rule.” And even already in August 1945, the same publication noted with horror that the Americans had chosen “precisely Asians” to test their atomic bomb, adding that from now on the world must free itself from such concepts as “superior and inferior, masters and slaves.”
The conclusion suggests itself: it turns out that the main impetus that accelerated the movement of the subcontinent towards independence was an ephemeral, intangible factor - the loss of that almost mystical respect that Indians once had for the “white sahib”. But only “on a bayonet,” as Napoleon said, “you can’t sit”... In 1881, according to the census of India’s 300 million population, there were only 89,778 Britons - if the country had not accepted their rule, it would not have been difficult to get rid of such power . In the 1940s, this ratio was less critical, and yet the pillars of power were crumbling. The most characteristic sign here, naturally, is the loss of loyalty of the Indian military. Riots in Royal Navy units in Karachi and Bombay in February 1946 were stopped only with the assistance of the INC, and in April of the same year, the representative of the metropolis in the Indian government expressed doubt that the soldiers would have remained on the side of the British if the party refused mediation.
We remember how in 1935 the colonialists hoped for a constitutional agreement that would allow them to remain in India for the foreseeable future. Only ten years had passed, and the Labor government of Clement Attlee, instinctively feeling the irreversibility of post-war changes, was simply looking for a convenient way out of the situation. An opportunity to save face and leave with dignity.
Divide and ruleThe disintegration of India into Pakistan and India itself in August 1947 is often blamed on the “two-faced British Empire.” She allegedly applied her favorite principle of “divide and conquer” and in every possible way increased mutual distrust and tension in society. The British are also accused of deliberate fraud: they say, in order to belittle the influence of the INC in granting independence to India, they deliberately exaggerated and inflated the “quota” of concessions and guarantees in the constitution to the opponents of this party - Muslims. Their leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, thus acquired an influence disproportionate to the number of his supporters, and managed to bring matters to a national split.
But the first demands for the separation of Muslim regions were made during the elections of 1937: then the INC and other coalitions of Hindu candidates won a general victory, but Muslims, and primarily the Islamic League of Jinnah, received more than 80 seats - or a little less than a quarter in percentage calculus. This was a great success, allowing the ambitious politician to seriously turn to the poetic idea of uniting fellow believers, which was expressed by Muhammad Iqbal. This famous thinker dreamed of a new independent homeland for the Indian followers of the Prophet - “Pakistan,” the “Land of the Faithful” (literally, “The Land of the Pure”). The demand to create it in practice was again loudly heard in March 1940, and the British, desperately looking for any allies in the subcontinent, recognized Jinnah's right to represent all Muslims of the subcontinent. They even promised that they would adhere to his wishes in their future constitutional proposals. So the two sides found themselves “tied by a blood oath.”
In June 1945, the “intercessor for coreligionists” Jinnah successfully failed the Anglo-Indian conference in Simla to resolve political conflicts in the dominion, and in the elections in the winter of 1945/46, his League won all 30 seats specially reserved by law for Muslims in the Central Legislative Council. True, it seemed that the agreement of all parties to secede provinces with a predominant Islamic population was still far away, and the flexible leader initially blackmailed the authorities with this extreme demand - in order to simply win additional concessions and benefits. But then his supporters themselves became indignant: “Give up Pakistan? But what about the oath on the Koran to fight and die for him?!” One of the League leaders later wrote: “Wherever I went, people said: Bhai (brother)! If we don’t vote for independence, we will become kafirs (infidels)!”
But who finally made the final decision: the plan to create a united India, a federation of provinces with broad autonomy, was not destined to take place? Jinnah? No, he just agreed. Turned out to be against... National Congress: Jawaharlal Nehru, who had headed it by that time, wanted to see a strong unified government at the head of the country, not torn apart by fundamental contradictions. “Better a truncated India than a weak one”...
Is it surprising that such a tough stance led to bloodshed? On August 16, 1946, Muhammad Jinnah declared “Direct Action Day,” that is, he called on Muslims to disobey the newly proclaimed INC government. It ended dramatically - during the “Great Calcutta Massacre” alone, four thousand people of different religions were killed...
Armed rebels are preparing to march into Kashmir. December 1947
The law and order system collapsed. Realizing this, the British decided to simply leave, and as quickly as possible. In the second half of the same 1946, Attlee in London announced his intention to “release” India in June 1948, but already on June 4, 1947, the then acting Viceroy, Lord Lewis Mountbatten, had to set an earlier date, August 15, 1947. The map showing the future border between India and Pakistan was drawn up by an ordinary administration official named Radcliffe and was kept in the Viceroy's safe until the proclamation of independence...
Immediately after the publication of this map, terrible confusion began. Bengal suffered, divided exactly in half. Punjab suffered the same fate. Demobilized from the fronts of North Africa and Southeast Asia, former British Hindu soldiers created a powerful military community called the Sword, Shield and Spear of India to attack villages and columns of foreign refugees. Sikh gangs raided Muslim-majority East Punjab up to four times a night. Violence literally penetrated into the flesh and blood of society: during Muslim attacks on Hindu villages, husbands forced their wives to jump into wells so that they would at least die undefiled, and then they themselves would fight to the end. Another terrifying sign of the times were the “ghost trains,” which delivered only hundreds of corpses to their destination stations.
People who had previously never thought of leaving their homes now understood: if you want to survive, you need to be on the “right” side of the border. The largest mass migration of peoples in the history of South Asia began. During the four months of 1947, about five million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to India, while five and a half million Muslims moved in the opposite direction. A similar, although smaller scale, castling took place between West and East Bengal (future Bangladesh). In this brutal manner, a religiously homogeneous Pakistan was formed. The number of victims whose lives were paid for is unknown: estimates range from two hundred thousand to a million. Most likely, the closest to the truth is the Pakistani historian Stevens, who in 1963 settled on a figure of approximately half a million Indians and Pakistanis. The loss of moral guidelines caused by the split can be judged by the treatment of abducted women: during punitive or simply predatory raids on both sides, women were not killed, but taken as trophies. “After the massacre was over,” says one war correspondence, “the girls were distributed like dessert.” Many were simply sold or abandoned after being raped.
Some, however, were forced into marriage, and then, after the terrible 1947, the governments in Delhi and Islamabad began to work to find and repatriate such unfortunates. Some were glad to have the opportunity to return, others, fearing that their relatives would not want to take them back, refused to go. These latter, in accordance with mutual agreements and the general mood of society, were taken to where they came from by force - this continued until 1954.
Epilogue. Inevitability.
Could the British have prevented or mitigated this bloody bacchanalia and avoided the division of the country if they had not abandoned the colony at the most dramatic moment? Here we return again to the question of prestige. It was the inevitability of the end of their rule, the general awareness of this imminent end that created an atmosphere of intolerance in 1945-1947. Everyone was waiting for a settlement, but the war only strengthened the religious overtones of Indian political forces. Hence the bloody clashes, hence, with all inevitability, the collapse of India. Violence became both the cause and consequence of the split, and the British, having almost lost control of the administrative reins, could not restrain the warring factions. The financial situation within Great Britain itself did not allow maintaining a huge military contingent, which was necessary in these conditions and unnecessary before. The decision to leave was simply dictated by the famous British common sense...
We, guided by the same common sense, can judge: it is unlikely that the British are guilty of deliberately condoning the Indian split. After all, the main pathos of their two-century domination, in the end, consisted in the opposite - in all kinds of unification: political, cultural, social. Weren’t they the ones who, having once taken advantage of the disunity of the subcontinent, conquered and wove its disparate lands into one motley blanket, for the first time introduced common, familiar state languages, entangled the country with a network of railways and telegraph wires, thus preparing the ground for organized resistance to their own authorities in the future? It is quite possible that if not for the colonial history of India, about two dozen states would be located on its territory today...
But be that as it may, the age of “old imperialism” is over. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are seeing attempts - albeit with the help of the same military force! - to impose a completely new version of it, imperialism political systems and ideas. Perhaps, given the spread of humanitarian values, this task in itself is quite worthy. But, remembering the lessons of British rule in India, it is worth realizing: everything on the political map of the world ends sooner or later. And, as a rule, it ends dramatically.
By the middle of the 19th century. British rule extended to almost all of India. The territories under the direct control of the India Company constituted the so-called British India and were divided into three presidencies: Bengal, Madras and Bombay, headed by governors. At the head of the administrative apparatus of the company in India was the Governor-General, whose residence was in Calcutta. Administrative and judicial affairs were handled by the council under the governor-general and the supreme court, consisting of English officials.
Some Indian princes were turned into vassals of the East India Company. The largest of the vassal principalities were Hyderabad, Mysore, and the Nawab of Oudh. A large number of small principalities have also survived. All these “independent” states constituted the so-called native India.
The regions of India conquered by the British during the second half of the 18th century. were subjected to brutal military-feudal tax exploitation carried out through the East India Company. The robbery of India accelerated the capitalist development of England and at the same time caused heavy damage to India. The growth of productive forces in India, and consequently the development of culture, slowed down sharply. By the beginning of the 19th century. England has already become a powerful capitalist power. India continued to remain a backward feudal country. Moreover, the British invaders almost completely destroyed Indian maritime trade.
IN early XIX V. Indian handicraft production, especially cotton weaving, was greatly undermined by English competition. Many crafts were completely destroyed, tens of thousands of artisans were ruined. Indian artisans now produced “only coarse fabrics, which found demand mainly in the local rural market. Products of the once famous Indian craft that were exported completely ceased to be produced. The secrets of production of many of them were lost.
The British colonialists carried out a number of administrative and economic reforms aimed at streamlining the system of colonial robbery. At the end of the 18th century. and in the first half of the 19th century. The English rulers carried out several land reforms, the most important results of which were the zamindari land systems in the north and rayatwari in the south of India. According to the zamindari system, land was transferred to the landowners into private ownership. The landowners were obliged to pay* the East India Company the bulk (9/10) of the feudal rent. In order to increase their share of income, zamindars intensified the exploitation of peasants and deprived the top of the rural community of a number of privileges. Under the rayatwari system, almost all lands were declared the property of the East India Company, and the peasants were declared tenants. With the development of commodity-money relations and the strengthening of tax oppression by the East India Company in the north, the lands of the landowners gradually passed to the moneylenders, and in the south new landowners grew out of the moneylenders. Marx called these English systems of land administration and taxation in India shameful experiments. He characterized the zamindari system as an artificial expropriation of Bengali farmers and a caricature of English large-scale landownership, and the rayatwari system as a caricature of the French system of peasant property *.
The deterioration of the situation of the masses of the Indian peasantry, including the upper strata of the village, the ruin of artisans, the continuation of the East India Company's policy of annexation of Indian principalities caused discontent among wide sections of Indian society, including some feudal lords.
In India during the second half of the 18th century. - first half of the 19th century. The broad masses gradually rose up in armed struggle against the colonial power. Uprisings in Bengal at the end of the 18th century. (sanyasi movement, etc.), Wahhabi performances in Bengal and Bihar during the first half of the 19th century, uprising in Travancore in 1808-1809, uprising in the north of the Malabar coast in 1793-1812, peasant movement in Coimbatore in 1793 G.,. performances against the British in central and western India in the 30s and 40s of the 19th century. and other armed actions of the Indian people against colonial enslavement prepared the explosion of popular indignation that resulted in the uprising of 1857-1859. Particularly wide scope in the 20s of the XIX century. was adopted by the Wahabbit movement, who fought under the slogans of the revival of Islam and the sacred struggle against the infidels - the British. Wahhabi ideologists opposed the feudal lords for improving the lives of the working masses - artisans and peasants. The Wahabbi movement was especially strong among the Muslim peasants of eastern Bengal. The anti-British propaganda of the Wahhabis had a great influence on the Muslims who participated in the uprising of 1857-1859.
By the first half of the 19th century. Also include anti-British uprisings in the Anglo-Indian sepoy troops. These units, formed from the local Indian population, were used by the East India Company not only for military operations in India itself, but also abroad. Indian soldiers were subjected to all sorts of insults and humiliation from the British officers commanding them. Revolts in the sepoy troops especially intensified in the 40s and early 50s of the 19th century.
The transformation of India into a market for British goods and a source of raw materials for England had far-reaching social consequences. Exploiting India as a colony of English capital, England was forced to some extent to contribute to the development of capitalism here. The British began to create plantations of tea, coffee, indigo, and build jute factories. To export raw materials, they had to build railways and roads (since 1853), and to ensure their work - workshops, coal mines, etc. But, if the owners of these enterprises were British, then the workers were Indians.
In 1854, the first cotton mill was built in Bombay, owned by an Indian capitalist. Since then, the Bombay region has become a stronghold of national Indian capital. The main item of English export to India was cotton fabrics, so the British avoided building cotton factories in India; but Indian capitalists, taking advantage of the low cost of labor in India and the proximity to sources of raw materials, began to create precisely this branch of industry. Thus, against the will of the British, India began to develop its own Indian capitalism. New classes characteristic of capitalist society began to emerge, namely: the working class, the national bourgeoisie, as well as a layer of national intelligentsia.
In Bengal, the nascent bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia began to oppose the customs of Hinduism, which did not correspond to the new social conditions. Back in 1828, on the initiative of Ram Mohan Raya, a Bengali Brahman who was in the service of the East India Company, the religious and philosophical society “Brahmo Samaj” (Brahma Society) was created in Calcutta, which set as its task the fight against harmful customs Hinduism, against the caste system, etc. Ram Mohan Rai's ally was Debendranath Tagore (Thakur), the grandfather of the great Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore.
Ram Mohan Rai was an ardent admirer of the ideas of the French bourgeois revolution. He wrote the first Bengali grammar and published newspapers in Bengali and Farsi.
At the same time, the first national press appeared in Madras, Bombay and Benares, published by Indians in national languages and in English. These newspapers extremely timidly defended the interests of the emerging Indian bourgeoisie. They pointed out to the English authorities the need to listen to the needs of the local population, open schools for them, etc.
Thus, even before the uprising of 1857-1859. The cultural awakening of some peoples of India began - in those areas where capitalist relations developed faster.
The flood of India with cheap English goods and especially cotton fabrics dealt a heavy blow to Indian artisans and, above all, to their most numerous group - the weavers. Marx cites an excerpt from a report by one of the officials of the East India Company, who wrote that everywhere in India the bones of Indian weavers, ruined by English competition, are whitening in the fields.
English land reforms, as well as the increasing export of grain, changed social relations in the Indian village. Cruel tax policies led to the ruin of the peasants and the transfer of their lands into the hands of moneylenders and merchant intermediaries.
Conducted in the 30s of the XIX century. The reform of land ownership and taxation in the northern regions of India established the rates of taxation and increased the responsibility for paying taxes of the highest agricultural stratum of the village, the so-called pattidars (who in these regions consisted of representatives of the Rajput, Jats and partly Brahmin castes). In case of non-payment of taxes, the lands of the pattidars were subject to confiscation and sale. This caused their dissatisfaction.
From 1848 to 1856 The Governor General of India was Lord Dalhousie. He sought to strengthen the dominance of the East India Company and increase its income. He introduced a law to annex into the lands of the East India Company the lands of those princes who had no direct heirs, and abolished the law allowing Indian princes to transfer power in their principalities to adopted heirs. Thus, a number of principalities, including the Maratha principality of Jhansi, were declared territories of the East India Company. These measures displeased many Indian feudal lords.
The new laws also increased the dissatisfaction of the peasants* with the British authorities, which could not but affect the mood of the sepoys. When a rumor spread throughout the Sinai army that the new type of cartridges were lubricated with cow or lard, which was perceived as an insult to the religious feelings of Hindus and Muslims, a dull ferment began in the army. The British command tried to suppress it through repression, and this accelerated the explosion. On May 10, 1857, the Sinai regiments located in the city of Merat rebelled. The civilian population of Merat supported the rebels. And in May the Merat soldiers approached Delhi, where they were joined by the sepoys of the Delhi garrison. Bahadur Shah, whom the rebels proclaimed Emperor of India, did not dare to openly oppose the British, but the majority of the population of Delhi - artisans and traders - joined the rebels. From Delhi the uprising spread to Kanpur; here it was headed by the adopted son of the Maratha Peshwa Baji Pao II - Nana Sahib and his comrades Azimjazan and Tika Singh. The rebels were supported by the townspeople of Kanpur and the peasants of nearby villages. Then Oudh rose, where Moulevi Ahmed Shah played a particularly prominent role in leading the uprising. The sepoys were actively supported by townspeople and peasants everywhere. At first, some of the feudal princes also joined the uprising. Some of them fought decisively against the British, for example, the ruler (rani) of the princely state of Jhansi Lakshmi Bai, who led the rebels and died in battle.
The uprising spread throughout northwestern India (modern Uttar Pradesh), Bihar and the central provinces. The British managed with difficulty to prevent the Punjabi sepoy units from joining the uprising using various methods.
The uprising was directed against the British, peasants and artisans - Hindus and Muslims - took part in it, but the slogans of the uprising were still of a feudal nature.
Disagreements among the rebels, the inability of the leaders of the uprising to attract the broad masses of peasants, the insufficiently active struggle against the British units, and then the betrayal of the feudal lords and their defection to the side of the enemies made it possible for the British to gather their forces and defeat the uprising.
After the suppression of the uprising of 1857-1859. In India, terror on the part of the colonialists sharply intensified. Printing in Indian languages was subject to severe censorship. Indians whom the British suspected of lacking loyalty were arrested and persecuted.
Capitalism was already developing in all provinces of India. An Indian village began to produce food for the market. The cultivation of cotton, jute and oilseeds expanded, some of which was consumed by Indian industry, and some of which was exported to England. In Bengal and Bihar, indigo began to be cultivated on a large scale, for which “demand from the textile industry of England grew. The English capitalists, through semi-compulsory contracting, forced peasants to sow indigo and then bought it.
In connection with the growth of commercial agriculture, the process of class stratification of the peasantry and the transfer of peasant lands into the hands of traders and moneylenders intensified.
Peasant unrest intensified. In the 60s of the XIX century. in Bengal and Bihar there were protests by peasants cultivating indigo; in the 70s - serious peasant unrest in the northern part of the Madras province (in the area settled by the Telugu people); in 1879, Maratha peasants rebelled against the British colonialists under the slogan of reviving an independent Maratha state.
In 1896-1897 An unprecedented famine broke out in India, accompanied by a plague epidemic. 68 million people were starving. In this regard, riots of hungry peasants and workers' strikes occurred in a number of provinces. In Punjab at the end of the 19th century. the unrest took the form of uprisings by the Namdhari sect of Sikhs, colloquially called the Kupi.
The British authorities, after the suppression of the uprising of 1857-1859, strengthened the strategic and economic purposes construction of railways in India. English capitalists built factories, expanded plantations, and developed coal mining.
In connection with the growth of railways, the railway proletariat grew significantly. Large railway workshops appeared where locomotives and carriages were repaired.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the British colonial authorities, in need of low-paid officials, decided to train and attract Indian officials to the colonial apparatus. For these purposes, Indian children, mainly from the “higher” castes, began to be attracted to government secondary schools, where teaching in the senior classes was conducted in English. The first colleges were founded to educate Indians. Back in the first half of the 19th century. Universities were established in Calcutta, Madras, and later in Bombay. The British colonialists sought to tear the intelligentsia away from the people and bring them closer to themselves culturally and ideologically.
The development of capitalism was accompanied by the formation of local markets covering areas of India inhabited by individual peoples, the beginning of the process of the formation of the peoples of India into nations.
Among the Bengalis, Gujaratis, Marathas and Tamils, the National process of awakening the national consciousness of the movement and reviving the national culture began even before the uprising of 1857-1859, but in the second half of the 19th century. it especially intensified. By this time, it had covered almost all the peoples of India - from Assam in the northeast of the country to the Malabar coast in the south.
During these same years, the political activity of the Indian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia increased. In Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, societies emerged consisting of representatives of the Indian bourgeoisie, landowners and intelligentsia, which promoted the development of education among the lower classes of the population and even put forward, albeit very modest, political demands, such as consultation with representatives of local "influential people" "(landowners, capitalists) when the authorities carried out various reforms, involving Indians in various committees and commissions created by the colonial authorities. In 1885, these societies, with the assistance of the liberal Viceroy Lord Dufferin, created an all-Indian political organization, which was called the Indian National Congress.
The British colonial authorities assumed that they would direct the political activity of the national bourgeoisie and intelligentsia in the direction of a constitutional opposition loyal to England and contrast it with a spontaneous mass movement. At first, the Congress to some extent justified these hopes of the British rulers of India. The Congress recognized the merits of the British in establishing “law and order” in India and only sought wider involvement of representatives of the propertied classes of India in various government bodies. But already at the end of the 19th century. In India, the intelligentsia associated with the petty bourgeoisie began to grow. These representatives of the democratic intelligentsia demanded a more active struggle against British rule. These included such figures as Tilak in Maharashtra, Aurobindo Ghose and Bepin Chandra Pal in Bengal, Chadambar Pillai in the Tamil country, Lal Lajpat Rai in Punjab. Under the leadership of these figures, a left wing in Congress, the so-called extremists (extreme); their antagonists were called moderates (moderate). The extremists believed that only complete independence of India would create conditions for its rapid development, that Indians could win independence only if the broad masses participated in the movement. The moderates believed that the Indian bourgeoisie should seek its rights by appealing to the “enlightened society” of England and the English government.
During these same years, the slogans “swadeshi” and “swaraj” were put forward. The demand for "swadeshi" meant the struggle for the development of national industry; the slogan “Swaraj” was interpreted either as self-government within the British Empire (moderates) or as complete independence (extremists).
The development of the national liberation struggle against British rule united the entire Indian people into a single anti-imperialist camp. Therefore, the British failed to use linguistic and, in our understanding, national contradictions to weaken and split the national liberation movement. But they incited religious hatred for these purposes, and from the 70s of the 19th century. began to systematically pursue a policy of pitting Muslims against Hindus.
In 1899, a conservative and ideologist of imperialism, Lord Curzon, was appointed Governor-General and Viceroy of India. Curzon oppressed the Indians in every possible way and carried out measures beneficial to English capital. Since 1903, Curzon, in order to weaken the anti-British movement in such an important and advanced province as Bengal, began preparing to divide it into two: West Bengal, along with Bihar and Orissa, where Hindus predominated, and East, where more Muslims lived. The preparation of this section caused alarm among the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia of Bengal.
In 1905, the partition of Bengal was carried out. This act served as an impetus for the rise of the national liberation movement. In Bengal, the day of publication of the partition act was declared a day of national mourning. With the slogans “swadeshi” and “swaraj”, Bengali students and workers staged demonstrations and organized boycotts of shops selling British goods.
By this time, India had already made significant progress along the path of capitalist development: the railway network had grown to 43 thousand km; the number of cotton factories increased to 197 (in 1886 there were only 95), and the number of workers in these factories increased to 195 thousand people.
Thus, the working class and intelligentsia of India were formed, and the Indian national bourgeoisie became stronger.
The movement for the development of national industry embraced all layers of the national bourgeoisie and intelligentsia of India. The Indian working class had already participated in the struggle against British rule.
Unrest in Bengal continued throughout 1905 and especially intensified in 1906 under the influence of the 1905 revolution in Russia.
Since 1907, they began in Punjab and southern India - in Tuticorin and Tinneveli (Tirunelveli), and then in Trivandrum. At the National Congress meeting in Surat (December 1907-January 1908), a split occurred between extremists and moderates. The extremists led by Tilak were forced to quit the Congress. They created their own special party, which they called Nationalist.
In July 1908, Tilak was arrested and sentenced to hard labor for “incitement to rebellion.” Tilak's conviction was met with indignation by the Indian public. As soon as Tilak was put on trial, a strike movement began in Bombay in protest, and on July 23 it grew into a general political strike, in which over 100 thousand workers participated. The significance of this strike was emphasized by V.I. Lenin in the article “Combustible Material in World Politics”, pointing out that “the proletariat in India has already grown to a conscious political mass struggle. ..."On the movement in India in 1905-1908. Such an event as the 1905 revolution in Russia had a direct impact.
In 1905-1908 In India, the movement for the creation of so-called linguistic provinces intensified.
At that time, India was divided into provinces and princely states; most of its administrative units were ethnically heterogeneous. Thus, for example, the Madras province was inhabited by Telugus, Tamils, Kannars and Malayalis; Bombay-Marathas, Gujaratis and Sindhis; Bihar-Biharis and Oriyas, etc. The movement for the unification of territories whose population speaks the same language into administrative regions - linguistic provinces - was of a national character.
Speaking about the national movement, which developed especially rapidly among the peoples of Russia after the revolution of 1905-1907, Lenin wrote: “This is not the first time that national movements have arisen in Russia and are not unique to it. All over the world, the era of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism was associated with national movements. The economic basis of these movements is that for the complete victory of commodity production, it is necessary to conquer the domestic market by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary to unite territories with a population speaking the same language by the state, while eliminating any obstacles to the development of this language and its consolidation in literature.”
This is the type of movement that took place in India. They were directed against imperialism and feudalism, and therefore did not oppose the all-Indian struggle against British rule. On the contrary, these movements strengthened it, involving large sections of the population in different parts of India.
In order to split and weaken the national liberation movement, the British ruling circles incited religious strife in India. In 1906, with the direct assistance of Viceroy Minto, an organization of Muslim nobility - the Muslim League - was created. In the same year, a Hindu party was formed - the Hindu Mahasabha, which reflected the interests of large landowners and the reactionary part of the national bourgeoisie.
In 1909, a reform of the governance of India was carried out, the so-called Morley-Minto reform: legislative councils were created in India and some of their members were elected by a narrow elite of Indians from their midst. Elections were held for religious curiae, and Muslims; some benefits were provided. This reform was also welcomed by some sections of the Hindu national bourgeoisie.
In 1914, India automatically entered the First World War on the side of the Entente countries.
The Indian bourgeoisie and the National Congress supported England in the war. They hoped, relying on the assurances of government officials in England, that after the war India would gain self-government. During the war, Congress assisted England in recruiting soldiers and placing war loans.
In 1917-1918 In India there was a crop failure and in a number of areas there was famine. The forced recruitment of recruits and the distribution of war loans in the villages caused discontent among the peasantry. Discontent also grew among the soldiers, and riots broke out in some military units. The Punjabi revolutionary party Ghadar tried to raise an uprising in the Punjabi units.
In 1916, the next meeting of the National Congress was held in Lucknow. At the same time, the Muslim League also met there. There was a rapprochement between both parties. It was based on changes in the leadership of the League, which included bourgeois elements. Both parties decided to fight for self-government.
During the war years, Indian industry developed somewhat. Back in 1911, an iron foundry and steel smelting plant of the Indian company Tata was built in Jamshedpur.
England demanded cast iron and steel from Tata factories for the army, edged weapons from Indian artisans, cotton and jute fabrics, etc. Import duties into India were increased, and this favored the development of Indian industry.
During the First World War, the number of cotton looms and factories increased noticeably. The production of fabrics also increased; In the domestic Indian market, local factory fabrics have already begun to prevail over imported ones. Other industries also grew. The national Indian bourgeoisie had greatly strengthened, and it did not want to put up with its powerless situation.
Taking advantage of the favorable political situation at the beginning of the First World War, the British government obtained a decision from the Indian Legislative Assembly that India would refuse to pay Britain money for the goods it had taken during the war and to reimburse war loans.
At this time, one of the leaders of the liberation movement was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), who for many subsequent years was the largest political figure in India and the ideologist of the National Congress.
Gandhi received his law degree in London and then joined a large Gujarati firm that traded in South Africa. At that time there were many Indians living in South Africa, especially Natal, and they were subject to racial discrimination. Gandhi organized the Natal Indians into the South African National Congress and led the fight against racial discrimination. In this struggle, "non-violent" methods were used: peaceful demonstrations, closing of shops and refusal of all activities helping the government, petitions, etc. Some relief was achieved in the situation of Indians in South Africa. It was during this period that Gandhi’s views on the issue of “non-violent” methods of struggle for national independence were finally formed. But unlike the moderate leaders of the National Congress, Gandhi understood that India could not achieve independence without the support of the masses.
Being a representative of the Indian bourgeoisie, which, on the one hand, was interested in supporting broad sections of the working people in the struggle against British power, and on the other hand, was itself afraid of the labor movement, Gandhi developed tactics of attracting the masses to the struggle in non-violent forms. This tactic was called satyagraha, i.e. persistence in truth. Gandhi opposed any decisive revolutionary methods and in this respect differed from Tilak and his associates.
Arriving in India, Gandhi began to implement his tactics there. He made his first experience in the province of Bihar, where peasants who were contracted to sow indigo entered the struggle against the English planters. He managed to rally significant sections of the peasantry around himself and gain the support of the Indian bourgeoisie. Gaidi's views, which were to some extent a synthesis of the ideas of moderate and extreme, had a huge influence on the Indian national liberation movement. Gandhi's call for the involvement of the masses in the anti-imperialist struggle contributed to the awakening of their national consciousness. Gandhi greatly influenced his followers through his personal behavior. He abandoned all luxury and dressed in national clothes made of homespun cloth (khadi), led an ascetic lifestyle. He ignored caste restrictions and communicated with representatives of all castes, including the “untouchables.” Subsequently, he led a decisive struggle for the elimination of severe caste restrictions. However, Gandhi's nonviolent tactics fettered the revolutionary activity of the people. The working people of India rallied around one demand, namely the demand for independence, and the leadership of the movement remained with the Indian national bourgeoisie.
The hardships that workers had to endure: the decline of agriculture, recruitment into the army, war loans, famine that began during the war, a severe influenza epidemic that killed about 12 million people - all this further strengthened the dissatisfaction of the broad masses with British rule. The Muslim intelligentsia of India opposed the Peace of Sèvres imposed on Turkey, which made it dependent on the Entente countries and, in particular, on England. This movement in defense of the Turkish Sultan, who was considered the head (caliph) of all Sunni Muslims, was called caliphate.
Indian peasants and artisans, Muslims by religion, had little interest in the Treaty of Sèvres and the position of the Turkish Sultan. They supported this movement mainly because it was directed against the British. The very slogan “khilafat” was perceived by them as a call for resistance, because in the Urdu language the word “khilafat” has two meanings - “resistance” and “caliphate”.
This contributed to the unity of the Hindu and Muslim masses in the anti-British struggle and made it difficult for the colonial authorities to implement their traditional policy of pitting Muslims against Hindus. In this situation, news of the October Revolution in Russia, and even earlier of the collapse of the autocracy, could not but have an impact on India, where a new upsurge of the national liberation movement began. Its slogans have changed, the number of participants has increased. This had a particularly strong impact in Punjab, from where it was recruited most of Indian soldiers. These soldiers visited the fronts in Europe, knew about the events in Europe and understood that the people could destroy even such a strong and cruel power as the power of the Russian Tsar. Under the influence of the October Revolution, the struggle for the liberation of Afghanistan began. Indians sympathized with this struggle. Conditions were created for the unification of Muslims and Hindus in the struggle against British rule.
Since 1918, the labor movement in India has strengthened. In connection with the attempt of the capitalists to abolish military wage increases as a result of the curtailment of military production, strikes began in many industries. During these strikes, permanent trade unions began to form. In 1919, a draft of a new reform of Indian governance, the so-called Montagu-Chelmsford reform, or Montford for short, was published. The British authorities tried to pass off this reform as the implementation of promises made during the war to grant India self-government. Montford's reform, which did not make serious concessions to the Indian bourgeoisie, was met with hostility by its majority; The National Congress also opposed Montford's reform. In the same year, frightened by the growth of the national liberation movement, the British authorities passed through the legislative assembly the so-called Rowlett Law, which gave the police and military authorities the right to arrest and try, without complying with judicial norms, all persons who seemed suspicious to the English authorities. The entire Indian public opposed this law. At the end of March, the National Congress planned to hold a peaceful protest demonstration (hartzl) throughout India. However, in a number of Indian cities, including Delhi, clashes with the police occurred during the hartal.
In the first ten days of April 1919, the British authorities expelled prominent political figures from Amritsar: Satyapal and Kitchla. This caused outrage among the population; a number of English institutions were destroyed, several Englishmen were killed, and an English missionary was beaten on one of the streets. On April 13, troops under the command of General Dyer were brought into the city of Amritsar. On the same day, a peaceful protest against the Rowlett Act was organized at Jalyanwala Bagh Square. General Dyer led troops through the only entrance into the square and, without warning, ordered the troops to fire. Over a thousand people were shot almost point-blank, many were crushed during the panic. General Dyer issued orders prohibiting residents from picking up the wounded, and after eight o'clock in the evening a curfew was declared and residents were prohibited from leaving their homes.
The next day, Dyer set up a number of posts at street corners to flog civilians captured by the soldiers and ordered the Indians to crawl on their bellies along the street where the missionary was beaten. For failure to comply with this order, people were immediately shot.
The atrocities of the troops and government terror in Amritsar caused outrage throughout India, especially in the Punjab province. In the Wall row in Jalianwala Bagh (Amritsar), with traces of British bullets, after the shooting of a demonstration in 1919, anti-British protests took place in cities. In Punjab, so-called stick detachments spontaneously arose from demobilized soldiers, which demanded the expulsion of the British from India. In Gujranwala (Punjab), the movement took on such proportions that the British sent military aircraft against this city. The protest movement intensified in Delhi, Kolkata; it took especially acute forms in Ahmedbad and other cities of Gujarat. In Gujarat, workers derailed trains from military units. The National Congress soon declared a 'campaign of non-cooperation and civil disobedience.
In 1920 and 1921 The labor movement strengthened again, and India's first trade union association, the All-Indian Trade Union Congress, emerged. In 1920, at the National Congress Party convention in Nagpur, a plan for a civil disobedience campaign was drawn up. The party was reorganized and became modern in its form, with grassroots cells in cities and villages.
By the beginning of the rise of the national liberation movement in 1918-1923. demands intensified for the reorganization of provinces so that one language predominated in the province. To ensure the success of the agitation, the Nagpur session of the Congress decided to conditionally divide the country into “Congressist” linguistic provinces, that is, regions with a single language in each.
In accordance with this, all local organizations of the National Congress were restructured. Since 1920, most Indian political parties have also organized their local organizations according to linguistic provinces.
In 1921 there were major peasant unrest. Sikhs belonging to the Akali sect performed in Punjab; they demanded that the temple lands and the income from them belong to the entire Sikh religious community, and not to the mahants (temple abbots) who seized these lands and appropriated the income from them. The movement took the form of nonviolent resistance. The English authorities took the side of the Mahants and brutally dealt with the participants in the movement.
In the south of India, in the Malabar district of the Madras province, a rebellion of Muslim farm laborers - Moplah, associated with the caliphate movement - broke out. The Mopla tried to create a caliphate republic in their district. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the British, and the era's leaders were executed. The peasant movement was especially strong in Oudha (United Provinces), where they advocated easier rental conditions. Peasants attacked landowners' estates and destroyed some of them. At the head of this movement was a spontaneously emerging peasant organization called “Eka” (Unity) and led by peasants from the “lower” castes. The movement was suppressed by the British.
In 1922, a demonstration took place in the town of Chauri Chaura (United Provinces); it was attacked by the police, the participants actively resisted and killed several policemen. An urgent meeting of the National Congress Working Committee was convened in Bardoli and, at Gandhi's suggestion, a resolution was passed to end the campaign of civil disobedience in protest against the use of violence by the masses. All congressmen were asked to follow the orders of the authorities, pay taxes to the government and rent to the landowners. The still ongoing mass workers' and peasants' movement, having lost its leadership, was suppressed by the British.
The first communist groups emerged in 1921 under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia. They arose in the large industrial centers of India: Calcutta and Bombay and, somewhat later, in Lahore. Communist groups also emerged among Indians studying in London. In 1922, the first communist weekly “Socialist” began to be published, the editor of which was S. A. Dange.
The first communist groups were very small in number and consisted mainly of representatives of the democratic intelligentsia. Soon they began working in trade unions and tried to create peasant organizations under their leadership.
After the suppression of the movement 1918-1923. In India, repression by the colonial authorities intensified. Within the National Congress party, a struggle developed over the issue of recognition or boycott of the legislative assemblies created on the basis of the 1919 Act on the Government of India. Supporters of participation in elections and the work of legislative assemblies formed a separate party, which was called the “Sv Ar Ajists” party.
In 1924, a number of communists working in trade unions were arrested. They were accused of organizing an anti-government conspiracy. The trial against them was held in Kanpur. All defendants were sentenced to prison terms.
At the beginning of 1926, a communist party was created in Bombay, uniting all communist groups in India. She tried to work openly, but was soon crushed by the police.
But already in 1927 there were signs of a new revival of the movement.
In Bengal, Bombay, and Punjab, workers' and peasants' parties began to be created, which contributed to the development of the trade union movement and the organization of peasant unions. Indian communists took an active part in these parties. The most powerful of them was the Bombay Workers' and Peasants' Party. She published a Marathi weekly, Kranti (Revolution). The Bengal Workers' and Peasants' Party also published publications in Bengali. The Punjab Workers' and Peasants' Party worked primarily among peasants. She enjoyed the greatest influence among the Sikh peasantry.
In 1929, India, like all capitalist countries, was gripped by an economic crisis. During this crisis, the situation of workers and primarily peasants deteriorated sharply. During the years of crisis, in order to keep India as its market, England increased duties on foreign goods imported into India, in particular sugar. This played a progressive role to a certain extent, as it contributed to the development of the sugar industry in India. At the same time, the cement industry developed significantly. In these industries, as in the cotton industry, Indian capital predominated.
Dispersal of anti-British demonstration
In 1927, England appointed a special commission to develop a new reform of the administration of India. The commission was headed by Liberal Simon; not a single Indian entered it. The commission's activities caused outrage among the Indian public. The National Congress decided to boycott her work. In 1927, at the Madras session, a resolution was adopted that stated that the goal of the National Congress was to achieve complete independence of India. In 1928, a conference of all bourgeois and landowner parties was convened in Delhi. The conference tried to develop a blueprint for reforms that would satisfy the Indian bourgeoisie. The goal it sought to achieve was to grant India dominion rights. The development of this project was entrusted to Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal Nehru).
During these years, the influence of younger and left-wing nationalists increased in the leadership of the National Congress. Their most prominent leaders were Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, a young Bengali lawyer. Under their leadership, the Independence League was created from young congressists. During these same years, the young nationalist party Naujavan Bharat Sabha (Indian Youth League) emerged, which took a much more consistent anti-imperialist position than the leadership circles of the National Congress. Under their influence, at the next session of the National Congress in Madras in 1927, it was decided that the goal of the Congress was to achieve complete independence. But at the emergency session in Calcutta it was actually canceled. The National Congress adopted the so-called Nehru Constitution (meaning Motilal Nehru), demanding a dominion statute for India.
In 1929, at a session in Lahore, a resolution was again approved, demanding that India be granted complete independence.
During the crisis, trade union organizations became significantly stronger. The total number of their members by 1928 was over 200 thousand people. Concerned about the growth of trade unions, the British colonialists in March 1929 arrested the most prominent figures in the trade union movement, among whom were many communists. The trial took place in the city of Merat and was called Merat. The accused in their speeches refuted the accusations of conspiratorial activities and proved that they are consistent fighters for the interests of the working masses of India. A protest movement against the illegal Merat trial unfolded not only in India, but also in many other countries of the world.
In protest against British rule, a new campaign of civil disobedience was launched in 1930. Gandhi led this campaign. It was supposed to take place under the slogan of protest against the British salt monopoly that existed in India. A hike was started to the seashore, where the hikers intended to evaporate the salt. Only Gandhi's close associates were supposed to participate in the march, but on the way a lot of people joined the procession. This campaign of civil disobedience evoked the greatest response among the Indian population. Anti-government protests took place in cities, and in some places it even reached barricade battles. Everyone demanded that the Simon Commission be expelled from India. The British authorities intensified repression against participants in the civil disobedience campaign. Thousands of people were thrown into prison, including the most prominent figures of the National Congress.
In the early 1930s, important events took place in some parts of India. An uprising broke out in Chittagong. It was organized by the Chittagong Republican Army, a petty-bourgeois terrorist group, and ended with the seizure of the arsenal for some time. In May 1930, major events took place in the city of Sholapur, which was in the hands of demonstrators for several days. The movement was suppressed only after regular troops were sent to the city. Even more serious events occurred in Peshawar (North-West Frontier Province), where it came to barricade battles. For ten days the city was in the hands of the rebels. The soldiers sent to suppress the uprising refused to fire, and the uprising was only put down when British troops were called in. But the movement from the city spread to the surrounding villages. The peasants attacked English posts and landowners. The border Pathan tribes joined the movement, against whom it was used military aviation. After this, Viceroy Irwin met with Gandhi in Delhi. They concluded a pact (known as the Delhi Pact) under which the arrested Congressmen were to be released from prison, and the Congress, for its part, pledged to end the campaign of civil disobedience.
In 1931, a session of the National Congress was held in Karachi, the resolution of which was, in general, a detailed program of democratic reforms. It was based on the demand for complete independence of India, the provision of basic civil liberties to the people; changes in outdated land relations; facilitating the situation of the working class; reorganization of the administrative and political division of India and the creation of linguistic provinces. But at the same time, the session in Karachi approved the Delhi Pact, which caused discontent among the left wing of the Congress.
In 1931, the Round Table Conference was held in London, in which Gandhi took part. It was convened ostensibly in order to attract Indians to participate in the development of an act on the governance of India, but in reality - in order to deepen differences between the leaders of religious communities. The Round Table Conference, as a result of the measures taken by the British, did not lead to the development of any agreed decisions, and the British government after it, in 1931, published a law on the curial election system (Communities Law).
The law on the curial system of elections divided the entire population of India into several religious curiae and was designed to pit Hindus and Muslims against each other with each new election. Returning from England, Gandhi saw that the British government did not comply with the terms of the Delhi Pact and continued to persecute members of the National Congress. Then, in January 1932, he announced the start of a second campaign of civil disobedience, but it was not as successful as the first, since the masses already knew the indecisiveness of their leaders and did not show such enthusiasm as in the 1931 campaign.
In the 1930s, spontaneous uprisings took place against the feudal order in the principalities of Kashmir and Alwar. The uprising in Kashmir reached the masses. The organization that led the democratic movement was first called the Muslim Conference and later became known as the Kashmir National Conference. In Alvar the movement was more spontaneous. Muslim peasants took part in the uprising. Both protests were suppressed by British troops.
In 1933, Merat prisoners were released from prison. In the same year, a conference of communists was held and a temporary Central Committee of the Communist Party of India was elected. But soon after its formation, in 1934, the Communist Party of India was again outlawed. From the left elements of the National Congress, the Socialist Party of India was formed, the bulk of whose members sympathized with the communists, despite the anti-communist sentiments of the leadership.
In 1935, a new Administration of India Act was promulgated. This act envisaged the transformation of India into a federation of provinces and principalities, and feudal princes were given a lot of seats in the all-Indian legislative bodies. In the provinces of India, the new act created governments responsible to local legislative bodies. However, the power of the governor-general and provincial governors was not limited; they retained the right to cancel any resolution of the legislative bodies.
The new Indian Governance Act was met with great indignation by large sections of the Indian population; The National Congress also opposed it. The part relating to the administration of the provinces was nevertheless put into effect; the central authorities - the Legislative Assembly and the State Council - were not created, since even the feudal princes opposed their inclusion in the Indian federation. In 1937, elections for provincial legislatures were called on the basis of a new law. This act expanded the number of voters in provincial legislatures from 2%, as it was under the 1919 act, to 14% of the total population of British India. The National Congress decided to participate in the elections to the legislative assembly. At this time, the Communist Party of India pursued united front tactics and sought to strengthen its influence within the National Congress as the most influential party among the masses. The growing aggravation of the international situation and the impending World War II worried the Indian public. All Indian anti-imperialist parties, including the Indian National Congress, spoke out against India's participation in the war unless Britain treated her as an equal party. It was assumed that even if England opposed fascist Germany, India would not support it, since England would wage the war to preserve the old order and perpetuate the enslavement of India. Only the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League supported England.
Jawaharlal Nehru, who had been released from prison, was elected Chairman of the Congress in 1935, and Subhas Chandra Bose in 1937. In the 1937 elections, the National Congress won eight out of 11 provinces. Disagreements arose between the right and left elements of the Congress on the issue of forming Congress governments. The Left opposed the participation of the Congress in governments. The right-wing line won, and Congressist governments were established in eight provinces of India. During this period, the strength and popularity of the National Congress increased significantly; the number of its members on the eve of the Second World War was about 6 million people.
In 1938, the workers' and peasants' movement in India strengthened. The most important trade union centers are being united, peasant unions - Kisan Sabhas - are being created, and the All-Indian Peasant Committee is being organized. Both trade unions and peasant unions fought for an increased role for workers and peasants in the national liberation movement and supported the left in the National Congress. Communists were active among workers and peasants, and their influence increased noticeably at this time.
In the pre-war years in India, a democratic movement developed in the feudal principalities. This movement, which began in Mysore, spread to almost all the 600 princely states. It was headed by organizations called Praja Mandal or Praja Parishad (Unions of Subjects), in which the local bourgeoisie played a leading role, close in their goals and objectives to the National Congress. They did not seek to destroy principalities or overthrow princes; their intentions were only to limit princely power, to create legislative bodies in the principalities and governments responsible to these bodies. They also put forward a demand for the destruction of the most difficult existing feudal customs (forced labor, feudal taxes, etc.). The movement in the principalities was suppressed with the help of English troops.
In August 1939, the British authorities in India began to prepare for war. Some Indian troops were sent to the Middle East, and others to Singapore. This act provoked protest from the National Congress. After the outbreak of war in Europe, India was declared a belligerent by the British authorities. This caused outrage among the Indian public. Not only the Indian communists, but also the National Congress opposed India's involvement in the war without its consent. An anti-war movement began in India.
The Indian bourgeoisie again managed to take advantage of the military situation and profited from military supplies. But she refused to actively support England in the war, because the contradictions between her and British imperialism had worsened. India's economic situation became extremely difficult during the war. India needed food imports; After Japan entered the war and occupied Indochina, Indonesia and Burma, India found itself cut off from the countries that mainly supplied it with food. Landowners and moneylenders took food from peasants for rent and interest. In addition, the British authorities siphoned food from India to supply their troops in the Middle East and Africa. The condition of Indian agriculture has deteriorated sharply. As a result, famine began in India in 1943, especially severe in Bengal. Over 3 million people died here. The roads were littered with corpses; masses of starving people concentrated in cities, but the cities could not provide them with food and there was also a huge mortality rate here.
Indian industry developed relatively poorly during the war years. It was only until 1943 that there was a certain increase in production; then the production of some industries began to fall sharply. Even during the war years, the British authorities refused to give Indian capitalists licenses to build locomotive and automobile factories. The situation of workers and employees worsened due to the rapid increase in prices, and dissatisfaction with British rule in India intensified.
In 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union; Japan soon entered the war. Japan occupied countries east of India and was preparing to invade India. However, Japanese troops only managed to enter the small Indian border principality of Manipur, where they were stopped. In July 1942, the National Congress passed a resolution demanding the immediate end of British rule, since only a free India could actively influence the outcome of the war.
At the beginning of 1942, England tried to come to an agreement with the main bourgeois parties of India and especially with the National Congress. For this purpose, a mission of the War Cabinet headed by Cripps was sent to India. The mission promised to grant India a statute of dominion after the war, but during the war the government of India was to remain in the hands of the British authorities. The British government refused to create a national government during the war, which was the main demand of the National Congress. The National Congress then declared that it would fight for its demands through civil disobedience.
In early August 1942, the leaders of the National Congress were arrested and thrown into prison. This caused a violent protest movement in India. The English government brutally dealt with the participants in this movement, thousands of people were imprisoned, entire villages were subject to collective fines and starved to death. Anti-British sentiments were growing in the country. The number of trade unions grew, the role of peasant unions strengthened, and progressive organizations of the intelligentsia (writers, artists, etc.) were created. The Communist Party of India grew from 2 thousand to 16 thousand members, and its influence among workers, peasants and intellectuals increased. In 1942 the ban was lifted.
In the spring of 1943, the First Congress of the Communist Party of India took place. He called on the masses to fight for independence and to mobilize all the forces of the country to resist the bloc of fascist aggressors.
After the defeat of fascist troops in 1942 on the Volga, which caused a rapid increase in sympathy for the Soviet Union in India, the Indian bourgeoisie, who led the national liberation movement, grew stronger in their hopes that the collapse of the fascist regime in Germany and its allies would entail and concessions from England. Indian parties fought to achieve independence. This movement intensified after the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945.
National movements
During the Second World War, England's position in India weakened. English capitalists, considering the situation here unsustainable, began to sell their shares to Indian companies, and the relative share of local capital in the country's industry increased. In addition, England, purchasing goods from India at this time, could not pay for them.
But the political situation no longer made it possible to force the Indian bourgeoisie to give these goods to England free of charge, as a gift to the English government, as was done after the First World War. By the end of the war, England's debt to India had already exceeded 1 billion pounds sterling.
In addition, during the war, England could not supply India with many goods and was even forced to borrow goods from the United States. American military supplies to India at this time led to the fact that America's share of that country's foreign trade exceeded that of England, which meant an undermining of the monopoly.
In 1945, elections to the Legislative Assembly were called in India. At the same time, anti-British protests among the urban masses began. Their immediate cause was the use of Indian troops to suppress the national liberation movement in Indonesia and the trial of the so-called Indian National Army. This army was created in Burma by S. C. Bose, a former Congress leader, during the Japanese occupation of Burma. S. Ch. Bose believed that every enemy of England could be an ally of India. The army was recruited from Indian prisoners of war and from Indians living in Malaya and Burma, with the goal of expelling the British from India. The British authorities hoped that the Indians would not support this army, but in India it was not considered treasonous. By organizing a trial of the Indian National Army, the British hoped to strengthen their authority. The trial caused particular outrage in Calcutta. Calcutta students and workers organized demonstrations demanding the release of the convicted officers. Unrest in Calcutta escalated into barricade battles. The British authorities sent troops against the residents of Calcutta. In February 1946, another Indian National Army officer was convicted. This time the protest movement became even more widespread and covered more cities. Some military units, airfield personnel, pilots, etc. began to join the protest movement. In February 1946, an anti-British uprising of Indian Navy sailors began. It was only thanks to the persuasion of the leaders of the National Congress and the Muslim League that the sailors surrendered to the British authorities.
However, the sailors' revolt showed the British government that the struggle for independence was of an all-Indian nature, and that if it did not want to completely lose its economic positions in India, it would have to make concessions. For this purpose, a mission of the British cabinet was sent to India to develop a new constitution together with the Indians.
During the war, the British authorities used the same tactics of inciting discord between Muslims and Hindus. Articles began to appear in the Indian press demanding the division of India into two states - Hindu and Muslim. The future Muslim state began to be called Pakistan, which means “land of the pure.”
The British Cabinet Mission in May 1946 put forward a draft of a new constitution for India. According to this project, it was to become a dominion, the central government of which would receive limited rights. Three zones were to be created within the dominion; one with a predominance of Hindus (in the center of the country) and two with a predominance of Muslims among the population (in the northwest and northeast). However, neither the National Congress nor the Muslim League agreed to accept the mission's proposal unconditionally.
In the summer of 1946, the Viceroy of India proposed to Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru to create a government, with Nehru taking the post of Deputy Prime Minister, and the Viceroy, Wavell, becoming Prime Minister. Congress agreed and a provisional government was established in August 1946. It tried to carry out independent external and domestic policy. In his declaration, Nehru stated that India would establish good neighborly relations with all states, including the Soviet Union, that it would fight against colonialism in all its manifestations and would strengthen its independence. However, there were still British troops in the country, so the capabilities of the provisional government were very limited.
After the end of the Second World War, the labor movement in India intensified. Not only workers went on strike, but also bank employees, teachers and even police officers. The anti-feudal and anti-imperialist peasant movement was particularly vigorous in Bengal and Telengana (the eastern part of the princely state of Hyderabad). Individual peoples (Telugu, Marathi, Malayali) began to demand the creation of autonomous provinces.
The growth of the national liberation movement, the rise of the anti-colonial movement in the neighboring countries of Southeast Asia, the successes of the national liberation struggle in China, the general weakening of England among the imperialist powers - all this forced England to give up power in India. At the beginning of February 1947, a statement was published that the British administration, by June 1948, undertakes to transfer power to the Indians - the central government or such regional governments that will exist by that time. The British government saw that it was no longer able to keep India in the position of a colony and was forced to grant it self-government. However, with its statement that power could be transferred not only to the central government, but also to the regional ones, the British government encouraged separatist aspirations and created conditions for inciting Hindu-Muslim hatred. The results were not slow to follow.
In March 1947, major clashes took place in Punjab between Muslims on the one hand and Hindus on the other. The colonial authorities were involved in provoking these clashes.
On June 2, 1947, the British government passed a law granting India independence. According to this law, the country was divided along religious lines into two states - Hindustan and Pakistan. Both states received dominion rights, and each of them created its own government. Before these states were created, their delimitation was made. India included the following regions: United Provinces, Bihar, western districts of Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Central Provinces, Rajputana, princely states of Eastern Punjab, eastern districts Punjab, Bombay and all of southern India. Pakistan was created from two parts - West Pakistan consisting of the western districts of Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Balochistan and East Pakistan consisting of the eastern districts of Bengal and Sylhet district of Assam. The distance between these two parts of Pakistan reached one and a half thousand kilometers. The princes were offered to join one of the newly formed dominions or maintain their previous relations with England.
V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 20, p. 368.
The riches of India haunted the Europeans. The Portuguese began systematic exploration of the Atlantic coast of Africa in 1418 under the patronage of Prince Henry, eventually circumnavigating Africa and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition led by Vasco da Gama was able to reach India, circumnavigating Africa and opening a direct trade route to Asia. In 1495, the French and English and, a little later, the Dutch entered the race to discover new lands, challenging the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade routes and exploring new routes.
Vasco de Gama's voyage.
In July 1497, a small exploring fleet of four ships and about 170 crew under the command of Vasco da Gama left Lisbon. In December, the fleet reached the Great Fish River (the place where Dias turned back) and headed into uncharted waters. On May 20, 1498, the expedition arrived in Calicut, in southern India. Vasco da Gama's attempts to obtain the best trading conditions failed due to the low value of the goods they brought in comparison with the expensive goods that were traded there. Two years after their arrival, Gama and the remaining crew of 55 people on two ships returned in glory to Portugal and became the first Europeans to reach India by sea.
At this time, on the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, there was a huge empire of the “Great Mughals”. The state existed from 1526 to 1858 (in fact, until the middle of the 19th century). The name “Great Mughals” appeared under the British colonialists. The term "Mughal" was used in India to refer to Muslims in Northern India and Central Asia.
The empire was founded by Babur, who was forced, together with his comrades, to migrate from Central Asia to the territory of Hindustan. Babur's army included representatives of different peoples and tribes that were part of the Timurid state of that time, such as, for example, Turkic, Mughal and other tribes.
The founder of the Baburid state (1526) in India is Zahireddin Muhammad Babur (February 14, 1483 - December 26, 1530). Babur is a descendant of Tamerlane from the Barlas clan. He ruled in the city of Andijan (modern Uzbekistan), and was forced to flee from the warring nomadic Kipchak Turks, first to Afghanistan (Herat), and then went on a campaign to Northern India. Babur's son, Humayun (1530-1556), inherited from his father a huge kingdom stretching from the Ganges to the Amu Darya, but did not retain it, and for more than 25 years his throne was occupied by the Afghan dynasty of Sher Shah.
Map of the Mughal Empire. Borders of the empire: - under Babur (1530), - under Akbar (1605), - under Aurangzeb (1707).
The actual founder of the Mughal Empire is Humayun's son Akbar (1556-1605). Akbar's reign (49 years) was dedicated to the unification and pacification of the state. He turned independent Muslim states into provinces of his empire, and made Hindu rajas his vassals, partly through alliances, partly by force.
The appointment of Hindu ministers, viceroys and other officials gained favor and loyalty among the Hindu population for the new monarch. The hated tax on non-Muslims was destroyed.
Akbar translated the sacred books and epic poems of the Hindus into Persian, took an interest in their religion and respected their laws, although he prohibited some inhumane customs. The last years of his life were overshadowed by family troubles and the behavior of his eldest son, Selim, vindictive and cruel, who rebelled against his father.
Akbar was one of the most prominent Muslim rulers of India. Distinguished by his great military talent (he did not lose a single battle), he did not like war and preferred peaceful pursuits.
Imbued with broad religious tolerance, Akbar allowed free discussion of the tenets of Islam.
From 1720 the collapse of the empire began. This year, under Sultan Muhammad Shah, the viceroy of the Deccan, Nizam-ul-Mulk (1720-1748), formed his own independent state. His example was followed by the governor of Oudh, who from a simple Persian merchant became a vizier, and then the first nawab of Oudh, under the name of Nawab Vizier of Oudh (1732-1743).
The Marathas (one of the indigenous Indian peoples) imposed tribute on all of South India, broke through eastern India to the north and forced the cession of Malwa from Muhammad Shah (1743), and took Orissa from his son and successor Ahmed Shah (1748-1754) and received the right tribute from Bengal (1751).
Internal strife was joined by attacks from without. In 1739, Nadir Shah of Persia raided India. After capturing Delhi and plundering the city for 58 days, the Persians returned home through the northwest passages with booty valued at £32 million.
Vasco da Gama's expedition marked the beginning of Portugal's colonial conquest on the west coast of India. Military flotillas with large numbers of soldiers and artillery were sent annually from Portugal to capture Indian ports and naval bases. With firearms and artillery at their disposal, the Portuguese destroyed the flotillas of their trading competitors, the Arab merchants, and captured their bases.
In 1505, Almeida was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese possessions in India. He defeated the Egyptian fleet at Diu and penetrated the Persian Gulf. His successor Albuquerque, a cunning, cruel and enterprising colonialist, blocked all approaches to India for Arab merchants. He captured Hormuz, a trade and strategic point at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and also closed the exit from the Red Sea. In 1510, Albuquerque captured the city of Goa. Goa became the center of Portuguese possessions in India. The Portuguese did not seek to seize large territories, but created only strongholds and trading posts for the export of colonial goods. Having strengthened themselves on the Malabar coast of India, they began to move east to the centers of spice production. In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca, thereby opening the way to the Moluccas and China. In 1516, a Portuguese expedition appeared off the coast of China. Soon a Portuguese trading post was created in Macau (southwest of Canton). At the same time, the Portuguese settled in the Moluccas and began exporting spices from there.
The Portuguese monopolized the spice trade. They forced the local population to sell them spices at “fixed prices” - 100-200 times lower than prices on the Lisbon market. In order to maintain high prices for colonial goods on the European market, no more than 5-6 ships with spices were brought per year, and the surplus was destroyed.
At the beginning of the 17th century, other European maritime powers also rushed into the colonial race.
Map of European trading settlements in India, showing years of establishment and nationality.
In several European powers ripe for colonialism (except Portugal, where the exploitation of colonies was considered a state matter), companies were established with a monopoly on trade with the East Indies:
British East India Company - established in 1600
Dutch East India Company - established in 1602
Danish East India Company - established in 1616
French East India Company - established in 1664
Austrian East India Company - established in 1717 in the Austrian Netherlands
Swedish East India Company - established in 1731
The most successful and famous was British East India Company(eng. East India Company), until 1707 - the English East India Company - a joint-stock company created on December 31, 1600 by decree of Elizabeth I and received extensive privileges for trading operations in India. With the help of the East India Company, the British colonization of India and a number of countries in the East was carried out.
In effect, the royal decree gave the company a monopoly on trade in India. The company initially had 125 shareholders and a capital of £72,000. The company was governed by a governor and a board of directors who were responsible to a meeting of shareholders. The commercial company soon acquired government and military functions, which it lost only in 1858. Following the Dutch East India Company, the British also began to list its shares on the stock exchange.
In 1612 armed forces The companies inflict a serious defeat on the Portuguese at the Battle of Suvali. In 1640, the local ruler of Vijayanagara allowed the establishment of a second trading post in Madras. In 1647, the company already had 23 trading posts in India. Indian fabrics (cotton and silk) are in incredible demand in Europe. Tea, grain, dyes, cotton, and later Bengal opium were also exported. In 1668, the Company leased the island of Bombay, a former Portuguese colony given to England as the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles II. In 1687, the Company's headquarters in Western Asia were moved from Surat to Bombay. The company tried to achieve trade privileges by force, but lost, and was forced to ask the Great Mogul for mercy. In 1690, the Company's settlement was founded in Calcutta, after appropriate permission from the Great Mogul. The Company's expansion into the subcontinent began; at the same time, the same expansion was carried out by a number of other European East India Companies - Dutch, French and Danish.
Meeting of shareholders of the East India Company.
In 1757, at the Battle of Plassey, the troops of the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the troops of the Bengali ruler Siraj-ud-Dowla - just a few volleys of British artillery put the Indians to flight. After the victory at Buxar (1764), the company received diwani - the right to rule Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, full control over the Nawab of Bengal and confiscated the Bengal treasury (valuables worth 5 million 260 thousand pounds sterling were seized). Robert Clive becomes the first British Governor of Bengal. Meanwhile, expansion continued around the bases in Bombay and Madras. The Anglo-Mysore Wars of 1766-1799 and the Anglo-Maratha Wars of 1772-1818 made the Company the dominant power south of the Sutlej River.
For almost a century, the company pursued a ruinous policy in its Indian possessions, which resulted in the destruction of traditional crafts and the degradation of agriculture, which led to the death of up to 40 million Indians from starvation. According to the calculations of the famous American historian Brooks Adams, in the first 15 years after the annexation of India, the British took 1 billion pounds sterling worth of valuables from Bengal. By 1840 the British ruled most of India. The unbridled exploitation of the Indian colonies was the most important source of the accumulation of British capital and the industrial revolution in England.
The expansion took two main forms. The first was the use of so-called subsidiary agreements, essentially feudal - local rulers transferred the management of foreign affairs to the Company and were obliged to pay a “subsidy” for the maintenance of the Company’s army. If payments were not made, the territory was annexed by the British. In addition, the local ruler undertook to maintain a British official ("resident") at his court. Thus, the company recognized "native states" led by Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawabs. The second form was direct rule.
The most powerful opponents of the Company were two states formed on the ruins of the Mughal Empire - the Maratha Union and the Sikh state. The collapse of the Sikh Empire was facilitated by the chaos that ensued after the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh, in 1839. Civil strife broke out both between individual sardars (generals of the Sikh army and de facto major feudal lords) and between the Khalsa (Sikh community) and the darbar (court). In addition, the Sikh population experienced tensions with local Muslims, who were often willing to fight under British banners against the Sikhs.
Ranjit Singh, first Maharaja of Punjab.
At the end of the 18th century, under Governor General Richard Wellesley, active expansion began; The company captured Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), the principalities along the Sutlej River (1815), the Central Indian principalities (1819), Kutch and Gujarat (1819), Rajputana ( 1818), Bahawalpur (1833). The annexed provinces included Delhi (1803) and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North West Frontier and Kashmir were captured in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Kashmir was immediately sold to the Dogra dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu, and became a “native state”. Berar was annexed in 1854, and Oud in 1856.
In 1857, there was a rebellion against the British East India Campaign, which is known in India as the First War of Independence or the Sepoy Mutiny. However, the rebellion was suppressed, and the British Empire established direct administrative control over almost the entire territory of South Asia.
Fight between the British and sepoys.
After the Indian National Uprising in 1857, the English Parliament passed the Indian Better Government Act, according to which the company transferred its administrative functions British crown. In 1874 the company was liquidated.
Dutch East India Company- Dutch trading company. Founded in 1602, it existed until 1798. Carried out trade (including tea, copper, silver, textiles, cotton, silk, ceramics, spices and opium) with Japan, China, Ceylon, Indonesia; monopolized trade with these countries of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
By 1669 the company was the richest private firm the world had ever seen, including over 150 commercial ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, and a private army of 10,000 soldiers. The company took part in the political disputes of the time along with states. So, in 1641, she independently, without the help of the Dutch state, knocked out her competitors, the Portuguese, from what is now Indonesia. For this purpose, armed detachments from the local population were created at the expense of the company.
The company was in constant conflict with the British Empire; experienced financial difficulties after the defeat of Holland in the war with this country in 1780-1784, and disintegrated as a result of these difficulties.
French East India Company- French trading company. Founded in 1664 by the Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The company's first general director was François Caron, who worked for the Dutch East India Company for thirty years, including 20 years in Japan. The company failed in its attempt to capture Madagascar, settling for the neighboring islands of Bourbon (now Reunion) and Ile-de-France (now Mauritius).
For some time, the company actively intervened in Indian politics, concluding agreements with the rulers of the southern Indian territories. These attempts were stopped by the English baron Robert Clive, who represented the interests of the British East India Company.
The Battle of Plassey (more precisely, Broadsword) is a battle off the banks of the Bhagirathi River in West Bengal, in which on June 23, 1757, British Colonel Robert Clive, representing the interests of the British East India Company, inflicted a crushing defeat on the troops of the Bengal Nawab Siraj ud-Daula, on the side which was represented by the French East India Company.
The armed clash was provoked by the seizure by the Nawab (who believed that the British had violated previous agreements) of the British bridgehead in Bengal - Fort William on the territory of modern Calcutta. The board of directors sent Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson to counter the Bengalis from Madras. The betrayal of the Nawab's military leaders played a significant role in the British victory.
The battle began at 7:00 am on June 23, 1757, when the Indian army went on the offensive and opened artillery fire on the British positions.
At 11:00 am one of the Indian commanders led the attack but was killed by a British cannonball. This caused panic among his soldiers.
At noon a heavy downpour began. The British quickly hid their gunpowder, guns, and muskets from the rain, but the untrained Indian troops, despite French assistance, were unable to do the same. When the rain stopped, the British still had firepower, while their opponents' weapons needed a long drying time. At 14:00 the British began their attack. Mir Jafar announced the retreat. At 17:00 the retreat turned into a flight.
Robert Clive meets with Mir Jafar after the battle.
The victory at Plassey predetermined the English conquest of Bengal, which is why it is customary to begin the countdown of British rule in the Indian subcontinent with it. The confrontation between the British and the French in India represented the eastern theater of the Seven Years' War, which Churchill called the first world war in history.
Prehistory. In the 1750s, having created a combat-ready army of local soldiers (sepoys) trained on the French model, the French captain and later brigadier Charles Joseph Bussy-Castelnau became the de facto ruler of southern India; The ruler of Hyderabad completely depended on him. In contrast to the French, the British developed their base to the northeast, in Bengal. In 1754, an agreement was signed between the French and British East India Companies that neither of them would interfere in the internal affairs of India (formally subordinate to the Great Mogul).
In 1756, the Nawab of Bengal Alivardi Khan died and his grandson Siraj ud-Daula took the throne and attacked Fort William in Calcutta, the main English settlement in Bengal, and captured it on June 19, 1756. On the same night, from June 19 to 20, many English prisoners were tortured in the “black pit”. In August news of this reached Madras, and the British General Robert Clive, after much delay, departed for Calcutta on board one of the ships of the squadron under the command of Admiral Watson. The squadron entered the river in December and appeared before Calcutta in January, after which the city quickly fell into British hands.
When information about the war that had broken out in Europe arrived in Madras and Pondicherry at the beginning of 1757, the French governor Leiri, despite the favorable situation, did not dare to attack Madras, preferring to obtain an agreement on neutrality from the British representatives. Siraj ud-Daula, who opposed the British, sent an offer to the French in Chandannagar to join him, but he was refused help. Having secured French neutrality, Clive set out on a campaign and defeated the nawab. The Nawab immediately sued for peace and offered an alliance to the British, renouncing all claims. The proposal was accepted, after which, having secured their rear, the British began military operations against the French.
In 1769, the French enterprise ceased to exist. Some of the company's trading posts (Pondicherry and Shandannagar) remained under French control until 1949.
Danish East India Company- a Danish trading company that carried out trade with Asia in 1616-1729 (with interruptions).
It was created in 1616 on the model of the Dutch East India Company. The largest shareholder of the company was King Christian IV. Upon creation, the company received a monopoly on maritime trade with Asia.
In the 1620s, the Danish crown acquired a stronghold in India - Tranquebar, which later became the center of the company's trading activity (Fort Dansborg). In its heyday, it, along with the Swedish East India Company, imported more tea than the British East India Company, 90% of which was smuggled into England, which brought it huge profits.
Fort Dansborg in Tranquebar.
Due to poor economic performance, the company was abolished in 1650, but was recreated in 1670. By 1729, the Danish East India Company fell into decline and was completely abolished. Soon many of its shareholders became members of the Asiatic Company formed in 1730. But in 1772 it lost its monopoly, and in 1779 Danish India became a crown colony.
The Ostend Company is an Austrian private trading company, created in 1717 in Ostend (Southern Netherlands, part of the Austrian Empire) for trade with the East Indies.
The success of the Dutch, British and French East India Companies encouraged the merchants and shipowners of Ostend to establish direct commercial links with the East Indies. A private trading company in Ostend was created in 1717, and several of its ships sailed to the East. Emperor Charles VI encouraged his subjects to invest in the new enterprise, but did not grant a letter of patent. In the early stages, the company achieved some successes, but neighboring states actively impeded its activities, so in 1719 an Ostend merchant ship with a rich cargo was captured by the Dutch off the coast of Africa and another by the British off Madagascar.
Despite these losses, the people of Ostend stubbornly continued the enterprise. The opposition of the Dutch forced Charles VI to hesitate for some time in granting the company's requests, but on December 19, 1722, the emperor granted the Ostenders a patent letter granting the right to trade in the East and West Indies, as well as on the shores of Africa, for thirty years. Contributions quickly flowed into the enterprise, and two trading posts were opened: in Koblom on the Coromandel Coast near Madras and in Bank Bazaar in Bengal.
The Dutch and British continued to confront the growing competitor. The Dutch appealed to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, under which the Spanish king prohibited the inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands from trading in the Spanish colonies. The Dutch insisted that the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which ceded the Southern Netherlands to Austria, did not lift this ban. However, the Spanish government, after some hesitation, concluded a trade agreement with Austria and recognized the Ostend Company. The response to this treaty was the unification of Great Britain, the United Provinces and Prussia into a defensive league. Fearing such a powerful alliance, the Austrians decided to concede. As a result of the agreement signed in Paris on May 31, 1727, the emperor revoked the company's patent letter for seven years, in exchange for which the opponents of the Ostenders recognized the imperial Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
The company nominally existed in a state of prohibition for some time and soon closed. The Austrian Netherlands did not participate in maritime trade with the Indies until its union with Holland in 1815.
Swedish East India Company, created in the 18th century to conduct maritime trade with the countries of the East.
In Sweden, the first trading companies modeled on foreign ones began to emerge in the 17th century, but their activities were not very successful. Only in the 18th century did a company appear that could rightfully be called East India.
Its foundation was a consequence of the abolition of the Austrian East India Company in 1731. Foreigners who hoped to profit from participating in the lucrative colonial trade turned their attention to Sweden. Scotsman Colin Campbell, together with Gothenburger Niklas Sahlgren, turned to Commissioner Henrik König, who became their representative before the Swedish government.
After preliminary discussions in the government and at the Riksdag, on June 14, 1731, the king signed the first privilege for a period of 15 years. It gave Henrik König and his companions the right, for a moderate fee to the crown, to trade with the East Indies, namely “in all ports, cities and rivers on the other side of the Cape of Good Hope.” The ships sent by the company had to sail exclusively from Gothenburg and return there after the voyage to sell their cargo at a public auction. She was allowed to equip as many ships as she needed, with the only condition that they had to be built or purchased in Sweden.
The company was managed by a directorate that included at least three people knowledgeable in the trade. In the event of the death of one of the company's directors, the remaining ones had to elect a third. Directors could only be Swedish subjects who professed the Protestant faith.
Already at the very beginning of its existence, the company faced obstacles from foreign competitors and its domestic opponents.
The company's first equipped ship was captured by the Dutch in the Sound, but was soon released. The attempt to gain a foothold in India was even less successful. In September 1733, the company established a trading post in Porto-Novo on the Coromandel Coast, but already in October it was destroyed by troops equipped by the English governor of Madras and the French governor of Pondicherry. All goods were confiscated, and the subjects of the English king who were there were arrested. In 1740, the English government agreed to pay the company compensation in the amount of 12 thousand pounds sterling.
For Gothenburg, which was the seat of the company, the East India trade served as an impetus for rapid development. Expensive Indian and Chinese goods - mainly silk, tea, porcelain and spices - were sold at lively auctions and then distributed throughout Europe, occupying a fairly significant place in Swedish exports.
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India on the eve of the British conquest
India entered the late Middle Ages, being one of the advanced countries. By the beginning of modern times, commodity production and exchange were already developed there. However, a number of features of the development of India - closed, self-sufficient village communities, the unique character of the Indian city, the caste system, invasions of foreign conquerors, who often stood at a lower level of socio-economic development, etc. - delayed the process of formation of the capitalist structure in the depths of the Indian feudal system. society.
Meanwhile, England, after its victory in the middle of the 17th century. The bourgeois revolution quickly followed the path of capitalist development. The economic laws of capitalism pushed the British government onto the path of colonial expansion in the East, and in particular in India.
The deep crisis experienced by feudal India from the second half of the 18th century created an extremely favorable environment for the invasion of the colonialists.
Penetration European colonialists to India
From the second half of the 18th century. England embarked on the path of major territorial conquests in India. But the penetration of European colonialists into India began in the 16th century.
Having opened the sea route to India, the Portuguese captured several bases on the Malabar coast. However, they did not have sufficient forces to advance into the interior of the country.
The dominance of the Portuguese in European trade with India was broken by the Dutch, who took possession by the second half of the 17th century. most Portuguese bases in India (except Goa, Diu and Daman).
At the beginning of the 17th century. The British received permission from the Mughal government to establish a temporary trading post in Surat, which was later moved to Bombay. In addition, from 1640 they settled in Madras, and at the end of the century they built the fortified city of Calcutta on land given to them by the Great Mogul. To manage their strongholds in different regions of Hindustan, the British formed three presidencies: Madras, Bombay and Bengal.
In the last third of the 17th century. The French appeared in India, the center of whose activity became Pondicherry (Puttucherry). In Bengal they had a fortified trading post at Chander Nagor.
Other European states also took the path of colonial policy in India. Several trading posts were founded by the Danes. The Swedes and Austrians made attempts to expand their activities.
The colonial policy of European powers was carried out through their respective East India Companies. Following the Dutch, the English (early 17th century) and French (second half of the 17th century) East India Companies were founded, enjoying a monopoly on trade with the East in their countries. Having a network of fortified bases on the coast of India and creating trading posts in the interior of the country, they bought up the Indian goods they needed, selling them in Europe at monopoly high prices.
Anglo-French struggle in India
IN mid-18th century V. The activities of European colonialists in India acquired new features. First the French, and then the British, began to use the internal struggle in India in the interests of their colonial aggression.
Creating armed forces to carry out territorial conquests and fight the British, the Governor-General of the French possessions in India, Dupleix, like the Dutch in Indonesia, formed military units under the command of French officers from mercenary Indian soldiers (sepoys), armed and trained in the European manner. Taking advantage of the struggle of various Indian states and principalities, the French invited some princes to take upon themselves the defense of their principalities by stationing their “auxiliary troops” on their territory. The prince had to subsidize this army and coordinate his foreign policy with the French East India Company. The French succeeded in the 40s of the 18th century. to subjugate by concluding such “subsidiary agreements” the large principality of Hyderabad and its neighboring one, the Carnatic (Karnataka).
England did not want to put up with the threat of French dominance in India. The British began to create sepoy units and actively intervene in the struggle of Indian feudal rulers. Subsequently, England had a number of advantages over feudal-absolutist France. In particular, unlike the French authorities in India, the British received active support from the mother country.
During the War of the "Austrian Succession" (1740-1748), hostilities between England and France also unfolded in India, where they continued until 1754. The French were seriously pushed back, but the final outcome of the Anglo-French struggle in India was decided by the Seven Years' War ( 1756-1763). France retained only Pondicherry and four other cities on the Indian coast. England was able to carry out large territorial seizures by this time.
English colonial conquests in India in the second half of the 18th century.
The main bases and centers of the English East India Company were Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The Carnatic principality, adjacent to Madras, inhabited by Tamils, had already become a vassal of the company. The company was very active in Bengal. It had 150 warehouses and 15 large trading posts here.
Realizing the growing danger from the British colonialists, the young Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Dowle, who ascended the throne in 1756, began military operations against them and captured Calcutta.
Robert Clive, who commanded the landing forces, decided to consolidate this first success. He entered into an agreement with a feudal group hostile to Siraj-ud-Dowla. An official agreement was concluded with an influential nobleman, the military commander of the nawab Mir Jafar, who promised his help and assistance during the offensive being prepared by the British. The British, in turn, promised to help Mir Jafar become the Nawab of Bengal. Clive's actions were one of the links in the ongoing Anglo-French struggle, for Siraj-ud-Dowle relied on the support of the French.
Clive's troops, consisting of 800 Europeans and 2,200 sepoys, set out on the campaign. In the summer of 1757, a decisive battle took place at Plassey with the 70,000-strong Bengal army. Its outcome was affected by the advantages of the British in artillery and the betrayal of Mir Jafar, who commanded the main forces of the nawab. The Bengal army was defeated. Siraj-ud-Dowleh fell into the hands of the British and was executed. Mir Jafar became the Nawab, and the East India Company became the de facto owner of Bengal. The capital of Bengal, Murshidabad, was plundered and the state treasury seized by the British. This gangster operation gave the company over 37 million pounds. Art.; in addition, its senior employees, led by Clive, pocketed 21 million pounds. Art. The Nawab of Bengal became a puppet of the company. The systematic plunder of the rich country began.
After some time, the British removed Mir Jafar from power and, for a tidy sum, transferred the Nawab throne to another contender - Mir Qasim. Having increased the tax burden and quickly fulfilled his financial obligations to the East India Company, the new nawab then tried to limit British control over Bengal. This led to a military conflict in 1763. Mir Qasim's troops were supported by the population. But they were driven back by the British to Oudh. Here, an alliance was concluded between the nawabs of Bengal and Oudh, which was joined by the Great Mogul Shah Alam II, who fled here after the battle of Panipat. However, in 1764, in the decisive battle of Buxar, this anti-British coalition was defeated. The colonialists consolidated their power in the vast region of the lower Ganges.
Part of the territories captured as a result of the victory at Buxar, the East India Company transferred to its captive Shch Alam II, whom the British still recognized as emperor. In turn, the Mughal emperor signed a decree giving the company the right to collect rent-tax in Bengal. At first, the old collectors and the old system of collecting tax were retained, which now, however, went to the treasury of the East India Company. But soon the colonialists created their own administrative apparatus. Bengal came completely under the rule of the British colonialists. It became a principality dependent on the British after the battle of Buxar and Oudh. In the south of Hindustan, the large principality of Hyderabad became their vassal.
By that time, the main opponents of the colonialists in the south of Hindustan, and throughout the entire peninsula, were the Maratha confederation and the strengthened southern Indian state of Mysore.
The ruler of Mysore, Haidar Ali (1761-1782), relying on the central part of the principality inhabited by the Kannar people, created a strong and combat-ready army, trained with the participation of European (mainly French) officers. At first, Haidar Ali saw the British as only one of the participants (along with Marathas and Hyderabad) struggle for hegemony in South India. After the first war with the British (1767-1769), Hydar Ali even agreed to conclude a defensive alliance between Mysore and the East India Company. But in the war that soon broke out between Mysore and the Marathas, the British did not support their ally. Under the influence of this, and also taking into account the general situation, Haidar Ali began to consider the British as the main enemy of Mysore and tried to unite the feudal states of India against their common enemy. By this time, English interference in Maratha affairs had intensified. The British authorities in Bombay tried to erect their protege to the throne of the Peshwas, they met with strong resistance.The Anglo-Maratha War ensued. Haidar Ali agreed to peace and rapprochement with the Marathas, and by the beginning of the second Anglo-Maysur War (1780-^1784), Mysore, Marathas and Hyderabad entered into an alliance against the British.
The British found themselves in a difficult situation. Simultaneously with military operations in India, England had to wage a war with the rebel colonies North America, as well as with France, Spain and Holland. But the British colonialists skillfully exploited the contradictions between Indian feudal lords. They won over the strongest Maratha principality of Gwaliyar, supporting the claims of the Gwaliyar Maharaja to the Delhi region, and through his mediation they concluded a separate peace with the Maratha confederation. Under the treaty of 1782, the East India Company even somewhat expanded its holdings in the Bombay area.
Mysore continued to fight alone for another two years, after which it was forced to reach an agreement with the British. The Anglo-Mysore Treaty of 1784 recognized the parties to their pre-war possessions. But this meant strengthening the position of the East India Company and Mysore's abandonment of the struggle for hegemony in South India. If before this the goal of Mysore was to expel the British from Hindustan, now the task of preserving Mysore’s own integrity and independence came to the fore.
Even during the war, Haidar Ali died, and the throne of Mysore passed to his son Tipu Sultan, an implacable enemy of the British colonialists. Tipu preached the idea of a “holy war” against the British, sending his emissaries to the Great Mogul and to many principalities of India with a call to unite forces. He sought to receive support from revolutionary France and sent a mission to Turkey.
The British saw Tipu as a dangerous enemy. East India Company diplomacy sought to isolate Mysore from other Indian states. In 1790, having secured the support of the Maratha principalities and vassal Hyderabad, the British began a third war against Mysore. Despite the great superiority of allied forces, the Mysore army, led by Tipu Sultan, resisted steadfastly. But in 1792, Tipu was forced to accept peace terms, according to which half of the territory of Mysore would go to the East India Company and its allies.
In 1799, the British, having gathered large military forces, again attacked Mysore. After a brutal artillery bombardment, they stormed his capital, Seringapatam. Tipu Sultan fell in battle. Having transferred part of the Mysore territory to Hyderabad, the British turned the remaining region into a vassal principality, placing their protege on the throne.
The Kannar people completely lost their independence and were artificially divided between the possessions of the East India Company and its two vassal principalities - Hyderabad and the reduced Mysore.
Thus, as a result of colonial wars in the second half of the 18th century. the richest regions of Hindustan - Bengal with adjoining Bihar, Orissa and Oudh and all of South India - turned into an English colony.
Colonial exploitation of the peoples of India
In the 18th century colonial exploitation of the peoples of India was carried out using methods characteristic of the period of primitive accumulation of capital. From the very beginning, English colonial policy in India was carried out by the East India Company, created by large British merchants and enjoying a monopoly on England's trade with the East. The conquest of India was also carried out by the commercial and administrative apparatus and the armed forces of the East India Company.
But colonial policy and especially territorial conquests in India were never a private matter of the shareholders of the East India Company alone. Behind the company were the ruling classes of England and the English government. At the same time, there was a stubborn struggle within the ruling class of England for influence on the English administration in India and the distribution of the wealth looted there. The company's shareholders and circles associated with them sought to maintain their monopoly. Other factions of the ruling class, in their own interests, fought to expand government control over the company's activities.
In 1773, the English Parliament passed a law on the administration of India, according to which the governor of the company in Calcutta became the governor-general of all English possessions in India, with the governors of Madras and Bombay subordinate to him. The government appointed members of a council under the governor general. The English Supreme Court was established in the possessions of the East India Company. According to the law of 1784, a Control Council for Indian Affairs, appointed by the king, was created in London, the chairman of which was a member of the British cabinet. The Council was to control the activities of the East India Company and determine British colonial policy in India. At the same time, the Board of Directors, elected by the company's shareholders, was retained. This system of “dual control” allowed the English government to expand expansion in Hindustan and influence the management of the possessions of the East India Company.
The administrative colonial apparatus of the East India Company, in combination with the corresponding feudal institutions of the vassal principalities, formed a political superstructure that helped the British government carry out the colonial exploitation of the peoples of Hindustan.
The main weapon of their robbery was taxes. In the captured areas, rent-taxes began to flow to companies. A significant part of the rent-tax collected in the vassal principalities also came to the British in various ways. An important source of income was the East India Company's monopoly on salt production and trade. Salt was sold at a very high price.
Revenues from taxes, collected with monstrous cruelty, and the salt monopoly were supplemented by sums obtained by open robbery, such as Clive’s seizure of the Bengal treasury and other “exploits” of a similar nature. The company forcibly assigned tens of thousands of Indian weavers and other artisans to its trading posts, using forced labor extensively. One of the British merchants wrote: “The English with their Indian agents arbitrarily decide what quantity of goods each artisan should supply and at what price... The consent of the poor weaver is, generally speaking, not considered necessary.”
In addition, the company and its employees derived considerable income from predatory trade and speculation. The wealth looted in India was one of the sources of capital with the help of which English industry was created.
English colonial policy was personified by the leaders of the British colonial administration, cruel and inhuman knights of profit, devoid of honor and conscience.
One of these colorful figures was Robert Clive, who came from a minor noble family, first a scribe, and then an officer in the company’s troops. Having become rich during his predatory campaigns, he bought himself a seat in the House of Commons of the English Parliament, and then, having received the title of Lord, was appointed governor of Bengal. His activities were accompanied by such thefts and abuses that in 1773 Clive was brought before the court of the English Parliament. During the trial, he declared about the robbery of Murshidabad: “A rich city was at my feet, a powerful state was in my power, the basements of the treasury, filled with ingots of gold and silver, and precious stones, were opened to me alone. I took only 200 thousand pounds. Art. Gentlemen, I still never cease to be amazed at my own modesty!” The Chamber admitted that Clive had committed a number of crimes, but noted that “Robert Lord Clive rendered great and worthy services to England.”
Clive was replaced by another colonial brigand, Warren Hastings, who was appointed the first governor-general of all British possessions in India. This speculator and bribe-taker also eventually appeared before the court of parliament. The Hastings trial, which lasted from 1788 to 1795, revealed the monstrous crimes of the British colonialists against the peoples of India. However, the main criminal, Hastings, was acquitted. The reasons for this decision were correctly indicated by one English historian, who wrote: “As long as we are firmly in possession of the wealth and territory of India, conquered by blood and deceit, as long as we appropriate and retain the very fruits of robbery, it is senseless and monstrous to brand Hastings a rapist and killer."
Results of the capture of India by the colonialists
Bengal and other regions captured by the British were subjected to merciless plunder, which completely undermined their economy. The arrival of the colonialists meant a sharp increase in feudal exploitation of the peasantry. The size of the rent-tax increased significantly. If in the early years of the company's rule in Bengal the amount of tax was about 1.5 million pounds. Art., then ten years later it reached 2.8 million, and in 1793 it amounted to 3.4 million. Peasants and artisans went bankrupt, the sown area was reduced. After just a few years of English rule, the economy of Bengal was ruined. A famine ensued, as a result of which about 10 million people died - almost half of the then population of Bengal.
Even the English Governor-General Cornwallis wrote in his report in 1789: “I can safely say that 1/3 of the territory belonging to the company in Hindustan is now a jungle, inhabited only by wild animals.”
One of the speakers declared in the English Parliament: “If we were driven out of India today, it could only be said that this country, during the inglorious period of our reign, was ruled by people not much different from orangutans or tigers.”
By undermining the Indian economy, the British colonialists also destroyed those sporadic sprouts of new economic relations that were forming in Indian society. The English conquest, turning Hindustan into a powerless colony, consolidated the dominance of feudal remnants in its economy and the economic and cultural backwardness of its peoples.
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