150^th Anniversary of the national liberation struggles (1857) in the Indian Sub-continent.

2007 will be the 150^th anniversary of first war of independence in the Indian sub-continent. In 1757 British East India Company defeated Siraj-ud-Daula at Plessey and established the Bengal Presidency. The following hundred years were a particularly brutal period of colonial exploitation that resulted in several famines in Bengal and other areas in the sub-continent administered by the British causing millions of deaths. 

The result was a growing discontent against the British administration and its increasing hold on the sub-continent. In the hundred years preceding 1857, there were several rebellions. Soldiers, the peasantry and the old ruling and administration classes all at one time or another rebelled across British India prior to 1857. In 1857 all the simmering resentment exploded in a major uprising against the British encompassing a vast geographical area within the sub-continent. The uprising brought together diverse forces with the main objective of removing the British East India Company that by than dominated India. Although, others had conquered India before the British, in the case of the British and the Europeans the nature of the conquest or occupation of India was very different. In the past the conquerors have either come into India taken some of its wealth and disappeared or stayed and become part of what now constitutes peoples of the sub-continent. The Europeans who came to India during and after the sixteenth century did neither. They stayed in India without becoming part of the peoples representing India and instead maintained their social political and economic links with England. The major effect was that the wealth of India was transferred out of India into Europe and nothing was added to the Indian sub-continent leaving the peoples of the region destitute. This new form of parasitic economic exploitation, termed imperialism, and European expropriation were the main reasons behind the discontent that brought together such a diverse force in the struggle against the British in 1857. The main demand of the struggle was to remove the British as the foreign rulers in India. It therefore represented the first national liberation struggle covering such a large geographical area. It was in essence the beginning of the process that evolved in the twentieth century to the most bitterly fought national liberation struggles from Ireland to India, the Far East, Africa and Latin America. The significance of the events of 1857 to the subsequent struggles against colonial Britain is reflected in the fact that the leader of the Indian National Army, Subhas Chandar Bose, started the march of his army following the start of the Second World War for independence with a speech at the grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the iconic figure of the 1857 struggle.

The conditions leading to 1857 

Dominance of Industrial Capital against Mercantile In England:

The brutality, physical, political and economic, of the British occupation of India was the prime motive force driving the resistance to the rule of the East India Company. During the East India Company’s rule the economic life of the inhabitants of India deteriorated considerably in a relatively short time period. East India Company came to India to benefit from the lucrative trade that India was able to offer. When the company started its operations in India, the sub-continent produced some 25% of all world manufacturing. By the end of the nineteenth century India was hardly able to produce 2% of all worlds manufacturing. This was the devastating economic effect of British administration of India geared to fuel industrialisation in England. In the early days of the East India Company goods manufactured in India were transported to Europe. Indian finished cotton had a very high reputation in Europe and profits in shipping trade between Europe and India was the original reason for the East India Company to establish itself in India. By the end of the eighteenth century British industrial capital started to dominate Britain and more and more mercantile capital began to take second place. As early as the 1700 there was import bans placed on finished cotton imported from India into England. There were riots outside the East India Company offices in London to protect the newly developing English cotton manufacturing. The burgeoning English manufacturing industry found it difficult to compete with the cheap and higher quality cotton produced by the Indian manufacturers. Demands were put on the East India Company to resolve the conflict in favour of the manufacturing industry in Britain. First of all import taxes were introduced in England to allow the manufacturers in UK to compete against their Indian counterpart. India was not able to reciprocate and impose import taxes on British manufacture as East India Company was managed from England and it in turn administered India. Taxation policies were used to force raw cotton to be exported to Britain. Dacca, a thriving city manufacturing finished cotton products, was reduced from a population of 150,000 to fewer than 20,000 in just over a decade in the early nineteenth century.  Cash crops against subsistence farming were encouraged leaving farmers open to the worst excesses of nature. The demands of the industrial capital in England led to the new form of exploitation, of what is today termed imperialism. The wealth of India was transferred to England without adding any value to the Indian subcontinent. Even taxation that the East India Company introduced was mainly transferred to England as levies laid on the East India Company by the parliament. The levies laid by the Parliament were payable to the Crown and were over and above the dividends the shareholders were paid from the profits derived from the operations of the East India Company. 

 The impact of British dominance on the Indian Farming communities:

Taxation in India was increased on agriculture during the British rule to 50% of the monetary value of the farmer’s produce. Under moghal rule taxation was around 10% to 15% and paid in the produce itself. The moghul administration encouraged public works through taxation. They would offset any taxes due against the cost of the public works community or a locality undertakes. This encouraged, and indeed, financed the cleaning of the waterways, which were essential for farming and creating new irrigation channels. The British ignored public works and their level and method of tax collection left the farmers and peasant communities ill-equipped to maintain irrigation systems. John Bright in a remark he made in the House of Commons on the 24^th of June 1858 indicated the extent of neglect the East India Company was guilty of when it came to public works in India. He stated “The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions." This neglect on part of the East India Company did not only had a huge impact on agriculture, the East India Company administration neglected the canals used to distribute the flood waters of the Ganges and allowed them to run wild and some became water-logged causing malaria and floods. Railway lines were laid without any attention paid to the damage they did to the adjoining irrigation systems. This further destroyed irrigation canals. Therefore, railways, apart from taking away the farmers produce, also destroyed some of the irrigation and flood control systems that already existed. 

Famines and their devastating impact under the East India Company administration:

The British administration apart from increasing the level of taxation also changed the method of collecting taxes to a monetary form. This led farmers during periods of crop failure exposed to extreme difficulties including famines that claimed millions of lives. As the taxes were collected in monetary form and the level of taxation was very high farmers were forced to sell their produce in order to just pay the tax. The taxes were levied on the monetary value of the produce determined by the market rates at railway depots. These were generally higher than the price the farmer was able to get for his produce. He was therefore forced to sell more than half his produce just to pay taxes and to use the rest for his own and his families’ subsistence. In years, when the crop yield is low the difference between the market price and what the farmer can get for his produce is even higher and hence he is forced to sell even a higher proportion to pay his taxes. This explains the increased frequency of famines and their increased intensity during the British administration as compared to the periods of previous administrations including the Moghul period.  In the British rule famines were occurring very regularly and with increased intensity and yet at the same time the tax revenues increased during famines under their administration. In Moghul rule taxation was collected in the produce itself. The level of taxation during moghal rule was much lower and the taxes were offset against any public work a community or a village undertook. In British rule taxes were much higher and there were no concessions made for crop failure. In fact, in conditions of famine, taxes collected by the British increased as noted by the Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings, later to become Governor General of India, wrote to the directors of the East India Company in 1772: "Notwithstanding the loss of at least one-third of the inhabitants of this province, and the consequent decrease in cultivation, the net collections of the year 1771 exceeded even those of [pre-famine] 1768." Hastings was clear on why and how this was achieved. It was "owing to [tax collection] being violently kept up to its former standard." By violently, if there is any doubt, he meant torture that Marx referred to in his articles he wrote in the New York tribune on the rebellion Marx suggested that torture formed the integral part of the process of tax collection. Even Hansard has recorded parliamentary debates on how torture and imprisonment was used as a tool of the tax collection process in India.

The devestation of Indian manufacture under East India Company administration: Early nineteenth century saw a qualitative change in the trade between India and Britain. Whereas, previously manufactured cotton was the prime export from India to Europe and Britain. As a result of the industrialisation of Britain and the increasing strength of industrial capital pressure was put on the East India Company to change the nature of trade with India to support British manufacturing. As a result, East India Company introduced taxation policies that increased the export from India of raw materials in the form of cotton and the import of finished cotton from England. Marx points out how the process of this trade exploitation leads to the destruction of Indian manufacturing. He cites how cities, that were previously developed as a result of the Indian cotton industry and had successfully linked agriculture to manufacturing and perhaps as centres of embryonic industrial development were deliberately destroyed and laid bare to help the developing cotton manufacture in Britain. Raw cotton was exported to Britain for manufacturing. According to Marx, during the period 1818 to 1836, the city of Dacca with a population of over 150,000 in short period of over a decade shrunk to 20,000 as a result of the manufactured cotton exported to India from England by the East India Company. In the same period export of twist increased by a multiple of 5200. Muslin export to India from England increased from 1,000,000 yards in 1824 to 64,000,000 in 1837. As a result a large army of people from the cities lost their livelihoods and added to the group of the discontented Indians.

The impact on state administrators and educationalist of British domination

East India Company also started the process of Anglicisation of the state administration. This threatened the position of the administrative and other middle classes and added to the increasing number of them joining the army of discontented Indians. In 1835 Lord William Bentninck with his New Education Policy declared that English should be the official language of the courts, diplomacy and administration. Prior to this Persian had been the accepted language of diplomacy and civil administration. From this moment on only those with Western style education and knowledge of English were eligible for government employment or for a career in public life. This policy left a large army of state administrators and those in the education system unemployable and thus another group become discontented with the British in India.  

The discontent among the Indian royalty:

The Indian royals were being dispossessed of the power, property and wealth they had prior to the British getting a foothold in India. These included the Mogul kings, various Hindu rajas and Ranis etc. Various mechanisms were used to achieve this. Laws of inheritance were modified such that it was envisaged most of the royal properties and privileges would transfer to the British over a period of time. Prior to 1857, the Kingdom of Jhansi, the Maratha kingdom and Kingdom of Oudh were so annexed. Even the Moghul kingdom was engrossed in various machinations to ensure the British were the beneficiaries of any intrigue. Even the Indian royals who sided with the British in a particular intrigue did not benefited for long from the intrigue. As a result some of these royals became active participants of the rebellion. It is indicative of the fact that these royals joined as a result of the inheritance laws that some of these royals including the Rani of Jhansi and Queen of Oudh were women as a result of the British engineered crisis of inheritance. When a royal passed away without leaving a male heir the queen took on the role to maintain the dynasty by adopting a male, generally related to the royal family. British administration introduced the law of lapse where if the royal passed away without leaving a male offspring his property was transferred to the East India Company. The East India Company also applied this law of lapse to various landholders and additionally required them to provide documentary evidence of their rights of ownership. This process resembles the lands and properties grabbing the Israelis are engaged in today’s occupied Palestine.  Discontent among the Sepoys:

The changes in agriculture, the destruction of manufacturing and the British need for the soldiers for its expeditions in parts of India, into Afghanistan, Iran, the South East and China led to a large number of Indians joining the Company’s army. However, Indian soldiers were paid less than their European counterparts.  In most cases the Indians soldiers earned less than a quarter of what the Europeans were paid. Initially when the Indian soldiers went on foreign expeditions were paid extra allowance. As the number of these foreign expeditions increased these allowances were ended. Indian soldiers were even expected to transport their own baggage. They were forced to maintain two households, as they were unable to afford to transport their families to new areas they were sent to. Soldiers committees were formed to demand redress on some of these issues. In some instances spokesmen for these committees were severely punished. Some were executed using artillery guns in most brutal form. As a result there were several mutinies in the army prior to the rebellion of 1857. Again, the simmering discontent in the army exploded on a large scale all across India in 1857. Un-official soldiers committees were commonplace among the Indian soldiers across India. It would be surprising if the various soldiers committees did not discuss the issues and the tactics and strategies to win their demands from the East India Company and decided to use the issue of the new bullets as the rallying issue of their struggle against the British as it provided the best means of mobilising the diverse Indian communities to support them. The treatment of the Indian soldiers employed by the East India Company had left no regiment unaffected by the resentment generated against the Company rule. The British as the rebellion spread realised no Indian soldier can be trusted themselves disbanded several regiments even before those regiments had shown any visible signs of revolt. Although Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Moghal king, became the iconic figure around which the resistance evolved, the military strategist and commanders came from the middle classes and the peasantry. Some of these leaders, including the Commander, Bakht Khan, appointed to lead the rebel army by Bahadur Shah had served the British in their expeditions into Afghanistan. Britain.in essence had created its own gravediggers.

The events of 1857 and globalisation

Today an American empire is trying to extend its global supremacy over a region from Asia to Africa and Latin America and in the process is being pushed into fighting for its survival. At the time of the 1857 rebellion similarly Britain, according to Marx, using South Asia as its base was trying to establish its imperial supremacy over Asia, including China in the North, Iran and Afghanistan in the West. However, the resistance to its supremacy forced England into fighting for its survival as a colonial power in South Asia.

Britain used racism as the ideology justifying British colonialism, including the process of deamonisation based on faiths. This is not very dissimilar from what is happening today, with Islamophobia and the dress code.  For example, the abuse of Muslims and their particular tenets of faith like jihad etc were made a particular basis of deamonisation than as it is today. As it is today, even than, a particular school of thought within Islam like the Wahabis and other fundamentalist trends were particular targets for ridicule. There are many anecdotal recordings of how following the defeat of the rebels the British soldiers would challenge locals and demand to know whether they are Muslims and there are recorded instances where, Muslims were killed for identifying themselves as such. Delhi was vacated of most Muslims. A particularly well-known story relates to Ghalib, a universally acclaimed Indian poet. Ghalib was brought in front of Colonel Brown, officer commanding Delhi after the insurrection was put down and was asked whether he is a Muslim. Colonel Brown obviously was aware of Ghalib’s religious affiliations. However, Ghalib cleverly deflected the inquisition by saying that he is only half a Muslim, since he drinks alcohol but does not eat pork. More seriously, Ghalib was asked to explain why he did not attend the celebrations marking the British victory on the hills of Delhi. Today several cabinet ministers are reprimanding Muslim leaders about not joining in the Holocaust memorial ceremonies where they may have to stand by the ambassadors of countries that are laying the foundations of another holocaust especially in Palestine and the Middle East.

Even today, where the history of the events of 1857 is taught in Britain, the major reasons behind the uprising are quoted as the banning of girl infanticide or the banning of sati and the issue of the fat used in manufacturing bullets. Very few, even university courses, mention the famines that occur prior to the rebellion, the discriminatory treatment of the soldiers, or the destruction of a prosperous Indian manufacturing as even probable reasons behind the discontent the Indians may have harboured about the British rule. Some University courses even today suggest that the British were trying to bring enlightenment or democracy to India and somehow, the Indians resented that and rebelled. The British apparently, than as today, had this urge to civilise the world, with the force of their weapons if necessary, and save the locals from their own tyranny.

On the other side of the conflict religion and religious symbols played a very significant role in mobilising for the rebellion of 1857 as it does for today’s resistance from Afghanistan to Palestine. At the same time, the rebel took steps to ensure that the religious diversity within India did not divide those fighting against the British occupation of India. In Delhi itself, royal farmans, edicts, were issued forbidding the killing of cows to maintain the solidarity of the Indians from diverse religious faiths. Indeed, even the final spark carefully brought together the sensibilities of the major faiths, Islam and Hinduism, together to ensure a united struggle against the British. The first martyr of the rebellion indeed was a Brahmin soldier Mangal Panday. He was executed for disobeying military orders even before the rebellion started in earnest. It was also reflected in how various Indian royals from different faiths joined together to fight the British occupation. Bakht Khan, the rebel from the British Army, was appointed to lead the military struggle. He took personal charge to ensure nothing was done to violate sensibilities of any faith keeping the solidarity of all factions within the struggle. The divisions on faith lines within India did not become antagonistic until after the defeat of the resistance when Britain, as result of its experience of 1857, deliberately exploited religious differences to neutralise opposition to their rule in India. 

Another similarity is with the situation in Iraq today where just a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Bush as Commander in Chief of the strongest imperial power declared mission accomplished and yet the struggle continued. Today it is a very distinct possibility that the imperial powers can soon vacate Iraq, defeated. In 1857, although the British re-occupied Delhi after several months, some groups continued to fight in other areas of India until 1859. The struggle never ended across India against the British until their final withdrawal from India some ninety years later, in 1947. Indeed, in 1857, Bakht Khan offered to vacate Delhi with the King on the eve of their defeat and continue the fight from other parts of India. Bahadur Shah did not accept the advice and decided to stay in Delhi where he and his immediate family were brutally treated by the British. All his sons, bar one, were executed after being captured in Humayun’s tomb. Bahadur Shah himself was tried and sent to Burma where he lived in exile to his dying days. There was such a fear that even in Burma his grave could become a factor in rallying the nationalist forces it was kept secret until at least the nineteen thirties. Bakht Khan, having spent some months fighting the British in Lucknow after leaving Delhi retreated to Nepal. 

Why did the uprising failed to liberate India

Politicians, nationalists and historians have been exploring reasons behind the failure of the uprising. Marx, at one time during the uprising did think the rebels could have succeeded in throwing the British out of India. Indeed, if that had happened the history of the world would have been very different.

However, when defeat looked imminent, Marx attributed the defeat on two major factors. The first was the rebels’ lack of technical knowledge, military tactics and resources. Secondly, he attributed the defeat to the diverse forces that had come together to rid India of the British but were unable to stand together when circumstances became difficult. The royals were the most vacillating and succumbed to Britain’s superiority in artillery power. 

In one sense all these explanations are correct. However, with hindsight that the 150 years of history has provided us is that all peoples struggle lack the technical superiority and the artillery power of the oppressors. Peoples’ struggles also cannot be fought using the strategy and tactics of the organised army as several national liberation struggles of the twentieth century have proven. Time and again, from the Soviet Union to Latin America, Africa and Asia, national liberation struggles had always lacked the military strength of their oppressors yet have been able to defeat the superior power by the strength of their conviction and intelligent use of the political tactical and strategic advantages any peoples army has over the occupying force. What has become abundantly clear is the forces of resistance cannot rely on the methods and strategies of their oppressors. This realisation has also dawned on the imperial powers. Carpet bombing of Vietnam and surrounding countries was their attempt to as they say empty the pond of water if you cannot catch the fish. Same strategies are employed now in occupied Palestine, the wider Middle East and South Asia where villages and towns are deliberately targeted to win the war through the process of collective punishment they otherwise cannot possibly win.

Most recently, Hizbollah in Lebanon not only managed to bring together peoples from different religious factions together despite attempts at dividing them but also gave by far the most superior military force in the region a humiliating defeat. Also, most peoples struggle has succeeded in bringing the diverse group of peoples together based on their common grievances. In such circumstances the challenge has always been for any liberation struggle to keep those diverse forces together to ensure final victory.

In India’s case in 1857 it was perhaps the first struggle where such diverse forces were brought together against the occupier. There was a lack of collective experience of how to defeat a militarily superior power taking advantage of benefits a peoples army can have over an imperial army. Since than, China, when occupied by the Japanese proved it is possible to mount a struggle that brings together such a diverse group of peoples and succeed in defeating the enemy. Vietnam was another such example and perhaps Cuba, South Africa and many others that have succeeded using similar strategies of people’s struggles.

In India in 1857, perhaps the main reason for the ultimate failure was the lack of historical experience of the peoples struggle launched on such a wide scale. Among others, the lack of confidence the newly emerging forces, the middle classes, had on their own capabilities to resist oppression.

The outcome of the events of the 1857 was the end of the East India Company and the establishment of the British Empire with India as the jewel in the crown. From than on the new British Empire speeded up the process of exploiting India even further. Famines and poverty spread far and wide across India, especially in Bengal. Also, the struggle against occupation of India continued the barbarity with which that struggle was put down meant Britain was able to hold on to India for another ninety years when in 1947 following the second world war Britain was exhausted enough not to be able to resist the Indian struggle for independence and left the Sub-continent. On the eve of the Independence of India there was another uprising in the British Indian Army, the naval ranks rebelled in Mumbai and in February 1946 raised jointly the flag of the Congress, Muslim League and the Communist Party. They demanded the release of members of the Indian National Army held by the British. However, the political leadership, including the Communist Party of India t some extent, Congress and the Muslim League opposed the uprising and allowed Britain to leave India in the chaos from which the region is still to recover. If the rebellion had been successful, perhaps it would have brought about a different India a different sub-continent and Evan a different world.