Going back to 1850

From: Saffron, White and Green. The amazing story of India's Independence

"One hundred and fifty years ago India was a very different land and a very different society. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries the Mughal Empire had united most of the Indian subcontinent under great rulers like Akbar and Shahjahan, but for over a century the Mughal kings had been incompetent and weak men. Their empire had shrunk to just the area aroung the city of Delhi. As they said sadly on the streets of Chandni Chowk, 'The kingdom of Shah Alam is from Dilli to Palam'. In 1850 the Mughal king living in the Red Fort was Bahadur Shah II. He was still politely referred to as the Shahenshah, but he was just a powerless old man, doddering about the palaces, moodily composing Urdu poetry and living off a pension from the East India Company.

As the Mughal Empire disintegrated, new powers rose in different regions to take its place. Some, like the Marathas and Sikhs, had been at war with Delhi for centuries. Others like the Nawabs of Bengal, Hyderabad and Awadh, who had earlier been serving the Mughal emperors as governors, broke free and became independent rulers. The country became fragmented into many kingdoms that were constantly at war with each other. There was no peace, no rule of law, no economic prosperity, and all that the people could do was suffer in silence.

In the eighteenth century a new group of players joined the messy game of power-grabbing and they came from faraway Europe. In medieval times most of the sea trade from India used to be in the hands of the Arabs. Then in 1498 the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovered a sea route to India from Europe, and the highly profitable trade in spices and textiles brought the Portuguese to Indian shores. The other European nations - the English, French and Dutch followed soon after. They came begging to the court of the Great Mughal and were magnanimously allowed to trade within the Empire. The European companies began by setting up trading posts near the ports, but by the eighteenth century they had armies of their own and began taking sides in the battles between Indian kingdoms.

The East India Company was formed in England in the sixteenth century during the reign og Queen Elizabeth I, and the Company was given permission to trade in India by Emperor Jahangir. By the eighteenth century it was being led by shrewd, ambitious men like Robert Clive and the Marquis of Wellesley, who were less interested in trade and more in building an English Colony. After all, a colony would be much more profitable than just trade, and they played the imperial game with maximum ruthlessness. By the early years of the nineteenth century, the English had conquered a large part of India and built the biggest colony of the British Empire.

These European trading companies flourished because of a lack of enterprise among Indians. By the eighteenth century India had isolated itself completely from the world and was unaware of all developments in science and technology taking place in Europe. The main reason was a superstitious belief that grew among Hindus in medieval times that if you travelled across the seas you would lose your caste. So they stopped all sea trade with other countries. In acncient times the Chola ships had voyaged as fas as Java and Sumatra, making the Cholas rich and powerful rulers, but now the trade was left to the Arabs. Then this highly lucrative trade was grabbed by the European countries with their faster, well-armed ships. So the Indian kingdoms now became dependent on European companies for trade, and on their armies for their defence, and thus began our slide into becoming a colonized country."