The British Fomented Strife between the Hindus and Muslims

Column for September 23rd, 2007

Messages received from readers in Srinagar and Seattle ask for details of Romila Thapar’s book on Somnath. She called it “Somanatha ; The Many Voices of History”. A paperback has not yet appeared as the hard cover continues to sell well.

The queries arose from the ‘Itihaas’ column of 16th September in which the bitter Hindu communalism manifest in Gujarat of today was traced to the 19th century British ploy of parading the doors looted from the tomb of Mahmoud of Ghazni all over North India in a specially prepared vehicle complete with curtains and accompanied with buglers and drummers in order to attract attention and draw crowds.

As the bugles and drums sounded and crowds gathered to watch the tamaashaa they were treated to a spectacle of the curtains being drawn and the doors being revealed for adoration. The message from the Governor General was then read out. It falsely claimed that the doors were the very doors removed by Mahmoud from the temple of Somnath in order to ‘insult’ Hindu belief and sentiment. The claim was made that the British had brought the doors back to right the wrongs of long ago as a gesture of goodwill and in order to demonstrate their friendship for the Hindus of India. This ploy worked and the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha continue to defend the British Raj in India instead of recognizing that it was a continuing outrage.

In the event the doors were later found to have nothing to do with the timber available in Gujarat or with sandalwood. The timber, style of manufacture and the decorative carving pronounced them irrevocably Afghan.

The evil design for which they were used had however done its job and worked on the Hindu psyche. Congressmen like Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi wrote novels like ‘Jai Somnath’. Vallabhbhai Patel, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of Independent India talked in October 1947 of the need to reinstall an icon at Somnath. Babu Rajendra Prasad, President of India desired to participate in the jeernoaddhaar -resanctification ceremony in his official capacity and Pandit Nehru had to use all his skills and authority to prevent him from attending except in his personal capacity.

We had suggested that the doors be taken out of storage in Red Fort Agra and circulated once again in Gujarat (and Maharashtra) along with greater circulation being given to the landmark book written by Romila Thapar by translating it into regional languages as necessary. In view of the recent Rama Setu developments it is doubtful if anyone in power in the center will have the courage necessary to do the needful. The sins of omission may cause more damage than sins of commission but they rarely cause controversy.

Which brings us to the importance of the date on which this column will appear. The 23rd September 1857 saw Brigadier John Nicholson die of his injury sustained in the storming of Delhi on 14th September 1857. The assault was made just after dawn and the ditch around the city wall soon filled with dead bodies of the British and their mercenary troops. The bombardment over many days had caused a small breach and Nicholson tried to enter with his men. It is said that he clambered over the rubble to climb the Kashmiri Gate and blew the bugle of victory from on top.

At the same time another British group climbed the wall and jumped into the city. Some officers approached the Gate with gunpowder and succeeded in blowing up one of the twin doorways. The assault troops next tried to force the passage to Lahore Gate.

At Burn Bastion they came across fierce resistance from inside the narrow street (gali) through which they had to pass. Each door window and rooftop was poring fire. Nicholson had to fall back and retreat. Major Jacob was the next to lead the assault. He fell injured and Nicholson was asked to retreat. He ignored the order and pressed on—only to fall down mortally wounded.

In the folklore of Dillee the Indian marksmen had become desperate as none of the bullets they fired at Nicholson met the mark. One of them thought that being the devil incarnate Nicholson is impervious to lead. He then cast a bullet out of a silver rupee and this projectile met its mark and severely wounded Nicholson and rendered him ineffectual for the rest of the campaign.

As he lay dying Nicholson heard the welcome news of the fall of Delhi, the massacre of all its inhabitants, the apprehension of the Emperor (20th September) and the arrest and murder of the princes by Hodson (21st September). A grateful and vainglorious British government erected his statue near Kashmiri Gate whence he continued to threaten the city and its inhabitants with a naked sword until the end of British rule in India.

The eternal Hindu Muslim Divide and other myths (September 9, 2007)

Column for 9^th September 2007

An English journalist visiting the Silicon Valley asked a group of Indian NRI’s whether they were still resentful of the British intrusion and occupation. The group was all Hindu. Like all Indians who do not want to say things unpleasant for the hearer they demurred and made inoffensive and uncontroversial noises about there being two sides -- that it was not all bad.

Even this group were surprised when one of their number said that it was good that the British came when they did as if they had not come then all of India would be Muslim by now. The speaker was an educated person with a technical degree.

This myth has been with us for some time. A number of Bengali Hindus in the 19^th century, including the Brahmo leader Keshub Chandra Sen earned the goodwill and support of their British masters by subscribing to this untruth. Sen himself could not be rewarded-- by being raised to royalty. His daughter could and was—by a British Political Office arranged marriage into a minor princely household. The continuing- to- be--lionized Maharani Gayatri Devi is descended from Keshub Chundra Sen. The Maharaja of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi’s husband is said to have proclaimed that he would not fight for India. He, however, would show his loyalty by obeying any summons the British Crown.

The descendents of the quislings of 1857 like the Scindias of Gwalior and the Dogras of J&K continuing to enjoy power and live in luxury ensures that distortions in history continue. No one worries about the fate of the descendents of Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and a host of other freedom fighters.

The distortion of Indian history by British historians and their Indian successors like Jadunath Sarkar (he was knighted for his efforts by the British) continues uncorrected. We are to believe

• that the Hindus and Muslims were at each other’s throats from 1192-1857
• That the Mughals lived in luxury while their subjects starved
• That India was always poor.

The facts are clear and unambiguous. Communal riots are a phenomenon beginning with British rule and continuing thereafter--there were none before British rule began. In May 1857 the ‘Pandys’ ( as the British called the Mutineers) came all the way from Meerut to Delhi shouting ‘Deen’ ‘Deen’ (FAITH, FAITH) as for them Deen and Dharam meant one and the same thing.

They asked Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ an 82vyear old man who had no experience of war-- no money or soldiery- to lead them despite their being Hindu and his being Muslim. When he pointed out that he could not help with either men or money they said that all they wanted was his name and his blessings.

The Mughals did live in luxury unsurpassed to this day. The peasantry did not starve because the rulers took away all surplus as happened under the British. ‘There was a characteristic of the Mughal tax system that raised the peasants’ and herders’ net income and partly protected India’s ecology. Abul Fazl’s Ain laid down ‘ that if a man kept under pasture such land as was liable to land revenue…. A tax of six dams per buffalo or three per cow (or bullock) was to be levied. But a cultivator owning upto four bullocks, two cows and one buffalo to each plough was exempt.

Moreover no tax was to be levied from goshalas or herds of cows kept for religious and charitable purposes.’

Pastures were exempt and taxes raised were a low amount per animal. As a result ‘butter with rice formed the food of the common man and there was no one in Agra who did not eat it. Similarly in Bengal butter was produced in such plenty that besides being part of everyone’s diet it was exported along with sugar and rice.

Before Plassey (1757) Bengal was the most prosperous and dynamic economy in the world. It sent a revenue of one crore silver rupees (40 dams to the rupee) to Awrungzeyb in all the thirty years he remained embattled in the Deccan fighting the Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda and then the Marathas. Bagchi states ‘India under Mughal rule and after’ that

“Piecing all these fragments of evidence together, it is fair to conclude that the rate of growth of Indian income in the Mughal and the immediately pre-colonial period very probably matched, if not exceeded the long run rate of demographic growth in India during earlier centuries’.

It is time the Mughals were taken off the black square of self indulgent communalists and seen for what they were. The British want Indians to look upon them as an earlier and worse version of exploiters and distort history to prove their point. Their interpretation continues to divide and fragment Indian society and must be dismissed.