World History: Colonialism and Imperialism

One of the most influential aspect of history which shaped the present day was the rise of European, and later American and Japanese, empires in Africa and Asia. We briefly looked at colonialism when we discussed Britain in India and the rise of modern capitalism, but today, we will look at this in greater detail - especially the European empires in Africa. One of my specialities is colonialism in Africa, which I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on, so this post will primarily look at the impact of colonialism and imperialism on Africa. However, we shall still look at other regions as a means of cross-comparison - such as India and southeast Asia. Colonialism would greatly shape the history of the world, and its impact is definitely felt today; especially as in many areas colonialism continues.

Origins

The EIC logo

We saw the origins of nineteenth century imperialism taking root centuries prior when we looked at earlier colonialism. Europeans, initially Spanish and Portuguese, formed trading alliances in Asia and Africa in order to benefit from new resources. In 1510 Portugal captured the city of Goa in India, and formed a 'factory' - an armed fortification where trade could take place. They were later joined by the English, later British, East Indian Company (EIC), French East Indian Company, and the Dutch Vereenigte Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). These trading companies formed alliances with local rulers in order to better monopolise trade in regions - when the British edged France out of India during the Seven Years' War in 1765 the Mughal Emperor granted the EIC the legal claim to collect tax in Bengal. These alliances were not limited to India - the VOC made alliances with Indonesian rulers to monopolise spice, and the Portuguese made alliances with the Kongo Kingdom to gain access to gold, slaves, and rubber. The Atlantic Slave Trade emerged due to this formation of trade-based alliances - the kingdoms of Dahomey and Asante traded slaves, ivory, and gold in vast quantities in return for firearms and textiles. In turn, they would use the slave trade to give them the edge over states further from the coast. Walter Rodney argued that this would begin the underdevelopment of Africa - the African economy would be devoted to supplying slaves for the benefit of Europeans limiting their ability to develop their own economy. As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth mercantilism gave way to industrial capitalism and modern capitalism. Industrial production required large quantities of raw materials which slavery and empire offered. As described by Shashi Tharoor: Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the destruction of India's thriving manufacturing industries. The Bengal textile exports were estimated to be worth over 6.5 million rupees until 1753 amounting to a quarter of global trade in textiles; a sizeable rival to Britain's growing industrial economy. Imposing duties and tariffs of up to 80% (according to Tharoor) was designed to wipe out the competing industry. 

Empire in Africa developed for similar reasons. After the decline of the slave trade in the early-1800s European powers tried to develop 'legitimate commerce' in order to replace the now illegal profits from slavery. As in India and southeast Asia, imperial rule in Africa began not from formal agents of power (like colonial bureaucrats and the military), but by informal agents of power like traders, scientists, and especially missionaries. We shall discuss some of this later, but traders and missionaries were vital in the development of colonialism. A concept of Africa being a 'land of darkness' requiring salvation mixed with growing secularism in Europe and America, so Christian missions ventured inland to 'save' Africa. Often Christian missions claimed to be doing more than just spreading the gospel - aiding trade, spreading medicine, or even fighting slavery. The topic of my dissertation, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was formed in 1857 with the purpose to 'fight slavery' and 'spread the Light of Christ'. Antislavery, often mixed with anti-Arab racism, was a prominent feature of UMCA reports. Industrial steamships allowed better transport by the 1850s, and better medicines allowed some form of protection against diseases like malaria. This would pave the way for the 'Scramble for Africa'. The 'Scramble' was sparked thanks to the Berlin Conference of 1884/5. Wanting to enrich his small nation, and himself, King Leopold II of Belgium founded the International African Association, and hired explorer-missionary Henry Stanley to traverse the Congo in 1876. Along the river, Stanley would form treaties with local leaders and form trade depots so Leopold could claim sovereignty over the region and the lucrative production of ivory and rubber. However, France found out so began their own project by sending out Pierre de Brazza in 1881. Often these treaties left out that African leaders had to cede their land - when Tio chief Makobo signed one with Brazza in 1880 he thought it was a defence pact against the Belgians. Fearing being left out German chancellor Otto von Bismarck called a conference in Berlin inviting the major European powers, and the US, who would then carve up Africa.

Orientalism

The Snake Charmer (1880), an Orientalist painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904

In this post I want to look at a socio-cultural history of colonialism, but in order to do so we have to look at an important idea - Orientalism. In 1978, Palestinian theorist Edward Said published his groundbreaking work Orientalism. He argued that Occidental perceptions of the Middle East were subjected to power relations - 'The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” …but because it could be…made Oriental'. Colonialists came to the Middle East with preconceived notions, and a belief that their own culture was superior. Misunderstanding of colonised culture made it appear decadent and barbaric. Said's theory has been highly influential - my own writing has been inspired by his. However, it does have its flaws. For one, Said wrote about the Middle East only - it does not map neatly onto other areas of the world. Gayatri Spivak has also identified an important critique in her landmark work, Can the Subaltern Speak?. Post-colonial theorists had focused on indigenous sources to break out of imperial narratives, but these sources were written by indigenous elites so sidelined the voices of 'subalterns' - those excluded from hegemonic power. Lebanese Marxist Mahdi Amal further critiqued Said by arguing that there is little class analysis of Orientalism; Said largely discusses high culture sources, and pays little account to how class came into colonialism. Nevertheless, Orientalist theory is important, and as we shall see, Orientalist views influenced how colonised regions are seen to this day.

Forging Identities

Ganesh became widely worshipped thanks to British rule in India

As argued by Jean and John Comaroff, 'Colonialism was simultaneously, equally, and inseparable a process in political economy and culture'. Ideas of culture, faith, and even ethnic identity were subjected to change under colonial rule. Informal agents of power, especially missionaries and anthropologists, were integral to the formation of these ideas. Moreover, local elites were deeply involved in this - elites had to manage both local ideas and the wants of colonial officials. For example, Nicholas Dirks has discussed how modern caste developed under British rule. Pre-colonial caste was subject to change, and although Brahmans were supposed to supersede Kshatriyas, in reality Kshatriyas held greater power. Kshatriyas worked with the British, according to Dirks, to place themselves in power. This is further prevalent in Africa. In East Africa identity was subject to change - in what would become Kenya the only difference between a Kikuyu and Maasai in certain areas was due to how you were circumcised, it was possibly for a parent to have one Maasai child and one Kikuyu child. Missionaries and anthropologists were important in reifying and categorising identity. Helen Tilly has discussed how Africa became a 'living laboratory' for anthropologists where they could debate the lives of local peoples. Links between ideas which they knew were forced onto indigenous culture, and ideas of one group could be forced onto a different group. An example can show this well. Leading UMCA bishop Edward Steere in 1869 when in Magila, northern Tanzania tried to convert the local peoples to Christianity. Steere argued that they had no concept of a soul, despite belief in spirits, but disliked a local idea of 'kizuli' which was seen as an immortal breath. He found it 'a puzzle...how the breath could be immortal' and that kizuli was 'thoroughly and hopelessly heathenism'. He instead used an idea from Mbweni, Zanzibar for the soul writing that 'the people understood "Roho" to mean 'the heart'. I did not know it before. However, I suppose that the heart is a very fair analogue for the soul. It is a very great deal better than "Kizuli"'. Despite 'Roho' being from an entirely different culture, it was applied to mean the 'soul' and today local languages, and Swahili, uses 'roho' to mean this.

Anthropologists built upon what earlier informal agents of power had started, especially after the First World War in Africa, and used local peoples to formulate their ideas. At times colonial officials acted as amateur anthropologists as it would directly benefit themselves. How better to govern people than to 'study' them. Of course, this was heavily dehumanising and intrusive to the peoples being subjected to these anthropological studies. C.W. Hobley was an administrator in Kenya and wrote about the Kikuyu in Bantu Beliefs and Magic (1922), while Charles Dundas around Kilimanjaro wrote about the Chagga in Kilimanjaro and Its People (1924). We see these Orientalist depictions of African culture in these works. Dundas wrote that Chagga creation stories resembling Christian creation stories had to be due to an 'ancient Semitic connection' as Christian missionaries had only been in the region for a few decades; a perception that Africans were rooted in tradition meant that they surely could not have belief subjected to change from recent influences. Not only does Dundas ignore the presence of Islam along the coast and centuries of trade with the Middle East possibly introducing these ideas, but he contradicts himself by stating that white Europeans are ruling in the Chagga afterlife. Similarly, Hobley exhibits these views. He lists over sixty 'curses' called thahu, which he compares to sin, which the Kikuyu rigidly live by - one of the things which can implement a thahu is a dog knocking over a pot - with the worst being a man seeing a girl undergoing circumcision during irua, the ceremonial rite of passage. However, African-American anthropologist Ralph J. Bunche was allowed to see it in 1941, and local chief, Koinange, even threatened to take his daughters from the ceremony if Bunche was barred from seeing it. 

Forms of Colonial Rule

Colonial rule took many different forms across even the same empires. Rule by companies often predated formal rule - the EIC in India until 1857, the VOC in Indonesia until 1799, and the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR) until 1906 in the Congo. As we have already looked at, capitalism and imperialism marched hand-in-hand so they positioned themselves as a way to extract resources from colonised regions. Formal rule which replaced company rule built upon these institutions - these companies attempted to 'reform' indigenous cultures at the same time trying to make a profit. Company rule could end due to loss of profit (with the VOC), mismanagement (the VOC and the EIC's inability to deal with the 1857 Indian Rising), or brutality (with the ABIR). The Belgian Congo became synonymous with colonial brutality. To maximise rubber production (from 100 tons in 1890 to 6,000 in 1901) Leopold oversaw long work hours in poor conditions enforced through violence. Individuals, including pregnant women and children, were forced to work over 80 hours a week with the viboko (hippo-hide whip) hanging over them. In 1904 Roger Casement issued a report called King Leopold's Rule in Africa detailing the atrocities, such as the depopulation of the Bolobo mission station which saw its community decimated from 40,000 to 1,000, and the brutal mutilations as punishment for fleeing forced labour. Casement's book featured the infamous photo by Alice Seeley Harris of a man called Nsala in Wala district mournfully looking at a severed hand and foot, the only remains of his five-year-old daughter. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) depicts an ivory collector, Marlow, working for ABIR going insane with greed and power.

Nsala looking at his daughter's foot and hand

'Indirect rule' was a common form of colonial rule. This was coined by Frederick Lugard in The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa to describe a form of rule where the British, and other colonial powers, would rule through local elites. Lugard would govern in Nigeria operating through local leaders, like the former Sokoto rulers. This was not limited to Africa - France ruled through Vietnamese and Cambodian kings and the Dutch ruled through Indonesian sultans as well. This was a cost effective way to rule large areas cheaply - Britain barely had a few dozen individuals operating in Nigeria. Settler colonialism saw large communities of white settlers displace indigenous peoples from their land in order to establish their own communities. We saw this in South Africa, Rhodesia, Algeria, Australia, the American West, Taiwan, and Hokkaido to name a few notable examples. Today, white families still hold the majority of land in Zimbabwe and South Africa. African settler colonies saw indigenous Africans being reduced to tenant farmers who had to find work on white farms. Indirect rule could be mixed with settler colonialism - Kenya is a good example of this. The colonial government seized over 7 million acres of land to form the White Highlands while, simultaneously, implementing indirect rule for larger ethnic groups - like the Kikuyu. A further form of colonialism, which still exists today, is informal empire; foreign powers could exert varying economic and political power over weaker states. At times this paved the way for formal colonial rule - Britain and France used Egypt's debts to build the Suez Canal to exert control, the US used American plantations in Hawaii to overthrow the monarchy, and Japan used railways and political influence to informally control Korea and north China before formally annexing them. China is the perfect example of informal empire. British opium imports were used to justify a war in 1839 resulting in Britain taking 'treaty ports', like Hong Kong, where Britain could exert free control. Other powers including France, Russia, Germany, and Japan similarly carved up China forming their own treaties granting them political and economic influence.

Adaptation to Empire

The Masasi Church

Empire greatly shaped the demographics and cultures of the colonised peoples. Indentured servitude created a significant Indian diaspora across the world. Regular famines under British rule put incredible strain on communities, so Indians - especially Bengalis, Tamils, and Gujaratis - engaged in indentured servitude to escape famine despite the brutality of the labour system. As a result, South Africa, east Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania developed significant Indian populations. The Uganda Railway, constructed in 1895, was primarily built with Indian labourers. Eventually, thriving and successful Indian communities, over 84,000 in Uganda by 1940, emerged. White farmers in Kenya, after 1929, became angered that Indians, like Mohamed Ahmed, were gaining enough wealth to own land, so campaigned the colonial office to prevent their land ownership. Those from wealthier families, or in the right circumstances, could use imperial structures to become deeply involved in the colonial project. The UMCA heavily relied on Leonard Pesa and Cecil Majaliwa to convert Africans, and they too infused racism to Africa in their rhetoric; Pesa said that 'evils would tend to disappear' under European rule. Meanwhile, Mohandas Gandhi became a lawyer and travelled to both South Africa and Britain; future president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, was educated at Makerere College; and Senegalese president Leopold Senghor managed to attend university in Paris. Work and demographics shifted thanks to imperialism. Increased urbanisation meant that primarily rural cultures became involved in urban economies, or economies geared towards industrial consumption. For example, industrial peanut production became important to Senegal, so much so that women began singing folk songs about how peanuts were more dependable than men. Koreans moved to cities like Tokyo and Osaka to work in industry forming vibrant Korean communities. While in the metropole there were discussions of reforming work this was not the case in colonial states. Corporal punishment and forced labour remained common - the Congo Free State was only targeted as it went beyond 'acceptability'. 

As we saw when we looked at India, reforms were subject to being contested. Ostensibly benevolent reforms - like medicine and education - were often used to increase colonial power. Frantz Fanon in A Dying Colonialism would explain how colonial medicine was distrusted as it was linked to colonial powers, and the fact that colonial doctors ignored the needs of colonial patients. Censuses in India to prevent female infanticide were used to keep tract of peoples, bringing women into education were used to reinforce female domesticity, and medical programmes, while healing patients physically, could cause major mental damage. Janice Boddy has discussed how the Wolff sisters in 1930s Sudan tried to reform female circumcision and midwifery. Part of their reforms placed more emphasis on the midwife to make birth safer; by doing so they inadvertently took agency away from the mother. Colonised peoples did adapt colonial changes, everything from faith to language. In Singapore 'Singlish' emerged combining English, Malay, Tamil, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese is a notable example. As France placed emphasis on making Africans citoyens noirs formally educated Africans could use French courts to improve their own rights. 

Race and Sex

An infamous Pears' Soap ad depicting The White Man's Burden

Our next post will be about racism so we'll discuss it more there, but it is vital to understand empire. Race thinking was integral to how empire was structured. Certain ethnicities, called 'races' or 'tribes', were deemed superior so colonial powers chose to rule through them - in Rwanda and Burundi Germany, and later Belgium, declared the Tutsi to be 'natural rulers' so had to rule over the Hutu. In India, the Public Service Commission in 1886 declared that the British Raj was made up of 'passive' Hindus, 'lawless' Muslims, 'manly' Punjabis, and 'effeminate' Bengalis. As early as the 1810s a woman called Saartjie Baartman was kidnapped from South Africa and forced to perform in a freak show, shaking her hips to accentuate her large buttocks. When she died she was even put on display in a museum. Racial scientists would use Saartjie Baartman to formulate their eugenics and social Darwinist theories. Human zoos emerged across the worlds including at the 1878, 1889, and 1900 Parisian World's Fair which featured a 'Negro Village', and a Japanese exhibition depicted 'savage' Ryukyuans, Taiwanese, Koreans, and Ainu. Anne McClintock has emphasised the intersection between commodity capitalism and colonial racism. Soap, in particular, was used with it being linked to 'white civilisation' against 'unwashed black savagery'. Pears' Soap regularly featured Africans becoming white thanks to soap, proudly proclaiming that it was doing its part in 'The White Man's Burden'. Ann Stoler has linked racism to the fragility of white identity, especially with the idea of interracial relations. Originally, concubinage had been allowed in Dutch Indonesia, however, this changed by the early-twentieth century for fears of 'racial impurity' and mixed race children, the 'fruits of a regrettable weakness'. White women were seen as tempting non-white men, due to white male fears of racial mixing. In 1926 in Dutch New Guinea rape or attempted rape of a white woman by a non-white man would result in the death penalty. The rape of a non-white woman by a white man would not result in death, however, indicating a fear of white prestige being challenged.

Resistance to Empire

A colonial depiction of the death of Major-General Gordon during the Mahdist War

Empire was never simply accepted by colonised peoples. Many of those who resisted colonialism have since become icons of national history since independence. For example, the queen mother of the Asante Kingdom, Yee Asantewaa, in 1900 led a rebellion against British rule in what would become Ghana laying siege to Kumasi. When we looked at India we discussed the 1857 Indian Uprising - growing anger over over-reach by British rule and mismanagement sparked a rebellion. However, British divide-and-rule policy, divisions among the rebels, and British armaments meant it was crushed. Violent resistance to colonial rule could vary in different ways. Some, like the Anglo-Zulu War, was a clear-cut case of trying to prevent colonial rule. Some was due to political misrule. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad declared himself to be the Mahdi in Sudan calling for a restoration of Islam and the purging of the corrupt Ottoman and Egyptian rulers. In 1884 the Mahdi defeated the British, and it took until 1899 for British rule to be re-established. Putting down rebellion was incredibly destructive. In German South-West Africa, modern Namibia, the German settlers and soldiers dispossessed and abused the Herero and Nama communities. In January 1904, a hundred Herero horsemen arrived at Okahandja to solve an inheritance dispute, but the local commander, Lieutenant Ralph Zurn, declared an uprising was underway. What followed was the German colonial army under General Lothar von Trotha issuing an extermination order resulting in the massacre of the Herero and Nama peoples. In January 1904 the Herero population was around 80,000 - by December 1905 it was about 15,000. It was to be the first genocide of the twentieth century, and sadly it would not be the last. Non-violent resistance could also take place. Gandhi and other Indians began non-violent protest against South African segregationist policies, something which would pave the way for his satyagraha protests against British rule in India. Japan tried to replace Korean with Japanese, so Koreans formed Korean language societies in the cities. The destructive schooling system for Native Americans and First Nations in the US and Canada aimed to destroy indigenous culture by taking them from their families, and raising them in abusive boarding schools. They were taught Christianity, and were beaten if they spoke their own languages. Children managed to resist by fleeing back home, and the Ghost Dance movement emerged in the 1880s to revitalise Lakota culture. It took a massacre by the US army to crush this movement. All these aspects of resistance would pave the way for future anti-colonial resistance and decolonisation.

Legacies and Conclusion

The legacies of colonialism is intrinsically felt today. Racism and Orientalist views of the former colonised world still persists today - from movies like Aladdin to how the news presents events in Africa and the Middle East. The political boundaries formed by colonial rule, and what happened in them, touches every country to this day. Divide-and-rule policies has caused deep ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan to name a few. The legacies of German and Belgian rule in Rwanda regularly led to massacres after independence resulting in genocide in 1994. With colonies geared towards supplying the metropole with raw materials this ensured that after independence this is still the case. Zambia's economy was geared towards the export of copper, but when copper prices plummeted in the 1970s it devastated the Zambian economy. For this reason, former colonies, or informal colonies, remain tethered to their old colonial overlords, or new powers. Even now, former French African colonies have to pay a tax to France as 'gratitude' for bringing them 'civilisation'. One of the reasons why liberal democracy has largely failed to take root in most of Africa, as well as other colonies, is that there was no history of democracy before independence, and they simply have not been allowed to. We shouldn't really discuss the legacies of colonialism and imperialism, instead we should discuss how it evolved thanks to decolonisation.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavour, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2015)

-Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, (London: Hurst & Company, 2017)

-Edward Said, Orientalism, (London: Penguin, 1978)

-Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995)

-Richard Reid, A History of Modern Africa, 1800 to the Present, Second Edition, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

-Jean and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997)

-A.E.M. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the UMCA, 1859-1896, (London: Office of the UMCA, 1897)

-Charles Dundas, Kilimanjaro and Its People, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1924)

-C.W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1922)

-Ralph J. Bunche, 'The Irua Ceremnony among the Kikuyu of Kiamba District, Kenya', The Journal of Negro History, 26:1, (1941), 46-65

-Thomas Spear, 'Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa', The Journal of African History, 44:1, (2003), 3-27

-Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011)

-Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late-Nineteenth Century, (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1995)

-Ann Stoler, 'Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures', American Ethnologist, 16:4, (1989), 634-660

-Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World, (London: Bloomsbury, 2011)

-Nicholas Dirks, Castes of the Mind, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)

-Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, Trans. by Haakon Chevalier, (London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1959/1980)

-Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002)

-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, (London: Penguin, 1902/1956)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. The next World History post will look at the origins of modern racism. For other World History posts please see our list. For other blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: Britain in India

The last time that we looked at India Britain had managed to edge out its European competitors thanks to victory in the Seven Years' War. This post will look at British rule in India from the end of the Seven Years' War in 1765 until the start of the twentieth century - a period marked by reform, repression, power, and rebellion. Many of the policies implemented in British India were later adapted for Africa, so when we look specifically at imperialism these two posts should be read together. However, that is a post for a later date, and first we have to understand how the British rose in India.

The Rise of the Raj

'Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey'

British rule started with a company - the East India Company (EIC) - which had arrived initially to trade. When Britain started becoming a power in India the power of the old empire, the Mughals, was waning. The rise of a new empire, the Marathas, broke Mughal hegemony over the subcontinent, and the system of 'tax-farming' - allowing individuals to collect tax for the state - caused economic issues when those tasked with collecting tax opted to keep it for themselves. Merchants, particularly on the coast, started funding opponents - one of the reasons why Britain won the 1757 Battle of Plassey so easily was that disgruntled merchants paid a Mughal general to aid the British. Following the Seven Years' War the EIC under Robert Clive was granted the diwani, right to collect tax revenues, in Bengal which the EIC used to both purchase goods, and finance the conquest of the rest of India. Historian C.A. Bayly has highlighted the importance of British nationalism thanks to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars influenced aggressive expansion - especially under governor-general Richard Wellesley (1798-1805). Before Wellesley the EIC offered 'protection' in return for payment, but this led smaller allies to become indebted to the EIC - private British creditors were used to keep nawabs independent but in debt. Wellesley wanted direct rule instead - in 1800 the Nawab of Awadh was forced to cede all his western territories and Arcot was entirely annexed. He also resorted to direct conflict - the Second Anglo-Maratha War happened under his rule, and saw the EIC capture Delhi in 1803. Direct conquest was very expensive, so the EIC used conquest to fund conquest. Under the Marquess of Dalhousie (1848-1856) the EIC annexed subsidiary states by declaring that if a state lacked a male heir it would be annexed - Satara (1848), Jhansi (1853), Nagpur (1854), and Awadh (1856) brought in 10 million pounds. The EIC often ruled through local leaders, and this would continue under the Raj, including the remaining Mughal sultans. 'Divide-and-rule' was essential to EIC rule, and how they conquered - Indian troops, 'sepoys', and states were used to fight enemies on behalf of the British.

India's first railway in 1853

It is important to note that the EIC was a corporatocracy - a company that controlled a political system. A mixture of free market capitalism and British nationalism influenced how the company operated. Using nawabs and sepoys to fight wars of conquest was a practical and cost effective way of expanding company rule. The British were always the head of the EIC - Indians were barred from positions of power - but they relied on local elites to aid and implement their rule. High-caste Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made up the majority of sepoy recruits; zamindars (landlords) under Charles Cornwallis (1786-1820) were given greater control of taxation; and in 1802 Wellesley oversaw the opening of Fort William College in Calcutta (modern Kolkata) to train Indian elites to help the EIC. Early EIC reforms were done to allow profit and an end to 'despotic' rule. The 1793 Permanent Settlement Act taxed zamindars based on the value of land as it was believed to allow profit maximisation and protect ryots (tenants) from exploitation. The third largest railroad in the world, from Calcutta to Madras, was constructed to allow ease of movement, and literacy increased thanks to the creation of schools. However, they were not entirely altruistic. As already discussed education was done to create a class of allies to implement EIC rule, and ordinary Indians were often barred from using railways, it was done to allow the easy movement of the army. Furthermore, poorer Indians often did not benefit from EIC rule - from 1793 zamindars could exploit ryots more, and education and employment was for the wealthy. The EIC was a company so profit was its primary goal. Although stories of EIC officials breaking Bengali weavers's thumbs are inaccurate, the EIC did see the 'deindustrialising' of Bengal so it could not compete with British textiles. Many of India's worst famines occurred under company rule - in 1770 a famine in Bengal saw a third of the population starve. Fearful that stocks would plummet thanks to the famine the EIC rose land taxes by 10% instead of issuing famine relief. This trend would continue, not only in British India, throughout the colonial world.

Khair-un-Nissa

Moreover, India was where 'white respectability' was reborn. William Dalrymple's White Mughals (2002) shows this very well, and of all the sources which I have used for this post I would recommend it the most. Originally, the Indian-British divide was not so rigid, and it was common for EIC agents to wear Indian clothing; learn local languages; and partake in local cultural activities. Dalrymple's book looks at how British lieutenant-colonel James Kirkpatrick, a 'cocky young imperialist intending to conquer India', arrived at Hyderabad where he and Khair-un-Nissa, a young noblewoman, married. Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, learned Persian and Hindustani, and was adopted by the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was not alone - many Hyderabadi officials had monogamous relations with educated women, including Colonel James Dalrymple who married Mooti Begum, daughter of the Nawab of Masulipatam. However, by this time the EIC had started to turn against those who partook in Indian cultural practices or married Indians. When David Hare, the founder of the Hindu College in Calcutta, died he was barred from a Christian burial, and in 1786 Lord Cornwallis banned Anglo-Indians from EIC employment or travelling to Britain. Meanwhile, EIC employees were also viewed with suspicion. One could become very rich very quickly through EIC employment. There was a fear that nouveau riche would disrupt British sensibility thanks to ill-gotten gains in India - governor-general Warren Hastings, originally of old money, bought his family's historic manor in Gloucestershire (sold in 1715) and told his agent to 'give as much for it as it is worth and if you give something more for it I shall not be sorry' which was seen as flaunting wealth. The 1773 play The Nabob by Samuel Foote exemplifies the established fears: brash vulgarian Sir Matthew Mite (a caricature of Clive) where he lost what little morals he had in India, and 'imported the worst of its vices' to corrupt parliament. Corruption saw Warren Hastings impeached in 1788 (he was later acquitted, Clive having to defend himself in parliament, and in 1784 the India Act was passed partially putting the EIC under the rule of Britain.

Orientalism, and the Creation of Caste and Faith

I want to briefly discuss Edward Said's Orientalist theory, and I would also recommend reading this post about Gayatri Spivak who expanded on Said. Looking at the Middle East, Said argued that colonial powers viewed their own culture as the 'correct' culture, so, with little knowledge of the 'Orient', applied their own knowledge to the colonised world. This view of the Orient was formed as 'not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” …but also because it could be – that is, submitted to being – made Oriental'. There are flaws in Said's theory - he only looks at high culture (like Shakespeare) and accidentally takes agency away from the colonised. Orientalist views are forcibly applied to the colonised independent. Colonial elites helped construct ideas and narratives to fit themselves which Spivak later discussed. Caste and faith were constructed in this way. Hinduism and caste predated colonial rule, but how they exist in modern forms were created thanks to colonialism. First, we shall discuss faith. Ronald Indens' Imagining India discusses this well, although he does place too much emphasis on British actions in the construction of modern Hinduism. Early-eighteenth century sources use the term 'Hindoo' to describe all Indians, regardless of faith, and overtime it evolved to mean a specific faith. Many Hindu stories exist - especially about the creation of the world - and a variety of seemingly paradoxical beliefs co-exist, these range from atheism to polytheism. Hinduism was a wide variety of spiritual beliefs, but British missionaries and officials did not understand this. Instead, they applied a Western notion of a rigid belief system onto Hinduism creating the current notion of Hinduism we have in the West. Hindu elites aided in this creation - the 1776 Gentoo Laws helped bring in separate rule for Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism. In order to secure some form of self-rule a unified faith was needed, however, at the grassroots level Indian Hinduism continued.

Like Hinduism, caste existed before British rule. Nicholas Dirks believed that caste may have originally came about millennia ago due to attempts to legitimise kinship. Both Dirks and Indens acknowledge that caste in practice differed from theoretical caste. In theory, a broad category called Brahmans (priests) were at the top and below them were the Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, and farmers), and Sudras (labourers), and the 'untouchable' Dalits excluded entirely. In practice these categories were in constant flux and a very basic understanding of caste - in reality Kshatriyas held actual power and Brahmans had to rely on them for protection. Like with Hinduism, Britain viewed caste as a rigid and timeless institution - missionary Abbe J.A. Dubois in 1816 saw it as being essential to civilisation that 'preserve[s] priceless heritage...[so as] not lapse into a state of barbarism'. Brahmans in particularly emphasised the rigidity of caste to the British - the British could place them firmly at the top of society. Escaping heavy-handed British reforms also came through the caste system. Hook-swinging was seen by missionaries as insulting Christ's crucifixion, so Brahmans emphasised that it was a practice by 'untouchables' so they themselves would not be linked to the practice.

Reform: Altruistic or Invasive?

A group of supposed 'Thuggee' in 1894

The EIC and Raj aimed to pass various social reforms, especially after 1784, through the influence of the British back home. Many of these reforms would later be adopted by the forebearers of Indian nationalism - especially Ram Mohan Roy. However, very little of this had to do with genuine altruism - in the words of Lawrence James Britain displayed 'racial arrogance' towards India. Reformers aimed to 'uplift' India from perceived 'despotism'. Quite ironically this 'uplift' issued in a new despotism. As we have already seen, apparently benevolent or altruistic actions were done largely for pragmatism, or as a way to control the population. Bans on female infanticide are a good example of this. Especially in poor, rural India this was common so Britain issued a ban, but to ensure that the ban was in place it meant widescale censuses and state intervention happened. To better control farm land, and in line with 'divide-and-rule', forests were clearly demarcated, and the ensuing deforestation caused small-scale climate change and displaced tribal peoples. A major figure in British demonology was the so-called 'Thugs' - this was a supposed group a highway robbers worshipping the 'demon' cult of Kali. Orientalism influenced how Kali was viewed - a goddess of creation and destruction was recast as Satanic - so the subjugation of 'Thuggee' by William Sleeman was used by Britain as a form of self-congratulation. Gayatri Spivak described justification for colonialism as 'white men protecting brown women from brown men' which can be seen across Britain's reforms. Bans on infanticide, child marriage, polygamy, and sati (widow-burning) were ostensibly altruistic, but for them to happen, as colonialists argued, Britain needed to remain in India. Sati is an interesting case. In 1829 sati was, unsuccessfully, banned with British, and Indian, reformers argued they were saving women - conservative Brahmans argued it was an integral part of Hindu culture despite it largely being limited to the upper castes. During a peak from 1812 to 1819 there were around 800 widow burnings - considering India's population this was a fairly small number - so it was an attempt by upper castes to help forge images of India.

The 1857 Rebellion

'The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut' from the Illustrated London News

1857 was a turning point in Indian history, and has been subjected to a wide series of debates: was it simply a mutiny? A mutiny that turned into a popular uprising? A jihad? Rebellion and mutiny were not uncommon, but the scale of 1857 was. Long-term and short-term factors came together influencing rebellion. British rule was not popular: Christian missions and reforms changing religious practices upset many Indians; the British, now abandoning any pretence of respect to India, were considered aloof and rude; European juries gave harsher punishments to Indians; restriction on peasant mobility left many impoverished; and weavers had lost their industry. Religious millenarianism had made religious slights worsen: in 1856 Islamic preachers in Lucknow had been foretelling a quick end to British, and Christian, rule. A disastrous attempt to invade Afghanistan in 1842 caused Britain to expand its military ranks from which they recruited in Bengal - this was disliked by Rajputs and Bhumihar Brahmans who had monopolised the Bengal army. Furthermore, Indian rulers had recently become infuriated by the EIC. Dalhouise had prevented Lakshmibai, the Rhani of Jhansi, from adopting a son leading to Jhansi's annexation, and he did not have the Board of Directors' permission to annex Awadh. The EIC had also declared that the title of Mughal would end after the death of the elderly Bahadur Shah II. The spark for rebellion would come from something as simple as grease. Rumours emerged that the new Lee Enfield rifle cartridges had to be bitten to release the powder, but the cartridges were covered in grease from beef and pork - offensive to both Hindus and Muslims. Another rumour emerged in the Dum Dum barracks that a low caste soldier mocked a high caste soldier for tasting cow which made him lose his caste. This is commonly cited as the origin of the rebellion, but in reality a different event would do this. Several soldiers were court imprisoned for refusing to use the rifles and their public humiliation is what caused the XI Native Cavalry in Meerut, in the north, to mutiny on 10 May 1857. The soldiers were joined by disgruntled masses, and the next day marched into Delhi, killed European and Christian shopkeepers, and proclaimed a very reluctant 86-year-old Bahadur Shah emperor.

The Rhani of Jhansi

In the words of R.C. Majumdar, 'The people came to believe that the British Raj was at an end and merely took advantage of the political vacuum thus created to serve their own material interests'. Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose also described it as, 'a series of regional patriotisms...based on an emotional affinity with the homeland and a rational commitment to principles of good governance'. A second revolt erupted in Awadh which quickly gained popular support where the British garrison were imprisoned in Lucknow. The Rhani of Jhansi personally led her people to siege her old country, while a former Maratha leader, Nana Sahib, inflicted a serious defeat on the British garrison at Kanpur. Reasons why those revolted differed: in Jhansi the people did so through patriotic feeling and mass unemployment, the Rhani to regain her power, and apparently Rana Sahib had been denied a pension from the EIC despite being the son of an important Maratha official. Muslim pastoralists rose up in the far west of the Punjab as soldiers mutinied in the towns, and Afghan soldiers joined urban groups revolting in Hyderabad. Both Hindus and Muslims sensed a loss of country, and the famous Proclamation of Azimgarh of 25 August 1857 stated that, 'both Hindus and Muslims [were] being ruined under the tyranny and oppression of the infidel and treacherous English'. This explains why rebels were so eager to kill Europeans, Christian Indians, and sepoys who remained loyal during the rebellion - to the horror of Bahadur Shah soldiers killed Christians and Europeans before his eyes. The most famous massacre is that at Kanpur - with the British arriving on 15 July over 200 women and children were brutally murdered. 

The hanging of two sepoys in 1857

Massacres by Indians were met with even more brutal massacres by the British. The press exaggerated stories of atrocities, as an example The Times published a story stating that 48 girls as young as ten had been raped. While Charles Dickens wrote that 'I wish I were commander-in-chief in India. I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested' ,Karl Marx pointed out that the story was fake and had no evidence to back up what was stated. Lieutenant Colonel James Neill, in retaliation for Kanpur, ordered every village they past destroyed and their inhabitants all to be hung. One of the most famous images of the retaliation was Indian rebels being strapped to cannons and blown apart; in a sadistic, and ironic considering why the revolt broke out, punishment Muslims were forced to eat pork and Hindus beef. The Rhani of Jhansi was killed in battle, Bahadur Shah fled Delhi after it was captured in September, and Nana Sahib fled into exile. By November 1858 the revolt had been crushed, 6,000 Europeans had been killed to around 800,000 Indians. There are many reasons why the rebellion was defeated. A key reason was that each section of the rebellion revolted independently and for their own reasons - with no united leadership it was easier for the British to fight back. Divide-and-rule policies had weakened the revolt before it could happen. The proclamation of a new Mughal Empire put off many as the Bengali elite saw it as feudal, whereas Hindus and Sikhs saw it as issuing in a new Islamic empire. Hyderabad had long mistrusted the Marathas saw as there were so many Maratha leaders they saw it as an attempt to rebuild the Maratha Empire. The revolt was located just in the north, so Indian troops from the south were used to crush the revolt - if all of India had revolted British rule would have collapsed. Sikhs especially were used to crush the revolt - the Sikh Empire had been conquered using sepoys from the north, so they had no sympathy with those who revolted.

Reorganisation 

The Mumbai Victoria Station - purposefully built to resemble a British station

The revolt ended company rule. The 1858 Government of India Act dissolved the EIC, reorganised British rule in India, amnestied remaining mutineers, dissolved the Mughal monarchy, and would pave the way for Queen Victoria to be crowned 'Empress of India'. Parliament would reign supreme, followed by a viceroy, and then the local rulers. 'Princely States' were established to rule through in areas that Britain had weak authority. Meanwhile, the army recruited from new communities - by 1875 almost half the army were either Punjabi or Nepalese Gurkhas as they had put down the revolt. Indian troops would now go across the globe - Sikh troops regularly patrolled British sections of Canton - and were deployed in wars ranging from the Mahdi Uprising in Sudan to the Boxer Rebellion in China. During the First World War 60,000 Indian troops died fighting for Britain. Despite company rule coming to an end, free market capitalism dominated economic thinking in India. Private contractors were placed in charge of irrigation networks; new ports were made in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta to facilitate trade; railways connected these cities to allow movement of goods; and India became a place for British goods. Like other colonies, India was structured as an exporter of raw goods. Tea, oil, cotton, and jute were taken from India across the Empire, and British manufactured goods were imported. This made the Indian economy subservient to, and reliant on, the metropole. Wealthy Indians were, however, allowed into education and some could be educated across the empire. In 1888 Mohandas Gandhi went to London to study law, as an example. 1892 saw Britain gain its first Asian MP - Dadabhai Naoriji became the Liberal Party's MP for Finsbury Central. Not all educated Indians were keen on empire. Naoriiji and Romesh Chandra Dutt, in 1902 he would write Economic History of India under British Rule, both criticised Britain on the basis of the 'drain theory'. India's economy could never develop as it was being drained by Britain, economic exploitation and deindustrialisation stagnated the economy. 

Religious Revivalism and the Rise of Nationalism

The First meeting of the Indian National Congress in 1885

The seeds of nationalism lay with religious revivalism, a long time before 1857 in fact. We have already mentioned the figure of Ram Mohan Roy. Roy, sometimes given the title of 'Father of Indian Renaissance', was born around 1770 to a high caste family, and had campaigned against EIC misrule. In 1828 he co-founded the Brahmo Samaj which aimed to reform Hinduism by rejecting caste; campaign to bring an end to polygamy, sati, and child marriage; widow remarriage; and bringing about education for women and lower castes. The 'Bengal Renaissance' came from the Hindu reformism and revivalism seeing an outpouring of Bengali literature, education, and, later, even cinema. Bengali science-fiction emerged as a genre thanks to the Bengal Renaissance thanks to the writings of Jagadish Chandra Bose. Dutt was not the only Bengali to emerge critical of British rule; Bankin Chandra Chattopadhyay of the Brahmo Samaj critiqued British rule and combined Hinduism with European liberalism. It is from these movements that the Indian National Congress (INC) came into being in 1885. The INC started as a primarily Hindu and high-caste reformist party, but after the First World War would transform into a mass movement that would bring independence under Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Not all Hindu revival movements were so eager for such drastic reform. Arya Samaj, founded in 1875 by Dayananda Saraswati in Punjab, wanted reform, like the abolishing of sati, but also promoted shuddi (re-conversion), cow protection, and upper caste practices like vegetarianism. Meanwhile, Vishnubhuwa Brahmachari defended caste, believing it created social equilibrium, and had to return to the 'Golden Age of Vedas' after denigration from Christian missionaries. Hindu nationalist, Swami Vivekannada, would found the Rama Krishna Mission in Calcutta in 1897 in order to reveal the supreme form of living to help the entire community.

The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College in 1877

High-caste Hindus were not the only early nationalists and revivalists. Jyotirao Phule was from a lower-caste and the west entirely rejected caste, and helped found the Sathyashodhak Samaj to uplift women, Sudras, and Dalits. The Singh Sabha Movement emerged in the 1870s to promote Sikh revivalism. Wealthy Muslims also engaged in revivalism and nationalism. The Aligarh Movement was founded in 1835 in response to English being made the main language, so wealthy Muslims came together to prevent 'moral loss'. A key figure in this movement was Syed Ahmed Khan who advocated that Muslims learn science, learn Urdu, and embrace British rule to show their loyalty. Like with the Brahmo Samaj, Syed Khan advocated female education, although he believed only wealthy women should be educated. In 1875 the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College was founded to allow Muslims to get an education in order to create a class of bureaucrats to aid British rule. In 1906 the Muslim League would be founded to advocate for reform and Muslim rights. Whether it was Hindu, Sikh, or Muslim early movements aimed at reform, and were for the elite. They would set the stage, however, for popular nationalist movements. As they originated as religious revival movements, it would also set the stage for religious strife during the nationalist movement, and later independence. Hindutva, Hindu nationalism, found its origins with groups like the Arya Samaj, and the Cow Protection Societies of the 1890s are the direct ancestors of today's far-right equivalents. As the Aligarh Movement, and Hindu equivalent, modernised Sanskrit two new languages emerged: Hindi and Urdu. Spoken they are very similar, written they are very different, but Hindi became synonymous with Hindus and Urdu with Muslims. These divides reverberate today with Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

Conclusion

India set the stage for colonial rule elsewhere. What had happened in India was replicated in Africa. British rule in India set the stage for modern India: the subordination of India's economy to Europe's continue, divide-and-rule placed communities against one another, and modern caste and faith emerged thanks to Britain. However, we also see how Indians adapted and resisted this. If you go to India the local idea of Hinduism differs from what you might hear elsewhere - grassroots belief allowed a synthesis of pre-colonial and colonial belief. 1857 remains a key focal point in Indian national identity, and the ruptures caused by Indians themselves paved the way for the emergence of nationalism. Figures like Gandhi, Nehru, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah had a long history behind them.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia, Second Edition, (New York, NY: 1998)

-Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, (London: 1986)

-Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, (London: 1997)

-Biswamoy Pati, (ed.), The 1857 Rebellion, (Oxford: 2007)

-Ronald Indens, Imagining India, (Oxford: 1990)

-Nicholas Dirks, Castes of the Mind, (Princeton: 2001)

-William Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, (London: 2002)

-H.H. Dodwell, (ed.), The Cambridge History of India. Vol. V: British India, 1497-1858, (Cambridge: 1929)

-Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 'Can the Subaltern Speak?', in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, (London: 1988), 271-314

-Edward Said, Orientalism, (London: 1978)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting; feel free to recommend any changes or comments. Next time we will be looking at the Zulu Empire in southern Africa. For other World History posts we have a list here. For future blog updates, please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.