History Themes in Indian History Part 3 Class 12

Textbook in History for Class XII
THEMES IN
INDIAN HISTORY
PART III
2019-2020
ISBN 81-7450-651-9 (Part I)
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FOREWORD
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, recommends that

children’s life at school must be linked to their life outside the school.
This principle marks a departure from the legacy of bookish learning
which continues to shape our system and causes a gap between
the school, home and community. The syllabi and textbooks
developed on the basis of NCF signify an attempt to implement this
basic idea. They also attempt to discourage rote learning and the
maintenance of sharp boundaries between different subject areas.
We hope these measures will take us significantly further in the
direction of a child-centred system of education outlined in the
National Policy on Education (1986).
The success of this effort depends on the steps that school
principals and teachers will take to encourage children to reflect
on their own learning and to pursue imaginative activities and
questions. We must recognise that, given space, time and freedom,
children generate new knowledge by engaging with the information
passed on to them by adults. Treating the prescribed textbook as
the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other
resources and sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity
and initiative is possible if we perceive and treat children
as participants in learning, not as receivers of a fixed body
of knowledge.
These aims imply considerable change in school routines and
mode of functioning. Flexibility in the daily time-table is as
necessary as rigour in implementing the annual calendar so that
the required number of teaching days are actually devoted to
teaching. The methods used for teaching and evaluation will also
determine how effective this textbook proves for making children’s
life at school a happy experience, rather than a source of stress or
boredom. Syllabus designers have tried to address the problem of
curricular burden by restructuring and reorienting knowledge at
different stages with greater consideration for child psychology and
the time available for teaching. The textbook attempts to enhance
this endeavour by giving higher priority and space to opportunities
for contemplation and wondering, discussion in small groups, and
activities requiring hands-on experience.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCER T) appreciates the hard work done by the textbook
development committee responsible for this book. We wish to
thank the Chairperson of the advisory group in Social Sciences,
Professor Hari Vasudevan, and the Chief Advisor for this book,
2019-2020
iv
Professor Neeladri Bhattacharya, Centre for Historical Studies,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for guiding the work of
this committee. Several teachers contributed to the development of
this textbook; we are grateful to their principals for making this
possible. We are indebted to the institutions and organisations which
have generously permitted us to draw upon their resources, material
and personnel. We are especially grateful to the members of the
National Monitoring Committee, appointed by the Department of
Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource
Development under the Chairpersonship of Professor Mrinal Miri and
Professor G.P. Deshpande, for their valuable time and contribution.
As an organisation committed to systemic reform and continuous
improvement in the quality of its products, NCERT welcomes
comments and suggestions which will enable us to undertake further
revision and refinement.
Director
New Delhi National Council of Educational
20 November 2006 Research and Training
2019-2020
DEFINING THE FOCUS OF STUDY
What defines the focus of this book? What does it seek to do? How
is it linked to what has been studied in earlier classes?
In Classes VI to VIII we looked at Indian history from early
beginnings to modern times, with a focus on one chronological
period in each year. Then in the books for Classes IX and X, the
frame of reference changed. We looked at a shorter period of time,
focusing specifically on a close study of the contemporary world.
We moved beyond territorial boundaries, beyond the limits of nation
states, to see how different people in different places have played
their part in the making of the modern world. The history of India
became connected to a wider inter-linked history. Subsequently in
Class XI we studied Themes in World History, expanding our
chronological focus, looking at the vast span of years from the
beginning of human life to the present, but selecting only a set of
themes for serious exploration. This year we will study Themes in
Indian History.
The book begins with Harappa and ends with the framing of the
Indian Constitution. What it offers is not a general survey of five
millennia, but a close study of select themes. The history books in
earlier years have already acquainted you with Indian history. It is
time we explored some themes in greater detail.
In choosing the themes we have tried to ensure that we learn
about developments in different spheres – economic, cultural, social,
political, and religious – even as we attempt to break the boundaries
between them. Some themes in the book will introduce you to the
politics of the times and the nature of authority and power; others
explore the way societies are organised, and the way they function
and change; still others tell us about religious life and ritual
practices, about the working of economies, and the changes within
rural and urban societies.
Each of these themes will also allow you to have a closer look at
the historians’ craft. To retrieve the past, historians have to find
sources that make the past accessible. But sources do not just reveal
the past; historians have to grapple with sources, interpret them,
and make them speak. This is what makes history exciting. The
same sources can tell us new things if we ask new questions, and
engage with them in new ways. So we need to see how historians
read sources, and how they discover new things in old sources.
But historians do not only re-examine old records. They discover
new ones. Sometimes these could be chance discoveries.
2019-2020
vi
Archaeologists may unexpectedly come across seals and mounds

that provide clues to the existence of a site of an ancient civilisation.
Rummaging through the dusty records of a district collectorate a
historian may trip over a bundle of records that contain legal cases
of local disputes, and these may open up a new world of village life
several centuries back. Yet are such discoveries only accidents? You
may bump into a bundle of old records in an archive, open it up
and see it, without discovering the significance of the source. The
source may mean nothing to you unless you have relevant questions
in mind. You have to track the source, read the text, follow the clues,
and make the inter-connections before you can reconstruct the past.
The physical discovery of a record does not simply open up the
past. When Alexander Cunningham first saw a Harappan seal, he
could make no sense of it. Only much later was the significance of
the seals discovered.
In fact when historians begin to ask new questions, explore new
themes, they have to often search for new types of sources. If we
wish to know about revolutionaries and rebels, official sources can
reveal only a partial picture, one that will be shaped by official
censure and prejudice. We need to look for other sources – diaries
of rebels, their personal letters, their writings and pronouncements.
And these are not always easy to come by. If we have to understand
experiences of people who suffered the trauma of partition, then
oral sources might reveal more than written sources.
As the vision of history broadens, historians begin tracking new
sources, searching for new clues to understand the past. And when
that happens, the conception of what constitutes a source itself
changes. There was a time when only written records were
acknowledged as authentic. What was written could be verified,
cited, and cross-checked. Oral evidence was never considered a valid
source: who was to guarantee its authenticity and verifiability? This
mistrust of oral sources has not yet disappeared, but oral evidence
has been innovatively used to uncover experiences that no other
record could reveal.
Through the book this year, you will enter the world of historians,
accompany them in their search for new clues, and see how they
carry on their dialogues with the past. You will witness the way they
tease out meaning out of records, read inscriptions, excavate
archaeological sites, make sense of beads and bones, interpret the
epics, look at the stupas and buildings, examine paintings and
photographs, interpret police reports and revenue records, and listen
to the voices of the past. Each theme will explore the peculiarities
and possibilities of one particular type of source. It will discuss what
a source can tell and what it cannot.
This is the last part of Themes in Indian History.
NEELADRI BHATTACHARYA
Chief Advisor, History
2019-2020
TEXTBOOK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
CHAIRPERSON, ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Hari Vasudevan, Professor, Department of History, University of Calcutta, Kolkata
CHIEF ADVISOR
Neeladri Bhattacharya, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
ADVISORS
Kumkum Roy, Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Monica Juneja, Guest Professor, Institut Furgeschichte, Viennna, Austria
TEAM MEMBERS
Jaya Menon, Associate Professor, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim
University, Aligarh, UP (Theme 1)
Kumkum Roy (Theme 2)
Kunal Chakrabarti, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (Theme 3)
Uma Chakravarti, Formerly Associate Professor in History, Miranda House,
University of Delhi, Delhi (Theme 4)
Farhat Hassan, Associate Professor, Department of History,
Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP (Theme 5)
Meenakshi Khanna, Associate Professor in History, Indraprastha College,
University of Delhi, Delhi (Theme 6)
Vijaya Ramaswamy, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Rajat Datta, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Najaf Haider, Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi (Theme 9)
Neeladri Bhattacharya (Theme 10)
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Executive Editor, The Telegraph, Kolkata (Theme 11)
Partho Dutta, Associate Professor, Department of History, Zakir Hussain College
(Evening Classes), University of Delhi, Delhi (Theme 12)
Ramachandra Guha, freelance writer, anthropologist and historian,
Bangalore (Theme 13)
Anil Sethi (Theme 14)
Sumit Sarkar, Formerly Professor of History, University of Delhi, Delhi (Theme 15)
Muzaffar Alam, Professor of South Asian History,
University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
C.N. Subramaniam, Eklavya, Kothi Bazar, Hoshangabad
Rashmi Paliwal, Eklavya, Kothi Bazar, Hoshangabad
Prabha Singh, P.G.T. History, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Old Cantt.,
Telliarganj, Allahabad, UP
Smita Sahay Bhattacharya, P.G.T. History, Blue Bells School,
Kailash Colony, New Delhi
Beeba Sobti, P.G.T. History, Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi
MEMBER-COORDINATORS
Anil Sethi, Professor, DESS, NCERT, New Delhi
Seema Shukla Ojha, Assistant Professor, DESS, NCERT, New Delhi
2019-2020
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Themes in Indian History, Part III is the result of a collective effort of

a large number of educationists, school teachers, historians, editors
and designers. Each chapter was discussed and revised over months
of intensive discussion. We thank all those who participated in
the process.
Several people read the chapters and provided support. We
thank in particular the members of the Monitoring Committee,
Prof. J. S. Grewal and Shobha Bajpai for their useful comments
on earlier drafts. Prof. Narayani Gupta, Prabhu Mohapatra and
Tarun Saint offered valuable suggestions. Mahmood Farooqi
suggested extracts for Chapter 11. Partha Shil, Akhila Yachuri
and Sabyasachi Dasgupta gave research support.
Many institutions and individuals provided visual resources for
the book: Victoria Memorial Museum and Library, Kolkata; Indira
Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi; Alkazi Foundation
for the Arts, New Delhi; The Osian’s Archive and Library Collection,
Mumbai; CIVIC Archives, New Delhi; Photo Division, Government
of India; South Asia Centre, University of Chicago. Chittaranjan
Panda, Kaushik Bhowmik, Pratik Chakrabarty, and Rahab Alkazi
took personal care in procuring visual material for illustrations.
Juta and Jyotindra Jain opened up their vast collection of images
with a generosity rare amongst collectors. We thank them all.
Shalini Advani and Shyama Warner did many rounds of editing
with care and enthusiasm. Ritu Topa of Arrt Creations designed
the book, working tirelessly to meet impossible deadlines. Albinus
Tirkey provided technical support.
We have made every effort to acknowledge credits, but we
apologise in advance for any omission that may have inadvertently
taken place.
2019-2020
CONTENTS
Foreword iii
Defining the Focus of Study v
How to Use This Book xi
PART III
THEME TEN 257
COLONIALISM AND THE COUNTRYSIDE
Exploring Official Archives
THEME ELEVEN 288

REBELS AND THE RAJ
The Revolt of 1857 and Its Representations
THEME TWELVE 316

COLONIAL CITIES
Urbanisation, Planning
and Architecture
THEME THIRTEEN 346

MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE
NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
Civil Disobedience and Beyond
THEME FOURTEEN 376

UNDERSTANDING PARTITION
Politics, Memories, Experiences
THEME FIFTEEN 405

FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION
The Beginning of a New Era
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x
PART I (Pages 1- 114)
THEME ONE
BRICKS, BEADS AND BONES
The Harappan Civilisation
THEME TWO
KINGS, FARMERS AND TOWNS
Early States and Economies
(c. 600 BCE - 600 CE)
THEME T HREE
KINSHIP, CASTE AND CLASS
Early Societies
(c. 600 BCE - 600 CE)
THEME FOUR
THINKERS, BELIEFS AND BUILDINGS
Cultural Developments
(c. 600 BCE -600 CE)
PART II (Pages 115 - 256 )
THEME FIVE
THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS
Perceptions of Society
(c. tenth to seventeenth century)
THEME SIX
BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS
Changes in Religious Beliefs
and Devotional Texts
(c. eighth to eighteenth century)
THEME SEVEN
AN IMPERIAL CAPITAL: VIJAYANAGARA
(c. fourteenth to sixteenth century)
THEME EIGHT
PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE
Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire
(c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)
THEME NINE
KINGS AND CHRONICLES
The Mughal Courts
(c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)
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How to use this book
This is the last part of Themes in Indian History.
R Each chapter is divided into numbered sections and
subsections to facilitate learning.
R You will also find other material enclosed in boxes.
These contain:
Short Additional More elaborate

meanings information definitions
These are meant to assist and enrich the learning process,

but are not intended for evaluation.
R Each chapter ends with a set of timelines. This is to be treated as

background information, and not for evaluation.
R There are figures, maps and sources numbered sequentially through
each chapter.
(a) Figures include illustrations of artefacts such as tools, pottery, seals,
coins, ornaments etc. as well as of inscriptions, sculptures, paintings,
buildings, archaeological sites, plans and photographs of people and
places; visual material that historians use as sources.
(b) Some chapters have maps.
(c) Sources are enclosed within separate boxes: these contain

Sources
excerpts from a wide variety of texts and inscriptions. Both
visual and textual sources will help you acquire a feel for the
clues that historians use. You will also see how historians
analyse these clues. The final examination can include
excerpts from and/or illustrations of identical/similar
material, providing you with an opportunity to handle
these.
2019-2020
272 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III
The Santhals, however, soon found that the land

they had brought under cultivation was slipping
away from their hands. The state was levying heavy
taxes on the land that the Santhals had cleared,
moneylenders (dikus) were charging them high rates
of interest and taking over the land when debts
remained unpaid, and zamindars were asserting
control over the Damin area.
By the 1850s, the Santhals felt that the time had
come to rebel against zamindars, moneylenders and
the colonial state, in order to create an ideal world
for themselves where they would rule. It was after
the Santhal Revolt (1855-56 ) that the Santhal
Pargana was created, carving out 5,500 square miles
from the districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum. The
Fig. 10.11 colonial state hoped that by creating a new territory
Sidhu Manjhi, the leader of the for the Santhals and imposing some special laws
Santhal rebellion within it, the Santhals could be conciliated.
Fig. 10.12
Santhals fight the sepoys of the British Raj, Illustrated London News, 23 February 1856
The rebellion changed the British perception of the Santhals. Villages that had earlier seemed
calm and peaceful (Fig. 10.10) now appeared to have become places of violent and savage deeds.
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257
Colonialism and the

THEME Countryside
TEN Explor ing Of
Exploring Offf icial Ar
Arcchiv es
hives
In this chapter you will see what

colonial rule meant to those who lived
in the countryside. You will meet the
zamindars of Bengal, travel to the
Rajmahal hills where the Paharias
and the Santhals lived, and then move
west to the Deccan. You will look at
the way the English East India
Company (E.I.C.) established its raj in
the countryside, implemented its
revenue policies, what these policies
meant to different sections of people,
and how they changed everyday lives.
Laws introduced by the state
have consequences for people: they
determine to an extent who grows
richer and who poorer, who acquires
new land and who loses the land they
have lived on, where peasants go
when they need money. As you will see,
however, people were not only subject
to the working of laws, they also
resisted the law by acting according to
what they believed to be just. In doing
so people defined the way in which
laws operated, thereby modifying their
consequences.
You will also come to know about
the sources that tell us about these
histories, and the problems historians
face in interpreting them. You will read
about revenue records and surveys,
journals and accounts left by surveyors Fig. 10.1
and travellers, and reports produced Cotton being carried from the village to the mandi,
by enquiry commissions. Illustrated London News, 20 April 1861
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REBELS AND THE RAJ 289
Through 12 and 13 May, North India remained quiet. Once

word spread that Delhi had fallen to the rebels and Bahadur
Shah had blessed the rebellion, events moved swiftly.
Cantonment after cantonment in the Gangetic valley and some
to the west of Delhi rose in mutiny.
1. Pattern of the Rebellion

If one were to place the dates of these mutinies in
Bell of arms is a storeroom in
chronological order, it would appear that as the news
which weapons are kept.
of the mutiny in one town travelled to the next the
sepoys there took up arms. The sequence of events
in every cantonment followed a similar pattern.
1.1 How the mutinies began
The sepoys began their action with a signal: in many
Firangi, a term of Persian origin,
places it was the firing of the evening gun or the
possibly derived from Frank
sounding of the bugle. They first seized the bell
(from which France gets its
of arms and plundered the treasury. They then name), is used in Urdu and
attacked government buildings – the jail, treasury, Hindi, often in a derogatory
telegraph office, record room, bungalows – burning sense, to designate foreigners.
all records. Everything and everybody connected
with the white man became a target. Proclamations
in Hindi, Urdu and Persian were put up in the cities
calling upon the population, both Hindus and Fig. 11.2
Muslims, to unite, rise and exterminate the firangis. Ordinary people join the sepoys in
When ordinary people began joining the revolt, attacking the British in Lucknow.
the targets of attack
widened. In major towns
like Lucknow, Kanpur
and Bareilly, money-
lenders and the rich
also became the objects
of rebel wrath. Peasants
not only saw them
as oppressors but also
as allies of the British.
In most places their
houses were looted and
destroyed. The mutiny
in the sepoy ranks quickly
became a rebellion.
There was a general
defiance of all kinds of
authority and hierarchy.
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COLONIALISM AND THE C OUNTRYSIDE 259
revenue demand. If the revenue demand of the state

was permanently fixed, then the Company could
look forward to a regular flow of revenue, while
entrepreneurs could feel sure of earning a profit
from their investment, since the state would not
siphon it off by increasing its claim. The process,
officials hoped, would lead to the emergence of a
class of yeomen farmers and rich landowners who
would have the capital and enterprise to improve
agriculture. Nurtured by the British, this class
would also be loyal to the Company.
The problem, however, lay in identifying
individuals who could both improve agriculture and
contract to pay the fixed revenue to the state. After
a prolonged debate amongst Company officials, the
Permanent Settlement was made with the rajas
and taluqdars of Bengal. They were now classified
Fig. 10.3
as zamindars, and they had to pay the revenue
Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805),
demand that was fixed in perpetuity. In terms of painted by Thomas Gainsborough,
this definition, the zamindar was not a landowner 1785
in the village, but a revenue Collector of the state. He was the commander of the
Zamindars had several (sometimes as many as 400) British forces during the American
villages under them. In Company calculations the War of Independence and the
Governor General of Bengal when
villages within one zamindari formed one revenue
the Permanent Settlement was
estate. The Company fixed the total demand over the introduced there in 1793.
entire estate whose revenue the zamindar contracted
to pay. The zamindar collected rent from the different
villages, paid the revenue to the Company, and
retained the difference as his income. He was expected
to pay the Company regularly, failing which his estate
could be auctioned.
1.3 Why zamindars defaulted on payments Taluqdar literally means “one
Company officials felt that a fixed revenue demand who holds a taluq” or a
would give zamindars a sense of security and, connection. Taluq came to refer
assured of returns on their investment, encourage to a territorial unit.
them to improve their estates. In the early decades
after the Permanent Settlement, however, zamindars
regularly failed to pay the revenue demand and
unpaid balances accumulated.
The reasons for this failure were various. First: the
initial demands were very high. This was because it
was felt that if the demand was fixed for all time to
come, the Company would never be able to claim a
share of increased income from land when prices
rose and cultivation expanded. To minimise this
anticipated loss, the Company pegged the revenue
2019-2020
demand high, arguing that the burden on zamindars

would gradually decline as agricultural production
expanded and prices rose.
Second: this high demand was imposed in the
1790s, a time when the prices of agricultural produce
Ryot is the way the term raiyat, were depressed, making it difficult for the ryots to
used to designate peasants pay their dues to the zamindar. If the zamindar could
(Chapter 8), was spelt in British not collect the rent, how could he pay the Company?
records. Ryots in Bengal did Third: the revenue was invariable, regardless of the
not always cultivate the land harvest, and had to be paid punctually. In fact,
directly, but leased it out to according to the Sunset Law, if payment did not come
under-ryots.
in by sunset of the specified date, the zamindari was
liable to be auctioned. Fourth: the Permanent
Settlement initially limited the power of the zamindar
to collect rent from the ryot and manage his zamindari.
The Company had recognised the zamindars as
important, but it wanted to control and regulate them,
subdue their authority and restrict their autonomy.
The zamindars’ troops were disbanded, customs
duties abolished, and their “cutcheries” (courts)
brought under the supervision of a Collector appointed
by the Company. Zamindars lost their power to
organise local justice and the local police. Over time
the collectorate emerged as an alternative centre of
authority, severely restricting what the zamindar
could do. In one case, when a raja failed to pay the
revenue, a Company official was speedily dispatched
to his zamindari with explicit instructions “to take
charge of the District and to use the most effectual
means to destroy all the influence and the authority
of the raja and his officers”.
At the time of rent collection, an officer of the
zamindar, usually the amlah, came around to the
village. But rent collection was a perennial problem.
Sometimes bad harvests and low prices made
payment of dues difficult for the ryots. At other times
ryots deliberately delayed payment. Rich ryots and
village headmen – jotedars and mandals – were only
too happy to see the zamindar in trouble. The
zamindar could therefore not easily assert his power
over them. Zamindars could prosecute defaulters,
but the judicial process was long drawn. In Burdwan
alone there were over 30,000 pending suits for
arrears of rent payment in 1798.
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Two rebels of 1857

Shah Mal
Shah Mal lived in a large village in pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh. He belonged
to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des
(eighty-four villages). The lands in the region were irrigated and fertile, with
rich dark loam soil. Many of the villagers were prosperous and saw the British
land revenue system as oppressive: the revenue demand was high and its
collection inflexible. Consequently cultivators were losing land to outsiders, to
traders and moneylenders who were coming into the area.
Shah Mal mobilised the headmen and cultivators of chaurasee des, moving
at night from village to village, urging people to rebel against the British. As
in many other places, the revolt against the British turned into a general
rebellion against all signs of oppression and injustice. Cultivators left their
fields and plundered the houses of moneylenders and traders. Displaced
proprietors took possession of the lands they had lost. Shah Mal’s men
attacked government buildings, destroyed the bridge over the river, and
dug up metalled roads – partly to prevent government forces from coming
into the area, and partly because bridges and roads were seen as symbols
of British rule. They sent supplies to the sepoys who had mutinied in Delhi
and stopped all official communication between British headquarters and
Meerut. Locally acknowledged as the Raja, Shah Mal took over the bungalow
of an English officer, turned it into a “hall of justice”, settling disputes and
dispensing judgments. He also set up an amazingly effective network of
intelligence. For a period the people of the area felt that firangi raj was
over, and their raj had come.
Shah Mal was killed in battle in July 1857.
Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah

Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was one of the many maulvis who played an
important part in the revolt of 1857. Educated in Hyderabad, he became a
preacher when young. In 1856, he was seen moving from village to village
preaching jehad (religious war) against the British and urging people to
rebel. He moved in a palanquin, with drumbeaters in front and followers at
the rear. He was therefore popularly called Danka Shah – the maulvi with
the drum ( danka ). British officials panicked as thousands began following
the maulvi and many Muslims began seeing him as an inspired prophet.
When he reached Lucknow in 1856, he was stopped by the police from
preaching in the city. Subsequently, in 1857, he was jailed in Faizabad.
When released, he was elected by the mutinous 22 nd Native Infantry as
their leader. He fought in the famous Battle of Chinhat in which the British
forces under Henry Lawrence were defeated. He came to be known for his
courage and power. Many people in fact believed that he was invincible,
had magical powers, and could not be killed by the British. It was this belief
that partly formed the basis of his authority.
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Source 1
n Zamindars were
COMPANY
The jotedars of Dinajpur responsible for:
Ù (a) paying revenue to
the company
Buchanan described the ways in (b) distributing the
revenue demand
which the jotedars of Dinajpur ZAMINDAR
(jama) over villages.
in North Bengal resisted being (controls numerous
villages) × n Each village ryot, big
disciplined by the zamindar and or small, paid rent to
undermined his power: Ù the zamindar.
JOTEDAR n Jotedars gave out
Landlords do not like this
RYOT Ø (a rich ryot, also loans to other ryots and
class of men, but it is evident a trader and sold their produce.
×
that they are absolutely Ù moneylender)
n Ryots cultivated
necessary, unless the Ù some land and gave out
landlords themselves would the rest to under-ryots
UNDER-RYOT on rent.
advance money to their
UNDER-RYOT
necessitous tenantry … n Under- ryots paid
rent to the ryots.
The jotedars who cultivate
large portions of lands are Fig.10.5
very refractory, and know Power in rural Bengal
that the zamindars have no
Ü Read the text accompanying Fig.10.5 carefully and
power over them. They pay
insert the following terms in appropriate places along
only a few rupees on account
of their revenue and then fall the arrows: rent, revenue, interest, loan, produce
in balance almost every kist
(instalment), they hold more
lands than they are entitled 1.5 The zamindars resist
to by their pottahs (deeds The authority of the zamindars in rural areas,
of contract). Should the however, did not collapse. Faced with an exorbitantly
zamindar’s officers, in high revenue demand and possible auction of their
consequence, summon them estates, they devised ways of surviving the pressures.
to the cutcherry, and detain New contexts produced new strategies.
them for one or two hours
Fictitious sale was one such strategy. It involved a
with a view to reprimand
series of manoeuvres. The Raja of Burdwan, for
them, they immediately go
and complain at the instance, first transferred some of his zamindari to
Fouzdarry Thanna (police his mother, since the Company had decreed that the
station) for imprisonment and property of women would not be taken over. Then, as
at the munsiff ’s (a judicial a second move, his agents manipulated the auctions.
officer at the lower court) The revenue demand of the Company was deliberately
cutcherry for being withheld, and unpaid balances were allowed to
dishonoured and whilst the accumulate. When a part of the estate was auctioned,
causes continue unsettled, the zamindar’s men bought the property, outbidding
they instigate the petty ryots
other purchasers. Subsequently they refused to pay
not to pay their revenue
up the purchase money, so that the estate had to be
consequently …
resold. Once again it was bought by the zamindar’s
Ü Describe the ways in agents, once again the purchase money was not paid,
which the jotedars and once again there was an auction. This process
resisted the authority of was repeated endlessly, exhausting the state, and
the zamindars. the other bidders at the auction. At last the estate
was sold at a low price back to the zamindar. The
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The dispossession of taluqdars meant the

breakdown of an entire social order. The ties of loyalty
and patronage that had bound the peasant to the
taluqdar were disrupted. In pre-British times, the
taluqdars were oppressors but many of them also
appeared to be generous father figures: they exacted
a variety of dues from the peasant but were often
considerate in times of need. Now, under the British, Source 4
the peasant was directly exposed to overassessment What taluqdars thought
of revenue and inflexible methods of collection. There
was no longer any guarantee that in times of hardship The attitude of the taluqdars was
or crop failure the revenue demand of the state would best expressed by Hanwant
be reduced or collection postponed; or that in times Singh, the Raja of Kalakankar,
of festivities the peasant would get the loan and near Rae Bareli. During the
support that the taluqdar had earlier provided. mutiny, Hanwant Singh had
In areas like Awadh where resistance during 1857 given shelter to a British officer,
was intense and long lasting, the fighting was carried and conveyed him to safety.
out by taluqdars and their peasants. Many of these While taking leave of the officer,
taluqdars were loyal to the Nawab of Awadh, and Hanwant Singh told him:
they joined Begum Hazrat Mahal (the wife of the Sahib, your countrymen
Nawab) in Lucknow to fight the British; some even came into this country and
remained with her in defeat. drove out our King. You
The grievances of the peasants were carried over sent your officers round the
into the sepoy lines since a vast majority of the districts to examine the
sepoys were recruited from the villages of Awadh. titles to the estates. At one
For decades the sepoys had complained of low levels blow you took from me
lands which from time
of pay and the difficulty of getting leave. By the 1850s
immemorial had been in
there were other reasons for their discontent. m y f a m i l y. I s u b m i t t e d .
The relationship of the sepoys with their superior Suddenly misfortune fell
white officers underwent a significant change in upon you. The people of
the years preceding the uprising of 1857. In the the land rose against you.
1820s, white officers made it a point to maintain You came to me whom you
friendly relations with the sepoys. They would take had despoiled. I have saved
part in their leisure activities – they wrestled with you. But now – now I march
them, fenced with them and went out hawking with at the head of my retainers
them. Many of them were fluent in Hindustani and to Lucknow to try and drive
you from the country.
were familiar with the customs and culture of the
country. These officers were disciplinarian and
father figure rolled into one. Ü What does this excerpt
In the 1840s, this began to change. The officers tell you about the attitude
developed a sense of superiority and started of the taluqdars? Who did
treating the sepoys as their racial inferiors, riding Hanwant Singh mean by
roughshod over their sensibilities. Abuse and the people of the land?
physical violence became common and thus the What reason does
distance between sepoys and officers grew. Trust Hanwant Singh give for
the anger of the people?
was replaced by suspicion. The episode of the
greased cartridges was a classic example of this.
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groups in Britain who were opposed to the monopoly

that the East India Company had over trade with
India and China. These groups wanted a revocation
of the Royal Charter that gave the Company this
monopoly. An increasing number of private traders
wanted a share in the India trade, and the
industrialists of Britain were keen to open up the
Indian market for British manufactures. Many
political groups argued that the conquest of Bengal
was benefiting only the East India Company but not
the British nation as a whole. Information about
Company misrule and maladministration was hotly
debated in Britain and incidents of the greed and
corruption of Company officials were widely
publicised in the press. The British Parliament
passed a series of Acts in the late eighteenth century
to regulate and control Company rule in India. It
Fig. 10.7 forced the Company to produce regular reports on
Andul Raj Palace the administration of India and appointed
The ruins of palaces are a visible committees to enquire into the affairs of the
sign of the end of an era. Satyajit
Company. The Fifth Report was one such report
Ray’s famous film Jalshaghar, on
the decline of the aristocratic
produced by a Select Committee. It became the basis
zamindari style of living, of intense parliamentary debates on the nature of
was shot in Andul Raj Palace. the East India Company’s rule in India.
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3.1 The vision of unity

The rebel proclamations in 1857 repeatedly appealed
to all sections of the population, irrespective of their
caste and creed. Many of the proclamations were
issued by Muslim princes or in their names but
even these took care to address the sentiments of
Hindus. The rebellion was seen as a war in which
both Hindus and Muslims had equally to lose or
gain. The ishtahars harked back to the pre-British
Hindu-Muslim past and glorified the coexistence of
different communities under the Mughal Empire.
The proclamation that was issued under the name
of Bahadur Shah appealed to the people to join the
fight under the standards of both Muhammad and
Mahavir. It was remarkable that during the uprising
religious divisions between Hindus and Muslim
were hardly noticeable despite British attempts to
create such divisions. In Bareilly in western Uttar
Pradesh, in December 1857, the British spent
Rs 50,000 to incite the Hindu population against
the Muslims. The attempt failed.
Source 5
The Azamgarh Proclamation, 25 August 1857
This is one of the main sources of our knowledge about what the rebels wanted:
It is well known to all, that in this age the people of Hindostan, both Hindoos and
Mohammedans, are being ruined under the tyranny and the oppression of the infidel and
treacherous English. It is therefore the bounden duty of all the wealthy people of India,
especially those who have any sort of connection with the Mohammedan royal families,
and are considered the pastors and masters of their people, to stake their lives and property
for the well-being of the public. …
Several of the Hindoo and Mussalman Chiefs, who have long since quitted their homes
for the preservation of their religion, and have been trying their best to root out the English
in India, have presented themselves to me, and taken part in the reigning Indian crusade,
and it is more than probable that I shall very shortly receive succours from the West. Therefore
for the information of the public, the present Ishtahar, consisting of several sections, is put in
circulation and it is the imperative duty of all to take into their careful consideration, and
abide by it. Parties anxious to participate in the common cause, but having no means to
provide for themselves, shall receive their daily subsistence from me; and be it known to all,
that the ancient works, both of the Hindoos and Mohammedans, the writings of miracle
workers, and the calculation of the astrologers, pundits, … all agree in asserting that the
English will no longer have any footing in India or elsewhere. Therefore it is incumbent on
all to give up the hope of the continuation of the British sway, side with me, and deserve the
consideration of the Badshahi, or imperial government, by their individual exertion in
contd
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Source 5 (contd)
promoting the common good, and thus attain their respective ends; otherwise if this
golden opportunity slips away, they will have to repent for their folly, … .
Section I – Regarding Zemindars. It is evident, that the British Government in making
zemindary settlements have imposed exorbitant Jumas (revenue demand) and have
disgraced and ruined several zemindars, by putting up their estates for public auction for
arrears of rent, in so much, in the institution of a suit by a common Ryot, a maid servant, or
a slave, the respectable zemindars are summoned into court, arrested, put in goal and
disgraced. In litigation regarding zemindaries, the immense value of stamps, and other
unnecessary expenses of the civil courts, … are all calculated to impoverish the litigants.
Besides this, the coffers of the zemindars are annually taxed with the subscription for schools,
hospitals, roads, etc. Such extortions will have no manner of existence in the Badshahi
Government; but on the contrary the Jumas will be light, the dignity and honour of the
zemindars safe, and every zemindar will have absolute rule in his own zemindary …
Section II – Regarding Merchants . It is plain that the infidel and treacherous British
Government have monopolised the trade of all the fine and valuable merchandise, such as
indigo, cloth, and other articles of shipping, leaving only the trade of trifles to the people, …
Besides this, the profits of the traders are taxed, with postages, tolls and subscriptions for
schools, etc. Notwithstanding all these concessions, the merchants are liable to
imprisonment and disgrace at the instance or complaint of a worthless man. When the
Badshahi Government is established all these aforesaid fraudulent practices shall be
dispensed with, and the trade of every article, without exception, both by land and water
will be opened to the native merchants of India, … It is therefore the duty of every merchant
to take part in the war, and aid the Badshahi Government with his men and money, … .
Section III – Regarding Public Servants . It is not a secret thing, that under the British
Government, natives employed in the civil and military services have little respect, low pay,
and no manner of influence; and all the posts of dignity and emolument in both the
departments are exclusively bestowed on Englishmen, … Therefore, all the natives in the
British service ought to be alive to their religion and interest, and abjuring their loyalty to
the English, side with the Badshahi Government, and obtain salaries of 200 and 300 rupees
a month for the present, and be entitled to high posts in the future. …
Section IV – Regarding Artisans. It is evident that the Europeans, by the introduction of
English articles into India, have thrown the weavers, the cotton dressers, the carpenters,
the blacksmiths, and the shoemakers, etc., out of employ, and have engrossed their
occupations, so that every description of native artisan has been reduced to beggary. But
under the Badshahi Government the native artisans will exclusively be employed in the
service of the kings, the rajahs, and the rich; and this will no doubt ensure their prosperity.
Therefore these artisans ought to renounce the English services, … .
Section V – Regarding Pundits, Fakirs and Other Learned Persons. The pundits and
fakirs being the guardians of the Hindoo and Mohammadan religions respectively, and
the Europeans being the enemies of both the religions, and as at present a war is raging
against the English on account of religion, the pundits and fakirs are bound to present
themselves to me, and take their share in the holy war… .
Ü What are the issues against British rule highlighted in this proclamation?
Read the section on each social group carefully. Notice the language in which
the proclamation is formulated and the variety of sentiments it appeals to.
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Fig. 10.8
A view of a hill village in Rajmahal, painted by William Hodges, 1782
William Hodges was a British artist who accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage
to the Pacific (1772-75), and then came to India. In 1781 he became a friend of Augustus
Cleveland, the Collector of Bhagalpur. On the invitation of Cleveland, Hodges accompanied
him to the Jangal Mahals in 1782, and painted a set of aquatints. Like many other
British painters of the time, Hodges searched for the picturesque. Artists in search of the
picturesque were inspired by the ideals of Romanticism, a tradition of thought that
celebrated nature and admired its magnificence and power. Romantics felt that to commune
with nature the artist had to represent nature as an idyll, uncorrupted by modern
civilisation, discover unknown landscapes, and appreciate the sublime play of light and
shade. It is in search of this unknown that Hodges went to the Rajmahal hills. He found
flat landscapes monotonous, and discovered beauty in roughness, irregularity and variety.
A landscape that colonial officials found dangerous and wild, peopled by turbulent tribes,
appears in the paintings of Hodges as exotic and idyllic.
Ü Look at the painting and identify the ways in which it represents the
traditions of the picturesque.
Aquatint is a picture produced

The life of the Paharias – as hunters, shifting by cutting into a copper sheet
cultivators, food gatherers, charcoal producers, with acid and then printing it.
silkworm rearers – was thus intimately connected to
the forest. They lived in hutments within tamarind
groves, and rested in the shade of mango trees. They
considered the entire region as their land, the basis
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The proclamations expressed the widespread fear

that the British were bent on destroying the caste
and religions of Hindus and Muslims and converting
them to Christianity – a fear that led people to
believe many of the rumours that circulated at the
time. People were urged to come together and fight
to save their livelihood, their faith, their honour,
their identity – a fight which was for the “greater
public good”.
As noted earlier, in many places the rebellion
against the British widened into an attack on all those
who were seen as allies of the British or local
oppressors. Often the rebels deliberately sought to
humiliate the elites of a city. In the villages they burnt
account books and ransacked moneylenders’ houses.
This reflected an attempt to overturn traditional
hierarchies, rebel against all oppressors. It presents
a glimpse of an alternative vision, perhaps of a more
egalitarian society. Such visions were not articulated
in the proclamations which sought to unify all social
groups in the fight against firangi raj.
3.3 The search for alternative power
Once British rule had collapsed, the rebels in places
like Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur tried to establish
some kind of structure of authority and
administration. This was, of course, short-lived but
the attempts show that the rebel leadership wanted
to restore the pre-British world of the eighteenth
century. The leaders went back to the culture of the
court. Appointments were made to various posts,
arrangements made for the collection of land revenue
and the payment of troops, orders issued to stop loot
and plunder. Side by side plans were made to fight
battles against the British. Chains of command were
laid down in the army. In all this the rebels harked
back to the eighteenth-century Mughal world – a
world that became a symbol of all that had been lost.
The administrative structures established by the
rebels were primarily aimed at meeting the demands
of war. However, in most cases these structures
could not survive the British onslaught. But in
Ü Discuss... Awadh, where resistance to the British lasted
What do you think are the longest, plans of counter-attack were being drawn
major problems faced by up by the Lucknow court and hierarchies of
historians in reconstructing command were in place as late as the last months
the point of view of the rebels? of 1857 and the early part of 1858.
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settled agriculture established, and forest people

tamed, civilised and persuaded to give up hunting
and take to plough agriculture.
As settled agriculture expanded, the area under
forests and pastures contracted. This sharpened the
conflict between hill folk and settled cultivators. The
former began to raid settled villages with increasing
regularity, carrying away food grains and cattle.
Exasperated colonial officials tried desperately to
control and subdue the Paharias. But they found
the task difficult.
In the 1770s the British embarked on a brutal
policy of extermination, hunting the Paharias down
and killing them. Then, by the 1780s, Augustus
Cleveland, the Collector of Bhagalpur, proposed a
policy of pacification. Paharia chiefs were given an
annual allowance and made responsible for the
proper conduct of their men. They were expected to
maintain order in their localities and discipline their
own people. Many Paharia chiefs refused the
allowances. Those who accepted, most often lost
authority within the community. Being in the pay of
the colonial government, they came to be perceived
as subordinate employees or stipendiary chiefs.
As the pacification campaigns continued, the
Paharias withdrew deep into the mountains,
insulating themselves from hostile forces, and
carrying on a war with outsiders. So when Buchanan
travelled through the region in the winter of
1810 -11 the Paharias naturally viewed him with
suspicion and distrust. The experience of pacification
campaigns and memories of brutal repression
shaped their perception of British infiltration into
the area. Every white man appeared to represent a
power that was destroying their way of life and means
of survival, snatching away their control over their
forests and lands.
By this time in fact there were newer intimations
of danger. Santhals were pouring into the area,
clearing forests, cutting down timber, ploughing land
and growing rice and cotton. As the lower hills were
taken over by Santhal settlers, the Paharias receded
deeper into the Rajmahal hills. If Paharia life was
symbolised by the hoe, which they used for shifting
cultivation, the settlers came to represent the power
of the plough. The battle between the hoe and the
plough was a long one.
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attempts to recover Delhi began in earnest in early

June 1857 but it was only in late September that
the city was finally captured. The fighting and losses
on both sides were heavy. One reason for this was
the fact that rebels from all over North India had
come to Delhi to defend the capital.
In the Ganegtic plain too the progress of British
reconquest was slow. The forces had to reconquer
the area village by village. The countryside and the
people around were entirely hostile. As soon as they
Fig. 11.8 began their counter -insurgency operations, the
A mosque on the Delhi Ridge, British realised that they were not dealing with a
photograph by Felice Beato, 1857-58 mere mutiny but an uprising that had huge popular
After 1857, British photographers support. In Awadh, for example, a British official
recorded innumerable images of
called Forsyth estimated that three-fourths of the
desolation and ruin.
adult male population was in rebellion. The area
was brought under control only in March 1858 after
protracted fighting.
The British used military power on a gigantic
scale. But this was not the only instrument they
used. In large parts of present-day Uttar Pradesh,
where big landholders and peasants had offered
united resistance, the British tried to break up the
unity by promising to give back to the big landholders
their estates. Rebel landholders were dispossessed
and the loyal rewarded. Many landholders died
fighting the British or they escaped into Nepal where
they died of illness or starvation.
Fig. 11.9
Secundrah Bagh, Lucknow,
photograph by Felice Beato,
1858
Here we see four solitary
figures within a desolate
place that was once the
pleasure garden built by
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.
British forces led by
Campbell killed over 2000
rebel sepoys who held the
place in 1857. The skeletons
strewn on the ground are
meant to be a cold warning
of the futility of rebellion.
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turbulent. The Santhals, by contrast, appeared to

be ideal settlers, clearing forests and ploughing the
land with vigour.
The Santhals were given land and persuaded to
settle in the foothills of Rajmahal. By 1832 a large
area of land was demarcated as Damin-i-Koh. This
was declared to be the land of the Santhals. They
were to live within it, practise plough agriculture,
and become settled peasants. The land grant to the
Santhals stipulated that at least one-tenth of the area
was to be cleared and cultivated within the first ten
years. The territory was surveyed and mapped.
Enclosed with boundary pillars, it was separated from
both the world of the settled agriculturists of the
plains and the Paharias of the hills.
After the demarcation of Damin-i-Koh, Santhal
settlements expanded rapidly. From 40 Santhal villages
in the area in 1838, as many as 1,473 villages had
come up by 1851. Over the same period, the Santhal
population increased from a mere 3,000 to over 82,000.
As cultivation expanded, an increased volume of
revenue flowed into the Company’s coffers.
Santhal myths and songs of the nineteenth century
refer very frequently to a long history of travel: they
represent the Santhal past as one of continuous
mobility, a tireless search for a place to settle. Here
in the Damin-i-Koh their journey seemed to have come
to an end.
When the Santhals settled on the peripheries of
the Rajmahal hills, the Paharias resisted but were
ultimately forced to withdraw deeper into the hills.
Restricted from moving down to the lower hills and
valleys, they were confined to the dry interior and
to the more barren and rocky upper hills. This
severely affected their lives, impoverishing them
in the long term. Shifting agriculture depended on
the ability to move to newer and newer land and
utilisation of the natural fertility of the soil. When
the most fertile soils became inaccessible to them,
being part of the Damin, the Paharias could not
effectively sustain their mode of cultivation. When
the forests of the region were cleared for cultivation
the hunters amongst them also faced problems. The
Santhals, by contrast, gave up their earlier life of
mobility and settled down, cultivating a range of
commercial crops for the market, and dealing with
traders and moneylenders.
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The Santhals, however, soon found that the land

they had brought under cultivation was slipping
away from their hands. The state was levying heavy
taxes on the land that the Santhals had cleared,
moneylenders (dikus) were charging them high rates
of interest and taking over the land when debts
remained unpaid, and zamindars were asserting
control over the Damin area.
By the 1850s, the Santhals felt that the time had
come to rebel against zamindars, moneylenders and
the colonial state, in order to create an ideal world
for themselves where they would rule. It was after
the Santhal Revolt (1855-56 ) that the Santhal
Pargana was created, carving out 5,500 square miles
from the districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum. The
Fig. 10.11 colonial state hoped that by creating a new territory
Sidhu Manjhi, the leader of the for the Santhals and imposing some special laws
Santhal rebellion within it, the Santhals could be conciliated.
Fig. 10.12
Santhals fight the sepoys of the British Raj, Illustrated London News, 23 February 1856
The rebellion changed the British perception of the Santhals. Villages that had earlier seemed
calm and peaceful (Fig. 10.10) now appeared to have become places of violent and savage deeds.
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Ü Imagine you
are a reader of
the Illustrated
London News in
England. How will
you react to the
images depicted in
Figs. 10.12, 10.13
and 10.14?
What image of the
Santhals would
these pictures create
in your mind?
Fig. 10.13
Burning of Santhal villages, Illustrated London News, 23 February 1856
After the rebellion was crushed, the region was searched, suspects were picked up, and
villages set on fire. Images of the burning villages were shown to the public in England –
once again as a demonstration of the might of the British and their ability to crush
rebellion and impose colonial order.
Fig. 10.14
Santhal prisoners being taken away, Illustrated London News, 1856
Notice how images like this one seek to convey political messages. At the centre you
can see British officials triumphantly riding on an elephant. One officer on a horse is
smoking a hookah: a picture that emphasises that the time of trouble was over, the
rebellion had been crushed. The rebels are now in chains, being taken away to jail
escorted and surrounded by soldiers of the Company.
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Source 3 2.3 The accounts of Buchanan

Buchanan on the We have been drawing on Buchanan’s account,
but while reading his reports we should not forget
Santhals
that he was an employee of the British East India
Company. His journeys were not simply inspired
Buchanan wrote:
by the love of landscape and the desire to discover
They are very clever in clearing the unknown. He marched everywhere with a
new lands, but live meanly. large army of people – draughtsmen, surveyors,
Their huts have no fence, and
palanquin bearers, coolies. The costs of the
the walls are made of small
travels were borne by the East India Company
sticks placed upright, close
together and plastered within since it needed the information that Buchanan
with clay. They are small and was expected to collect. Buchanan had specific
slovenly, and too flat-roofed, instructions about what he had to look for and
with very little arch. what he had to record. When he arrived at a
village with his army of people, he was
immediately perceived as an agent of the sarkar.
As the Company consolidated its power and
expanded its commerce, it looked for natural
resources it could control and exploit. It surveyed
landscapes and revenue sources, organised
voyages of discovery, and sent its geologists and
geographers, its botanists and medical men to
collect information. Buchanan, undoubtedly an
extraordinary observer, was one such individual.
Everywhere Buchanan went, he obsessively
observed the stones and rocks and the different
Source 4
strata and layers of soil. He searched for
The rocks near Kaduya minerals and stones that were commercially
valuable, he recorded all signs of iron ore and
mica, granite and saltpetre. He carefully
Buchanan’s journal is packed observed local practices of salt-making and iron-
with observations like the ore-mining.
following: When Buchanan wrote about a landscape, he
About a mile farther on, (I) most often described not just what he saw, what
came to a low ledge of rocks the landscape was like, but also how it could be
without any evident strata; transformed and made more productive – what
it is a small grained granite crops could be cultivated, which trees cut down,
with reddish feldspar, with
and which ones grown. And we must remember
quartz and black mica …
More than half a mile from
that his vision and his priorities were different
thence, I came to another from those of the local inhabitants: his
rock not stratified, and assessment of what was necessary was shaped
consisting of very fine- by the commercial concerns of the Company and
grained granite with modern Western notions of what constituted
yellowish feldspar, whitish progress. He was inevitably critical of the
quartz and black mica. lifestyles of forest dwellers and felt that forests
had to be turned into agricultural lands.
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Source 5
On clearance and settled cultivation
Passing through one village in the lower Rajmahal hills,

Buchanan wrote:
The view of the country is exceedingly fine, the
cultivation, especially the narrow valleys of rice
winding in all directions, the cleared lands with
scattered trees, and the rocky hills are in perfection;
all that is wanted is some appearance of progress in Ü Discuss...
the area and a vastly extended and improved What does Buchanan’s
cultivation, of which the country is highly susceptible.
description tell us about his
Plantations of Asan and Palas, for Tessar (Tassar silk
worms) and Lac, should occupy the place of woods ideas of development?
to as great an extent as the demand will admit; the Illustrate your argument by
remainder might be all cleared, and the greater part quoting from the excerpts.
cultivated, while what is not fit for the purpose, might If you were a Paharia forest
rear Plamira (palmyra) and Mowa (mahua). dweller how would you have
reacted to these ideas?
3. A Revolt in the Countryside

The Bombay Deccan
You have read about how the lives of peasants and
zamindars of colonial Bengal and the Paharias
and Santhals of the Rajmahal hills were changing.
Now let us move across to western India, and to a
later period, and explore what was happening in the
countryside in the Bombay Deccan.
One way of exploring such changes is by focusing
on a peasant revolt. In such climactic times rebels
express their anger and fury; they rise against what
they perceive to be injustice and the causes of their
suffering. If we try to understand the premises of
their resentment, and peel the layers of their anger,
we get a glimpse of their life and experience that is
otherwise hidden from us. Revolts also produce
records that historians can look at. Alarmed by the
actions of rebels and keen on restoring order, state
authorities do not simply repress a rebellion. They
try and understand it, enquire into its causes so
that policies can be formulated and peace
established. These enquiries produce evidence that
historians can explore.
Through the nineteenth century, peasants in
various parts of India rose in revolt against
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Source 6
moneylenders and grain dealers. One such revolt
On that day in Supa occurred in 1875 in the Deccan.
3.1 Account books are burnt
On 16 May 1875, the District The movement began at Supa, a large village in Poona
Magistrate of Poona wrote to (present-day Pune) district. It was a market centre
the Police Commissioner: where many shopkeepers and moneylenders lived.
On arrival at Supa on On 12 May1875, ryots from surrounding rural areas
Saturday 15 May I learnt gathered and attacked the shopkeepers, demanding
of the disturbance. their bahi khatas (account books) and debt bonds.
One house of a They burnt the khatas, looted grain shops, and in
moneylender was burnt some cases set fire to the houses of sahukars.
down; about a dozen were From Poona the revolt spread to Ahmednagar.
forcibly broken into and Then over the next two months it spread even further,
completely gutted of their over an area of 6,500 square km. More than thirty
content. Account papers, villages were affected. Everywhere the pattern was
bonds, grains, country
the same: sahukars were attacked, account books
cloth were burnt in the
burnt and debt bonds destroyed. Terrified of peasant
street where heaps of ashes
are still to be seen. attacks, the sahukars fled the villages, very often
leaving their property and belongings behind.
The chief constable
As the revolt spread, British officials saw the
apprehended 50 persons.
Stolen property worth
spectre of 1857 (see Chapter 11). Police posts were
Rs 2000 was recovered. established in villages to frighten rebellious peasants
The estimated loss is over into submission. Troops were quickly called in; 951
Rs 25,000. Moneylenders people were arrested, and many convicted. But
claim it is over 1 lakh. it took several months to bring the countryside
D ECCAN RIOTS COMMISSION under control.
Source 7
A newspaper report
A sahukar was someone who
acted as both a moneylender
and a trader. The following report, titled ‘ The ryot and the
moneylender’, appeared in the Native Opinion (6 June
1876), and was quoted in Report of the Native
Newspapers of Bombay:
They (the ryots ) first place spies on the boundaries
of their villages to see if any Government officers
Ü The words and terms used come, and to give timely intimation of their arrival
by a writer often tell us to the offenders. They then assemble in a body and
something about his or her go to the houses of their creditors, and demand
prejudices. Read Source 7 from them a surrender of their bonds and other
carefully and pick out the terms documents, and threaten them in case of refusal with
assault and plunder. If any Government officer
that indicate any prejudices of
happens to approach the villages where the above is
the writer. Discuss how a ryot of
taking place, the spies give intimation to the offenders
the area would have described
and the latter disperse in time.
the same situation.
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Why the burning of bonds and deeds? Why this

revolt? What does it tell us about the Deccan
countryside and about agrarian changes under
colonial rule? Let us look at this longer history of
changes over the nineteenth century.
3.2 A new revenue system
As British rule expanded from Bengal to other parts
of India, new systems of revenue were imposed. The
Permanent Settlement was rarely extended to any
region beyond Bengal.
Why was this so? One reason was that after 1810,
agricultural prices rose, increasing the value of
harvest produce, and enlarging the income of the
Bengal zamindars. Since the revenue demand was
fixed under the Permanent Settlement, the colonial
state could not claim any share of this enhanced
income. Keen on expanding its financial resources,
the colonial government had to think of ways to
maximise its land revenue. So in territories annexed
in the nineteenth century, temporary revenue
settlements were made.
There were other reasons too. When officials devise
policies, their thinking is deeply shaped by economic
theories they are familiar with. By the 1820s, the
economist David Ricardo was a celebrated figure in
England. Colonial officials had learnt Ricardian ideas
during their college years. In Maharashtra when
British officials set about formulating the terms of
the early settlement in the 1820s, they operated with
some of these ideas.
According to Ricardian ideas, a landowner should
have a claim only to the “average rent” that prevailed
at a given time. When the land yielded more than
this “average rent”, the landowner had a surplus
that the state needed to tax. If tax was not levied, Rentier is a term used to
cultivators were likely to turn into rentiers, and their designate people who live on
surplus income was unlikely to be productively rental income from property.
invested in the improvement of the land. Many
British officials in India thought that the history of
Bengal confirmed Ricardo’s theory. There the
zamindars seemed to have turned into rentiers,
leasing out land and living on the rental incomes. It
was therefore necessary, the British officials now
felt, to have a different system.
The revenue system that was introduced in the
Bombay Deccan came to be known as the ryotwari
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settlement. Unlike the Bengal system, the revenue

was directly settled with the ryot. The average
income from different types of soil was estimated,
the revenue-paying capacity of the ryot was assessed
and a proportion of it fixed as the share of the state.
The lands were resurveyed every 30 years and
the revenue rates increased. Therefore the revenue
demand was no longer permanent.
3.3 Revenue demand and peasant debt
The first revenue settlement in the Bombay Deccan
was made in the 1820s. The revenue that was
demanded was so high that in many places peasants
deserted their villages and migrated to new regions.
In areas of poor soil and fluctuating rainfall the
problem was particularly acute. When rains failed
and harvests were poor, peasants found it impossible
to pay the revenue. However, the collectors in charge
of revenue collection were keen on demonstrating
their efficiency and pleasing their superiors. So they
went about extracting payment with utmost severity.
When someone failed to pay, his crops were seized
and a fine was imposed on the whole village.
By the 1830s the problem became more severe.
Prices of agricultural products fell sharply after 1832
and did not recover for over a decade and a half.
This meant a further decline in peasants’ income.
At the same time the countryside was devastated by
a famine that struck in the years 1832-34. One-
third of the cattle of the Deccan were killed, and
half the human population died. Those who survived
had no agricultural stocks to see them through the
crisis. Unpaid balances of revenue mounted.
How did cultivators live through such years?
How did they pay the revenue, procure their
consumption needs, purchase their ploughs and
cattle, or get their children married?
Inevitably, they borrowed. Revenue could rarely
be paid without a loan from a moneylender. But
once a loan was taken, the ryot found it difficult to
pay it back. As debt mounted, and loans remained
unpaid, peasants’ dependence on moneylenders
increased. They now needed loans even to buy their
everyday needs and meet their p r o d u c t i o n
expenditure. By the 1840s, officials were finding
evidence of alarming levels of peasant indebtedness
everywhere.
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TIMELINE
1801 Subsidiary Alliance introduced by Wellesley in Awadh

1856 Nawab Wajid Ali Shah deposed; Awadh annexed
1856-57 Summary revenue settlements introduced in Awadh
by the British
1857
10 May Mutiny starts in Meerut
11-12 May Delhi garrisons revolt; Bahadur Shah accepts nominal
leadership
20-27 May Sepoys mutiny in Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri, Etah
30 May Rising in Lucknow
May-June Mutiny turns into a general revolt of the people
30 June British suffer defeat in the battle of Chinhat
25 Sept British forces under Havelock and Outram enter the
Residency in Lucknow
July Shah Mal killed in battle
1858
June Rani Jhansi killed in battle
ANSWER IN 100 -150 WORDS

Fig. 11.19
Faces of rebels
1. Why did the mutinous sepoys in many places turn to
erstwhile rulers to provide leadership to the revolt?
2. Discuss the evidence that indicates planning and
coordination on the part of the rebels.
3. Discuss the extent to which religious beliefs shaped
the events of 1857.
4. What were the measures taken to ensure unity among
the rebels?
5. What steps did the British take to quell the uprising?
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suited for its growth”. India was seen as a country

that could supply cotton to Lancashire if the American
supply dried up. It possessed suitable soil, a climate
favourable to cotton cultivation, and cheap labour.
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861,
a wave of panic spread through cotton circles in
Britain. Raw cotton imports from America fell to less
than three per cent of the normal: from over 2,000,000
bales (of 400 lbs each) in 1861 to 55,000 bales in
1862. Frantic messages were sent to India and
elsewhere to increase cotton exports to Britain. In
Bombay, cotton merchants visited the cotton
Ü The three panels in districts to assess supplies and encourage
Fig. 10.17 depict different cultivation. As cotton prices soared (see Fig. 10.15),
modes of transporting export merchants in Bombay were keen to secure
cotton. Notice the bullocks
as much cotton as possible to meet the British
collapsing under the weight
demand. So they gave advances to urban sahukars
of the cotton, the boulders
who in turn extended credit to those rural
on the road, and the huge
pile of bales on the boat.
moneylenders who promised to secure the produce.
What is the artist suggesting When there is a boom in the market credit flows
through these images? easily, for those who give out loans feel secure about
recovering their money.
Fig. 10.17
Transporting cotton before the railway era, Illustrated London News, 20 April 1861
When cotton supplies from America were cut off during the Civil War, Britain hoped that
India would supply all the cotton that British industries needed. It began assessing the
supply, examining the quality of cotton and studying the methods of production and
marketing. This interest was reflected in the pages of the Illustrated London News.
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These developments had a

profound impact on the Deccan
countryside. The ryots in the
Deccan villages suddenly found
access to seemingly limitless
credit. They were being given
Rs 100 as advance for every acre
they planted with cotton. Sahukars
were more than willing to extend
long-term loans.
While the American crisis
continued, cotton production in
the Bombay Deccan expanded.
Between 1860 and 1864 cotton acreage doubled. Fig. 10.18
By 1862 over 90 per cent of cotton imports into A fleet of boats carrying cotton bales
Britain were coming from India. down the Ganges from Mirzapur,
But these boom years did not bring prosperity to Illustrated London News,
13 December 1862
all cotton producers. Some rich peasants did gain, Before the railway age, the town of
but for the large majority, cotton expansion meant Mirzapur was a collection centre
heavier debt. for cotton from the Deccan.
Fig. 10.19
Cotton bales lying at the Bombay terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway ready for
shipment to England, Illustrated London News, 23 August 1862
Once the railways came up cotton supplies were not carried only on carts and boats. River traffic
declined over time. But older modes of transport were not fully displaced. The loaded bullock cart
in the foreground on the right is waiting to carry cotton bales from the railway station to the port.
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COLONIAL CITIES 317
By the middle of the nineteenth century these

seltlements had become big cities from where the
new rulers controlled the country. Institutions were
set up to regulate economic activity and demonstrate
the authority of the new rulers. Indians experienced
political domination in new ways in these cities. The
layouts of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were quite
different from older Indian towns, and the buildings Source 1
that were built in these cities bore the marks of their
colonial origin. What do buildings express and what Escaping to the
can architecture convey? This is a question that countryside
students of history need to ask.
Remember that architecture helps in giving ideas This is how the famous poet
a shape in stone, brick, wood or plaster. From the Mirza Ghalib described
bungalow of the government officer, the palatial what the people of Delhi did
house of the rich merchant to the humble hut of the when the British forces
labourer, buildings reflect social relations and occupied the city in 1857:
identities in many ways. Smiting the enemy and
driving him before them,
the victors (i.e., the
British) overran the city
1. Towns and Cities in Pre-colonial in all directions. All
Times whom they found in the
street they cut down …
Before we explore the growth of cities in the colonial
For two to three days
period, let us look at urban centres during the centuries
every road in the city,
preceding British rule. from the Kashmiri Gate
1.1 What gave towns their character? to Chandni Chowk, was
Towns were often defined in opposition to rural areas. a battlefield. Three
gates – the Ajmeri, the
They came to represent specific forms of economic
Tu r c o m a n a n d t h e
activities and cultures. In the countryside people
Delhi – were still held by
subsisted by cultivating land, foraging in the forest, or the rebels … At the
rearing animals. Towns by contrast were peopled naked spectacle of this
with artisans, traders, administrators and rulers. Towns vengeful wrath and
dominated over the rural population, thriving on the malevolent hatred the
surplus and taxes derived from agriculture. Towns and colour fled from
cities were often fortified by walls which symbolised their men’s faces, and a vast
separation from the countryside. concourse of men
However, the separation between town and country and women … took
to precipitate flight
was fluid. Peasants travelled long distances on
through these three
pilgrimage, passing through towns; they also flocked
gates. Seeking the little
to towns during times of famine. Besides, there was a villages and shrines
reverse flow of humans and goods from towns to villages. outside the city, they
When towns were attacked, people often sought shelter drew breath to wait until
in the countryside. Traders and pedlars took goods from such time as might
the towns to sell in the villages, extending markets favour their return.
and creating new patterns of consumption.
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figures. A variety of customary norms regulated the

relationship between the moneylender and the ryot.
One general norm was that the interest charged
could not be more than the principal. This was meant
to limit the moneylender’s exactions and defined what
could be counted as “fair interest”. Under colonial
rule this norm broke down. In one of the many cases
investigated by the Deccan Riots Commission, the
moneylender had charged over Rs 2,000 as interest
on a loan of Rs 100. In petition after petition, ryots
complained of the injustice of such exactions and
the violation of custom.
Source 9
Deeds of hire
When debts mounted the peasant was unable to pay

back the loan to the moneylender. He had no option
but to give over all his possessions – land, carts, and
animals – to the moneylender. But without animals he
could not continue to cultivate. So he took land on rent
and animals on hire. He now had to pay for the animals
which had originally belonged to him. He had to sign a
deed of hire stating very clearly that these animals and
carts did not belong to him. In cases of conflict, these
deeds could be enforced through the court.
The following is the text of a deed that a peasant signed
in November 1873, from the records of the Deccan Riots Ü List all the commitments that
Commission: the peasant is making in this
I have sold to you, on account of the debt due to you, deed. What does such a deed
my two carriages having iron axles, with their of hire tell us about the
appurtenances and four bullocks … I have taken from relationship between the
you on hire under (this) deed the very same two peasant and the moneylender?
carriages and four bullocks. I shall pay every month How would it change the
the hire thereof at Rupees four a month, and obtain a relationship between the
receipt in your own handwriting. In the absence of a peasant and the bullocks he
receipt I shall not contend that the hire had been paid. previously owned?
The ryots came to see the moneylender as devious

and deceitful. They complained of moneylenders
manipulating laws and forging accounts. In 1859
the British passed a Limitation Law that stated
that the loan bonds signed between moneylenders
and ryots would have validity for only three years.
This law was meant to check the accumulation of
interest over time. The moneylender, however, turned
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the law around, forcing the ryot to sign a new bond

every three years. When a new bond was signed, the
unpaid balance – that is, the original loan and the
accumulated interest – was entered as the principal
on which a new set of interest charges was calculated.
In petitions that the Deccan Riots Commission
collected, ryots described how this process worked
(see Source 10) and how moneylenders used a variety
of other means to short-change the ryot: they refused
to give receipts when loans were repaid, entered
fictitious figures in bonds, acquired the peasants’
harvest at low prices, and ultimately took over
peasants’ property.
Deeds and bonds appeared as symbols of the new
oppressive system. In the past such deeds had been
rare. The British, however, were suspicious of
transactions based on informal understanding, as
was common in the past. The terms of transactions,
they believed, had to be clearly, unambiguously and
categorically stated in contracts, deeds and bonds,
and regulated by law. Unless the deed or contract
was legally enforceable, it had no value.
Over time, peasants came to associate the misery
of their lives with the new regime of bonds and deeds.
They were made to sign and put thumb impressions
on documents, but they did not know what they were
actually signing. They had no idea of the clauses
that moneylenders inserted in the bonds. They feared
the written word. But they had no choice because to
survive they needed loans, and moneylenders were
unwilling to give loans without legal bonds.
Source 10
How debts mounted
In a petition to the Deccan Riots Commission a ryot explained how the

system of loans worked:
A sowkar lends his debtor Rs 100 on bond at Rs 3-2 annas per cent
per mensem. The latter agrees to pay the amount within eight days
from the passing of the bond. Three years after the stipulated time for
repaying the amount, the sowkar takes from his debtor another bond
for the principal and interest together at the same rate of interest,
Ü Calculate the rate and allows him 125 days’ time to liquidate the debt. After the lapse of
3 years and 15 days a third bond is passed by the debtor … (this process
of interest that the
is repeated) at the end of 12 years … his interest on Rs 1000 amounts
ryot was paying
to Rs 2028 -10 annas -3 paise.
over the years.
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4. The Deccan Riots Commission

When the revolt spread in the Deccan, the
Government of Bombay was initially unwilling to
see it as anything serious. But the Government of
India, worried by the memory of 1857, pressurised
the Government of Bombay to set up a commission
of enquiry to investigate into the causes of the riots. Ü Discuss...
The commission produced a report that was Check what rates of interest
presented to the British Parliament in 1878. are charged in the region
This report, referred to as the Deccan Riots Report, where you live at present.
provides historians with a range of sources for the Find out whether these rates
study of the riot. The commission held enquiries have changed over the last
in the districts where the riots spread, recorded 50 years. Is there a variation
statements of ryots, sahukars and eyewitnesses, in the rates paid by different
compiled statistical data on revenue rates, prices groups of people? What are
and interest rates in different regions, and collated the reasons for the
the reports sent by district collectors. differences?
In looking at such sources we have to again

remember that they are official sources and reflect
official concerns and interpretations of events. The
Deccan Riots Commission, for instance, was
specifically asked to judge whether the level of
government revenue demand was the cause of the
revolt. And after presenting all the evidence, the
commission reported that the government demand
was not the cause of peasant anger. It was the
moneylenders who were to blame. This argument is
found very frequently in colonial records. This shows
that there was a persistent reluctance on the part
of the colonial government to admit that popular
discontent was ever on account of government action.
Official reports, thus, are invaluable sources for
the reconstruction of history. But they have to be
always read with care and juxtaposed with evidence
culled from newspapers, unofficial accounts, legal
records and, where possible, oral sources.
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TIMELINE
1765 English East India Company acquires Diwani of Bengal

1773 Regulating Act passed by the British Parliament to
regulate the activities of the East India Company
1793 Permanent Settlement in Bengal
1800s Santhals begin to come to the Rajmahal hills and
settle there
1818 First revenue settlement in the Bombay Deccan
1820s Agricultural prices begin to fall
1840s-50s A slow process of agrarian expansion in the Bombay Deccan
1855-56 Santhal rebellion
1861 Cotton boom begins
1875 Ryots in Deccan villages rebel
1. Why was the jotedar a powerful figure in many areas

of rural Bengal?
2. How did zamindars manage to retain control over
their zamindaris?
3. How did the Paharias respond to the coming of
outsiders?
4. Why did the Santhals rebel against British rule?
5. What explains the anger of the Deccan ryots against
Fig. 10.20 the moneylenders?
A rural scene, painted by William
Prinsep, 1820
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sea-based European empires. Forces of international

Names of cities trade, mercantilism and capitalism now came to define
the nature of society.
Madras, Bombay and From the mid-eighteenth century, there was a new
Calcutta were the Anglicised phase of change. Commercial centres such as Surat,
names of villages where the Masulipatnam and Dhaka, which had grown in
British first set up trading
the seventeenth century, declined when trade shifted
posts. They are now known
to other places. As the British gradually acquired
as Chennai, Mumbai and
political control after the Battle of Plassey in 1757,
Kolkata respectively.
and the trade of the English East India Company
expanded, colonial port cities such as Madras, Calcutta
and Bombay rapidly emerged as the new economic
Ü Discuss... capitals. They also became centres of colonial
Which building, institution administration and political power. New buildings and
or place is the principal institutions developed, and urban spaces were ordered
focus of the town, city or in new ways. New occupations developed and people
village in which you live? flocked to these colonial cities. By about 1800, they
Explore its history. Find were the biggest cities in India in terms of population.
out when it was built, who
built it, why it was built, 2. Finding Out about Colonial Cities
what functions it served 2.1 Colonial records and urban history
and whether these Colonial rule was based on the production of enormous
functions have changed. amounts of data. The British kept detailed records of
their trading activities in order to regulate their
commercial affairs. To keep track of life in the growing
cities, they carried out regular surveys, gathered
statistical data, and published various official reports.
From the early years, the colonial government was
keen on mapping. It felt that good maps were necessary
to understand the landscape and know the topography.
This knowledge would allow better control over the
region. When towns began to grow, maps were prepared
not only to plan the development of these towns but
also to develop commerce and consolidate power. The
town maps give information regarding the location of
hills, rivers and vegetation, all important for planning
structures for defence purposes. They also show the
location of ghats, density and quality of houses and
alignment of roads, used to gauge commercial
possibilities and plan strategies of taxation.
From the late nineteenth century the British tried
to raise money for administering towns through the
systematic annual collection of municipal taxes. To
avoid conflict they handed over some responsibilities
to elected Indian representatives. Institutions like
the municipal corporation with some popular
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For a long while they were suspicious of census

operations and believed that enquiries were being
What maps reveal conducted to impose new taxes. Upper-caste people
and conceal were also unwilling to give any information
The development of survey regarding the women of their household: women
methods, accurate scientific were supposed to remain secluded within the
instruments and British imperial interior of the household and not subjected to
needs meant that maps were public gaze or public enquiry.
prepared with great care. The Census officials also found that people were
Survey of India was established claiming identities that they associated with higher
in 1878. While the maps that status. For instance there were people in towns who
were prepared give us a lot of were hawkers and went selling small articles during
information, they also reflect some seasons, while in other seasons they earned
the bias of the British rulers. their livelihood through manual labour. Such people
Large settlements of the poor often told the census enumerators that they were
in towns went unmarked on traders, not labourers, for they regarded trade as a
maps because they seemed more respectable activity.
unimportant to the rulers. As a Similarly, the figures of mortality and disease were
result it was assumed that these difficult to collect, for all deaths were not registered,
blank spaces on the map were
and illness was not always reported, nor treated by
available for other development
licensed doctors. How then could cases of illness or
schemes. When these schemes
death be accurately calculated?
were undertaken, the poor
were evicted. Thus historians have to use sources like the
census with great caution, keeping in mind their
possible biases, recalculating figures and
understanding what the figures do not tell. However,
census, survey maps and records of institutions like
the municipality help us to study colonial cities in
greater detail than is possible for pre-colonial cities.
2.2 Trends of change
A careful study of censuses reveals some fascinating
trends. After 1800, urbanisation in India was
sluggish. All through the nineteenth century up to
the first two decades of the twentieth, the proportion
of the urban population to the total population in
India was extremely low and had remained stagnant.
This is clear from Figure 12.5. In the forty years
between 1900 and 1940 the urban population
increased from about 10 per cent of the total
population to about 13 per cent.
Beneath this picture of changelessness, there were
significant variations in the patterns of urban
development in different regions. The smaller towns
had little opportunity to grow economically. Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras on the other hand grew
rapidly and soon became sprawling cities. In other
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COLONIAL CITIES 329
3.4 Social life in the new cities

For the Indian population, the new cities were
bewildering places where life seemed always in a
flux. There was a dramatic contrast between
extreme wealth and poverty.
New transport facilities such as horse-drawn
carriages and, subsequently, trams and buses
meant that people could live at a distance from
the city centre. Over time there was a gradual
separation of the place of work from the place of
residence. Travelling from home to office or the
factory was a completely new kind of experience.
Also, though the sense of coherence and Fig. 12.14
familiarity of the old towns was no longer there, Trams on a road in Calcutta
the creation of public places – for example, public
parks, theatres and, from the twentieth century,
cinema halls – provided exciting new forms of
entertainment and social interaction.
Within the cities new social groups were formed
and the old identities of people were no longer
important. All classes of people were migrating
to the big cities. There was an increasing demand
for clerks, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers
Amar Katha (My Story)
and accountants. As a result the “middle classes”
increased. They had access to new educational Binodini Dasi (1863-1941) was a
institutions such as schools, colleges and pioneering figure in Bengali theatre
libraries. As educated people, they could put in the late nineteenth and early
forward their opinions on society and government twentieth centuries and worked
closely with the dramatist and
in newspapers, journals and public meetings. A
director Girish Chandra Ghosh
new public sphere of debate and discussion
(1844-1912). She was one of the
emerged. Social customs, norms and practices
prime movers behind the setting up
came to be questioned. of the Star Theatre (1883) in
Social changes did not happen with ease. Calcutta which became a centre for
Cities, for instance, offered new opportunities for famous productions. Between 1910
women. Middle-class women sought to express and 1913 she serialised her
themselves through the medium of journals, autobiography, Amar Katha (My
autobiographies and books. But many people Story). A remarkable personality,
resented these attempts to change traditional she exemplified the problem
patriarchal norms. Conservatives feared that the women faced in recasting their
education of women would turn the world upside roles in society. She was a
down, and threaten the basis of the entire social professional in the city, working in
order. Even reformers who supported women’s multiple spheres – as an actress,
education saw women primarily as mothers and institution builder and author – but
wives, and wanted them to remain within the the patriarchal society of the
enclosed spaces of the household. Over time, time scorned her assertive public
women became more visible in public, as they presence.
entered new professions in the city as domestic
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In the months of May and June, the British had no

answer to the actions of the rebels. Individual Britons
tried to save their own lives and the lives of their
families. British rule, as one British officer noted,
“collapsed like a house made of cards’’.
Source 1
Ordinary life in extraordinary times
What happened in the cities during the months of the revolt?

How did people live through those months of tumult? How
was normal life affected? Reports from different cities tell us
about the breakdown in routine activities. Read these
reports from the Delhi Urdu Akhbar, 14 June 1857:
The same thing is true for vegetables and saag (spinach).
People have been found to complain that even kaddu
(pumpkin) and baingan (brinjal) cannot be found in the
bazaars. Potatoes and arvi (yam) when available are of
stale and rotten variety, stored from before by farsighted
kunjras (vegetable growers). From the gardens inside the
city some produce does reach a few places but the poor
and the middle class can only lick their lips and watch
them (as they are earmarked for the select).
... There is something else that needs attention which is
Ü Read the two reports causing a lot of damage to the people which is that the
and the descriptions of water-carriers have stopped filling water. Poor Shurfas
what was happening in (gentility) are seen carrying water in pails on their shoulders
Delhi provided in the and only then the necessary household tasks such as
chapter. Remember that cooking, etc. can take place. The halalkhors (righteous)
newspaper reports often have become haramkhors (corrupt), many mohallas have
not been able to earn for several days and if this situation
express the prejudices of
continues then decay, death and disease will combine
the reporter. How did
together to spoil the city’s air and an epidemic will spread
Delhi Urdu Akhbar view
all over the city and even to areas adjacent and around.
the actions of the people?
1.2 Lines of communication

The reason for the similarity in the pattern of the revolt
in different places lay partly in its planning and
coordination. It is clear that there was communication
between the sepoy lines of various cantonments. After
the 7th Awadh Irregular Cavalry had refused to accept
the new cartridges in early May, they wrote to the 48th
Native Infantry that “they had acted for the faith and
awaited the 48th’s orders”. Sepoys or their emissaries
moved from one station to another. People were thus
planning and talking about the rebellion.
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Source 2
Sisten and the tahsildar
In the context of the communication of the message of

revolt and mutiny, the experience of François Sisten, a
native Christian police inspector in Sitapur, is telling.
He had gone to Saharanpur to pay his respects to the
magistrate. Sisten was dressed in Indian clothes and
sitting cross-legged. A Muslim tahsildar from Bijnor
entered the room; upon learning that Sisten was from
Awadh, he enquired, “What news from Awadh? How
does the work progress, brother?” Playing safe, Sisten
Ü What does this conversation
replied, “If we have work in Awadh, your highness will
suggest about the ways in
know it.” The tahsildar said, “Depend upon it, we will
which plans were communicated
succeed this time. The direction of the business is in
and discussed by the rebels?
able hands.” The tahsildar was later identified as the
Why did the tahsildar regard
principal rebel leader of Bijnor.
Sisten as a potential rebel?
The pattern of the mutinies and the pieces of

Mutiny – a collective disobedience
evidence that suggest some sort of planning and
of rules and regulations within
coordination raise certain crucial questions. How
the armed forces
were the plans made? Who were the planners? It is Revolt – a rebellion of people
difficult on the basis of the available documents to against established authority
provide direct answers to such questions. But one and power. The terms ‘revolt’
incident provides clues as to how the mutinies came and ‘rebellion’ can be used
to be so organised. Captain Hearsey of the Awadh synonymously.
Military Police had been given protection by his
Indian subordinates during the mutiny. The 41st In the context of the revolt of
Native Infantry, which was stationed in the same 1857 the term revolt refers
place, insisted that since they had killed all their primarily to the uprising of the
white officers, the Military Police should also kill civilian population (peasants,
Hearsey or deliver him as prisoner to the 41st. The zamindars, rajas, jagirdars)
while the mutiny was of the
Military Police refused to do either, and it was
sepoys.
decided that the matter would be settled by a
panchayat composed of native officers drawn from
each regiment. Charles Ball, who wrote one of the
earliest histories of the uprising, noted that
panchayats were a nightly occurrence in the Kanpur
sepoy lines. What this suggests is that some of the
decisions were taken collectively. Given the fact that
the sepoys lived in lines and shared a common
lifestyle and that many of them came from the same
caste, it is not difficult to imagine them sitting
together to decide their own future. The sepoys were
the makers of their own rebellion.
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1.3 Leaders and followers

To fight the British, leadership and organisation
were required. For these the rebels sometimes
turned to those who had been leaders before the
British conquest. One of the first acts of the
sepoys of Meerut, as we saw, was to rush to Delhi
and appeal to the old Mughal emperor to accept
the leadership of the revolt. This acceptance of
leadership took its time in coming. Bahadur
Shah’s first reaction was one of horror and
rejection. It was only when some sepoys had
moved into the Mughal court within the Red Fort,
in defiance of normal court etiquette, that the
old emperor, realising he had very few options,
agreed to be the nominal leader of the rebellion.
Elsewhere, similar scenes were enacted
though on a minor scale. In Kanpur, the sepoys
and the people of the town gave Nana Sahib,
the successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II, no choice
Fig. 11.3
Rani Lakshmi Bai, a popular image save to join the revolt as their leader. In Jhansi,
the rani was forced by the popular pressure
around her to assume the leadership of the
uprising. So was Kunwar Singh, a local
zamindar in Arrah in Bihar. In Awadh, where
the displacement of the popular Nawab Wajid
Ali Shah and the annexation of the state were
still very fresh in the memory of the people,
the populace in Lucknow celebrated the fall of
British rule by hailing Birjis Qadr, the young
son of the Nawab, as their leader.
Not everywhere were the leaders people of the
court – ranis, rajas, nawabs and taluqdars.
Often the message of rebellion was carried by
ordinary men and women and in places by
religious men too. From Meerut, there were
reports that a fakir had appeared riding on an
elephant and that the sepoys were visiting him
frequently. In Lucknow, after the annexation of
Awadh, there were many religious leaders and
self-styled prophets who preached the
destruction of British rule.
Fig. 11.4 Elsewhere, local leaders emerged, urging
Nana Sahib peasants, zamindars and tribals to revolt. Shah
At the end of 1858, when the Mal mobilised the villagers of pargana Barout in
rebellion collapsed, Nana Sahib
Uttar Pradesh; Gonoo, a tribal cultivator of
escaped to Nepal. The story of his
escape added to the legend of Singhbhum in Chotanagpur, became a rebel
Nana Sahib’s courage and valour. leader of the Kol tribals of the region.
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Two rebels of 1857

Shah Mal
Shah Mal lived in a large village in pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh. He belonged
to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des
(eighty-four villages). The lands in the region were irrigated and fertile, with
rich dark loam soil. Many of the villagers were prosperous and saw the British
land revenue system as oppressive: the revenue demand was high and its
collection inflexible. Consequently cultivators were losing land to outsiders, to
traders and moneylenders who were coming into the area.
Shah Mal mobilised the headmen and cultivators of chaurasee des, moving
at night from village to village, urging people to rebel against the British. As
in many other places, the revolt against the British turned into a general
rebellion against all signs of oppression and injustice. Cultivators left their
fields and plundered the houses of moneylenders and traders. Displaced
proprietors took possession of the lands they had lost. Shah Mal’s men
attacked government buildings, destroyed the bridge over the river, and
dug up metalled roads – partly to prevent government forces from coming
into the area, and partly because bridges and roads were seen as symbols
of British rule. They sent supplies to the sepoys who had mutinied in Delhi
and stopped all official communication between British headquarters and
Meerut. Locally acknowledged as the Raja, Shah Mal took over the bungalow
of an English officer, turned it into a “hall of justice”, settling disputes and
dispensing judgments. He also set up an amazingly effective network of
intelligence. For a period the people of the area felt that firangi raj was
over, and their raj had come.
Shah Mal was killed in battle in July 1857.
Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah

Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was one of the many maulvis who played an
important part in the revolt of 1857. Educated in Hyderabad, he became a
preacher when young. In 1856, he was seen moving from village to village
preaching jehad (religious war) against the British and urging people to
rebel. He moved in a palanquin, with drumbeaters in front and followers at
the rear. He was therefore popularly called Danka Shah – the maulvi with
the drum ( danka ). British officials panicked as thousands began following
the maulvi and many Muslims began seeing him as an inspired prophet.
When he reached Lucknow in 1856, he was stopped by the police from
preaching in the city. Subsequently, in 1857, he was jailed in Faizabad.
When released, he was elected by the mutinous 22 nd Native Infantry as
their leader. He fought in the famous Battle of Chinhat in which the British
forces under Henry Lawrence were defeated. He came to be known for his
courage and power. Many people in fact believed that he was invincible,
had magical powers, and could not be killed by the British. It was this belief
that partly formed the basis of his authority.
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1.4 Rumours and prophecies

Rumours and prophecies played a part in moving
people to action. As we saw, the sepoys who had
arrived in Delhi from Meerut had told Bahadur Shah
about bullets coated with the fat of cows and pigs
and that biting those bullets would corrupt their
caste and religion. They were referring to the
cartridges of the Enfield rifles which had just been
given to them. The British tried to explain to the
sepoys that this was not the case but the rumour
that the new cartridges were greased with the fat of
cows and pigs spread like wildfire across the sepoy
lines of North India.
This is one rumour whose origin can be traced.
Captain Wright, commandant of the Rifle Instruction
Depot, reported that in the third week of January
1857 a “low-caste” khalasi who worked in the
magazine in Dum Dum had asked a Brahmin sepoy
for a drink of water from his lota. The sepoy had
refused saying that the “lower caste’s” touch would
defile the lota. The khalasi had reportedly retorted,
“You will soon lose your caste, as ere long you will
have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of cows
Fig. 11.5
Henry Hardinge, by Francis Grant, and pigs.” We do not know the veracity of the report,
1849 but once this rumour started no amount of
As Governor General, Hardinge assurances from British officers could stop its
attempted to modernise the circulation and the fear it spread among the sepoys.
equipment of the army. The Enfield This was not the only rumour that was circulating
rifles that were introduced initially
in North India at the beginning of 1857. There was
used the greased cartridges the
sepoys rebelled against.
the rumour that the British government had hatched
a gigantic conspiracy to destroy the caste and religion
of Hindus and Muslims. To this end, the rumours
said, the British had mixed the bone dust of cows
and pigs into the flour that was sold in the market.
In towns and cantonments, sepoys and the common
people refused to touch the atta. There was fear and
suspicion that the British wanted to convert Indians
to Christianity. Panic spread fast. British officers
tried to allay their fears, but in vain. These fears
stirred men to action. The response to the call for
action was reinforced by the prophecy that British
rule would come to an end on the centenary of the
Battle of Plassey, on 23 June 1857.
Rumours were not the only thing circulating at
the time. Reports came from various parts of North
India that chapattis were being distributed from
village to village. A person would come at night and
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give a chapatti to the watchman of the village and ask

him to make five more and distribute to the next village,
and so on. The meaning and purpose of the distribution
of the chapattis was not clear and is not clear even
today. But there is no doubt that people read it as an
omen of an upheaval.
1.5 Why did people believe in the rumours?
We cannot understand the power of rumours and
prophecies in history by checking whether they are
factually correct or not. We need to see what they reflect
about the minds of people who believed them – their
fears and apprehensions, their faiths and convictions.
Rumours circulate only when they resonate with the
deeper fears and suspicions of people.
The rumours in 1857 begin to make sense when seen
in the context of the policies the British pursued from
the late 1820s. As you know, from that time, under the
leadership of Governor General Lord William Bentinck,
the British adopted policies aimed at “reforming” Indian
society by introducing Western education, Western ideas
and Western institutions. With the cooperation of
sections of Indian society they set up English-medium
schools, colleges and universities which taught Western
sciences and the liberal arts. The British established
laws to abolish customs like sati (1829) and to permit
the remarriage of Hindu widows.
On a variety of pleas, like misgovernment and the
refusal to recognise adoption, the British annexed
not only Awadh, but many other kingdoms and
principalities like Jhansi and Satara. Once these
territories were annexed, the British introduced their
own system of administration, their own laws and their
own methods of land settlement and land revenue
collection. The cumulative impact of all this on the
people of North India was profound.
It seemed to the people that all that they cherished Ü Discuss...
and held sacred – from kings and socio-religious customs Read the section once
to patterns of landholding and revenue payment – was more and explain the
being destroyed and replaced by a system that was similarities and
more impersonal, alien and oppressive. This perception differences you notice
was aggravated by the activities of Christian in the ways in which
missionaries. In such a situation of uncertainty, leaders emerged during
rumours spread with remarkable swiftness. the revolt. For any two
To explore the basis of the revolt of 1857 in some leaders, discuss why
detail, let us look at Awadh – one of the major centres ordinary people were
where the drama of 1857 unfolded. drawn to them.
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2. Awadh in Revolt
2.1 “A cherry that will drop into our mouth
one day”
In 1851 Governor General Lord Dalhousie described
the kingdom of Awadh as “a cherry that will drop into
our mouth one day”. Five years later, in 1856, the
kingdom was formally annexed to the British Empire.
The conquest happened in stages. The Subsidiary
Alliance had been imposed on Awadh in 1801. By
the terms of this alliance the Nawab had to disband
his military force, allow the British to position their
Resident was the designation troops within the kingdom, and act in accordance
of a representative of the with the advice of the British Resident who was now
Governor General who lived in to be attached to the court. Deprived of his armed
a state which was not under forces, the Nawab became increasingly dependent
direct British rule.
on the British to maintain law and order within the
kingdom. He could no longer assert control over the
rebellious chiefs and taluqdars.
In the meantime the British became increasingly
interested in acquiring the territory of Awadh. They
felt that the soil there was good for producing indigo
and cotton, and the region was ideally located to be
developed into the principal market of Upper India.
Subsidiary Alliance By the early 1850s, moreover, all the major areas of
Subsidiary Alliance was a India had been conquered: the Maratha lands, the
system devised by Lord Doab, the Carnatic, the Punjab and Bengal. The
Wellesley in 1798. All those takeover of Awadh in 1856 was expected to complete
who entered into such an a process of territorial annexation that had begun
alliance with the British had with the conquest of Bengal almost a century earlier.
to accept certain terms and 2.2 “The life was gone out of the body”
conditions:
Lord Dalhousie’s annexations created disaffection
(a) The British would be
in all the areas and principalities that were annexed
responsible for protecting their
but nowhere more so than in the kingdom of Awadh
ally from external and internal
threats to their power.
in the heart of North India. Here, Nawab Wajid Ali
(b) In the territory of the Shah was dethroned and exiled to Calcutta on the
ally, a British armed contingent plea that the region was being misgoverned. The
would be stationed. British government also wrongly assumed that Wajid
(c) The ally would have Ali Shah was an unpopular ruler. On the contrary,
to provide the resources for he was widely loved, and when he left his beloved
maintaining this contingent. Lucknow, there were many who followed him all the
(d) The ally could enter way to Kanpur singing songs of lament.
into agreements with other The widespread sense of grief and loss at the
rulers or engage in warfare Nawab’s exile was recorded by many contemporary
only with the permission of observers. One of them wrote: “The life was gone out
the British. of the body, and the body of this town had been left
lifeless … there was no street or market and house
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With the growth of their empire,

the British became increasingly
inclined to make cities like Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras into impressive
imperial capitals. It was as if the
grandeur of the cities had to reflect
the authority of imperial power. Town
planning had to represent everything
that the British claimed to stand
for: rational ordering, meticulous
execution, and Western aesthetic
ideals. Cities had to be cleaned and
ordered, planned and beautified.
Fig. 12.22
A busti in Calcutta 4.3 Architecture in Bombay
If one way of realising this imperial vision was through
town planning, the other was through embellishing
cities with monumental buildings. Buildings in cities
could include forts, government offices, educational
institutions, religious structures, commemorative
towers, commercial depots, or even docks and bridges.
Although primarily serving functional needs like
defence, administration and commerce these were
rarely simple structures. They were often meant to
represent ideas such as imperial power, nationalism
and religious glory. Let us see how this is exemplified
in the case of Bombay.
Bombay was initially seven islands. As the
population grew, the islands were joined to create more
space and they gradually fused into one big city.
Bombay was the commercial capital of colonial India.
As the premier port on the western coast it was the
centre of international trade. By the end of the
nineteenth century, half the imports and exports of
India passed through Bombay. One important item of
this trade was opium that the East India Company
exported to China. Indian merchants and middlemen
supplied and participated in this trade and they helped
integrate Bombay’s economy directly to Malwa,
Rajasthan and Sind where opium was grown. This
collaboration with the Company was profitable and
led to the growth of an Indian capitalist class.
Bombay’s capitalists came from diverse communities
such as Parsi, Marwari, Konkani Muslim, Gujarati
Bania, Bohra, Jew and Armenian.
As you have read (Chapter 10), when the American
Civil War started in 1861 cotton from the American South
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and issues, traditions and loyalties worked

themselves out in the revolt of 1857. In Awadh, more
than anywhere else, the revolt became an expression
of popular resistance to an alien order.
The annexation displaced not just the Nawab. It
also dispossessed the taluqdars of the region. The
countryside of Awadh was dotted with the estates
and forts of taluqdars who for many generations had
controlled land and power in the countryside. Before
the coming of the British, taluqdars maintained armed
retainers, built forts, and enjoyed a degree of
autonomy, as long as they accepted the suzerainty of
the Nawab and paid the revenue of their taluqs. Some
of the bigger taluqdars had as many as 12,000 foot-
soldiers and even the smaller ones had about 200.
The British were unwilling to tolerate the power of
the taluqdars. Immediately after the annexation, the
taluqdars were disarmed and their forts destroyed.
The British land revenue policy further undermined
the position and authority of the taluqdars. After
annexation, the first British revenue settlement,
Fig. 11.6
A zamindar from Awadh, 1880
known as the Summary Settlement of 1856, was based
on the assumption that the taluqdars were interlopers
with no permanent stakes in land: they had
established their hold over land through force and
fraud. The Summary Settlement proceeded to remove
the taluqdars wherever possible. Figures show that
in pre-British times, taluqdars had held 67 per cent
of the total number of villages in Awadh; by the
Summary Settlement this number had come down to
38 per cent. The taluqdars of southern Awadh were
the hardest hit and some lost more than half of the
total number of villages they had previously held.
British land revenue officers believed that by
removing taluqdars they would be able to settle the
land with the actual owners of the soil and thus
reduce the level of exploitation of peasants while
increasing revenue returns for the state. But this
did not happen in practice: revenue flows for the
state increased but the burden of demand on the
peasants did not decline. Officials soon found that
large areas of Awadh were actually heavily
overassessed: the increase of revenue demand in
some places was from 30 to 70 per cent. Thus neither
taluqdars nor peasants had any reasons to be happy
with the annexation.
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bungalows in the Civil Lines thus became a racially

exclusive enclave in which the ruling classes could
live self-sufficient lives without daily social contact
with Indians.
For pubic buildings three broad architectural
styles were used. Two of these were direct imports
from fashions prevalent in England. The first was
called neo-classical or the new classical. Its
characteristics included construction of geometrical
structures fronted with lofty pillars It was derived
from a style that was originally typical of buildings
Fig. 12.24
The Town Hall in Bombay, which in ancient Rome, and was subsequently revived,
now houses the Asiatic Society of re-adapted and made popular during the
Bombay European Renaissance. It was considered particularly
appropriate for the British Empire in India. The
British imagined that a style that embodied the
grandeur of imperial Rome could now be made to
express the glory of imperial India. The Mediterranean
Pitched roof is a term used by origins of this architecture were also thought to be
architects to describe a sloping
suitable for tropical weather. The Town Hall in Bombay
roof. By the early twentieth
(Fig. 12.24) was built in this style in 1833. Another
century pitched roofs became
group of commercial buildings, built during the
less common in bungalows,
although the general plan cotton boom of the 1860s, was the Elphinstone Circle.
remained the same. Subsequently named Horniman Circle after an
English editor who courageously supported Indian
nationalists, this building was inspired from models
in Italy. It made innovative use of covered arcades at
ground level to shield the shopper and pedestrian
from the fierce sun and rain of Bombay.
Fig. 12.25
The Elphinstone Circle
Note the pillars and arches,
derived from Graeco-Roman
architecture.
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It is also important to
remember that close links existed
between the sepoys and the rural
world of North India. The large
majority of the sepoys of the
Bengal Army were recruited from
the villages of Awadh and eastern
Uttar Pradesh. Many of them were
Brahmins or from the “upper”
castes. Awadh was, in fact, called
the “nursery of the Bengal Army’’.
The changes that the families of
Fig. 11.7 the sepoys saw around them and
Bengal sepoys in European-style the threats they perceived were quickly transmitted
uniform to the sepoy lines. In turn, the fears of the sepoys
about the new cartridge, their grievances about
leave, their grouse about the increasing
misbehaviour and racial abuse on the part of their
white officers were communicated back to the
villages. This link between the sepoys and the rural
world had important implications in the course of
Ü Discuss... the uprising. When the sepoys defied their superior
Find out whether people in officers and took up arms they were joined very
your state participated in the swiftly by their brethren in the villages. Everywhere,
revolt of 1857. If they did, find peasants poured into towns and joined the soldiers
out why they did so. If they and the ordinary people of the towns in collective
did not, try and explain this. acts of rebellion.
3. What the Rebels Wanted

As victors, the British recorded their own trials and
tribulations as well as their heroism. They dismissed
the rebels as a bunch of ungrateful and barbaric
people. The repression of the rebels also meant
silencing of their voice. Few rebels had the
opportunity of recording their version of events.
Moreover, most of them were sepoys and ordinary
people who were not literate. Thus, other than a few
proclamations and ishtahars (notifications) issued
by rebel leaders to propagate their ideas and
persuade people to join the revolt, we do not have
much that throws light on the perspective of the
rebels. Attempts to reconstruct what happened in
1857 are thus heavily and inevitably dependent on
what the British wrote. While these sources reveal
the minds of officials, they tell us very little about
what the rebels wanted.
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3.1 The vision of unity

The rebel proclamations in 1857 repeatedly appealed
to all sections of the population, irrespective of their
caste and creed. Many of the proclamations were
issued by Muslim princes or in their names but
even these took care to address the sentiments of
Hindus. The rebellion was seen as a war in which
both Hindus and Muslims had equally to lose or
gain. The ishtahars harked back to the pre-British
Hindu-Muslim past and glorified the coexistence of
different communities under the Mughal Empire.
The proclamation that was issued under the name
of Bahadur Shah appealed to the people to join the
fight under the standards of both Muhammad and
Mahavir. It was remarkable that during the uprising
religious divisions between Hindus and Muslim
were hardly noticeable despite British attempts to
create such divisions. In Bareilly in western Uttar
Pradesh, in December 1857, the British spent
Rs 50,000 to incite the Hindu population against
the Muslims. The attempt failed.
Source 5
The Azamgarh Proclamation, 25 August 1857
This is one of the main sources of our knowledge about what the rebels wanted:
It is well known to all, that in this age the people of Hindostan, both Hindoos and
Mohammedans, are being ruined under the tyranny and the oppression of the infidel and
treacherous English. It is therefore the bounden duty of all the wealthy people of India,
especially those who have any sort of connection with the Mohammedan royal families,
and are considered the pastors and masters of their people, to stake their lives and property
for the well-being of the public. …
Several of the Hindoo and Mussalman Chiefs, who have long since quitted their homes
for the preservation of their religion, and have been trying their best to root out the English
in India, have presented themselves to me, and taken part in the reigning Indian crusade,
and it is more than probable that I shall very shortly receive succours from the West. Therefore
for the information of the public, the present Ishtahar, consisting of several sections, is put in
circulation and it is the imperative duty of all to take into their careful consideration, and
abide by it. Parties anxious to participate in the common cause, but having no means to
provide for themselves, shall receive their daily subsistence from me; and be it known to all,
that the ancient works, both of the Hindoos and Mohammedans, the writings of miracle
workers, and the calculation of the astrologers, pundits, … all agree in asserting that the
English will no longer have any footing in India or elsewhere. Therefore it is incumbent on
all to give up the hope of the continuation of the British sway, side with me, and deserve the
consideration of the Badshahi, or imperial government, by their individual exertion in
contd
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Source 5 (contd)
promoting the common good, and thus attain their respective ends; otherwise if this
golden opportunity slips away, they will have to repent for their folly, … .
Section I – Regarding Zemindars. It is evident, that the British Government in making
zemindary settlements have imposed exorbitant Jumas (revenue demand) and have
disgraced and ruined several zemindars, by putting up their estates for public auction for
arrears of rent, in so much, in the institution of a suit by a common Ryot, a maid servant, or
a slave, the respectable zemindars are summoned into court, arrested, put in goal and
disgraced. In litigation regarding zemindaries, the immense value of stamps, and other
unnecessary expenses of the civil courts, … are all calculated to impoverish the litigants.
Besides this, the coffers of the zemindars are annually taxed with the subscription for schools,
hospitals, roads, etc. Such extortions will have no manner of existence in the Badshahi
Government; but on the contrary the Jumas will be light, the dignity and honour of the
zemindars safe, and every zemindar will have absolute rule in his own zemindary …
Section II – Regarding Merchants . It is plain that the infidel and treacherous British
Government have monopolised the trade of all the fine and valuable merchandise, such as
indigo, cloth, and other articles of shipping, leaving only the trade of trifles to the people, …
Besides this, the profits of the traders are taxed, with postages, tolls and subscriptions for
schools, etc. Notwithstanding all these concessions, the merchants are liable to
imprisonment and disgrace at the instance or complaint of a worthless man. When the
Badshahi Government is established all these aforesaid fraudulent practices shall be
dispensed with, and the trade of every article, without exception, both by land and water
will be opened to the native merchants of India, … It is therefore the duty of every merchant
to take part in the war, and aid the Badshahi Government with his men and money, … .
Section III – Regarding Public Servants . It is not a secret thing, that under the British
Government, natives employed in the civil and military services have little respect, low pay,
and no manner of influence; and all the posts of dignity and emolument in both the
departments are exclusively bestowed on Englishmen, … Therefore, all the natives in the
British service ought to be alive to their religion and interest, and abjuring their loyalty to
the English, side with the Badshahi Government, and obtain salaries of 200 and 300 rupees
a month for the present, and be entitled to high posts in the future. …
Section IV – Regarding Artisans. It is evident that the Europeans, by the introduction of
English articles into India, have thrown the weavers, the cotton dressers, the carpenters,
the blacksmiths, and the shoemakers, etc., out of employ, and have engrossed their
occupations, so that every description of native artisan has been reduced to beggary. But
under the Badshahi Government the native artisans will exclusively be employed in the
service of the kings, the rajahs, and the rich; and this will no doubt ensure their prosperity.
Therefore these artisans ought to renounce the English services, … .
Section V – Regarding Pundits, Fakirs and Other Learned Persons. The pundits and
fakirs being the guardians of the Hindoo and Mohammadan religions respectively, and
the Europeans being the enemies of both the religions, and as at present a war is raging
against the English on account of religion, the pundits and fakirs are bound to present
themselves to me, and take their share in the holy war… .
Ü What are the issues against British rule highlighted in this proclamation?
Read the section on each social group carefully. Notice the language in which
the proclamation is formulated and the variety of sentiments it appeals to.
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COLONIAL CITIES 343
a challenge to the racially exclusive clubs and hotels

maintained by the British.
In the more “Indian” localities of Bombay
traditional styles of decoration and building
predominated. The lack of space in the city and
crowding led to a type of building unique to Bombay,
the chawl, the multi-storeyed single-room apartments
with long open corridors built around a courtyard.
Such buildings which housed many families
sharing common spaces helped in the growth of
neighbourhood identity and solidarity.
5. What Buildings and

Architectural Styles Tell Us
Architecture reflects the aesthetic ideals prevalent Fig. 12.29
at a time, and variations within those ideals. But, The Municipal Corporation Building,
as we have seen, buildings also express the vision Bombay, designed by F. W. Stevens
of those who build them. Rulers everywhere seek in 1888
to express their power through buildings. So by Notice the fusion of Oriental and
Gothic designs.
looking at the architecture of a particular time, we
can understand how power was conceived of and
how it was expressed through structures and their
attributes – bricks and stones, pillars and arches,
soaring domes or vaulted roofs.
Architectural styles do not only reflect prevalent

tastes. They mould tastes, popularise styles and shape
the contours of culture. As we have seen, many Indians
came to regard European styles of architecture as
symbols of modernity and civilisation, and began
adopting these styles. But not all Indians thought
alike: many rejected European ideals and tried to
retain indigenous styles; others accepted certain
elements from the West that they saw as modern and
combined these with elements drawn from local Fig. 12.30
traditions. From the late nineteenth century we see A Bombay chawl
efforts to define regional and national tastes that
were different from the colonial ideal. Styles thus
Ü Discuss...
changed and developed through wider processes of
Choose a historical building
cultural conflict. By looking at architecture therefore
that you admire. List its
we can also understand the variety of forms in which architectural attributes and
cultural conflicts unfolded and political conflicts – find out about its style and
between the imperial and the national, the national why that particular style was
and the regional/local – were played out. adopted.
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The proclamations expressed the widespread fear

that the British were bent on destroying the caste
and religions of Hindus and Muslims and converting
them to Christianity – a fear that led people to
believe many of the rumours that circulated at the
time. People were urged to come together and fight
to save their livelihood, their faith, their honour,
their identity – a fight which was for the “greater
public good”.
As noted earlier, in many places the rebellion
against the British widened into an attack on all those
who were seen as allies of the British or local
oppressors. Often the rebels deliberately sought to
humiliate the elites of a city. In the villages they burnt
account books and ransacked moneylenders’ houses.
This reflected an attempt to overturn traditional
hierarchies, rebel against all oppressors. It presents
a glimpse of an alternative vision, perhaps of a more
egalitarian society. Such visions were not articulated
in the proclamations which sought to unify all social
groups in the fight against firangi raj.
3.3 The search for alternative power
Once British rule had collapsed, the rebels in places
like Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur tried to establish
some kind of structure of authority and
administration. This was, of course, short-lived but
the attempts show that the rebel leadership wanted
to restore the pre-British world of the eighteenth
century. The leaders went back to the culture of the
court. Appointments were made to various posts,
arrangements made for the collection of land revenue
and the payment of troops, orders issued to stop loot
and plunder. Side by side plans were made to fight
battles against the British. Chains of command were
laid down in the army. In all this the rebels harked
back to the eighteenth-century Mughal world – a
world that became a symbol of all that had been lost.
The administrative structures established by the
rebels were primarily aimed at meeting the demands
of war. However, in most cases these structures
could not survive the British onslaught. But in
Ü Discuss... Awadh, where resistance to the British lasted
What do you think are the longest, plans of counter-attack were being drawn
major problems faced by up by the Lucknow court and hierarchies of
historians in reconstructing command were in place as late as the last months
the point of view of the rebels? of 1857 and the early part of 1858.
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Source 7
4. Repression
Villagers as rebels
It is clear from all accounts that we have of 1857
that the British did not have an easy time in putting
down the rebellion. An officer reporting from rural
Before sending out troops to reconquer North Awadh (spelt as Oude in the
India, the British passed a series of laws to help following account) noted:
them quell the insurgency. By a number of Acts, The Oude people are
passed in May and June 1857, not only was the gradually pressing down on
whole of North India put under martial law but the line of communication
military officers and even ordinary Britons were from the North … the Oude
given the power to try and punish Indians people are villagers …
suspected of rebellion. In other words, the ordinary these villagers are nearly
processes of law and trial were suspended and it intangible to Europeans
melting away before them
was put out that rebellion would have only one
and collecting again. The
punishment – death. Civil Authorities report
Armed with these newly enacted special laws these villagers to amount
and the reinforcements brought in from Britain, the to a very large number of
British began the task of suppressing the revolt. men, with a number of guns.
They, like the rebels, recognised the symbolic value
of Delhi. The British thus mounted a two-pronged
Ü What, according to
attack. One force moved from Calcutta into North
this account, were the
India and the other from the Punjab – which problems faced by the
was largely peaceful – to reconquer Delhi. British British in dealing with
these villagers?
Map 2
The map shows
the important
centres of revolt
and the lines of
British attack
Sketch map not to scale
against the rebels.
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COLONIAL CITIES 345
Write a short essay

(250-300 words) on the following:
If you would like to know
more, read:
6. How were urban centres transformed during
the eighteenth century? Sabyasachi Bhattacharya.1990.
Adhunik Bharat Ka Aarthik Itihas.
7. What were the new kinds of public places that Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.
emerged in the colonial city? What functions Norma Evenson. 1989.
did they serve? The Indian Metropolis:
8. What were the concerns that influenced town A View Toward the West .
planning in the nineteenth century? Oxford University Press, Delhi.
Narayani Gupta. 1981.
9. To what extent were social relations transformed
Delhi between Two Empires
in the new cities?
1803-1931.
Oxford University Press, Delhi.
Gavin Hambly and Burton Stein.
Map work “Towns and Cities”, in Tapan
Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib
10. On an outline map of India, trace the major
edited, The Cambridge
rivers and hill ranges. Plot ten cities mentioned
Economic History of India,
in the chapter, including Bombay, Calcutta (Volume I ), 1984.
and Madras, and prepare a brief note on why Orient Longman and Cambridge
the importance of any two cities that you have University Press, Delhi.
marked (one colonial and one pre-colonial)
changed in the nineteenth century. Anthony King. 1976.
Colonial Urban Development:
Culture, Social Power and
Environment
Project (choose one) Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London.
11. You have been reading about big colonial Thomas R. Metcalf. 1989.
cities. Choose any small town with a long An Imperial Vision: Indian
history. It could be a temple town, market town, Architecture and Britain’s Raj
administrative centre, a pilgrimage centre or a Faber and Faber, London.
combination of these. Find out how the town Lewis Mumford. 1961.
was established, when it developed, and how The City in History: Its Origins, Its
its history changed during modern times. Transformations and Its Prospects.
Secker and Warburg, London.
12. Choose five different types of buildings in your
town or village. For each of these, find out when
it was built, how it was planned, how resources
were obtained for its construction, and how long
it took to build it. What do the architectural
features of the buildings express?
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5. Images of the Revolt

How do we know about the revolt, about the activities
of the rebels and the measures of repression that
we have been discussing?
As we have seen, we have very few records on
the rebels’ point of view. There are a few rebel
proclamations and notifications, as also some
letters that rebel leaders wrote. But historians till
now have continued to discuss rebel actions
primarily through accounts written by the British.
Official accounts, of course, abound: colonial
administrators and military men left their versions
in letters and diaries, autobiographies and official
histories. We can also gauge the official mindset
and the changing British attitudes through the
innumerable memos and notes, assessments of
situations, and reports that were produced. Many
of these have now been collected in a set of volumes
on mutiny records. These tell us about the fears
and anxieties of officials and their perception of
the rebels. The stories of the revolt that were
published in British newspapers and magazines
narrated in gory detail the violence of the mutineers
– and these stories inflamed public feelings and
provoked demands of retribution and revenge.
One important record of the mutiny is the pictorial
images produced by the British and Indians:
paintings, pencil drawings, etchings, posters,
cartoons, bazaar prints. Let us look at some of them
and see what they tell us.
5.1 Celebrating the saviours
British pictures offer a variety of images that were
meant to provoke a range of different emotions and
reactions. Some of them commemorate the British
heroes who saved the English and repressed the
rebels. “Relief of Lucknow”, painted by Thomas Jones
Barker in 1859, is an example of this type. When
the rebel forces besieged Lucknow, Henry Lawrence,
the Commissioner of Lucknow, collected the
Christian population and took refuge in the heavily
fortified Residency. Lawrence was killed but the
Residency continued to be defended under the
command of Colonel Inglis. On 25 September James
Outram and Henry Havelock arrived, cut through
the rebel forces, and reinforced the British
garrisons. Twenty days later Colin Campbell, who
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Fig. 11.10
was appointed as the new Commander of British
“Relief of Lucknow”, painted by
Thomas Jones Barker, 1859 forces in India, came with his forces and rescued
the besieged British garrison. In British accounts
the siege of Lucknow became a story of survival,
heroic resistance and the ultimate triumph of
British power.
Barker’s painting celebrates the moment of
Campbell’s entry. At the centre of the canvas are
the British heroes – Campbell, Outram and Havelock.
The gestures of the hands of those around lead the
spectator’s eyes towards the centre. The heroes stand
on a ground that is well lit, with shadows in the
foreground and the damaged Residency in the
background. The dead and injured in the foreground
are testimony to the suffering during the siege, while
the triumphant figures of horses in the middle ground
emphasise the fact that British power and control
had been re-established. To the British public such
paintings were reassuring. They created a sense that
the time of trouble was past and the rebellion was
over; the British were the victors.
5.2 English women and the honour of Britain
Newspaper reports have a power over public
imagination; they shape feelings and attitudes to
events. Inflamed particularly by tales of violence
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against women and children, there were public

demands in Britain for revenge and retribution. The
British government was asked to protect the honour
of innocent women and ensure the safety of helpless
children. Artists expressed as well as shaped these
sentiments through their visual representations of
trauma and suffering.
“In Memoriam” (Fig. 11.11) was painted by Joseph
Noel Paton two years after the mutiny. You can see
English women and children huddled in a circle,
looking helpless and innocent, seemingly waiting
for the inevitable – dishonour, violence and death.
“In Memoriam” does not show gory violence; it only
suggests it. It stirs up the spectator’s imagination,
and seeks to provoke anger and fury. It represents
the rebels as violent and brutish, even though
they remain invisible in the picture. In the background
you can see the British rescue forces arriving
as saviours.
Fig. 11.11
“In Memoriam”,
by Joseph Noel Paton, 1859
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Fig. 11.12
Miss Wheeler defending herself
against sepoys in Kanpur
In another set of sketches and paintings we see

women in a different light. They appear heroic,
defending themselves against the attack of rebels.
Miss Wheeler in Figure 11.12 stands firmly at the
centre, defending her honour, single-handedly
killing the attacking rebels. As in all such British
representations, the rebels are demonised. Here,
four burly males with swords and guns are shown
attacking a woman. The woman’s struggle to save
her honour and her life, in fact, is represented as
having a deeper religious connotation: it is a battle
to save the honour of Christianity. The book lying
on the floor is the Bible.
5.3 Vengeance and retribution
As waves of anger and shock spread in Britain,
demands for retribution grew louder. Visual
representations and news about the revolt created a
milieu in which violent repression and vengeance were
seen as both necessary and just. It was as if justice
demanded that the challenge to British honour and
power be met ruthlessly. Threatened by the rebellion,
the British felt that they had to demonstrate their
invincibility. In one such image (Fig. 11.13) we see
an allegorical female figure of justice with a sword in
Fig. 11.13 one hand and a shield in the other. Her posture is
Justice, Punch, 12 September 1857 aggressive; her face expresses rage and the desire for
The caption at the bottom reads revenge. She is trampling sepoys under her feet while
“The news of the terrible massacre
a mass of Indian women with children cower with fear.
at Cawnpore (Kanpur) produced
an outburst of fiery indignation There were innumerable other pictures and
and wild desire for revenge cartoons in the British press that sanctioned brutal
throughout the whole of England.” repression and violent reprisal.
2019-2020
this event were the princes and philanthropists whose

donations had contributed to the founding of the
BHU. Also present were important leaders of the
Congress, such as Annie Besant. Compared to these
dignitaries, Gandhiji was relatively unknown. He had
been invited on account of his work in South Africa,
rather than his status within India.
When his turn came to speak, Gandhiji charged
the Indian elite with a lack of concern for the
labouring poor. The opening of the BHU, he said,
was “certainly a most gorgeous show”. But he worried
about the contrast between the “richly bedecked
noblemen” present and “millions of the poor” Indians
who were absent. Gandhiji told the privileged invitees
that “there is no salvation for India unless you strip
yourself of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your
countrymen in India”. “There can be no spirit of self-
government about us,” he went on, “if we take away
or allow others to take away from the peasants almost
the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation
can only come through the farmer. Neither the
lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are
going to secure it.”
The opening of the BHU was an occasion for
celebration, marking as it did the opening of a
nationalist university, sustained by Indian money
and Indian initiative. But rather than adopt a tone
Fig. 13.3
of self-congratulation, Gandhiji chose instead to
Mahatma Gandhi in Karachi,
March 1916 remind those present of the peasants and workers
who constituted a majority
of the Indian population,
yet were unrepresented in
the audience.
Gandhiji’s speech at
Banaras in February 1916
was, at one level, merely a
statement of fact – namely,
that Indian nationalism
was an elite phenomenon,
a creation of lawyers and
doctors and landlords.
But, at another level, it
was also a statement of
intent – the first public
announcement of Gandhiji’s
own desire to make Indian
nationalism more properly
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Fig. 11.16
Execution of mutinous sepoys in Peshawar, Illustrated London News, 3 October 1857
In this scene of execution 12 rebels hang in a row, with cannons all around them.
What you see is not routine punishment: it is the performance of terror. For it to instil
fear among people, punishment could not be discreetly meted out in enclosed spaces.
It had to be theatrically performed in the open.
5.5 No time for clemency

At a time when the clamour was for vengeance, pleas
for moderation were ridiculed. When Governor
General Canning declared that a gesture of leniency
and a show of mercy would help in winning back
the loyalty of the sepoys, he was mocked in the
British press.
In one of the cartoons published in the pages of
Punch, a British journal of comic satire, Canning is
shown as a looming father figure, with his protective
hand over the head of a sepoy who still holds an
unsheathed sword in one hand and a dagger in the
other, both dripping with blood (Fig.11.17) – an
imagery that recurs in a number of British pictures
of the time.
Fig. 11.17
“The Clemency of Canning”, Punch, 24 October 1857
The caption at the bottom of the cartoon reads: “Governor
General: ‘Well, then they shan’t blow him from nasty guns;
but he must promise to be a good little sepoy’.”
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5.6 Nationalist imageries

The national movement in the twentieth century drew
its inspiration from the events of 1857. A whole world
of nationalist imagination was woven around
the revolt. It was celebrated as the First War of
Independence in which all sections of the people of
India came together to fight against imperial rule.
Art and literature, as much as the writing of history,
have helped in keeping alive the memory of 1857.
The leaders of the revolt were presented as heroic
figures leading the country into battle, rousing the
people to righteous indignation against oppressive
imperial rule. Heroic poems were written about the
valour of the queen who, with a sword in one hand
and the reins of her horse in the other, fought for the
freedom of her motherland. Rani of Jhansi was
represented as a masculine figure chasing the enemy,
slaying British soldiers and valiantly fighting till her Fig. 11.18
last. Children in many parts of India grow up reading Films and posters have helped
the lines of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan: “Khoob lari create the image of Rani Lakshmi
mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi” (Like a man she Bai as a masculine warrior
fought, she was the Rani of Jhansi). In popular prints
Rani Lakshmi Bai is usually portrayed in battle
armour, with a sword in hand and riding a horse – a
symbol of the determination to resist injustice and
alien rule.
The images indicate how the painters who produced

them perceived those events, what they felt, and what
they sought to convey. Through the paintings and
cartoons we know about the public that looked at
the paintings, appreciated or criticised the images,
and bought copies and reproductions to put up in
their homes.
These images did not only reflect the emotions
and feelings of the times in which they were
produced. They also shaped sensibilities. Fed by the
images that circulated in Britain, the public
sanctioned the most brutal forms of repression of
the rebels. On the other hand, nationalist imageries
of the revolt helped shape the nationalist imagination. Ü Discuss...
Examine the elements in each
of the visuals in this section
and discuss how they allow
you to identify the perspective
of the artist.
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TIMELINE
1801 Subsidiary Alliance introduced by Wellesley in Awadh

1856 Nawab Wajid Ali Shah deposed; Awadh annexed
1856-57 Summary revenue settlements introduced in Awadh
by the British
1857
10 May Mutiny starts in Meerut
11-12 May Delhi garrisons revolt; Bahadur Shah accepts nominal
leadership
20-27 May Sepoys mutiny in Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri, Etah
30 May Rising in Lucknow
May-June Mutiny turns into a general revolt of the people
30 June British suffer defeat in the battle of Chinhat
25 Sept British forces under Havelock and Outram enter the
Residency in Lucknow
July Shah Mal killed in battle
1858
June Rani Jhansi killed in battle

Fig. 11.19
Faces of rebels
1. Why did the mutinous sepoys in many places turn to
erstwhile rulers to provide leadership to the revolt?
2. Discuss the evidence that indicates planning and
coordination on the part of the rebels.
3. Discuss the extent to which religious beliefs shaped
the events of 1857.
4. What were the measures taken to ensure unity among
the rebels?
5. What steps did the British take to quell the uprising?
2019-2020
Write a short essay

6. Why was the revolt particularly widespread in

Awadh? What prompted the peasants, taluqdars
and zamindars to join the revolt?
7. What did the rebels want? To what extent did the
vision of different social groups differ?
8. What do visual representations tell us about the
revolt of 1857? How do historians analyse these
representations?
9. Examine any two sources presented in the
chapter, choosing one visual and one text, and
discuss how these represent the point of view of
the victor and the vanquished. more, read:
Gautam Bhadra. 1987.

Map work ‘Four Rebels of Eighteen-Fifty-
Seven’, Subaltern Studies, IV.
10. On an outline map of India, mark Calcutta
(Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras Rudrangshu Mukherjee. 1984.
(Chennai), three major centres of British power in Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58.
1857. Refer to Maps 1 and 2 and plot the areas Oxford University Press, Delhi.
where the revolt was most widespread. How close
or far were these areas from the colonial cities? Tapti Roy. 2006.
Raj of the Rani.
Penguin, New Delhi.
Projects (choose one) Eric Stokes. 1980.
Peasants and the Raj.
11. Read a biography of any one of the leaders of the Oxford University Press, Delhi.
revolt of 1857. Check the sources used by the
biographer. Do these include government reports,
newspaper accounts, stories in regional
languages, visual material, anything else? Do
all the sources say the same thing, or are there
differences? Prepare a report on your findings.
You could visit:
12. See a film made on the revolt of 1857 and write http://books.google.com
about the way it represents the revolt. How does
(for accounts of 1857 by British officials)
it depict the British, the rebels, and those
who remained loyal to the British? What does it www.copsey-family.org/allenc/
say about peasants, city dwellers, tribals, lakshmibai/links.html
zamindars and taluqdars? What kind of a (for letters of Rani Lakshmibai)
response does the film seek to evoke?
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Colonial Cities
THEME Urbanisation, Planning
TWELVE and Ar
Arcc hit ectur
hitectur
ecturee
In this chapter we will discuss the process of urbanisation in

colonial India, explore the distinguishing characteristics of
colonial cities and track social changes within them. We will
look closely at developments in three big cities – Madras
(Chennai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Bombay (Mumbai).
All three were originally fishing and weaving villages. They
became important centres of trade due to the economic
activities of the English East India Company. Company agents
settled in Madras in 1639 and in Calcutta in 1690. Bombay
was given to the Company in 1661 by the English king, who
had got it as part of his wife’s dowry from the king of Portugal.
The Company established trading and administrative offices
in each of these settlements.
Fig. 12.1
South-east view of Fort St George, Madras, by Thomas and William Daniell,
based on a drawing by Daniell published in Oriental Scenery, 1798
European ships carrying cargo dot the horizon. Country boats can be seen in the foreground.
2019-2020
COLONIAL CITIES 317
By the middle of the nineteenth century these

seltlements had become big cities from where the
new rulers controlled the country. Institutions were
set up to regulate economic activity and demonstrate
the authority of the new rulers. Indians experienced
political domination in new ways in these cities. The
layouts of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were quite
different from older Indian towns, and the buildings Source 1
that were built in these cities bore the marks of their
colonial origin. What do buildings express and what Escaping to the
can architecture convey? This is a question that countryside
students of history need to ask.
Remember that architecture helps in giving ideas This is how the famous poet
a shape in stone, brick, wood or plaster. From the Mirza Ghalib described
bungalow of the government officer, the palatial what the people of Delhi did
house of the rich merchant to the humble hut of the when the British forces
labourer, buildings reflect social relations and occupied the city in 1857:
identities in many ways. Smiting the enemy and
driving him before them,
the victors (i.e., the
British) overran the city
1. Towns and Cities in Pre-colonial in all directions. All
Times whom they found in the
street they cut down …
Before we explore the growth of cities in the colonial
For two to three days
period, let us look at urban centres during the centuries
every road in the city,
preceding British rule. from the Kashmiri Gate
1.1 What gave towns their character? to Chandni Chowk, was
Towns were often defined in opposition to rural areas. a battlefield. Three
gates – the Ajmeri, the
They came to represent specific forms of economic
Tu r c o m a n a n d t h e
activities and cultures. In the countryside people
Delhi – were still held by
subsisted by cultivating land, foraging in the forest, or the rebels … At the
rearing animals. Towns by contrast were peopled naked spectacle of this
with artisans, traders, administrators and rulers. Towns vengeful wrath and
dominated over the rural population, thriving on the malevolent hatred the
surplus and taxes derived from agriculture. Towns and colour fled from
cities were often fortified by walls which symbolised their men’s faces, and a vast
separation from the countryside. concourse of men
However, the separation between town and country and women … took
to precipitate flight
was fluid. Peasants travelled long distances on
through these three
pilgrimage, passing through towns; they also flocked
gates. Seeking the little
to towns during times of famine. Besides, there was a villages and shrines
reverse flow of humans and goods from towns to villages. outside the city, they
When towns were attacked, people often sought shelter drew breath to wait until
in the countryside. Traders and pedlars took goods from such time as might
the towns to sell in the villages, extending markets favour their return.
and creating new patterns of consumption.
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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the towns

built by the Mughals were famous for their concentration
of populations, their monumental buildings and their
imperial grandeur and wealth. Agra, Delhi and Lahore were
important centres of imperial administration and control.
Mansabdars and jagirdars who were assigned territories in
different parts of the empire usually maintained houses in
these cities: residence in these centres of power was
symbolic of the status and prestige of a noble.
The presence of the emperor and noblemen in these
centres meant that a wide variety of services had to be
provided. Artisans produced exclusive handicrafts for the
households of nobles. Grain from the countryside was
brought into urban markets for the town dwellers and the
army. The treasury was also located in the imperial capital.
Thus the revenues of the kingdom flowed into the capital
regularly. The emperor lived in a fortified palace and the
town was enclosed by a wall, with entry and exit being
regulated by different gates. Within these towns were
gardens, mosques, temples, tombs, colleges, bazaars and
caravanserais. The focus of the town was oriented towards
Fig. 12.2 the palace and the principal mosque.
Shahjahanabad in 1857 In the towns of South India such as Madurai and
The walls that surrounded Kanchipuram the principal focus was the temple. These
the city were demolished towns were also important commercial centres. Religious
after 1857. The Red Fort
festivals often coincided with fairs, linking pilgrimage
is on the river side.
At a distance on the ridge with trade. Generally, the ruler was the highest authority
to the right, you can see and the principal patron of religious institutions. The
the British settlements relationship that he had with other groups and classes
and the cantonment. determined their place in society and in the town.
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Medieval towns were places where everybody was

expected to know their position in the social order
dominated by the ruling elite. In North India, The kotwal of Delhi
maintaining this order was the work of the imperial Did you know that the first Prime
officer called the kotwal who oversaw the internal Minister of India, Jawaharlal
affairs and policing of the town. Nehru’s grandfather, Ganga
1.2 Changes in the eighteenth century Dhar Nehru, was the kotwal of
All this started changing in the eighteenth century. Delhi before the Revolt of 1857?
Read Jawaharlal Nehru,
With political and commercial realignments, old
Autobiography, for more details.
towns went into decline and new towns developed.
The gradual erosion of Mughal power led to the
demise of towns associated with their rule. The
Mughal capitals, Delhi and Agra, lost their political
authority. The growth of new regional powers was
reflected in the increasing importance of regional
capitals – Lucknow, Hyderabad, Seringapatam,
Poona (present-day Pune), Nagpur, Baroda (present-
day Vadodara) and Tanjore (present-day Thanjavur).
T raders, administrators, artisans and others
Qasbah is a small town in the
migrated from the old Mughal centres to these new
countryside, often the seat of
capitals in search of work and patronage.
a local notable.
Continuous warfare between the new kingdoms
Ganj refers to a small fixed
meant that mercenaries too found ready employment market.
there. Some local notables and officials associated Both qasbah and ganj dealt in
with Mughal rule in North India also used this cloth, fruit, vegetables and milk
opportunity to create new urban settlements such products. They provided for
as the qasbah and ganj. However, the effects of noble families and the army.
political decentralisation were uneven. In some
places there was renewed economic activity, in
other places war, plunder and political uncertainty
led to economic decline.
Changes in the networks of trade were reflected in Fig. 12.3
the history of urban centres. The European commercial A view of the city of Goa from
Companies had set up base in different places early the river, by J. Greig, 1812
during the Mughal era: the
Portuguese in Panaji in 1510, the
Dutch in Masulipatnam in 1605,
the British in Madras in 1639
and the French in Pondicherry
(present-day Puducherry) in
1673. With the expansion of
commercial activity, towns grew
around these trading centres. By
the end of the eighteenth century
the land-based empires in Asia
were replaced by the powerful
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sea-based European empires. Forces of international

Names of cities trade, mercantilism and capitalism now came to define
the nature of society.
Madras, Bombay and From the mid-eighteenth century, there was a new
Calcutta were the Anglicised phase of change. Commercial centres such as Surat,
names of villages where the Masulipatnam and Dhaka, which had grown in
British first set up trading
the seventeenth century, declined when trade shifted
posts. They are now known
to other places. As the British gradually acquired
as Chennai, Mumbai and
political control after the Battle of Plassey in 1757,
Kolkata respectively.
and the trade of the English East India Company
expanded, colonial port cities such as Madras, Calcutta
and Bombay rapidly emerged as the new economic
Ü Discuss... capitals. They also became centres of colonial
Which building, institution administration and political power. New buildings and
or place is the principal institutions developed, and urban spaces were ordered
focus of the town, city or in new ways. New occupations developed and people
village in which you live? flocked to these colonial cities. By about 1800, they
Explore its history. Find were the biggest cities in India in terms of population.
out when it was built, who
built it, why it was built, 2. Finding Out about Colonial Cities
what functions it served 2.1 Colonial records and urban history
and whether these Colonial rule was based on the production of enormous
functions have changed. amounts of data. The British kept detailed records of
their trading activities in order to regulate their
commercial affairs. To keep track of life in the growing
cities, they carried out regular surveys, gathered
statistical data, and published various official reports.
From the early years, the colonial government was
keen on mapping. It felt that good maps were necessary
to understand the landscape and know the topography.
This knowledge would allow better control over the
region. When towns began to grow, maps were prepared
not only to plan the development of these towns but
also to develop commerce and consolidate power. The
town maps give information regarding the location of
hills, rivers and vegetation, all important for planning
structures for defence purposes. They also show the
location of ghats, density and quality of houses and
alignment of roads, used to gauge commercial
possibilities and plan strategies of taxation.
From the late nineteenth century the British tried
to raise money for administering towns through the
systematic annual collection of municipal taxes. To
avoid conflict they handed over some responsibilities
to elected Indian representatives. Institutions like
the municipal corporation with some popular
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representation were meant to administer essential services

such as water supply, sewerage, road building and public
health. The activities of municipal corporations in turn
generated a whole new set of records maintained in
municipal record rooms.
The growth of cities was monitored through regular head-
counts. By the mid-nineteenth century several local censuses Fig. 12.4
had been carried out in different regions. The first all-India An old map of Bombay
census was attempted in 1872. Thereafter, from 1881, The encircled area
decennial (conducted every ten years) censuses became a marked “castle” was
part of the fortified
regular feature. This collection of data is an invaluable source settlement. The dotted
for studying urbanisation in India. areas show the seven
When we look at these reports it appears that we have islands that were
hard data to measure historical change. The endless pages gradually joined
of tables on disease and death, or the enumeration of people through projects of
according their age, sex, caste and reclamation.
occupation, provide a vast mass of
figures that creates an illusion of
concreteness. Historians have,
however, found that the figures can
be misleading. Before we use these
figures we need to understand who
collected the data, and why and
how they were gathered. We also
need to know what was measured
and what was not.
The census operation, for
instance, was a means by which
social data were converted into
convenient statistics about the
population. But this process was
riddled with ambiguity. The census
commissioners devised categories
for classifying different sections of
the population. This classification
was often arbitrary and failed to
capture the fluid and overlapping
identities of people. How was a
person who was both an artisan and
a trader to be classified? How was
a person who cultivated his land
and carted produce to the town to
be enumerated? Was he a cultivator
or a trader?
Often people themselves refused
to cooperate or gave evasive
answers to the census officials.
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For a long while they were suspicious of census

operations and believed that enquiries were being
What maps reveal conducted to impose new taxes. Upper-caste people
and conceal were also unwilling to give any information
The development of survey regarding the women of their household: women
methods, accurate scientific were supposed to remain secluded within the
instruments and British imperial interior of the household and not subjected to
needs meant that maps were public gaze or public enquiry.
prepared with great care. The Census officials also found that people were
Survey of India was established claiming identities that they associated with higher
in 1878. While the maps that status. For instance there were people in towns who
were prepared give us a lot of were hawkers and went selling small articles during
information, they also reflect some seasons, while in other seasons they earned
the bias of the British rulers. their livelihood through manual labour. Such people
Large settlements of the poor often told the census enumerators that they were
in towns went unmarked on traders, not labourers, for they regarded trade as a
maps because they seemed more respectable activity.
unimportant to the rulers. As a Similarly, the figures of mortality and disease were
result it was assumed that these difficult to collect, for all deaths were not registered,
blank spaces on the map were
and illness was not always reported, nor treated by
available for other development
licensed doctors. How then could cases of illness or
schemes. When these schemes
death be accurately calculated?
were undertaken, the poor
were evicted. Thus historians have to use sources like the
census with great caution, keeping in mind their
possible biases, recalculating figures and
understanding what the figures do not tell. However,
census, survey maps and records of institutions like
the municipality help us to study colonial cities in
greater detail than is possible for pre-colonial cities.
2.2 Trends of change
A careful study of censuses reveals some fascinating
trends. After 1800, urbanisation in India was
sluggish. All through the nineteenth century up to
the first two decades of the twentieth, the proportion
of the urban population to the total population in
India was extremely low and had remained stagnant.
This is clear from Figure 12.5. In the forty years
between 1900 and 1940 the urban population
increased from about 10 per cent of the total
population to about 13 per cent.
Beneath this picture of changelessness, there were
significant variations in the patterns of urban
development in different regions. The smaller towns
had little opportunity to grow economically. Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras on the other hand grew
rapidly and soon became sprawling cities. In other
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words, the growth of these three cities as the new

commercial and administrative centres was at the Urbanisation in India
expense of other existing urban centres. 1891-1941
As the hub of the colonial economy, they functioned Year Percentage of
as collection depots for the export of Indian urban population
manufactures such as cotton textiles in the to total population
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the
Industrial Revolution in England, this trend was 1891 9.4
reversed and these cities instead became the entry 1901 10.0
point for British-manufactured goods and for the
export of Indian raw materials. The nature of this 1911 9.4
economic activity sharply differentiated these 1921 10.2
colonial cities from India’s traditional towns and
urban settlements. 1931 11.1
The introduction of railways in 1853 meant a
1941 12.8
change in the fortunes of towns. Economic activity
gradually shifted away from traditional towns Fig. 12.5
which were located along old routes and rivers.
Every railway station became a collection depot
for raw materials and a distribution point for
imported goods. For instance, Mirzapur on the
Ganges, which specialised in collecting cotton and Ü Discuss...
cotton goods from the Deccan, declined when a Study either some statistical
railway link was made to Bombay (see Chapter 10, data or maps of a city. Check
Figs. 10.18 and 10.19). With the expansion of the who collected the data and
railway network, railway workshops and railway why they were collected. What
colonies were established. Railway towns like are the possible biases in
Jamalpur, Waltair and Bareilly developed. such collections? What kind
of information is excluded?
For the maps, find out why
they were drawn and whether
they are equally detailed for
all parts of the city.
Fig. 12.6
The Borah Bazaar in the Fort area,
Bombay, 1885
As Bombay grew, even the fort
area became congested. Traders,
shopkeepers and service groups
flowed into the area, numerous
bazaars were established, and
lofty structures came up.
Worried by the congestion, the
British made several attempts to
push Indians out of the northern
part of the Fort where the local
communities had settled.
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3. What Were the New Towns Like?

3.1 Ports, forts and centres for services
By the eighteenth century
Madras, Calcutta and
Bombay had become
important ports. The
settlements that came up
here were convenient points
for collecting goods. The
English East India Company
built its factories (i.e.,
mercantile offices) there and
because of competition
among the European
companies, fortified these
settlements for protection. In
Fig. 12.7 Madras, Fort St George, in Calcutta Fort William and in
The Old Fort Ghat in Bombay the Fort marked out the areas of British
Calcutta, engraving by settlement. Indian merchants, artisans and other
Thomas and William
Daniell, 1787
workers who had economic dealings with European
The Old Fort was on the merchants lived outside these forts in settlements of
water-front. The Company’s their own. Thus, from the beginning there were separate
goods were received here. quarters for Europeans and Indians, which came to be
The ghat continued to be labelled in contemporary writings as the “White Town”
used for bathing purposes and “Black Town” respectively. Once the British captured
by the local people.
political power these racial distinctions became sharper.
From the mid-nineteenth century the expanding
network of railways linked these cities to the rest
of the country. As a result the hinterland – the
countryside from where raw materials and labour were
drawn – became more closely linked to these port
cities. Since raw material was transported to these
cities for export and there was plentiful cheap labour
available, it was convenient to set up modern factories
there. After the 1850s, cotton mills were set up by
Indian merchants and entrepreneurs in Bombay, and
European-owned jute mills were established on the
outskirts of Calcutta. This was the beginning of
modern industrial development in India.
Although Calcutta, Bombay and Madras supplied
raw materials for industry in England, and had
emerged because of modern economic forces like
capitalism, their economies were not primarily based
on factory production. The majority of the working
population in these cities belonged to what economists
classify as the tertiary sector. There were only two
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proper “industrial cities”: Kanpur, specialising in

Ionic was one of the three orders
leather, woollen and cotton textiles, and
(organisational systems) of
Jamshedpur, specialising in steel. India never
Ancient Greek architecture, the
became a modern industrialised country, since other two being Doric, and
discriminatory colonial policies limited the levels Corinthian. One feature that
of industrial development. Calcutta, Bombay and distinguished each order was
Madras grew into large cities, but this did not signify the style of the capital at the
any dramatic economic growth for colonial India head of the columns. These
as a whole. forms were re-adapted in the
Renaissance and Neo-classical
3.2 A new urban milieu forms of architecture.
Colonial cities reflected the mercantile culture of the
new rulers. Political power and patronage shifted from
Doric capital
Indian rulers to the merchants of the East India
Company. Indians who worked as interpreters,
middlemen, traders and suppliers of goods also
had an important place in these new cities. Economic Ionic capital
activity near the river or the sea led to the development
of docks and ghats. Along the shore were godowns,
mercantile offices, insurance agencies for shipping,
Corinthian
transport depots, banking establishments. Further capital
inland were the chief administrative offices of the
Company. The Writers’ Building in Calcutta was one
such office. Around the periphery of the Fort, European
merchants and agents built palatial houses in
European styles. Some built garden houses in the
suburbs. Racially exclusive clubs, racecourses and
theatres were also built for the ruling elite.
Fig. 12.8
The Old Court House and Writers’ Building, engraving by Thomas and William Daniell, 1786
The Court House on the right, with an open arcaded veranda and Ionic columns, was pulled
down in 1792. Next to it is the Writers’ Building where the East India Company servants in India
(known as Writers) stayed on arrival in the country. Later this building became a government office.
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Fig. 12.9
The rich Indian agents and middlemen built large
The New Buildings at Chourangee
(Chowringhee), engraving by traditional courtyard houses in the Black Town in
Thomas and William Daniell, 1787 the vicinity of the bazaars. They bought up large
Along the eastern side of the tracts of land in the city as future investment. To
Maidan private houses of the impress their English masters they threw lavish
British began coming up in the parties during festivals. They also built temples to
late eighteenth century. Most were
establish their status in society. The labouring poor
in a Palladian style with pillared
verandas that were meant to provided a variety of services to their European
keep off the summer heat. and Indian masters as cooks, palanquin bearers,
coachmen, guards, porters and construction and
dock workers. They lived in makeshift huts in
different parts of the city.
The nature of the colonial city changed further in
the mid-nineteenth century. After the Revolt of 1857
British attitudes in India were shaped by a constant
fear of rebellion. They felt that towns needed to be
better defended, and white people had to live in more
secure and segregated enclaves, away from the
threat of the “natives”. Pasturelands and agricultural
fields around the older towns were cleared, and new
urban spaces called “Civil Lines” were set up. White
people began to live in the Civil Lines. Cantonments–
places where Indian troops under European
command were stationed – were also developed as
Fig. 12.10
The Marble Palace, Calcutta safe enclaves. These areas were separate from but
This is one of the most elaborate attached to the Indian towns. With broad streets,
structures built by an Indian family bungalows set amidst large gardens, barracks,
belonging to the new urban elite. parade ground and church, they were meant as a
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Fig. 12.11
Chitpore Bazaar by Charles D’Oyly
Chitpore Bazaar was at the border
of the Black Town and White Town
in Calcutta. Notice the different
types of houses here: the brick
building of the wealthy landlord
and the thatched huts of the poor.
The temple in the picture, referred
to by the British as the Black
Pagoda, was built by a landlord,
Govinda Ram Mitter, who lived
here. Shaped by the language of
race, even names were often
coloured with blackness.
Ü Look at Figures 12.8, 12.9

and 12.11. Notice the variety
safe haven for Europeans as well as a model of
of activities on the streets.
ordered urban life in contrast to the densely built-
What do the activities tell us
up Indian towns. about the social life on the
For the British, the “Black” areas came to streets of Calcutta in the late
symbolise not only chaos and anarchy, but also filth eighteenth century?
and disease. For a long while the British were
interested primarily in the cleanliness and hygiene
of the “White” areas. But as epidemics of cholera
and plague spread, killing thousands, colonial
officials felt the need for more stringent measures
of sanitation and public health. They feared that
disease would spread from the “Black” to the “White”
areas. From the 1860s and 1870s, stringent
administrative measures regarding sanitation were
implemented and building activity in the Indian
towns was regulated. Underground piped water
supply and sewerage and drainage systems were also
put in place around this time. Sanitary vigilance
thus became another way of regulating Indian towns.
3.3 The first hill stations
As in the case of cantonments, hill stations were a
distinctive feature of colonial urban development.
The founding and settling of hill stations was initially
connected with the needs of the British army. Simla
(present-day Shimla) was founded during the course
of the Gurkha War (1815 -16); the Anglo-Maratha
War of 1818 led to British interest in Mount Abu;
and Darjeeling was wrested from the rulers of Sikkim
in 1835. Hill stations became strategic places for
billeting troops, guarding frontiers and launching
campaigns against enemy rulers.
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The temperate and cool climate of the Indian hills

was seen as an advantage, particularly since the
British associated hot weather with epidemics.
Cholera and malaria were particularly feared and
attempts were made to protect the army from these
diseases. The overwhelming presence of the army
made these stations a new kind of cantonment in
the hills. These hill stations were also developed as
sanitariums, i.e., places where soldiers could be sent
for rest and recovery from illnesses.
Because the hill stations approximated the cold
climates of Europe, they became an attractive
destination for the new rulers. It became a practice
for viceroys to move to hill stations during the
summer months. In 1864 the Viceroy John Lawrence
officially moved his council to Simla, setting seal
Fig. 12.12 to the practice of shifting capitals during the hot
A typical colonial house in Simla, season. Simla also became the official residence of
an early-twentieth-century the commander-in-chief of the Indian army.
photograph
Most probably it was the
In the hill stations the British and other Europeans
residence of Sir John Marshall. sought to recreate settlements that were reminiscent
of home. The buildings were deliberately built in
the European style. Individual houses followed the
pattern of detached villas and cottages set amidst
gardens.The Anglican Church and educational
institutions represented British ideals. Even
recreation activities came to be shaped by British
Fig. 12.13 cultural traditions. Thus social calls, teas, picnics,
A village near Manali, Himachal
fetes, races and visits to the theatre became common
Pradesh
While the British introduced among colonial officials in the hill stations.
colonial architectural styles in the The introduction of the railways made hill
hill stations, the local population stations more accessible to a wide range of people
often continued to live as before. including Indians. Upper-and middle-class Indians
such as maharajas, lawyers and
merchants were drawn to these
stations because they afforded them
a close proximity to the ruling
British elite.
Hill stations were important for
the colonial economy. With the
setting up of tea and coffee
plantations in the adjoining areas,
an influx of immigrant labour from
the plains began. This meant that
hill stations no longer remained
exclusive racial enclaves for
Europeans in India.
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3.4 Social life in the new cities

For the Indian population, the new cities were
bewildering places where life seemed always in a
flux. There was a dramatic contrast between
extreme wealth and poverty.
New transport facilities such as horse-drawn
carriages and, subsequently, trams and buses
meant that people could live at a distance from
the city centre. Over time there was a gradual
separation of the place of work from the place of
residence. Travelling from home to office or the
factory was a completely new kind of experience.
Also, though the sense of coherence and Fig. 12.14
familiarity of the old towns was no longer there, Trams on a road in Calcutta
the creation of public places – for example, public
parks, theatres and, from the twentieth century,
cinema halls – provided exciting new forms of
entertainment and social interaction.
Within the cities new social groups were formed
and the old identities of people were no longer
important. All classes of people were migrating
to the big cities. There was an increasing demand
for clerks, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers
Amar Katha (My Story)
and accountants. As a result the “middle classes”
increased. They had access to new educational Binodini Dasi (1863-1941) was a
institutions such as schools, colleges and pioneering figure in Bengali theatre
libraries. As educated people, they could put in the late nineteenth and early
forward their opinions on society and government twentieth centuries and worked
closely with the dramatist and
in newspapers, journals and public meetings. A
director Girish Chandra Ghosh
new public sphere of debate and discussion
(1844-1912). She was one of the
emerged. Social customs, norms and practices
prime movers behind the setting up
came to be questioned. of the Star Theatre (1883) in
Social changes did not happen with ease. Calcutta which became a centre for
Cities, for instance, offered new opportunities for famous productions. Between 1910
women. Middle-class women sought to express and 1913 she serialised her
themselves through the medium of journals, autobiography, Amar Katha (My
autobiographies and books. But many people Story). A remarkable personality,
resented these attempts to change traditional she exemplified the problem
patriarchal norms. Conservatives feared that the women faced in recasting their
education of women would turn the world upside roles in society. She was a
down, and threaten the basis of the entire social professional in the city, working in
order. Even reformers who supported women’s multiple spheres – as an actress,
education saw women primarily as mothers and institution builder and author – but
wives, and wanted them to remain within the the patriarchal society of the
enclosed spaces of the household. Over time, time scorned her assertive public
women became more visible in public, as they presence.
entered new professions in the city as domestic
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also discuss how the history of these

experiences can be reconstructed by talking to
people and interviewing them, that is, through
the use of oral history. At the same time, it will
point out the strengths and limitations of oral
history. Interviews can tell us about certain
aspects of a society’s past of which we may know
very little or nothing from other types of sources.
But they may not reveal very much about many
matters whose history we would then need to
build from other materials. We will return to
this issue towards the end of the chapter.
Fig. 14.2
Photographs give us a glimpse of
the violence of that time.
1. Some Partition Experiences
Here are three incidents narrated by people who
experienced those trying times to a researcher
in 1993. The informants were Pakistanis, the
researcher Indian. The job of this researcher was
to understand how those who had lived more or
less harmoniously for generations inflicted so
much violence on each other in 1947.
Source 1
“I am simply returning my father’s karz, his debt”
This is what the researcher recorded:

During my visits to the History Department Library of Punjab
University, Lahore, in the winter of 1992, the librarian, Abdul Latif, a
pious middle-aged man, would help me a lot. He would go out of his
way, well beyond the call of duty, to provide me with relevant material,
meticulously keeping photocopies requested by me ready before my
arrival the following morning. I found his attitude to my work so
extraordinary that one day I could not help asking him, “Latif Sahib,
why do you go out of your way to help me so much?” Latif Sahib
glanced at his watch, grabbed his namazi topi and said, “I must go for
namaz right now but I will answer your question on my return.”
Stepping into his office half an hour later, he continued:
“Yes, your question. I … I mean, my father belonged to Jammu, to
a small village in Jammu district. This was a Hindu-dominated village
and Hindu ruffians of the area massacred the hamlet’s Muslim
population in August 1947. One late afternoon, when the Hindu
mob had been at its furious worst, my father discovered he was
perhaps the only Muslim youth of the village left alive. He had already
lost his entire family in the butchery and was looking for ways of
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4. Segregation, Town Planning and

Architecture
Madras, Calcutta and Bombay
Madras, Calcutta and Bombay gradually developed into
the biggest cities of colonial India. We have been
examining some of the distinctive features of these
cities in the preceding sections. Now we will look in
detail at one characteristic for each city.
4.1 Settlement and segregation in Madras
The Company had first set up its trading activities in
the well-established port of Surat on the west coast.
Subsequently the search for textiles brought British
merchants to the east coast. In 1639 they constructed
a trading post in Madraspatam. This settlement was
locally known as Chenapattanam. The Company had
purchased the right of settlement from the local Telugu
lords, the Nayaks of Kalahasti, who were eager to
support trading activity in the region. Rivalry (1746-63)
with the French East India Company led the British to
fortify Madras and give their representatives increased
political and administrative functions. With the defeat
of the French in 1761, Madras became more secure
and began to grow into an important commercial town.
It was here that the superiority of the British and
the subordinate position of the Indian merchants was
most apparent.
Fort St George became the nucleus of the White Town
where most of the Europeans lived. Walls and bastions
made this a distinct enclave. Colour and religion
determined who was allowed to live within the Fort.
The Company did not permit any marriages with
Indians. Other than the English, the Dutch and
Portuguese were allowed to stay here because they were
European and Christian. The administrative and
judicial systems also favoured the white population.
Despite being few in number the Europeans were the
rulers and the development of Madras followed the needs
and convenience of the minority whites in the town.
The Black Town developed outside the Fort. It was
laid out in straight lines, a characteristic of colonial
towns. It was, however, demolished in the mid-1700s
and the area was cleared for a security zone around the
Fort. A new Black Town developed further to the north.
This housed weavers, artisans, middlemen and
interpreters who played a vital role in the Company trade.
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Fig. 12.16
A map of Madras
The White Town around Fort St George is on the left, and the Old Black Town is on the
right. Fort St George is marked with a circle. Notice how the Black Town was laid out.
Fig. 12.17
Part of the Black Town, Madras, by Thomas and William Daniell, based on a drawing by Daniell
published in Oriental Scenery, 1798
The old Black Town was demolished to create the open space you see in this picture. Originally
cleared as a line of fire, the open ground was later maintained as a green area. On the horizon
you can see part of the new Black Town that came up at a distance from the Fort.
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The new Black Town resembled traditional Indian

towns, with living quarters built around its own temple
and bazaar. On the narrow lanes that criss-crossed
the township, there were distinct caste-specific
neighbourhoods. Chintadripet was an area meant for
weavers. Washermanpet was a colony of dyers and Pet is a Tamil word
bleachers of cloth. Royapuram was a settlement for meaning settlement, while
Christian boatmen who worked for the Company. puram is used for a village.
Madras developed by incorporating innumerable
surrounding villages and by creating opportunities and
spaces for a variety of communities. Several different
communities came and settled in Madras, performing
a range of economic functions. The dubashes were
Indians who could speak two languages – the local
language and English. They worked as agents and
merchants, acting as intermediaries between Indian
society and the British. They used their privileged
position in government to acquire wealth. Their
powerful position in society was established by their
charitable works and patronage of temples in the
Black Town.
Initially jobs with the Company were monopolised
by the Vellalars, a rural caste who took advantage of
the new opportunities provided by British rule. With
the spread of English education in the nineteenth
century, Brahmins started competing for similar
positions in the administration. Telugu Komatis were
a powerful commercial group that controlled the grain
trade in the city. Gujarati bankers had also been
present since the eighteenth century. Paraiyars and
Vanniyars formed the labouring poor. The Nawab of Fig. 12.18
Arcot settled in nearby Triplicane which became the A garden house on Poonamalee
nucleus of a substantial Muslim settlement. Mylapore Road
and Triplicane were earlier
Hindu religious centres that
supported a large group of
Brahmins. San Thome with its
cathedral was the centre for
Roman Catholics. All these
settlements became part
of Madras city. Thus the
incorporation of many villages
made Madras a city of wide
expanse and low density. This
was noticed by European
travellers and commented on
by officials.
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Source 3 As the British consolidated their power, resident
Europeans began to move out of the Fort. Garden
A rural city? houses first started coming up along the two main
arteries – Mount Road and Poonamalee Road –
Read this excerpt on Madras leading from the Fort to the cantonment. Wealthy
from the Imperial Gazetteer , Indians too started to live like the English. As a
1908: result many new suburbs were created from existing
… the better European villages around the core of Madras. This was of
residences are built in the course possible because the wealthy could afford
midst of compounds which transport. The poor settled in villages that were close
almost attain the dignity of to their place of work. The gradual urbanisation of
parks; and rice-fields Madras meant that the areas between these villages
frequently wind in and out
were brought within the city. As a result Madras
between these in almost
rural fashion. Even in the had a semi-rural air about it.
most thickly peopled native 4.2 Town planning in Calcutta
quarters such as Black Town Modern town planning began in the colonial cities.
and Triplicane, there is little This required preparation of a layout of the entire
of the crowding found in
urban space and regulation of urban land use.
many other towns …
Planning was usually inspired by a vision of what
the city should look like, how it would be developed
Ü Statements in reports and the way in which spaces would be organised
often express the ideas of and ordered. The ideology of “development” that this
the reporter. What kind vision reflected presumed exercise of state power
of an urban space is the
over urban lives and urban spaces.
reporter celebrating in
There were many reasons why the British took
the statement and what
upon themselves the task of town planning from the
kind is he demeaning?
early years of their rule in Bengal. One immediate
Would you agree with
these ideas? reason was defence. In 1756, Sirajudaula, the Nawab
of Bengal, attacked Calcutta and sacked the small
fort which the British traders had built as their depot
for goods. The English East India Company traders
had been continuously questioning the sovereignty
of the Nawab. They were reluctant to pay customs
duties, and refused to comply with the terms on
which they were expected to operate. So Sirajudaula
wanted to assert his authority.
Subsequently, in 1757, when Sirajudaula was
defeated in the Battle of Plassey, the East India
Company decided to build a new fort, one that could
not be easily attacked. Calcutta had grown from three
villages called Sutanati, Kolkata and Govindapur.
The Company cleared a site in the southernmost
village of Govindapur and the traders and weavers
living there were asked to move out. Around the new
Fort William they left a vast open space which came
to be locally known as the Maidan or garer-math.
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COLONIAL CITIES 335
This was done so that there would be no obstructions

to a straight line of fire from the Fort against an
advancing enemy army. Once the British became
The line of fire
more confident about their permanent presence in Interestingly, the pattern devised
Calcutta, they started moving out of the Fort and for Calcutta was replicated in
building residences along the periphery of the many other towns. During the
Maidan. That was how the English settlement in Revolt of 1857 many towns
Calcutta gradually started taking shape. The vast became rebel strongholds.
open space around the Fort (which still exists) After their victory the British
proceeded to make these places
became a landmark, Calcutta’s first significant town
safe for themselves. In Delhi
planning measure.
for instance they took over the
The history of town planning in Calcutta of course
Red Fort and stationed an army
did not end with the building of Fort William and
there. Then they destroyed
the Maidan. In 1798, Lord Wellesley became the buildings close to the Fort
Governor General. He built a massive palace, creating a substantial empty
Government House, for himself in Calcutta, a space between the Indian
building that was expected to convey the authority neighbourhoods and the Fort.
of the British. He became concerned about the The logic was the same as in
condition of the Indian part of the city – the crowding, Calcutta a hundred years ago:
the excessive vegetation, the dirty tanks, the smells a direct line of fire was
and poor drainage. These conditions worried the considered essential, just in case
British because they believed at the time that the town rose up against firangi
poisonous gases from marshlands and pools of raj once again.
stagnant water were the cause of most diseases.
The tropical climate itself was seen as unhealthy
Fig. 12.19
Government House, Calcutta, by Charles D’Oyly, 1848
The residence of the Governor General, the Government House, built by Wellesley, was meant
to symbolise the grandeur of the Raj.
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Fig. 12.20
A bazaar leading to Chitpore Road
in Calcutta
For local communities in the towns,
the bazaar was a place of both
commercial and social exchange.
Europeans were fascinated by the
bazaar but also saw it as an
overcrowded and dirty place.
Source 4
“For the regulation of and enervating. Creating open places in the city was
nuisances of every one way of making the city healthier. Wellesley wrote
description” a Minute (an administrative order) in 1803 on the
need for town planning, and set up various
committees for the purpose. Many bazaars, ghats,
By the early nineteenth century
burial grounds, and tanneries were cleared or
the British felt that permanent
removed. From then on the notion of “public health”
and public rules had to be
formulated for regulating all became an idea that was proclaimed in projects of
aspects of social life. Even the town clearance and town planning.
construction of private buildings After Wellesley’s departure the work of town
and public roads ought to planning was carried on by the Lottery Committee
conform to standardised rules (1817) with the help of the government. The Lottery
that were clearly codified. In Committee was so named because funds for town
his Minute on Calcutta (1803) improvement were raised through public lotteries.
Wellesley wrote: In other words, in the early decades of the
It is a primary duty of nineteenth century raising funds for the city was
Government to provide still thought to be the responsibility of public-
for the health, safety and minded citizens and not exclusively that of the
convenience of the government. The Lottery Committee commissioned
inhabitants of this great a new map of the city so as to get a comprehensive
town, by establishing a picture of Calcutta. Among the Committee’s major
comprehensive system for activities was road building in the Indian part
the improvement of roads, of the city and clearing the river bank of
streets, public drains, and
“encroachments”. In its drive to make the Indian
water courses, and by
fixing permanent rules for
areas of Calcutta cleaner, the committee removed
the construction and many huts and displaced the labouring poor, who
distribution of the houses were now pushed to the outskirts of Calcutta.
and public edifices, and for The threat of epidemics gave a further impetus to
the regulation of nuisances town planning in the next few decades. Cholera
of every description. started spreading from 1817 and in 1896 plague made
its appearance. The cause of these diseases had not
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COLONIAL CITIES 337
yet been established firmly by medical science.

Ü How does Wellesley define
The government proceeded on the basis of the
the duty of the government?
accepted theory of the time: that there was a direct
Read this section and discuss
correlation between living conditions and the what impact these ideas, if
spread of disease. Such views were supported by implemented, would have had
prominent Indian merchants in the city, such as on the Indians living in the city.
Dwarkanath Tagore and Rustomjee Cowasjee, who
felt that Calcutta needed to be made more healthy.
Densely built-up areas were seen as insanitary
Busti (in Bengali and Hindi)
since they obstructed direct sunlight and
originally meant neighbourhood
circulation of air. That was why working people’s or settlement. However, the
huts or “bustis” became the target of demolition. British narrowed the sense of
The poor in the city – workers, hawkers, artisans, the word to mean makeshift
porters and the unemployed – were once again huts built by the poor. In the late
forced to move to distant parts of the city. Frequent nineteenth century “bustis”
fires also led to stricter building regulations – for and insanitary slums became
instance, thatched huts were banned in 1836 and synonymous in British records.
tiled roofs made mandatory.
By the late nineteenth century, official intervention
in the city became more stringent.
Gone were the days when town
planning was seen as a task to be
shared by inhabitants and the
government. Instead, the government
took over all the initiatives for town
planning including funding. This
opportunity was used to clear more
huts and develop the British portions
of the town at the expense of other
areas. The existing racial divide of the
“White Town” and “Black Town” was
reinforced by the new divide of “healthy”
and “unhealthy”. Indian representatives
in the municipality protested against
this unfair bias towards the
development of the European parts of
the town. Public protests against
these government policies strengthened
the feeling of anti-colonialism and
nationalism among Indians.
Fig. 12.21
A part of the European town in Calcutta
after the Lottery Committee improvements,
from the plan by J.A. Schalch (1825)
You can see the European houses with
compounds.
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With the growth of their empire,

the British became increasingly
inclined to make cities like Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras into impressive
imperial capitals. It was as if the
grandeur of the cities had to reflect
the authority of imperial power. Town
planning had to represent everything
that the British claimed to stand
for: rational ordering, meticulous
execution, and Western aesthetic
ideals. Cities had to be cleaned and
ordered, planned and beautified.
Fig. 12.22
A busti in Calcutta 4.3 Architecture in Bombay
If one way of realising this imperial vision was through
town planning, the other was through embellishing
cities with monumental buildings. Buildings in cities
could include forts, government offices, educational
institutions, religious structures, commemorative
towers, commercial depots, or even docks and bridges.
Although primarily serving functional needs like
defence, administration and commerce these were
rarely simple structures. They were often meant to
represent ideas such as imperial power, nationalism
and religious glory. Let us see how this is exemplified
in the case of Bombay.
Bombay was initially seven islands. As the
population grew, the islands were joined to create more
space and they gradually fused into one big city.
Bombay was the commercial capital of colonial India.
As the premier port on the western coast it was the
centre of international trade. By the end of the
nineteenth century, half the imports and exports of
India passed through Bombay. One important item of
this trade was opium that the East India Company
exported to China. Indian merchants and middlemen
supplied and participated in this trade and they helped
integrate Bombay’s economy directly to Malwa,
Rajasthan and Sind where opium was grown. This
collaboration with the Company was profitable and
led to the growth of an Indian capitalist class.
Bombay’s capitalists came from diverse communities
such as Parsi, Marwari, Konkani Muslim, Gujarati
Bania, Bohra, Jew and Armenian.
As you have read (Chapter 10), when the American
Civil War started in 1861 cotton from the American South
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COLONIAL CITIES 339
stopped coming into the international market. This led to

an upsurge of demand for Indian cotton, grown primarily
in the Deccan. Once again Indian merchants and
middlemen found an opportunity for earning huge profits.
In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened and this further
strengthened Bombay’s links with the world economy.
The Bombay government and Indian merchants used this
opportunity to declare Bombay Urbs Prima in Indis, a Latin
phrase meaning the most important city of India. By the
late nineteenth century Indian merchants in Bombay were
investing their wealth in new ventures such as cotton
mills. They also patronised building activity in the city.
As Bombay’s economy grew, from the mid-nineteenth
century there was a need to expand railways and
shipping and develop the administrative structure.
Many new buildings were constructed at this time.
These buildings reflected the culture and confidence
of the rulers. The architectural style was usually
European. This importation of European styles
reflected the imperial vision in several ways. First, it
expressed the British desire to create a familiar
landscape in an alien country, and thus to feel at
home in the colony. Second, the British felt that
European styles would best symbolise their superiority,
authority and power . Third, they thought that
buildings that looked European would mark out the
difference and distance between the colonial masters
and their Indian subjects.
Initially, these buildings were at odds with the
Fig. 12.23
traditional Indian buildings. Gradually, Indians too got A bungalow in Bombay,
used to European architecture and made it their nineteenth century
own. The British in turn adapted some
Indian styles to suit their needs.
One example is the bungalow which
was used by government officers in
Bombay and all over India. The name
bungalow was derived from bangla,
a traditional thatched Bengali hut.
The colonial bungalow was set
on extensive grounds which ensured
privacy and marked a distance from
the Indian world around. The
traditional pitched roof and
surrounding veranda kept the
bungalow cool in the summer months.
The compound had separate quarters
for a retinue of domestic servants. The
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bungalows in the Civil Lines thus became a racially

exclusive enclave in which the ruling classes could
live self-sufficient lives without daily social contact
with Indians.
For pubic buildings three broad architectural
styles were used. Two of these were direct imports
from fashions prevalent in England. The first was
called neo-classical or the new classical. Its
characteristics included construction of geometrical
structures fronted with lofty pillars It was derived
from a style that was originally typical of buildings
Fig. 12.24
The Town Hall in Bombay, which in ancient Rome, and was subsequently revived,
now houses the Asiatic Society of re-adapted and made popular during the
Bombay European Renaissance. It was considered particularly
appropriate for the British Empire in India. The
British imagined that a style that embodied the
grandeur of imperial Rome could now be made to
express the glory of imperial India. The Mediterranean
Pitched roof is a term used by origins of this architecture were also thought to be
architects to describe a sloping
suitable for tropical weather. The Town Hall in Bombay
roof. By the early twentieth
(Fig. 12.24) was built in this style in 1833. Another
century pitched roofs became
group of commercial buildings, built during the
less common in bungalows,
although the general plan cotton boom of the 1860s, was the Elphinstone Circle.
remained the same. Subsequently named Horniman Circle after an
English editor who courageously supported Indian
nationalists, this building was inspired from models
in Italy. It made innovative use of covered arcades at
ground level to shield the shopper and pedestrian
from the fierce sun and rain of Bombay.
Fig. 12.25
The Elphinstone Circle
Note the pillars and arches,
derived from Graeco-Roman
architecture.
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Was this simply a partition, a more or less orderly

constitutional arrangement, an agreed-upon division
of territories and assets? Or should it be called a sixteen-
month civil war, recognising that there were well-
organised forces on both sides and concerted attempts
to wipe out entire populations as enemies? The survivors
themselves have often spoken of 1947 through other
words: “maashal-la” (martial law), “mara-mari’ (killings),
and “raula”, or “hullar” (disturbance, tumult, uproar).
Speaking of the killings, rape, arson, and loot that
constituted Partition, contemporary observers and
scholars have sometimes used the expression
“holocaust” as well, primarily meaning destruction or
slaughter on a mass scale.
Is this usage appropriate?
You would have read about the German Holocaust
under the Nazis in Class IX. The term “holocaust” in a
sense captures the gravity of what happened in the
subcontinent in 1947, something that the mild term
“partition” hides. It also helps to focus on why Partition,
like the Holocaust in Germany, is remembered and
referred to in our contemporary concerns so much. Yet,
differences between the two events should not be
overlooked. In 1947-48, the subcontinent did not witness
any state-driven extermination as was the case with
Nazi Germany where various modern techniques of
control and organisation had been used. The “ethnic
cleansing” that characterised the partition of India was
carried out by self-styled representatives of religious
communities rather than by state agencies.
2.2 The power of stereotypes
India-haters in Pakistan and Pakistan-haters in India
are both products of Partition. At times, some people
mistakenly believe that the loyalties of Indian Muslims
lie with Pakistan. The stereotype of extra-territorial,
pan-Islamic loyalties comes fused with other highly
objectionable ideas: Muslims are cruel, bigoted,
unclean, descendants of invaders, while Hindus are
kind, liberal, pure, children of the invaded. The
journalist R.M. Murphy has shown that similar
stereotypes proliferate in Pakistan. According to him,
some Pakistanis feel that Muslims are fair, brave,
monotheists and meat-eaters, while Hindus are dark,
cowardly, polytheists and vegetarian. Some of these
stereotypes pre-date Partition but there is no
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invested a lot in the design

and construction of railway
stations in cities, since they
were proud of having
successfully built an all-
India railway network. As
a group these buildings
dominated the central
Bombay skyline and their
uniform neo-Gothic style
gave a distinctive character
to the city.
Towards the beginning of
the twentieth century a
Fig. 12.27
Victoria Terminus Railway
new hybrid architectural style developed which
Station, designed by combined the Indian with the European. This was
F.W. Stevens called Indo-Saracenic. “Indo” was shorthand for
Hindu and “Saracen” was a term Europeans used
to designate Muslim. The inspiration for this style
Fig. 12.28
was medieval buildings in India with their domes,
Madras law courts
While Bombay remained the chhatris, jalis, arches. By integrating Indian and
main centre of Gothic revival, European styles in public architecture the British
Indo-Saracenic flourished in wanted to prove that they were legitimate rulers of
Madras. The design of the law India. The Gateway of India, built in the traditional
courts combined Pathan Gujarati style to welcome King George V and Queen
elements with Gothic ones. Mary to India in 1911, is the most famous example
of this style. The industrialist Jamsetji Tata built
the Taj Mahal Hotel in a similar style. Besides being
a symbol of Indian enterprise, this building became
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COLONIAL CITIES 343
a challenge to the racially exclusive clubs and hotels

maintained by the British.
In the more “Indian” localities of Bombay
traditional styles of decoration and building
predominated. The lack of space in the city and
crowding led to a type of building unique to Bombay,
the chawl, the multi-storeyed single-room apartments
with long open corridors built around a courtyard.
Such buildings which housed many families
sharing common spaces helped in the growth of
neighbourhood identity and solidarity.
5. What Buildings and

Architectural Styles Tell Us
Architecture reflects the aesthetic ideals prevalent Fig. 12.29
at a time, and variations within those ideals. But, The Municipal Corporation Building,
as we have seen, buildings also express the vision Bombay, designed by F. W. Stevens
of those who build them. Rulers everywhere seek in 1888
to express their power through buildings. So by Notice the fusion of Oriental and
Gothic designs.
looking at the architecture of a particular time, we
can understand how power was conceived of and
how it was expressed through structures and their
attributes – bricks and stones, pillars and arches,
soaring domes or vaulted roofs.
Architectural styles do not only reflect prevalent

tastes. They mould tastes, popularise styles and shape
the contours of culture. As we have seen, many Indians
came to regard European styles of architecture as
symbols of modernity and civilisation, and began
adopting these styles. But not all Indians thought
alike: many rejected European ideals and tried to
retain indigenous styles; others accepted certain
elements from the West that they saw as modern and
combined these with elements drawn from local Fig. 12.30
traditions. From the late nineteenth century we see A Bombay chawl
efforts to define regional and national tastes that
were different from the colonial ideal. Styles thus
Ü Discuss...
changed and developed through wider processes of
Choose a historical building
cultural conflict. By looking at architecture therefore
that you admire. List its
we can also understand the variety of forms in which architectural attributes and
cultural conflicts unfolded and political conflicts – find out about its style and
between the imperial and the national, the national why that particular style was
and the regional/local – were played out. adopted.
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Timeline
1500-1700 European trading companies establish bases in India: the
Portuguese in Panaji in 1510; the Dutch in Masulipatnam,
1605; the British in Madras in 1639, in Bombay in 1661, and
in Calcutta in 1690; the French in Pondicherry in 1673
1757 Decisive victory of the British in the Battle of Plassey;
the British become rulers of Bengal
1773 Supreme Court set up in Calcutta by the East India Company
1784 Asiatic Society founded by Sir William Jones
1793 Cornwallis Code enacted
1803 Lord Wellesley’s Minute on Calcutta town improvement
1818 British takeover of the Deccan; Bombay becomes the
capital of the new province
1853 Railway from Bombay to Thane
1857 First spinning and weaving mill in Bombay
1857 Universities in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta
1870s Beginning of elected representatives in municipalities
1881 Madras harbour completed
1896 First screening of a film at Watson’s Hotel, Bombay
1896 Plague starts spreading to major cities
1911 Transfer of capital from Calcutta to Delhi
1. To what extent are census data useful in

reconstructing patterns of urbanisation in the
colonial context?
2. What do the terms “White” and “Black” Town signify?
3. How did prominent Indian merchants establish
themselves in the colonial city?
4. Examine how concerns of defence and health gave
shape to Calcutta.
5. What are the different colonial architectural styles
which can be seen in Bombay city?
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COLONIAL CITIES 345
Write a short essay

more, read:
6. How were urban centres transformed during
the eighteenth century? Sabyasachi Bhattacharya.1990.
Adhunik Bharat Ka Aarthik Itihas.
7. What were the new kinds of public places that Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.
emerged in the colonial city? What functions Norma Evenson. 1989.
did they serve? The Indian Metropolis:
8. What were the concerns that influenced town A View Toward the West .
planning in the nineteenth century? Oxford University Press, Delhi.
Narayani Gupta. 1981.
9. To what extent were social relations transformed
Delhi between Two Empires
in the new cities?
1803-1931.
Gavin Hambly and Burton Stein.
Map work “Towns and Cities”, in Tapan
Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib
10. On an outline map of India, trace the major
edited, The Cambridge
rivers and hill ranges. Plot ten cities mentioned
Economic History of India,
in the chapter, including Bombay, Calcutta (Volume I ), 1984.
and Madras, and prepare a brief note on why Orient Longman and Cambridge
the importance of any two cities that you have University Press, Delhi.
marked (one colonial and one pre-colonial)
changed in the nineteenth century. Anthony King. 1976.
Colonial Urban Development:
Culture, Social Power and
Environment
Project (choose one) Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London.
11. You have been reading about big colonial Thomas R. Metcalf. 1989.
cities. Choose any small town with a long An Imperial Vision: Indian
history. It could be a temple town, market town, Architecture and Britain’s Raj
administrative centre, a pilgrimage centre or a Faber and Faber, London.
combination of these. Find out how the town Lewis Mumford. 1961.
was established, when it developed, and how The City in History: Its Origins, Its
its history changed during modern times. Transformations and Its Prospects.
Secker and Warburg, London.
12. Choose five different types of buildings in your
town or village. For each of these, find out when
it was built, how it was planned, how resources
were obtained for its construction, and how long
it took to build it. What do the architectural
features of the buildings express?
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Mahatma Gandhi and

THEME
the Nationalist Movement
THIRTEEN
Civil Disobedience and Be yond
In the history of nationalism a single individual is often identified with

the making of a nation. Thus, for example, we associate Garibaldi
with the making of Italy, George Washington with the American War
of Independence, and Ho Chi Minh with the struggle to free Vietnam
from colonial rule. In the same manner, Mahatma Gandhi has been
regarded as the ‘Father’ of the Indian nation.
In so far as Gandhiji was the most influential and revered of all the
leaders who participated in the freedom struggle, that characterisation
is not misplaced. However, like Washington or Ho Chi-Minh, Mahatma
Gandhi’s political career was shaped and constrained by the society
in which he lived. For individuals, even great ones, are made by history
even as they make history.
This chapter analyses Gandhiji’s activities in India during the
crucial period 1915-1948. It explores his interactions with different
sections of the Indian society and the popular struggles that he
inspired and led. It introduces the student to the different kinds of
sources that historians use in reconstructing the career of a leader
and of the social movements that he was associated with.
Fig. 13.1
People gather on the banks of the Sabarmati River to hear Mahatma Gandhi speak before starting
out on the Salt March in 1930
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MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 347
1. A Leader Announces Himself

In January 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
returned to his homeland after two decades of
residence abroad. These years had been spent for
the most part in South Africa, where he went as a
lawyer, and in time became a leader of the Indian
community in that territory. As the historian
Chandran Devanesan has remarked, South Africa was
“the making of the Mahatma”. It was in South Africa
that Mahatma Gandhi first forged the distinctive
techniques of non-violent protest known as
satyagraha, first promoted harmony between religions,
and first alerted upper -caste Indians to their
discriminatory treatment of low castes and women.
The India that Mahatma Gandhi came back to in
1915 was rather different from the one that he had
left in 1893. Although still a colony of the British,
it was far more active in a political sense. The Indian
National Congress now had branches in most major
cities and towns. Through the Swadeshi movement
of 1905-07 it had greatly broadened its appeal
among the middle classes. That movement had
thrown up some towering leaders – among them
Bal Gangadhar T ilak of Maharashtra, Bipin
Chandra Pal of Bengal, and Lala Lajpat Rai of
Punjab. The three were known as “Lal, Bal and Pal”,
Fig. 13.2
the alliteration conveying the all-India character Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg,
of their struggle, since their native provinces were South Africa, February 1908
very distant from one another. Where
these leaders advocated militant
opposition to colonial rule, there was
a group of “Moderates” who preferred
a more gradual and persuasive
approach. Among these Moderates
was Gandhiji’s acknowledged political
mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, as
well as Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who,
like Gandhiji, was a lawyer of Gujarati
extraction trained in London.
On Gokhale’s advice, Gandhiji spent
a year travelling around British India,
getting to know the land and its
peoples. His first major public
appearance was at the opening of the
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in
February 1916. Among the invitees to
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this event were the princes and philanthropists whose

donations had contributed to the founding of the
BHU. Also present were important leaders of the
Congress, such as Annie Besant. Compared to these
dignitaries, Gandhiji was relatively unknown. He had
been invited on account of his work in South Africa,
rather than his status within India.
When his turn came to speak, Gandhiji charged
the Indian elite with a lack of concern for the
labouring poor. The opening of the BHU, he said,
was “certainly a most gorgeous show”. But he worried
about the contrast between the “richly bedecked
noblemen” present and “millions of the poor” Indians
who were absent. Gandhiji told the privileged invitees
that “there is no salvation for India unless you strip
yourself of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your
countrymen in India”. “There can be no spirit of self-
government about us,” he went on, “if we take away
or allow others to take away from the peasants almost
the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation
can only come through the farmer. Neither the
lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are
going to secure it.”
The opening of the BHU was an occasion for
celebration, marking as it did the opening of a
nationalist university, sustained by Indian money
and Indian initiative. But rather than adopt a tone
Fig. 13.3
of self-congratulation, Gandhiji chose instead to
Mahatma Gandhi in Karachi,
March 1916 remind those present of the peasants and workers
who constituted a majority
of the Indian population,
yet were unrepresented in
the audience.
Gandhiji’s speech at
Banaras in February 1916
was, at one level, merely a
statement of fact – namely,
that Indian nationalism
was an elite phenomenon,
a creation of lawyers and
doctors and landlords.
But, at another level, it
was also a statement of
intent – the first public
announcement of Gandhiji’s
own desire to make Indian
nationalism more properly
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Fig. 14.6 largely Muslims. The British had no intention of

Mahatma Gandhi with Mohammad annoying the Unionists who still controlled the
Ali Jinnah before a meeting with the
Punjab government and had been consistently loyal
Viceroy in November 1939
to the British.
Provincial elections were again held in 1946. The
Congress swept the general constituencies, capturing
91.3 per cent of the non-Muslim vote. The League’s
success in the seats reserved for Muslims was equally
spectacular: it won all 30 reserved constituencies in
the Centre with 86.6 per cent of the Muslim vote and
442 out of 509 seats in the provinces. Only as late as
Unionist Party 1946, therefore, did the League establish itself as the
dominant party among Muslim voters, seeking to
A political party representing vindicate its claim to be the “sole spokesman” of
the interests of landholders – India’s Muslims. You will, however, recall that the
Hindu, Muslim and Sikh – in
franchise was extremely limited. About 10 to 12 per
the Punjab. The party was
cent of the population enjoyed the right to vote in the
particularly powerful during
provincial elections and a mere one per cent in the
the period 1923-47.
elections for the Central Assembly.
2019-2020
than four hundred people were killed in what is

known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
It was the Rowlatt satyagraha that made Gandhiji
a truly national leader. Emboldened by its success,
Gandhiji called for a campaign of “non-cooperation”
with British rule. Indians who wished colonialism to
end were asked to stop attending schools, colleges
and law courts, and not pay taxes. In sum, they were
asked to adhere to a “renunciation of (all) voluntary
association with the (British) Government”. If non-
cooperation was effectively carried out, said Gandhiji,
India would win swaraj within a year. To further
broaden the struggle he had joined hands with the
Khilafat Movement that sought to restore the
Caliphate, a symbol of Pan-Islamism which had
recently been abolished by the Turkish ruler
Kemal Attaturk.
2.1 Knitting a popular movement
Gandhiji hoped that by coupling non-cooperation with
Khilafat, India’s two major religious communities,
Hindus and Muslims, could collectively bring an
end to colonial rule. These movements certainly
unleashed a surge of popular action that was
What was the altogether unprecedented in colonial India.
Students stopped going to schools and colleges
Khilafat Movement? run by the government. Lawyers refused to attend
The Khilafat Movement, court. The working class went on strike in many
(1919 -1920) was a movement towns and cities: according to official figures, there
of Indian Muslims, led by were 396 strikes in 1921, involving 600,000
Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, workers and a loss of seven million workdays. The
that demanded the following: countryside was seething with discontent too. Hill
The Turkish Sultan or Khalifa tribes in northern Andhra violated the forest laws.
must retain control over the Farmers in Awadh did not pay taxes. Peasants in
Muslim sacred places in the Kumaun refused to carry loads for colonial officials.
erstwhile Ottoman empire; the These protest movements were sometimes carried
jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, out in defiance of the local nationalist leadership.
Iraq, Palestine) must remain Peasants, workers, and others interpreted and acted
under Muslim sovereignty; and upon the call to “non-cooperate” with colonial rule
the Khalifa must be left with in ways that best suited their interests, rather than
sufficient territory to enable conform to the dictates laid down from above.
him to defend the Islamic faith. “Non-cooperation,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi’s
The Congress supported the American biographer Louis Fischer, “became the name
movement and Mahatma Gandhi of an epoch in the life of India and of Gandhiji.
sought to conjoin it to the
Non-cooperation was negative enough to be peaceful
Non-cooperation Movement.
but positive enough to be effective. It entailed denial,
renunciation, and self-discipline. It was training for
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self-rule.” As a consequence of the

Non-Cooperation Movement the
British Raj was shaken to its
foundations for the first time
since the Revolt of 1857. Then,
in February 1922, a group of
peasants attacked and torched a
police station in the hamlet of
Chauri Chaura, in the United
Provinces (now, Uttar Pradesh and
Uttaranchal). Several constables
perished in the conflagration. This
act of violence prompted Gandhiji
to call off the movement altogether.
“No provocation,” he insisted,
“can possibly justify (the) brutal
murder of men who had been rendered defenceless Fig. 13.4
and who had virtually thrown themselves on the Non-cooperation Movement,
July 1922
mercy of the mob.”
Foreign cloth being collected to
During the Non-Cooperation Movement thousands be burnt in bonfires.
of Indians were put in jail. Gandhiji himself
was arrested in March 1922, and charged with
sedition. The judge who presided over his trial,
Justice C.N. Broomfield, made a remarkable speech
while pronouncing his sentence. “It would be
impossible to ignore the fact,” remarked the judge,
“that you are in a different category from any person
I have ever tried or am likely to try. It would be
impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of
millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot
and a leader. Even those who differ from you in politics
look upon you as a man of high ideals and of even
saintly life.” Since Gandhiji had violated the law it
was obligatory for the Bench to sentence him to six
years’ imprisonment, but, said Judge Broomfield, “If
the course of events in India should make it possible
for the Government to reduce the period and release
you, no one will be better pleased than I”.
2.2 A people’s leader
By 1922, Gandhiji had transformed Indian
nationalism, thereby redeeming the promise he made
in his BHU speech of February 1916. It was no longer
a movement of professionals and intellectuals; now,
hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and
artisans also participated in it. Many of them
venerated Gandhiji, referring to him as their
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Map 1
The Cabinet Mission proposal for an
Indian federation with three sections
Muslim-majority areas of 1941
Hindu-majority areas of 1941
Princely states not specifically

provided for in the proposal
Sketch map not to scale
Source 5
“A voice in the wilderness”
Mahatma Gandhi knew that his was “a voice in the

wilderness” but he nevertheless continued to oppose the
idea of Partition:
But what a tragic change we see today. I wish the day
may come again when Hindus and Muslims will do
nothing without mutual consultation. I am day and night
tormented by the question what I can do to hasten the
coming of that day. I appeal to the League not to regard
any Indian as its enemy … Hindus and Muslims are born
of the same soil. They have the same blood, eat the same
food, drink the same water and speak the same language.
S PEECH AT PRAYER MEETING, 7 S EPTEMBER 1946,
CWMG, VOL. 92, P.139
But I am firmly convinced that the Pakistan demand as

put forward by the Muslim League is un-Islamic and I
have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for the
unity and brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting
the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who
want to divide India into possible warring groups are
enemies alike of Islam and India. They may cut me to
Ü What are the arguments pieces but they cannot make me subscribe to something
that Mahatma Gandhi offers in which I consider to be wrong.
opposing the idea of Pakistan? H ARIJAN , 26 S EPTEMBER 1946, CWMG , VOL . 92, P .229
2019-2020
This is how a Hindi newspaper in Gorakhpur

reported the atmosphere during his speeches:
At Bhatni Gandhiji addressed the local public
and then the train started for Gorakhpur. There
were not less than 15,000 to 20,000 people at
Nunkhar, Deoria, Gauri Bazar, Chauri Chaura
and Kusmhi (stations) … Mahatmaji was very
pleased to witness the scene at Kusmhi, as
despite the fact that the station is in the middle
of a jungle there were not less than 10,000
people here. Some, overcome with their love,
were seen to be crying. At Deoria people wanted
to give bhent (donations) to Gandhiji, but he
asked them to give these at Gorakhpur. But
at Chauri Chaura one Marwari gentleman
managed to hand over something to him. Then Source 2
there was no stopping. A sheet was spread and
currency notes and coins started raining. It
The miraculous and
was a sight … Outside the Gorakhpur station the unbelievable
the Mahatma was stood on a high carriage
and people had a good darshan of him for a Local newspapers in the United
couple of minutes. Provinces recorded many of the
rumours that circulated at that
Wherever Gandhiji went, rumours spread of his
time. There were rumours that
miraculous powers. In some places it was said that
every person who wanted to test
he had been sent by the King to redress the
the power of the Mahatma had
grievances of the farmers, and that he had the power been surprised:
to overrule all local officials. In other places it was
claimed that Gandhiji’s power was superior to that 1. Sikandar Sahu from a
village in Basti said on
of the English monarch, and that with his arrival
15 February that he would
the colonial rulers would flee the district. There were believe in the Mahatmaji
also stories reporting dire consequences for those when the karah (boiling
who opposed him; rumours spread of how villagers pan) full of sugar cane juice
who criticised Gandhiji found their houses in his karkhana (where gur
mysteriously falling apart or their crops failing. was produced) split into
Known variously as “Gandhi baba”, “Gandhi two. Immediately the karah
Maharaj”, or simply as “Mahatma”, Gandhiji appeared actually split into two from
to the Indian peasant as a saviour, who would rescue the middle.
them from high taxes and oppressive officials and 2. A cultivator in Azamgarh
restore dignity and autonomy to their lives. Gandhiji’s said that he would
appeal among the poor, and peasants in particular, believe in the Mahatmaji’s
was enhanced by his ascetic lifestyle, and by his authenticity if sesamum
sprouted on his field planted
shrewd use of symbols such as the dhoti and the
with wheat. Next day all
charkha. Mahatma Gandhi was by caste a merchant,
the wheat in that field
and by profession a lawyer; but his simple lifestyle became sesamum.
and love of working with his hands allowed him to
empathise more fully with the labouring poor and for contd
them, in turn, to empathise with him. Where most
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Source 2 (contd) other politicians talked down to them, Gandhiji

appeared not just to look like them, but to
There were rumours understand them and relate to their lives.
that those who opposed While Mahatma Gandhi’s mass appeal was
Mahatma Gandhi invariably
undoubtedly genuine – and in the context of Indian
met with some tragedy.
politics, without precedent – it must also be stressed
1. A gentleman from that his success in broadening the basis of nationalism
Gorakhpur city questioned
was based on careful organisation. New branches of
the need to ply the charkha.
the Congress were set up in various parts of India.
His house caught fire.
A series of “Praja Mandals” were established to promote
2. I n A p r i l 1 9 2 1 s o m e the nationalist creed in the princely states. Gandhiji
people were gambling in a
encouraged the communication of the nationalist
village of Uttar Pradesh.
Someone told them to stop.
message in the mother tongue, rather than in the
Only one from amongst the language of the rulers, English. Thus the provincial
group refused to stop and committees of the Congress were based on linguistic
abused Gandhiji. The next regions, rather than on the artificial boundaries of
day his goat was bitten by British India. In these different ways nationalism was
four of his own dogs. taken to the farthest corners of the country and
3. In a village in Gorakhpur, embraced by social groups previously untouched by it.
the peasants resolved to give By now, among the supporters of the Congress
up drinking liquor. One were some very prosperous businessmen and
person did not keep his industrialists. Indian entrepreneurs were quick to
promise. As soon as he recognise that, in a free India, the favours enjoyed
started for the liquor shop by their British competitors would come to an end.
brickbats started to rain in his Some of these entrepreneurs, such as G.D. Birla,
path. When he spoke the
supported the national movement openly; others did
name of Gandhiji the brick-
bats stopped flying. so tacitly. Thus, among Gandhiji’s admirers were
both poor peasants and rich industrialists, although
F ROM S HAHID A MIN , “G ANDHI AS
the reasons why peasants followed Gandhiji were
MAHATMA ”, SUBALTERN STUDIES III,
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, DELHI. somewhat different from, and perhaps opposed to,
the reasons of the industrialists.
While Mahatma Gandhi’s own role was vital, the
growth of what we might call “Gandhian nationalism”
Ü You have read about also depended to a very substantial extent on his
rumours in Chapter 11 and followers. Between 1917 and 1922, a group of highly
seen that the circulation of talented Indians attached themselves to Gandhiji.
rumours tells us about the They included Mahadev Desai, Vallabh Bhai Patel,
structure of the belief of a J.B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam
time: they tell us about the Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Govind
mind of the people who Ballabh Pant and C. Rajagopalachari. Notably, these
believe in the rumours and close associates of Gandhiji came from different
the circumstances that regions as well as different religious traditions. In
make this belief possible. turn, they inspired countless other Indians to join
What do you think these
the Congress and work for it.
rumours about Gandhiji
Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in
reflect?
February 1924, and now chose to devote his attention
to the promotion of home-spun cloth (khadi ), and
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the abolition of untouchability. For, Gandhiji was as

much a social reformer as he was a politician. He Ü Discuss...
believed that in order to be worthy of freedom, Indians What was Non-cooperation?
had to get rid of social evils such as child marriage Find out about the variety
and untouchability. Indians of one faith had also to of ways in which different
cultivate a genuine tolerance for Indians of another – social groups participated
hence his emphasis on Hindu-Muslim harmony. in the movement.
Meanwhile, on the economic front Indians had to learn
to become self-reliant – hence his stress on the
significance of wearing khadi rather than mill-made
cloth imported from overseas.
3. The Salt Satyagraha

A Case Study
For several years after the Non-cooperation Movement
ended, Mahatma Gandhi focused on his social reform
work. In 1928, however, he began to think of re-entering
politics. That year there was an all-India campaign in
opposition to the all-White Simon Commission, sent
from England to enquire into conditions in the colony.
Gandhiji did not himself participate in this movement,
although he gave it his blessings, as he also did to a
peasant satyagraha in Bardoli in the same year.
In the end of December 1929, the Congress held its
annual session in the city of Lahore. The meeting was
significant for two things: the election of Jawaharlal
Nehru as President, signifying the passing of the baton
of leadership to the younger generation; and the
proclamation of commitment to “Purna Swaraj”, or
complete independence. Now the pace of politics picked
up once more. On 26 January 1930, “Independence
Day” was observed, with the national flag being hoisted
in different venues, and patriotic songs being sung.
Gandhiji himself issued precise instructions as to how
the day should be observed. “It would be good,” he
said, “if the declaration [of Independence] is made by
whole villages, whole cities even ... It would be well if
all the meetings were held at the identical minute in
all the places.”
Gandhiji suggested that the time of the meeting be
advertised in the traditional way, by the beating of
drums. The celebrations would begin with the hoisting
of the national flag. The rest of the day would be spent
“in doing some constructive work, whether it is spinning,
or service of ‘untouchables’, or reunion of Hindus and
Mussalmans, or prohibition work, or even all these
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together, which is not impossible”. Participants would

take a pledge affirming that it was “the inalienable right
of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have
freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil”, and that “if
any government deprives a people of these rights and
oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter
it or abolish it”.
3.1 Dandi
Soon after the observance of this “Independence Day”,
Mahatma Gandhi announced that he would lead a
march to break one of the most widely disliked laws in
British India, which gave the state a monopoly in the
manufacture and sale of salt. His picking on the salt
monopoly was another illustration of Gandhiji’s tactical
wisdom. For in every Indian household, salt was
indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making
salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it
from shops at a high price. The state monopoly over
salt was deeply unpopular; by making it his target,
Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against
Fig. 13.6
British rule.
On the Dandi March,
March 1930
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Where most Indians understood the

significance of Gandhiji’s challenge,
the British Raj apparently did not.
Although Gandhiji had given advance
notice of his “Salt March” to the
Viceroy Lord Irwin, Irwin failed to grasp
the significance of the action. On 12
March 1930, Gandhiji began walking
from his ashram at Sabarmati towards
the ocean. He reached his destination
three weeks later, making a fistful of
salt as he did and thereby making
himself a criminal in the eyes of the
Fig. 13.7
law. Meanwhile, parallel salt marches Satyagrahis picking up natural salt at the end
were being conducted in other parts of of the Dandi March, 6 April 1930
the country.
Source 3
Why the Salt Satyagraha?
Why was salt the symbol of protest? This is what Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
The volume of information being gained daily shows how wickedly the salt tax has
been designed. In order to prevent the use of salt that has not paid the tax which is at
times even fourteen times its value, the Government destroys the salt it cannot sell
profitably. Thus it taxes the nation’s vital necessity; it prevents the public from
manufacturing it and destroys what nature manufactures without effort. No adjective
is strong enough for characterising this wicked dog-in-the-manger policy. From
various sources I hear tales of such wanton destruction of the nation’s property in all
parts of India. Maunds if not tons of salt are said to be destroyed on the Konkan coast.
The same tale comes from Dandi. Wherever there is likelihood of natural salt being
taken away by the people living in the neighbourhood of such areas for their personal
use, salt officers are posted for the sole purpose of carrying on destruction. Thus
valuable national property is destroyed at national expense and salt taken out of the
mouths of the people.
The salt monopoly is thus a fourfold curse. It deprives the people of a valuable easy
village industry, involves wanton destruction of property that nature produces in
abundance, the destruction itself means more national expenditure, and fourthly, to
crown this folly, an unheard-of tax of more than 1,000 per cent is exacted from a
starving people.
This tax has remained so long because of the apathy of the general public. Now that
it is sufficiently roused, the tax has to go. How soon it will be abolished depends upon
the strength the people.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI (CWMG), VOL. 49
Ü Why was salt destroyed by the colonial government? Why did Mahatma Gandhi
consider the salt tax more oppressive than other taxes?
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Source 4
“Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law”
On 5 April 1930, Mahatma Gandhi spoke at Dandi:

When I left Sabarmati with my companions for this seaside hamlet of Dandi, I
was not certain in my mind that we would be allowed to reach this place. Even
while I was at Sabarmati there was a rumour that I might be arrested. I had
thought that the Government might perhaps let my party come as far as Dandi,
but not me certainly. If someone says that this betrays imperfect faith on my
part, I shall not deny the charge. That I have reached here is in no small measure
due to the power of peace and non-violence: that power is universally felt. The
Government may, if it wishes, congratulate itself on acting as it has done, for it
could have arrested every one of us. In saying that it did not have the courage
to arrest this army of peace, we praise it. It felt ashamed to arrest such an army.
He is a civilised man who feels ashamed to do anything which his neighbours
would disapprove. The Government deserves to be congratulated on not
arresting us, even if it desisted only from fear of world opinion.
Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law. Whether the Government will tolerate
that is a different question. It may not tolerate it, but it deserves congratulations on
the patience and forbearance it has displayed in regard to this party. …
What if I and all the eminent leaders in Gujarat and in the rest of the country
are arrested? This movement is based on the faith that when a whole nation is
roused and on the march no leader is necessary.
CWMG, VOL. 49
Ü What does the

speech tell us about
how Gandhiji saw the As with Non-cooperation, apart from the officially
colonial state? sanctioned nationalist campaign, there were numerous
other streams of protest. Across large parts of India,
peasants breached the hated colonial forest laws that kept
them and their cattle out of the woods in which they had
once roamed freely. In some towns, factory workers went
on strike while lawyers boycotted British courts and
students refused to attend government-run educational
institutions. As in 1920-22, now too Gandhiji’s call had
encouraged Indians of all classes to make manifest their
own discontent with colonial rule. The rulers responded
by detaining the dissenters. In the wake of the Salt March,
nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, among them, of
course, Gandhiji himself.
The progress of Gandhiji’s march to the seashore can
be traced from the secret reports filed by the police officials
deputed to monitor his movements. These reproduce the
speeches he gave at the villages en route, in which he
called upon local officials to renounce government
employment and join the freedom struggle. In one village,
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Wasna, Gandhiji told the upper castes that “if you are
out for Swaraj you must serve untouchables. You won’t
get Swaraj merely by the repeal of the salt taxes or
other taxes. For Swaraj you must make amends for the
wrongs which you did to the untouchables. For Swaraj,
Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs will have to unite.
These are the steps towards Swaraj.” The police spies
reported that Gandhiji’s meetings were very well
attended, by villagers of all castes, and by women as
well as men. They observed that thousands of volunteers
were flocking to the nationalist cause. Among them
were many officials, who had resigned from their posts
with the colonial gover nment. Writing to the
government, the District Superintendent of Police
remarked, “Mr Gandhi appeared calm and collected.
He is gathering more strength as he proceeds.”
The progress of the Salt March can also be traced
from another source: the American newsmagazine,
Time. This, to begin with, scorned at Gandhiji’s looks,
writing with disdain of his “spindly frame” and his
Fig. 13.8
“spidery loins”. Thus in its first report on the march, After Mahatma Gandhi’s
Time was deeply sceptical of the Salt March reaching release from prison in January
its destination. It claimed that Gandhiji “sank to 1931, Congress leaders met at
the ground” at the end of the second day’s walking; Allahabad to plan the future
the magazine did not believe that “the emaciated course of action.
saint would be physically able to go much further”. You can see (from right to left)
Jawaharlal Nehru, Jamnalal
But within a week it had changed its mind. The Bajaj, Subhas Chandra Bose,
massive popular following that the march had Gandhiji, Mahadev Desai
garnered, wrote Time, had made the British rulers (in front), Sardar Vallabh
“desperately anxious”. Gandhiji himself they now Bhai Patel.
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Source 5
saluted as a “Saint” and “Statesman”, who was using
The problem with “Christian acts as a weapon against men with
separate electorates Christian beliefs”.
3.2 Dialogues
At the Round Table The Salt March was notable for at least three reasons.
Conference Mahatma Gandhi First, it was this event that first brought Mahatma
stated his arguments against Gandhi to world attention. The march was widely covered
separate electorates for by the European and American press. Second, it was
the Depressed Classes: the first nationalist activity in which women
Separate electorates participated in large numbers. The socialist activist
to the “Untouchables” Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhiji not
will ensure them to restrict the protests to men alone. Kamaladevi was
bondage in perpetuity herself one of numerous women who courted arrest by
… Do you want the breaking the salt or liquor laws. Third, and perhaps
“Untouchables” to
most significant, it was the Salt March which forced
remain “Untouchables”
upon the British the realisation that their Raj would
for ever? Well, the
separate electorates not last forever, and that they would have to devolve
would perpetuate some power to the Indians.
the stigma. What is To that end, the British government convened a series
needed is destruction of “Round Table Conferences” in London. The first meeting
of “Untouchability”, was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent
and when you have political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in
done it, the bar- futility. Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931
s i n i s t e r, w h i c h h a s and the following month had several long meetings with
been imposed by an
the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called
insolent “superior”
the “Gandhi-Irwin Pact’, by the terms of which civil
class upon an “inferior”
class will be destroyed. disobedience would be called off, all prisoners released,
When you have and salt manufacture allowed along the coast. The pact
destroyed the bar- was criticised by radical nationalists, for Gandhiji was
sinister to whom will unable to obtain from the Viceroy a commitment to
you give the separate political independence for Indians; he could obtain merely
electorates? an assurance of talks towards that possible end.
A second Round Table Conference was held in London
in the latter part of 1931. Here, Gandhiji represented the
Congress. However, his claims that his party represented
all of India came under challenge from three parties:
from the Muslim League, which claimed to stand for the
interests of the Muslim minority; from the Princes, who
claimed that the Congress had no stake in their territories;
and from the brilliant lawyer and thinker B.R. Ambedkar,
who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress did not really
represent the lowest castes.
The Conference in London was inconclusive, so
Gandhiji returned to India and resumed civil
disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was
deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader. In a private
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Source 6
Ambedkar on separate
electorates
In response to Mahatma
Gandhi’s opposition to the
demand for separate electorates
for the Depressed Classes,
Ambedkar wrote:
Here is a class which is
undoubtedly not in a
position to sustain itself in
the struggle for existence.
The religion, to which they
are tied, instead of providing
them an honourable place,
brands them as lepers, not
fit for ordinary intercourse.
Fig. 13.9 Economically, it is a class
At the Second Round Table Conference, London, November 1931 entirely dependent upon
Mahatma Gandhi opposed the demand for separate
the high-caste Hindus for
electorates for “lower castes”. He believed that this would
earning its daily bread with
prevent their integration into mainstream society and
no independent way of living
permanently segregate them from other caste Hindus.
open to it. Nor are all ways
closed by reason of the social
letter to his sister, Willingdon wrote: “It’s a beautiful prejudices of the Hindus but
world if it wasn’t for Gandhi ... At the bottom of there is a definite attempt
every move he makes which he always says is all through our Hindu
inspired by God, one discovers the political Society to bolt every possible
manouevre. I see the American Press is saying what door so as not to allow the
a wonderful man he is ... But the fact is that we Depressed Classes any
opportunity to rise in the
live in the midst of very unpractical, mystical, and
scale of life.
superstitious folk who look upon Gandhi as
something holy, ...” In these circumstances, it
would be granted by all fair-
In 1935, however, a new Government of India Act
minded persons that as the
promised some form of representative government.
only path for a community
Two years later, in an election held on the basis so handicapped to succeed
of a restricted franchise, the Congress won a in the struggle for life against
comprehensive victory. Now eight out of 11 provinces organised tyranny, some
had a Congress “Prime Minister”, working under the share of political power in
supervision of a British Governor. order that it may protect itself
In September 1939, two years after the Congress is a paramount necessity …
ministries assumed office, the Second World War
broke out. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru F ROM DR B ABASAHEB AMBEDKAR,
had both been strongly critical of Hitler and the “W HAT C ONGRESS A N D G ANDHI
HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES”,
Nazis. Accordingly, they promised Congress support
WRITINGS AND SPEECHES, VOL. 9, P. 312
to the war effort if the British, in return, promised
to grant India independence once hostilities ended.
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Fig. 13.10
Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra
Prasad on their way to a meeting
with the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow,
13 October 1939
In the meeting the nature of
India’s involvement in the War
was discussed. When negotiations
with the Viceroy broke down, the
Congress ministries resigned.
The offer was refused. In protest, the Congress

ministries resigned in October 1939. Through 1940
and 1941, the Congress organised a series of individual
satyagrahas to pressure the rulers to promise freedom
once the war had ended.
Fig. 13.11
Meanwhile, in March 1940, the Muslim League
Mahatma Gandhi with Stafford
Cripps, March 1942 passed a resolution demanding a measure of
autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the
subcontinent. The political landscape was now
becoming complicated: it was no longer Indians
versus the British; rather, it had become a three-
way struggle between the Congress, the Muslim
League, and the British. At this time Britain had an
all-party government, whose Labour members were
sympathetic to Indian aspirations, but whose
Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was
a diehard imperialist who insisted that he had not
been appointed the King’s First Minister in order to
preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
In the spring of 1942, Churchill was persuaded to
send one of his ministers, Sir Stafford Cripps, to
India to try and forge a compromise with Gandhiji
and the Congress. Talks broke down, however, after
the Congress insisted that if it was to help the British
defend India from the Axis powers, then the Viceroy
had first to appoint an Indian as the Defence Member
of his Executive Council.
Ü Discuss...
Read Sources 5 and 6. Write an imaginary dialogue
between Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi on the
issue of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes.
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4. Quit India
After the failure of the Cripps Mission, Mahatma Satara, 1943
Gandhi decided to launch his third major movement From the late nineteenth
against British rule. This was the “Quit India” century, a non-Brahman
campaign, which began in August 1942. Although movement, which opposed the
Gandhiji was jailed at once, younger activists caste system and landlordism,
organised strikes and acts of sabotage all over the had developed in Maharashtra.
country. Particularly active in the underground This movement established
resistance were socialist members of the Congress, links with the national
such as Jayaprakash Narayan. In several districts, movement by the 1930s.
such as Satara in the west and Medinipur in the In 1943, some of the
east, “independent” governments were proclaimed. younger leaders in the Satara
The British responded with much force, yet it took district of Maharashtra set up
more than a year to suppress the rebellion. a parallel government ( prati
“Quit India” was genuinely a mass movement, sarkar) , with volunteer corps
bringing into its ambit hundreds of thousands of (seba dals) a n d v i l l a g e
ordinary Indians. It especially energised the young units (tufan dals ). They ran
who, in very large numbers, left their colleges to go people’s courts and organised
to jail. However, while the Congress leaders constructive work. Dominated
by kunbi peasants and
languished in jail, Jinnah and his colleagues in the
supported by dalits, the Satara
Muslim League worked patiently at expanding their
prati sarkar functioned till
influence. It was in these years that the League began
the elections of 1946, despite
to make a mark in the Punjab and Sind, provinces
government repression and,
where it had previously had scarcely any presence. in the later stages, Congress
In June 1944, with the end of the war in sight, disapproval.
Gandhiji was released from prison. Later that year
Fig. 13.12
Women’s procession in
Bombay during the
Quit India Movement
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he held a series of meetings with Jinnah, seeking to

bridge the gap between the Congress and the League.
In 1945, a Labour government came to power in
Britain and committed itself to granting
independence to India. Meanwhile, back in India,
the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, brought the Congress and
the League together for a series of talks.
Early in 1946 fresh elections were held to the
provincial legislatures. The Congress swept the
“General” category, but in the seats specifically
reserved for Muslims the League won an
overwhelming majority. The political polarisation
was complete. A Cabinet Mission sent in the summer
of 1946 failed to get the Congress and the League to
agree on a federal system that would keep India
together while allowing the provinces a degree of
autonomy. After the talks broke down, Jinnah
called for a “Direct Action Day” to press the League’s
Fig. 13.13 demand for Pakistan. On the designated day,
Mahatma Gandhi conferring with 16 August 1946, bloody riots broke out in Calcutta.
Jawaharlal Nehru (on his right) and The violence spread to rural Bengal, then to Bihar,
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel (on his left)
and then across the country to the United Provinces
Nehru and Patel represented two
distinct political tendencies within and the Punjab. In some places, Muslims were the
the Congress – the socialist and main sufferers, in other places, Hindus.
the conservative. Mahatma In February 1947, Wavell was replaced as
Gandhi had to often mediate Viceroy by Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten called
between these groups. onelast round of talks, but when these too
proved inconclusive he
announced that British
India would be freed, but
also divided. The formal
transfer of power was
fixed for 15 August.
When that day came, it
was celebrated with
gusto in different parts of
India. In Delhi, there
was “prolonged applause”
when the President of the
Constituent Assembly
began the meeting by
invoking the Father of
the Nation – Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi.
Outside the Assembly,
the crowds shouted
“Mahatma Gandhi ki jai”.
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5. The Last Heroic Days

As it happened, Mahatma Gandhi was not present at
the festivities in the capital on 15 August 1947. He
was in Calcutta, but he did not attend any function or
hoist a flag there either. Gandhiji marked the day with
a 24-hour fast. The freedom he had struggled so long
for had come at an unacceptable price, with a nation
divided and Hindus and Muslims at each other’s throats.
T h r o u g h S e p t e m b e r a n d O c t o b e r, w r i t e s h i s
biographer D.G. Tendulkar, Gandhiji “went round
hospitals and refugee camps giving consolation to
distressed people”. He “appealed to the Sikhs, the
Hindus and the Muslims to forget the past and not
to dwell on their sufferings but to extend the right
hand of fellowship to each other, and to determine
to live in peace ...”
At the initiative of Gandhiji and Nehru, the Congress
now passed a resolution on “the rights of minorities”.
The party had never accepted the “two-nation theory”:
forced against its will to accept Partition, it still believed
that “India is a land of many religions and many races,
and must remain so”. Whatever be the situation in
Pakistan, India would be “a democratic secular State
where all citizens enjoy full rights and are equally
entitled to the protection of the State, irrespective of
the religion to which they belong”. The Congress wished
to “assure the minorities in India that it will continue
to protect, to the best of its ability, their citizen rights
against aggression”. Fig. 13.14
Many scholars have written of the months after On the way to a riot-torn
Independence as being Gandhiji’s “finest hour”. After village,1947
working to bring peace to Bengal,
Gandhiji now shifted to Delhi, from
where he hoped to move on to the riot-
torn districts of Punjab. While in the
capital, his meetings were disrupted
by refugees who objected to readings
from the Koran, or shouted slogans
asking why he did not speak of the
sufferings of those Hindus and Sikhs
still living in Pakistan. In fact, as
D.G. Tendulkar writes, Gandhiji “was
equally concerned with the sufferings
of the minority community in
Pakistan. He would have liked to be
able to go to their succour. But with
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what face could he now go there, when he could not

guarantee full redress to the Muslims in Delhi?”
There was an attempt on Gandhiji’s life on
20 January 1948, but he carried on undaunted.
On 26 January, he spoke at his prayer meeting of
how that day had been celebrated in the past as
Independence Day. Now freedom had come, but its
first few months had been deeply disillusioning.
However, he trusted that “the worst is over”, that
Indians would henceforth work collectively for the
“equality of all classes and creeds, never the
domination and superiority of the major community
over a minor, however insignificant it may be in
numbers or influence”. He also permitted himself
the hope “that though geographically and politically
India is divided into two, at heart we shall ever be
friends and brothers helping and respecting one
another and be one for the outside world”.
Gandhiji had fought a lifelong battle for a free
Fig. 13.15 and united India; and yet, when the country was
The death of the Mahatma, divided, he urged that the two parts respect and
a popular print
befriend one another.
In popular representations,
Mahatma Gandhi was deified,
Other Indians were less forgiving. At his daily
and shown as the unifying force prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January,
within the national movement. Gandhiji was shot dead by a young man. The
Here you can see Jawaharlal assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was a
Nehru and Sardar Patel, Brahmin from Pune named Nathuram Godse, the
representing two strands within editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had
the Congress, standing on two
sides of Gandhiji’s pyre. Blessing
denounced Gandhiji as “an appeaser of Muslims”.
them both from a heavenly realm, Gandhiji’s death led to an extraordinary
is Mahatma Gandhi, at the centre. outpouring of grief, with rich tributes being paid to
him from across the political spectrum in India,
and moving appreciations coming from such
international figures as George Orwell and Albert
Einstein. Time magazine, which had once mocked
Gandhiji’s physical size and seemingly non-rational
ideas, now compared his martyrdom to that of
Abraham Lincoln: it was a bigoted American who
had killed Lincoln for believing that human beings
were equal regardless of their race or skin colour;
and it was a bigoted Hindu who had killed Gandhiji
for believing that friendship was possible, indeed
necessary, between Indians of different faiths. In
this respect, as Time wrote, “The world knew that it
had, in a sense too deep, too simple for the world to
understand, connived at his (Gandhiji’s) death as it
had connived at Lincoln’s.”
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6. Knowing Gandhi
There are many different kinds of sources from which we can
reconstruct the political career of Gandhiji and the history of
the nationalist movement.
6.1 Public voice and private scripts
One important source is the writings and speeches of Mahatma
Gandhi and his contemporaries, including both his associates
and his political adversaries. Within these writings we need
to distinguish between those that were meant for the public
and those that were not. Speeches, for instance, allow us to
hear the public voice of an individual, while private letters
give us a glimpse of his or her private thoughts. In letters we
see people expressing their anger and pain, their dismay and
anxiety, their hopes and frustrations in ways in which they
may not express themselves in public statements. But we must
remember that this private-public distinction often breaks
down. Many letters are written to individuals, and are therefore
personal, but they are also meant for the public. The language
of the letters is often shaped by the awareness that they may
one day be published. Conversely, the fear that a letter may
get into print often prevents people from expressing their
opinion freely in personal letters. Mahatma Gandhi regularly
published in his journal, Harijan, letters that others wrote to
him. Nehru edited a collection of letters written to him during
the national movement and published A Bunch of Old Letters.
Source 7
One event through letters
In the 1920s, Jawaharlal Nehru was increasingly influenced by socialism, and he returned
from Europe in 1928 deeply impressed with the Soviet Union. As he began working
closely with the socialists (Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Dev, N.G. Ranga and others),
a rift developed between the socialists and the conservatives within the Congress. After
becoming the Congress President in 1936, Nehru spoke passionately against fascism,
and upheld the demands of workers and peasants.
Worried by Nehru’s socialist rhetoric, the conservatives, led by Rajendra Prasad and
Sardar Patel, threatened to resign from the Working Committee, and some prominent
industrialists in Bombay issued a statement attacking Nehru. Both Prasad and Nehru
turned to Mahatma Gandhi and met him at his ashram at Wardha. The latter acted as the
mediator, as he often did, restraining Nehru’s radicalism and persuading Prasad and
others to see the significance of Nehru’s leadership.
In A Bunch of Old Letters , 1958, Nehru reprinted many of the letters that were exchanged
at the time.
Read the extracts in the following pages.
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Source 7 (contd)
From A Bunch of Old Letters
My dear Jawaharlalji, Wardha, July 1, 1936

Since we parted yesterday we have had a long conversation with Mahatmaji and a prolonged consultation
among ourselves. We understand that you have felt much hurt by the course of action taken by us and
particularly the tone of our letter has caused you much pain. It was never our intention either to embarrass
you or to hurt you and if you had suggested or indictated that it hurt you we would have without the
least hesitation amended or altered the letter. But we have decided to withdraw it and our resignation
on a reconsideration of the whole situation.
We have felt that in all your utterances as published in the Press you have been speaking not so much
on the general Congress programme as on a topic which has not been accepted by the Congress and in
doing so you have been acting more as the mouthpiece of the minority of our colleagues on the Working
Committee as also on the Congress than the mouthpiece of the majority which we expected you as
Congress President to do.
There is regular continuous campaign against us treating us as persons whose time is over, who
represent and stand for ideas that are worn out and that have no present value, who are only obstructing
the progress of the country and who deserve to be cast out of the positions which they undeservedly
hold … we have felt that a great injustice has been and is being done to us by others, and we are not
receiving the protection we are entitled from you as our colleague and as our President …
Yours sincerely
Rajendra Prasad
My Dear Bapu, Allahabad, July 5, 1936

I arrived here last night. Ever since I left Wardha I have been feeling weak in body and troubled in mind.
… Since my return from Europe, I found that meetings of the Working Committee exhaust me
greatly; they have a devitalising effect on me and I have almost the feeling of being older in years after
every fresh experience …
I am grateful to you for all the trouble you took in smoothing over matters and in helping to
avoid a crisis.
I read again Rajendra Babu’s letter to me (the second one) and his formidable indictment of me ...
For however tenderly the fact may be stated, it amounts to this that I am an intolerable nuisance and
the very qualities I possess – a measure of ability, energy, earnestness, some personality which has a
vague appeal – become dangerous for they are harnessed to the wrong chariot (socialism). The
conclusion from all this is obvious.
I have written at length, both in my book and subsequently, about my present ideas. There is no lack
of material for me to be judged. Those views are not casual. They are part of me, and though I might
change them or vary them in future, so long as I hold them I must give expression to them. Because I
attached importance to a larger unity I tried to express them in the mildest way possible and more as an
invitation to thought than as fixed conclusions. I saw no conflict in this approach and in anything
that the Congress was doing. So far as the elections were concerned I felt that my approach was a
definite asset to us as it enthused the masses. But my approach, mild and vague as it was, is considered
dangerous and harmful by my colleagues. I was even told that my laying stress always on the
poverty and unemployment in India was unwise, or at any rate the way I did it was wrong …
You told me that you intended issuing some kind of a statement. I shall welcome this for I believe in
every viewpoint being placed before the country.
Yours affectionately
Jawaharlal
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had helped at Dharampur spent a few memorable

Ü Discuss... hours with him at Karachi airport. Six police
Find out more about ways in constables, earlier acquaintances, walked him to the
which people supported one plane, saluting him as he entered it. “I acknowledged
another and saved lives (the salute) with folded hands and tears in my eyes.”
during Partition.
8. Oral Testimonies and History
Have you taken note of the materials from which the
history of Partition has been constructed in this
chapter? Oral narratives, memoirs, diaries, family
histories, first-hand written accounts – all these help
us understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary
people during the partition of the country. Millions
of people viewed Partition in terms of the suffering
and the challenges of the times. For them, it was no
mere constitutional division or just the party politics
of the Muslim League, Congress and others. For them,
it meant the unexpected alterations in life as it
unfolded between 1946 and 1950 and beyond,
requiring psychological, emotional and social
adjustments. As with the Holocaust in Germany, we
should understand Partition not simply as a political
event, but also through the meanings attached to it
by those who lived it. Memories and experiences
shape the reality of an event.
One of the strengths of personal reminiscence –
one type of oral source – is that it helps us grasp
experiences and memories in detail. It enables
historians to write richly textured, vivid accounts
of what happened to people during events such as
Partition. It is impossible to extract this kind of
information from government documents. The
latter deal with policy and party matters and
various state-sponsored schemes. In the case of
Partition, government reports and files as well as
the personal writings of its high-level functionaries
throw ample light on negotiations between the
British and the major political parties about the
future of India or on the rehabilitation of refugees.
They tell us little, however, about the day-to-day
experiences of those affected by the government’s
decision to divide the country.
Oral history also allows historians to broaden the
boundaries of their discipline by rescuing from
oblivion the lived experiences of the poor and the
powerless: those of, say, Abdul Latif’s father; the
women of Thoa Khalsa; the refugee who retailed
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6.2 Framing a picture

Autobiographies similarly give us an account of the
past that is often rich in human detail. But here
again we have to be careful of the way we read and
interpret autobiographies. We need to remember that
they are retrospective accounts written very often
from memory. They tell us what the author could
recollect, what he or she saw as important, or was
keen on recounting, or how a person wanted his
or her life to be viewed by others. Writing an
autobiography is a way of framing a picture of
yourself. So in reading these accounts we have to
try and see what the author does not tell us; we
need to understand the reasons for that silence –
those wilful or unwitting acts of forgetting.
6.3 Through police eyes
Another vital source is government records, for the
colonial rulers kept close tabs on those they regarded
as critical of the government. The letters and reports
written by policemen and other officials were secret
Fig. 13.16 at the time; but now can be accessed in archives.
Police clash with Congress Let us look at one such source: the fortnightly
volunteers in Bombay during the reports that were prepared by the Home Department
Civil Disobedience Movement. from the early twentieth century. These reports were
based on police information from the localities,
Ü Can you see any conflict
but often expressed what the higher officials saw,
between this image and what
or wanted to believe. While noticing the possibility
was reported in the Fortnightly
of sedition and rebellion, they liked to assure
Reports of the police?
themselves that these fears were unwarranted.
If you see the Fortnightly
Reports for the period of
the Salt March you will
notice that the Home
Department was unwilling
to accept that Mahatma
Gandhi’s actions had
evoked any enthusiastic
response from the masses.
The march was seen as
a drama, an antic, a
desperate effort to
mobilise people who were
unwilling to rise against
the British and were busy
with their daily schedules,
happy under the Raj.
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Source 8
Fortnightly Reports of the Home Department
(Confidential)
FOR THE FIRST HALF OF MARCH 1930 foretold freely but it seems quite possible
that nonfulfilment of the forecast is
The rapid political developments in Gujarat are upsetting plans.
being closely watched here. To what extent and
in what directions they will affect political Madras
condition in this province, it is difficult to surmise The opening of Gandhi’s civil disobedience
at present. The peasantry is for the moment campaign has completely overshadowed all
engaged in harvesting a good rabi; students are other issues. General opinion inclines to
pre-occupied with their impending examinations. regard his march as theatrical and his
programme as impracticable, but as he is
Central Provinces and Berar
held in such personal reverence by the Hindu
The arrest of Mr. Vallabh Bhai Patel caused little public generally, the possibility of arrest
excitement, except in Congress circles, but a which he seems deliberately to be courting
meeting organised by the Nagpur Nagar and its effect on the political situation are
Congress Committee to congratulate Gandhi on viewed with considerable misgiving.
the start of his march was attended by a crowd
of over 3000 people at Nagpur. The 12th of March was celebrated as the
day of inaugurating the civil disobedience
Bengal campaign. In Bombay the celebrations took
The outstanding event of the past fortnight has the form of saluting the national flag in
been the start of Gandhi’s campaign of civil the morning.
disobedience. Mr. J.M. Sengupta has formed an
All-Bengal Civil Disobedience Council, and the Bombay
Bengal Provincial Congress Committee has Press Kesari indulged in offensive language
formed an All Bengal Council of Disobedience. and in its usual attitude of blowing hot and
But beyond forming councils no active steps have cold wrote: “If the Government wants to
yet been taken in the matter of civil disobedience test the power of Satyagraha, both its action
in Bengal. and inaction will cause injury to it. If it
The reports from the districts show that the arrests Gandhi it will incur the discontent
meetings that have been held excite little or no of the nation; if it does not do that, the
interest and leave no profound impression on movement of civil disobedience will go on
the general population. It is noticeable, however, spreading. We therefore say that if the
that ladies are attending these meetings in Government punishes Mr. Gandhi the nation
increasing numbers. will have won a victory, and if it lets him
alone it will have won a still greater victory.”
Bihar and Orissa
On the other hand the moderate paper
There is still little to report regarding Congress Vividh Vritt pointed out the futility of the
activity. There is a good deal of talk about a movement and opined that it could not
campaign to withhold payment of the chaukidari achieve the end in view. It, however,
tax, but no area has yet been selected for reminded the government that repression
experiment. The arrest of Gandhi is being would defeat its purpose.
contd
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Source 8 (contd)
FOR THE SECOND HALF OF MARCH 1930 the salt laws on receipt of Mr. Gandhi’s orders are
reported from a number of districts.
Bengal
Interest has continued to centre round Gandhi’s FOR THE FIRST HALF OF APRIL 1930
march to the sea and the arrangements which
he is making to initiate a campaign of civil United Provinces
disobedience. The extremist papers report his Events have moved rapidly during the fortnight.
doings and speeches at great length and make a Apart from political meetings, processions and
great display of the various meetings that are the enrolment of volunteers, the Salt Act has
being held throughout Bengal and the resolutions been openly defied at Agra, Cawnpore, Benaras,
passed thereat. But there is little enthusiasm Allahabad, Lucknow, Meerut, Rae Bareli,
for the form of civil disobedience favoured by Farukhabad, Etawah, Ballia and Mainpuri.
Gandhi …
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested at Cheoki railway
Generally people are waiting to see what station early on the morning of April 14 as he was
happens to Gandhi and the probability is that if proceeding to the Central Provinces to attend a
any action is taken against him, a spark will be meeting of Youth League. He was at once taken
set to much inflammable material in Bengal. But direct to Naini Central Jail, where he was tried
the prospect of any serious conflagration is at and sentenced to six months simple imprisonment.
present slight.
Bihar and Orissa
Central Provinces and Berar There have been, or are now materialising,
In Nagpur these meetings were well attended spectacular, but small-scale, attempts at illicit
and most of the schools and colleges were salt manufacture in a few places …
deserted on the 12th March to mark the
inauguration of Gandhi’s march. Central Provinces
The boycott of liquor shops and the In Jubbalpore Seth Govinddass has attempted
infringement of forest laws appear to be the to manufacture chemical salt at a cost many times
most probable line of attack. in excess of the market price of clean salt.
Punjab Madras
It seems not improbable that organised attempts Considerable opposition was shown at
will be made to break the Salt Law in the Vizagapatam to the Police when they attempted
Jhelum district; that the agitation relating to the to seize salt made by boiling sea water, but
non-payment of the water-tax in Multan will elsewhere resistance to the seizure of illicit salt
be revived; and that some movement in has been half hearted.
connection with the National Flag will be started
Bengal
probably at Gujranwala.
In the mufassal efforts have been made to
United Provinces manufacture illicit salt, the main operation
Political activity has undoubtedly intensified areas being the districts of 24-Parganas and
during the last fortnight. The Congress party feels Midnapore.
that it must do something spectacular to sustain Very little salt has actually been manufactured
public interest. Enrolment of volunteers, and most of it has been confiscated and the
propaganda in villages, preparations for breaking utensils in which it was manufactured destroyed.
2019-2020
Ü Read the Fortnightly Reports carefully. Remember they are extracts from
confidential reports of the colonial Home Department. These reports did not always
accept what the police reported from different localities.
(1) How do you think the nature of the source affects what is being said in these
reports? Write a short note illustrating your argument with quotations from the
above text.
(2) Why do you think the Home Department was continuously reporting on what
people thought about the possibility of Mahatma Gandhi’s arrest? Reread what
Gandhiji said about the question of arrests in his speech on 5 April 1930 at Dandi.
(3) Why do you think Mahatma Gandhi was not arrested?
(4) Why do you think the Home Department continued to say that the march was not
evoking any response?
6.4 From newspapers

One more important source is contemporary
newspapers, published in English as well
as in the different Indian languages, which
tracked Mahatma Gandhi’s movements and
reported on his activities, and also represented
what ordinary Indians thought of him.
Newspaper accounts, however, should not be
seen as unprejudiced. They were published by
people who had their own political opinions
and world views. These ideas shaped what was
published and the way events were reported.
The accounts that were published in a London
newspaper would be different from the report
in an Indian nationalist paper.
We need to look at these reports but should

be careful while interpreting them. Every
statement made in these cannot be accepted
literally as representing what was happening
on the ground. They often reflect the fears and
anxieties of officials who were unable to control
a movement and were anxious about its
Fig. 13.17
spread. They did not know whether to arrest Pictures like this reveal how Mahatma
Mahatma Gandhi or what an arrest would Gandhi was perceived by people and
mean. The more the colonial state kept a watch represented in popular prints
on the public and its activities, the more it Within the tree of nationalism, Mahatma
worried about the basis of its rule. Gandhi appears as the looming central
figure surrounded by small images of
other leaders and sages.
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Timeline
1915 Mahatma Gandhi returns from South Africa

1917 Champaran movement
1918 Peasant movements in Kheda (Gujarat), and workers’ movement
in Ahmedabad
1919 Rowlatt Satyagraha (March-April)
1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre (April)
1921 Non-cooperation and Khilafat Movements
1928 Peasant movement in Bardoli
1929 “Purna Swaraj” accepted as Congress goal at the Lahore
Congress (December)
1930 Civil Disobedience Movement begins; Dandi March (March-April)
1931 Gandhi-Irwin Pact (March); Second Round Table Conference
(December)
1935 Government of India Act promises some form of representative
government
1939 Congress ministries resign
1942 Quit India Movement begins (August)
1946 Mahatma Gandhi visits Noakhali and other riot-torn areas to stop
communal violence
1. How did Mahatma Gandhi seek to identify with the

common people?
2. How was Mahatma Gandhi perceived by the peasants?
3. Why did the salt laws become an important issue of
struggle?
4. Why are newspapers an important source for the study
of the national movement?
5. Why was the charkha chosen as a symbol of
nationalism?
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Write a short essay

(250 -300 words) on the following:
6. How was non-cooperation a form of protest?

7. Why were the dialogues at the Round Table
Conference inconclusive?
8. In what way did Mahatma Gandhi transform the
nature of the national movement?
9. What do private letters and autobiographies tell
us about an individual? How are these sources
different from official accounts?
more, read:
Map work Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. 2004.
From Plassey to Partition:
A History of Modern India.
10. Find out about the route of the Dandi March. On
Orient Longman, New Delhi.
a map of Gujarat plot the line of the march and
mark the major towns and villages that it passed
Sarvepalli Gopal. 1975.
along the route. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography,
Volume I, 1889-1947.
Project (choose one)
David Hardiman. 2003.
Gandhi in His Time and Ours.
11. Read any two autobiographies of nationalist Permanent Black, New Delhi.
leaders. Look at the different ways in which the
authors represent their own life and times, and Gyanendra Pandey. 1978.
interpret the national movement. See how their The Ascendancy of the
views differ. Write an account based on your Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
studies. 1926-34.
12. Choose any event that took place during the
national movement. Try and read the letters and Sumit Sarkar. 1983.
speeches of the leaders of the time. Some of these Modern India, 1885-1947.
are now published. He could be a local leader from Macmillan, New Delhi.
the region where you live. Try and see how the
local leaders viewed the activities of the national
leadership at the top. Write about the movement
based on your reading.
You could visit:

http:/www.gandhiserve.org/
cwmg/cwmg.html
(for Collected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi)
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THEME Understanding Partition

FOURTEEN Politics, Memories, Experiences
Fig. 14.1
Partition uprooted millions, transforming them into refugees, forcing them to begin
life from scratch in new lands.
We know that the joy of our country’s independence from

colonial rule in 1947 was tarnished by the violence and
brutality of Partition. The Partition of British India into the
sovereign states of India and Pakistan (with its western and
eastern wings) led to many sudden developments. Thousands
of lives were snuffed out, many others changed dramatically,
cities changed, India changed, a new country was born, and
there was unprecedented genocidal violence and migration.
This chapter will examine the history of Partition: why and
how it happened as well as the harrowing experiences of
ordinary people during the period 1946-50 and beyond. It will
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also discuss how the history of these

experiences can be reconstructed by talking to
people and interviewing them, that is, through
the use of oral history. At the same time, it will
point out the strengths and limitations of oral
history. Interviews can tell us about certain
aspects of a society’s past of which we may know
very little or nothing from other types of sources.
But they may not reveal very much about many
matters whose history we would then need to
build from other materials. We will return to
this issue towards the end of the chapter.
Fig. 14.2
Photographs give us a glimpse of
the violence of that time.
1. Some Partition Experiences
Here are three incidents narrated by people who
experienced those trying times to a researcher
in 1993. The informants were Pakistanis, the
researcher Indian. The job of this researcher was
to understand how those who had lived more or
less harmoniously for generations inflicted so
much violence on each other in 1947.
Source 1
“I am simply returning my father’s karz, his debt”
This is what the researcher recorded:

During my visits to the History Department Library of Punjab
University, Lahore, in the winter of 1992, the librarian, Abdul Latif, a
pious middle-aged man, would help me a lot. He would go out of his
way, well beyond the call of duty, to provide me with relevant material,
meticulously keeping photocopies requested by me ready before my
arrival the following morning. I found his attitude to my work so
extraordinary that one day I could not help asking him, “Latif Sahib,
why do you go out of your way to help me so much?” Latif Sahib
glanced at his watch, grabbed his namazi topi and said, “I must go for
namaz right now but I will answer your question on my return.”
Stepping into his office half an hour later, he continued:
“Yes, your question. I … I mean, my father belonged to Jammu, to
a small village in Jammu district. This was a Hindu-dominated village
and Hindu ruffians of the area massacred the hamlet’s Muslim
population in August 1947. One late afternoon, when the Hindu
mob had been at its furious worst, my father discovered he was
perhaps the only Muslim youth of the village left alive. He had already
lost his entire family in the butchery and was looking for ways of
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escaping. Remembering a kind, elderly Hindu lady, a neighbour, he implored

her to save him by offering him shelter at her place. The lady agreed to help
father but said, ‘Son, if you hide here, they will get both of us. This is of no
use. You follow me to the spot where they have piled up the dead. You lie
down there as if dead and I will dump a few dead-bodies on you. Lie there
among the dead, son, as if dead through the night and run for your life
towards Sialkot at the break of dawn tomorrow.’
“My father agreed to the proposal. Off they went to that spot, father lay on
the ground and the old lady dumped a number of bodies on him. An hour
or so later a group of armed Hindu hoodlums appeared. One of them yelled,
‘Any life left in anybody?’ and the others started, with their crude staffs and
guns, to feel for any trace of life in that heap. Somebody shouted, ‘There is
a wrist watch on that body!’ and hit my father’s fingers with the butt of his
rifle. Father used to tell us how difficult it was for him to keep his outstretched
palm, beneath the watch he was wearing, so utterly still. Somehow he
succeeded for a few seconds until one of them said ‘Oh, it’s only a watch.
Come let us leave, it is getting dark.’ Fortunately, for Abbaji, they left and my
father lay there in that wretchedness the whole night, literally running for his life
at the first hint of light. He did not stop until he reached Sialkot.
“I help you because that Hindu mai helped my father. I am simply returning
my father’s karz, his debt.”
“But I am not a Hindu,” I said. “Mine is a Sikh family, at best a mixed Hindu-
Sikh one.”
“I do not know what your religion is with any surety. You do not wear
uncut hair and you are not a Muslim. So, for me you are a Hindu and I do my
little bit for you because a Hindu mai saved my father.”
Source 2
“For quite a few years now, I have not
met a Punjabi Musalman”
The researcher’s second story is about the manager of a youth hostel in Lahore.
I had gone to the hostel looking for accommodation and had promptly
declared my citizenship. “You are Indian, so I cannot allot you a room but I
can offer you tea and a story,” said the Manager. I couldn’t have refused such
a tempting offer. “In the early 1950s I was posted at Delhi,” the Manager began.
I was all ears:
“I was working as a clerk at the Pakistani High Commission there and I
had been asked by a Lahori friend to deliver a rukka (a short handwritten
note) to his erstwhile neighbour who now resided at Paharganj in Delhi.
One day I rode out on my bicycle towards Paharganj and just as I crossed
the cathedral at the Central Secretariat, spotting a Sikh cyclist I asked him
in Punjabi, ‘Sardarji, the way to Paharganj, please?’
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‘Are you a refugee?’ he asked.

‘No, I come from Lahore. I am Iqbal Ahmed.’
‘Iqbal Ahmed … from Lahore? Stop!’
“That ‘Stop!’ sounded like a brute order to me and I instantly
thought now I’ll be gone. This Sikh will finish me off. But there was
no escaping the situation, so I stopped. The burly Sikh came running
to me and gave me a mighty hug . Eyes moist, he said, ‘For quite a
few years now, I have not met a Punjabi Musalman . I have been
longing to meet one but you cannot find Punjabi-speaking
Musalmans here.’”
Fig. 14.3
Over 10 million people
were uprooted from
their homelands and
forced to migrate.
Source 3 Ü
(1) What do each of these
“No, no! You can never be ours” sources show about the
attitudes of the men who
This is the third story the researcher related: were talking with each other?
I still vividly remember a man I met in Lahore in 1992. (2) What do you think these
He mistook me to be a Pakistani studying abroad. For stories reveal about the
some reason he liked me. He urged me to return home different memories that people
after completing my studies to serve the qaum (nation).
carried about Partition?
I told him I shall do so but, at some stage in the
conversation, I added that my citizenship happens to (3) How did the men identify
be Indian. All of a sudden his tone changed, and much themselves and one another?
as he was restraining himself, he blurted out,
“Oh Indian! I had thought you were Pakistani.”
I tried my best to impress upon him that I always see Ü Discuss...
myself as South Asian. “No, no! You can never be ours. Assess the value of such
Your people wiped out my entire village in 1947, we
stories in writing about
are sworn enemies and shall always remain so.”
Partition.
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2. A Momentous Marker
2.1 Partition or holocaust?
The narratives just presented point to the pervasive
violence that characterised Partition. Several
hundred thousand people were killed and
innumerable women raped and abducted. Millions
were uprooted, transformed into refugees in alien
lands. It is impossible to arrive at any accurate
estimate of casualties: informed and scholarly
guesses vary from 200,000 to 500,000 people. In all
probability, some 15 million had to move across
hastily constructed frontiers separating India
and Pakistan. As they stumbled across these
“shadow lines” – the boundaries between the two
new states were not officially known until two days
after formal independence – they were rendered
homeless, having suddenly lost all their immovable
property and most of their movable assets, separated
from many of their relatives and friends as well,
torn asunder from their moorings, from their houses,
Fig. 14.4 fields and fortunes, from their childhood memories.
On carts with families and Thus stripped of their local or regional cultures, they
belongings, 1947 were forced to begin picking up their life from scratch.
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Was this simply a partition, a more or less orderly

constitutional arrangement, an agreed-upon division
of territories and assets? Or should it be called a sixteen-
month civil war, recognising that there were well-
organised forces on both sides and concerted attempts
to wipe out entire populations as enemies? The survivors
themselves have often spoken of 1947 through other
words: “maashal-la” (martial law), “mara-mari’ (killings),
and “raula”, or “hullar” (disturbance, tumult, uproar).
Speaking of the killings, rape, arson, and loot that
constituted Partition, contemporary observers and
scholars have sometimes used the expression
“holocaust” as well, primarily meaning destruction or
slaughter on a mass scale.
Is this usage appropriate?
You would have read about the German Holocaust
under the Nazis in Class IX. The term “holocaust” in a
sense captures the gravity of what happened in the
subcontinent in 1947, something that the mild term
“partition” hides. It also helps to focus on why Partition,
like the Holocaust in Germany, is remembered and
referred to in our contemporary concerns so much. Yet,
differences between the two events should not be
overlooked. In 1947-48, the subcontinent did not witness
any state-driven extermination as was the case with
Nazi Germany where various modern techniques of
control and organisation had been used. The “ethnic
cleansing” that characterised the partition of India was
carried out by self-styled representatives of religious
communities rather than by state agencies.
2.2 The power of stereotypes
India-haters in Pakistan and Pakistan-haters in India
are both products of Partition. At times, some people
mistakenly believe that the loyalties of Indian Muslims
lie with Pakistan. The stereotype of extra-territorial,
pan-Islamic loyalties comes fused with other highly
objectionable ideas: Muslims are cruel, bigoted,
unclean, descendants of invaders, while Hindus are
kind, liberal, pure, children of the invaded. The
journalist R.M. Murphy has shown that similar
stereotypes proliferate in Pakistan. According to him,
some Pakistanis feel that Muslims are fair, brave,
monotheists and meat-eaters, while Hindus are dark,
cowardly, polytheists and vegetarian. Some of these
stereotypes pre-date Partition but there is no
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doubt that they were immensely strengthened

because of 1947. Every myth in these constructions
has been systematically critiqued by historians. But
in both countries voices of hatred do not mellow.
Partition generated memories, hatreds,
stereotypes and identities that still continue to shape
the history of people on both sides of the border.
Ü Discuss... These hatreds have manifested themselves during
Recall some stories of inter -community conflicts, and communal clashes
Partition you may have heard. in turn have kept alive the memories of past violence.
Think of the way these have Stories of Partition violence are recounted by
shaped your conception about communal groups to deepen the divide between
different communities. communities: creating in people’s minds feelings
Try and imagine how the same of suspicion and distrust, consolidating the power
stories would be narrated by of communal stereotypes, creating the deeply
different communities. problematic notion that Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims
are communities with sharply defined boundaries,
and fundamentally opposed interests.
Fig. 14.5
People took with them only what
The relationship between Pakistan and India has
they could physically carry. been profoundly shaped by this legacy of Partition.
Uprooting meant an immense sense Perceptions of communities on both sides have been
of loss, a rupture with the place structured by the conflicting memories of those
they had lived in for generations. momentous times.
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3. Why and How Did Partition

Happen?
3.1 Culminating point of a long history?
Some historians, both Indian and Pakistani, suggest
that Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s theory that the Hindus
The Lucknow Pact
and Muslims in colonial India constituted two The Lucknow Pact of December
separate nations can be projected back into medieval 1916 was an understanding
history. They emphasise that the events of 1947 between the Congress and the
were intimately connected to the long history of Muslim League (controlled by
Hindu-Muslim conflict throughout medieval and the UP-based “Young Party”)
whereby the Congress accepted
modern times. Such an argument does not recognise
separate electorates. The
that the history of conflict between communities has
pact provided a joint political
coexisted with a long history of sharing, and of
platform for the Moderates,
mutual cultural exchange. It also does not take into
Radicals and the Muslim League.
account the changing circumstances that shape
people’s thinking.
Some scholars see Partition as a culmination of
a communal politics that started developing in the
opening decades of the twentieth century. They
suggest that separate electorates for Muslims,
created by the colonial government in 1909 and
expanded in 1919, crucially shaped the nature of
communal politics. Separate electorates meant that Arya Samaj
Muslims could now elect their own representatives in A North Indian Hindu reform
designated constituencies. This created a temptation organisation of the late
for politicians working within this system to use nineteenth and early twentieth
sectarian slogans and gather a following by distributing centuries, particularly active
favours to their own religious groups. Religious in the Punjab, which sought
identities thus acquired a functional use within a to revive Vedic learning
modern political system; and the logic of electoral and combine it with modern
politics deepened and hardened these identities. education in the sciences.
Community identities no longer indicated simple
difference in faith and belief; they came to mean active
opposition and hostility between communities.
However, while separate electorates did have a
profound impact on Indian politics, we should be
careful not to over-emphasise their significance or to
see Partition as a logical outcome of their working.
Communal identities were consolidated by a host Music-before-mosque : The
of other developments in the early twentieth century. playing of music by a religious
During the 1920s and early 1930s tension grew procession outside a mosque
around a number of issues. Muslims were angered at the time of namaz could lead
by “music-before-mosque”, by the cow protection to Hindu-Muslim violence.
Orthodox Muslims saw this as
movement, and by the efforts of the Arya Samaj
an interference in their peaceful
to bring back to the Hindu fold (shuddhi ) those
communion with God.
who had recently converted to Islam. Hindus were
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angered by the rapid spread of tabligh (propaganda)

and tanzim (organisation) after 1923. As middle class
publicists and communal activists sought to build
greater solidarity within their communities, mobilising
people against the other community, riots spread in
different parts of the country. Every communal riot
deepened differences between communities, creating
disturbing memories of violence.
Yet it would be incorrect to see Partition as the
outcome of a simple unfolding of communal tensions.
As the protagonist of Garm Hawa, a film on Partition,
puts it, “Communal discord happened even before
1947 but it had never led to the uprooting of millions
from their homes”. Partition was a qualitatively
different phenomenon from earlier communal politics,
and to understand it we need to look carefully at the
events of the last decade of British rule.
What is communalism?
There are many aspects to our identity. You are a girl or a boy, all of you are young
persons, you belong to a certain village, city, district or state and speak certain
languages. You are Indians but you are also world citizens. Income levels differ
from family to family, hence all of us belong to some social class or the other. Most
of us have a religion, and caste may play an important role in our lives. In other
words, our identities have numerous features, they are complex. There are times,
however, when people attach greater significance to certain chosen aspects of
their identity such as religion. This in itself cannot be described as communal.
Communalism refers to a politics that seeks to unify one community around a
religious identity in hostile opposition to another community. It seeks to define this
community identity as fundamental and fixed. It attempts to consolidate this identity
and present it as natural – as if people were born into the identity, as if the identities
do not evolve through history over time. In order to unify the community,
communalism suppresses distinctions within the community and emphasises the
essential unity of the community against other communities.
One could say communalism nurtures a politics of hatred for an identified “other”–
“Hindus” in the case of Muslim communalism, and “Muslims” in the case of Hindu
communalism. This hatred feeds a politics of violence.
Communalism, then, is a particular kind of politicisation of religious identity,
an ideology that seeks to promote conflict between religious communities. In the
context of a multi-religious country, the phrase “religious nationalism” can come
to acquire a similar meaning. In such a country, any attempt to see a religious
community as a nation would mean sowing the seeds of antagonism against some
other religion/s.
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3.2 The provincial elections of 1937 and

the Congress ministries
In 1937, elections to the provincial legislatures were
The Muslim League
held for the first time. Only about 10 to 12 per cent Initially floated in Dhaka in
of the population enjoyed the right to vote. The 1906, the Muslim League
Congress did well in the elections, winning an was quickly taken over by
absolute majority in five out of eleven provinces and the U.P.-based Muslim elite.
forming governments in seven of them. It did badly The party began to make
demands for autonomy for
in the constituencies reserved for Muslims, but the
the Muslim-majority areas of
Muslim League also fared poorly, polling only 4.4
the subcontinent and/or
per cent of the total Muslim vote cast in this election.
Pakistan in the 1940s.
The League failed to win a single seat in the North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) and could capture
only two out of 84 reserved constituencies in the
Punjab and three out of 33 in Sind.
In the United Provinces, the Muslim League
wanted to form a joint government with the Congress.
The Congress had won an absolute majority in the
province, so it rejected the offer. Some scholars argue
that this rejection convinced the League that if India
remained united, then Muslims would find it difficult
to gain political power because they would remain a
minority. The League assumed, of course, that only
a Muslim party could represent Muslim interests,
and that the Congress was essentially a Hindu party.
But Jinnah’s insistence that the League be
recognised as the “sole spokesman” of Muslims could
convince few at the time. Though popular in the
United Provinces, Bombay and Madras, social
support for the League was still fairly weak in three
of the provinces from which Pakistan was to be carved
out just ten years later – Bengal, the NWFP and the
Punjab. Even in Sind it failed to form a government.
It was from this point onwards that the League
doubled its efforts at expanding its social support.
The Congress ministries also contributed to the
widening rift. In the United Provinces, the party had Hindu Mahasabha
rejected the Muslim League proposal for a coalition Founded in 1915, the Hindu
government partly because the League tended to Mahasabha was a Hindu party
support landlordism, which the Congress wished that remained confined to North
to abolish, although the party had not yet taken any India. It aimed to unite Hindu
concrete steps in that direction. Nor did the Congress society by encouraging the
achieve any substantial gains in the “Muslim mass Hindus to transcend the divisions
contact” programme it launched. In the end, the of caste and sect. It sought
secular and radical rhetoric of the Congress merely to define Hindu identity in
alarmed conservative Muslims and the Muslim landed opposition to Muslim identity.
elite, without winning over the Muslim masses.
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Moreover, while the leading Congress leaders in the

late 1930s insisted more than ever before on the
need for secularism, these ideas were by no means
universally shared lower down in the party
hierarchy, or even by all Congress ministers.
Maulana Azad, an important Congress leader,
pointed out in 1937 that members of the Congress
were not allowed to join the League, yet
Congressmen were active in the Hindu Mahasabha–
at least in the Central Provinces (present-day
Madhya Pradesh). Only in December 1938 did the
Congress Working Committee declare that Congress
members could not be members of the Mahasabha.
Incidentally, this was also the period when the
Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) were gaining strength. The latter
Confederation – in modern spread from its Nagpur base to the United Provinces,
political language it refers to a
the Punjab, and other parts of the country in the
union of fairly autonomous and
1930s. By 1940, the RSS had over 100,000 trained
sovereign states with a central
and highly disciplined cadres pledged to an ideology
government with delimited
of Hindu nationalism, convinced that India was a
powers
land of the Hindus.
3.3 The “Pakistan” Resolution
The Pakistan demand was formalised gradually.
On 23 March 1940, the League moved a resolution
demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-
majority areas of the subcontinent. This ambiguous
resolution never mentioned partition or Pakistan.
In fact Sikandar Hayat Khan, Punjab Premier and
leader of the Unionist Party, who had drafted the
The name “Pakistan” resolution, declared in a Punjab assembly speech
on 1 March 1941 that he was opposed to a Pakistan
The name Pakistan or Pak-stan that would mean “Muslim Raj here and Hindu Raj
(from Punjab, Afghan, Kashmir, elsewhere ... If Pakistan means unalloyed Muslim
Sind and Baluchistan) was Raj in the Punjab then I will have nothing to do with
coined by a Punjabi Muslim
it.” He reiterated his plea for a loose (united),
student at Cambridge, Choudhry
confederation with considerable autonomy for the
Rehmat Ali, who, in pamphlets
confederating units.
written in 1933 and 1935,
desired a separate national The origins of the Pakistan demand have also
status for this new entity. No one been traced back to the Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal,
took Rehmat Ali seriously in the writer of “Sare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan
the 1930s, least of all the League Hamara”. In his presidential address to the Muslim
and other Muslim leaders who League in 1930, the poet spoke of a need for a “North-
dismissed his idea merely as a West Indian Muslim state”. Iqbal, however, was not
student’s dream. visualising the emergence of a new country in that
speech but a reorganisation of Muslim-majority
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Source 4
areas in north-western India into an autonomous
unit within a single, loosely structured Indian The Muslim League
federation. resolution of 1940
3.4 The suddenness of Partition
The League’s resolution of
We have seen that the League itself was vague
1940 demanded:
about its demand in 1940. There was a very short
time – just seven years – between the first formal that geographically contiguous
units are demarcated into
articulation of the demand for a measure of autonomy
regions, which should be
for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent
so constituted, with such
and Partition. No one knew what the creation of territorial readjustments as
Pakistan meant, and how it might shape people’s may be necessary, that the
lives in the future. Many who migrated from their areas in which the Muslims are
homelands in 1947 thought they would return as numerically in a majority as
soon as peace prevailed again. in the north-western and
Initially even Muslim leaders did not seriously eastern zones of India should
raise the demand for Pakistan as a sovereign state. be grouped to constitute
In the beginning Jinnah himself may have seen “Independent States”, in which
the constituent units shall
the Pakistan idea as a bargaining counter, useful
be autonomous and sovereign.
for blocking possible British concessions to the
Congress and gaining additional favours for the
Muslims. The pressure of the Second World War on Ü What was the League
demanding? Was it
the British delayed negotiations for independence
demanding Pakistan as
for some time. Nonetheless, it was the massive Quit
we know it today?
India Movement which started in 1942, and persisted
despite intense repression, that brought the British
Raj to its knees and compelled its officials to open a
dialogue with Indian parties regarding a possible
transfer of power.
3.5 Post-War developments
When negotiations were begun again in l945, the
British agreed to create an entirely Indian central
Executive Council, except for the Viceroy and the
Commander -in-Chief of the armed forces, as a
preliminary step towards full independence.
Discussions about the transfer of power broke down
due to Jinnah’s unrelenting demand that the League
had an absolute right to choose all the Muslim
members of the Executive Council and that there
should be a kind of communal veto in the Council,
with decisions opposed by Muslims needing a two-
thirds majority. Given the existing political situation,
the League’s first demand was quite extraordinary,
for a large section of the nationalist Muslims
supported the Congress (its delegation for these
discussions was headed by Maulana Azad), and in
West Punjab members of the Unionist Party were
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Fig. 14.6 largely Muslims. The British had no intention of

Mahatma Gandhi with Mohammad annoying the Unionists who still controlled the
Ali Jinnah before a meeting with the
Punjab government and had been consistently loyal
Viceroy in November 1939
to the British.
Provincial elections were again held in 1946. The
Congress swept the general constituencies, capturing
91.3 per cent of the non-Muslim vote. The League’s
success in the seats reserved for Muslims was equally
spectacular: it won all 30 reserved constituencies in
the Centre with 86.6 per cent of the Muslim vote and
442 out of 509 seats in the provinces. Only as late as
Unionist Party 1946, therefore, did the League establish itself as the
dominant party among Muslim voters, seeking to
A political party representing vindicate its claim to be the “sole spokesman” of
the interests of landholders – India’s Muslims. You will, however, recall that the
Hindu, Muslim and Sikh – in
franchise was extremely limited. About 10 to 12 per
the Punjab. The party was
cent of the population enjoyed the right to vote in the
particularly powerful during
provincial elections and a mere one per cent in the
the period 1923-47.
elections for the Central Assembly.
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FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION 425
to power the Centre would not interfere. After

Partition most nationalists changed their position Ü Discuss...
because they felt that the earlier political pressures What different arguments
for a decentralised structure were no longer there. were put forward by those
There was already a unitary system in place, advocating a strong Centre?
imposed by the colonial government. The violence of
the times gave a further push to centralisation, now
seen as necessary both to forestall chaos and to
plan for the country’s economic development. The
Constitution thus showed a distinct bias towards
the rights of the Union of India over those of its
constituent states.
5. The Language of the Nation

How could the nation be forged when people in different
regions spoke different languages, each associated Source 10
with its own cultural heritage? How could people listen What should the
to each other, or connect with each other, if they did not
qualities of a national
know each other’s language? Within the Constituent
Assembly, the language issue was debated over many language be ?
months, and often generated intense arguments.
By the 1930s, the Congress had accepted that A few months before his death
Mahatma Gandhi reiterated
Hindustani ought to be the national language.
his views on the language
Mahatma Gandhi felt that everyone should speak in a
question:
language that common people could easily understand.
Hindustani – a blend of Hindi and Urdu – was a popular This Hindustani should be
language of a large section of the people of India, and neither Sanskritised Hindi
nor Persianised Urdu but
it was a composite language enriched by the interaction
a happy combination of
of diverse cultures. Over the years it had incorporated both. It should also freely
words and terms from very many different sources, admit words wherever
and was therefore understood by people from various necessary from the different
regions. This multi-cultural language, Mahatma regional languages and
Gandhi thought, would be the ideal language of also assimilate words from
communication between diverse communities: it could foreign languages, provided
unify Hindus and Muslims, and people of the north that they can mix well and
and the south. easily with our national
From the end of the nineteenth century, however, language. Thus our national
language must develop
Hindustani as a language had been gradually
into a rich and powerful
changing. As communal conflicts deepened, Hindi and instrument capable of
Urdu also started growing apart. On the one hand, expressing the whole gamut
there was a move to Sanskritise Hindi, purging it of of human thought and
all words of Persian and Arabic origin. On the other feelings. To confine oneself
hand, Urdu was being increasingly Persianised. As to Hindi or Urdu would be
a consequence, language became associated with the a crime against intelligence
politics of religious identities. Mahatma Gandhi, and the spirit of patriotism.
however, retained his faith in the composite character H ARIJANSEVAK, 12 O CTOBER 1947
of Hindustani.
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5.1 A plea for Hindi

In one of the earliest sessions of the Constituent
Assembly, R. V. Dhulekar, a Congressman from the
United Provinces, made an aggressive plea that Hindi
be used as the language of constitution-making. When
told that not everyone in the Assembly knew the
language, Dhulekar retorted: “People who are present
in this House to fashion a constitution for India and
do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members
of this Assembly. They better leave.” As the House broke
up in commotion over these remarks, Dhulekar
proceeded with his speech in Hindi. On this occasion
peace in the House was restored through Jawaharlal
Nehru’s intervention, but the language issue continued
to disrupt proceedings and agitate members over the
subsequent three years.
Almost three years later, on 12 September 1947,
Dhulekar’s speech on the language of the nation once
again sparked off a huge storm. By now the Language
Committee of the Constituent Assembly had produced
its report and had thought of a compromise formula
to resolve the deadlock between those who advocated
Hindi as the national language and those who opposed
it. It had decided, but not yet formally declared, that
Hindi in the Devanagari script would be the official
language, but the transition to Hindi would be gradual.
For the first fifteen years, English would continue to
be used for all official purposes. Each province was to
be allowed to choose one of the regional languages for
official work within the province. By referring to Hindi
as the official rather that the national language,
the Language Committee of the Constituent Assembly
hoped to placate ruffled emotions and arrive at a
solution that would be acceptable to all.
Dhulekar was not one who liked such an attitude of
reconciliation. He wanted Hindi to be declared not
an Official Language, but a National Language. He
attacked those who protested that Hindi was being
forced on the nation, and mocked at those who said,
in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, that Hindustani
rather than Hindi ought to be the national language.
Sir, nobody can be more happy than myself that
Hindi has become the official language of the
country … Some say that it is a concession to
Hindi language. I say “no”. It is a consummation
of a historic process.
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3.7 Towards Partition Fig. 14.8

After withdrawing its support to the Cabinet Mission Rioters armed with iron rods and
lathis on the streets of Calcutta,
plan, the Muslim League decided on “Direct Action”
August 1946
for winning its Pakistan demand. It announced
16 August 1946 as “Direct Action Day”. On this day,
riots broke out in Calcutta, lasting several days and
leaving several thousand people dead. By March 1947
violence spread to many parts of northern India.
It was in March 1947 that the Congress high
command voted for dividing the Punjab into two
halves, one with Muslim majority and the other
with Hindu/Sikh majority; and it asked for the
application of a similar principle to Bengal. By this
time, given the numbers game, many Sikh leaders
and Congressmen in the Punjab were convinced that
Partition was a necessary evil, otherwise they would
be swamped by Muslim majorities and Muslim
leaders would dictate terms. In Bengal too a section
of bhadralok Bengali Hindus, who wanted political Ü Discuss...
power to remain with them, began to fear the It is evident from a reading
“permanent tutelage of Muslims” (as one of their of section 3 that a number of
leaders put it). Since they were in a numerical factors led to Partition. Which
minority, they felt that only a division of the of these do you think were the
province could ensure their political dominance. most important and why?
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4. The Withdrawal of Law and

Order
Fig. 14.9
Through those blood-soaked months
of 1946, violence and arson spread,
killing thousands.
The bloodbath continued for about a year from

March 1947 onwards. One main reason for this
was the collapse of the institutions of governance.
Source 6 Penderel Moon, an administrator serving in
Bahawalpur (in present-day Pakistan) at the time,
“Without a shot noted how the police failed to fire even a single
being fired” shot when arson and killings were taking place in
Amritsar in March 1947.
This is what Moon wrote: Amritsar district became the scene of bloodshed
For over twenty-four later in the year when there was a complete
hours riotous mobs were breakdown of authority in the city. British officials
allowed to rage through did not know how to handle the situation: they were
this great commercial unwilling to take decisions, and hesitant to
city unchallenged and intervene. When panic-stricken people appealed for
unchecked. The finest help, British officials asked them to contact
bazaars were burnt to the
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabh Bhai
ground without a shot
being fired to disperse
Patel or M.A. Jinnah. Nobody knew who could
the incendiaries (i.e. those exercise authority and power. The top leadership of
who stirred up conflict). The the Indian parties, barring Mahatma Gandhi, were
… District Magistrate involved in negotiations regarding independence
marched his (large police) while many Indian civil servants in the affected
force into the city and provinces feared for their own lives and property.
marched it out again The British were busy preparing to quit India.
without making any Problems were compounded because Indian
effective use of it at all … soldiers and policemen came to act as Hindus,
Muslims or Sikhs. As communal tension mounted,
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the professional commitment of those in uniform

could not be relied upon. In many places not only
did policemen help their co-religionists but they also
attacked members of other communities.
4.1 The one-man army
Amidst all this turmoil, one man’s valiant efforts
at restoring communal harmony bore fruit. The
77-year -old Gandhiji decided to stake his all in a
bid to vindicate his lifelong principle of non-violence,
and his conviction that people’s hearts could be
changed. He moved from the villages of Noakhali in
East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) to the villages
of Bihar and then to the riot-torn slums of Calcutta
and Delhi, in a heroic effort to stop Hindus and
Muslims kill each other, careful everywhere to
reassure the minority community. In October 1946,
Muslims in East Bengal targeted Hindus. Gandhiji
visited the area, toured the villages on foot, and
persuaded the local Muslims to guarantee the safety Fig. 14.10
of Hindus. Similarly, in other places such as Delhi Villagers of Noakhali hope for a
he tried to build a spirit of mutual trust and glimpse of Mahatma Gandhi
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confidence between the two

communities. A Delhi Muslim,
Shahid Ahmad Dehlavi, compelled
to flee to a dirty, overcrowded
camp in Purana Qila, likened
Gandhiji’s arrival in Delhi on
9 September 1947 to “the arrival
of the rains after a particularly
long and harsh summer”. Dehlavi
recalled in his memoir how
Muslims said to one another:
“Delhi will now be saved”.
On 28 November 1947, on
the occasion of Guru Nanak’s
birthday, when Gandhiji went to
address a meeting of Sikhs at
Fig. 14.11 Gurdwara Sisganj, he noticed that there was no
Villagers of a riot-torn village Muslim on the Chandni Chowk road, the heart of
awaiting the arrival of Mahatma old Delhi. “What could be more shameful for us,”
Gandhi
he asked during a speech that evening, “than the
fact that not a single Muslim could be found in
Chandni Chowk?” Gandhiji continued to be in Delhi,
fighting the mentality of those who wished to drive
out every Muslim from the city, seeing them as
Pakistani. When he began a fast to bring about a
change of heart, amazingly, many Hindu and Sikh
migrants fasted with him.
Ü Discuss... The effect of the fast was “electric”, wrote Maulana
What did the British do to
Azad. People began realising the folly of the violence
maintain peace when they
they had unleashed on the city’s Muslims but it was
were quitting India? And
only Gandhiji’s martyrdom that finally ended this
what did Mahatma Gandhi do
macabre drama of violence. “The world veritably
in those trying times?
changed,” many Delhi Muslims of the time recalled later.
5. Gendering Partition
5.1 “Recovering” women
In the last decade and a half, historians have been
examining the experiences of ordinary people during
the Partition. Scholars have written about the
harrowing experiences of women in those violent
times. Women were raped, abducted, sold, often many
times over, forced to settle down to a new life
with strangers in unknown circumstances. Deeply
traumatised by all that they had undergone, some
began to develop new family bonds in their changed
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circumstances. But the Indian and Pakistani

governments were insensitive to the complexities of
human relationships. Believing the women to be on
the wrong side of the border, they now tore them
away from their new relatives, and sent them back
to their earlier families or locations. They did not
consult the concerned women, undermining their
right to take decisions regarding their own lives.
According to one estimate, 30,000 women were
“recovered” overall, 22,000 Muslim women in India
and 8000 Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan, in an
operation that ended as late as 1954.
Source 7
What “recovering” women meant

Fig. 14.12
Here is the experience of a couple, recounted by Prakash Women console each other as they
hear of the death of their family
Tandon in his Punjabi Century, an autobiographical social
members.
history of colonial Punjab:
Males died in larger numbers
In one instance, a Sikh youth who had run amuck in the violence of rioting.
during the Partition persuaded a massacring crowd
to let him take away a young, beautiful Muslim girl.
They got married, and slowly fell in love with each
other. Gradually memories of her parents, who had
been killed, and her former life faded. They were
happy together, and a little boy was born. Soon,
however, social workers and the police, labouring
assiduously to recover abducted women, began to
track down the couple. They made inquiries in the
Sikh’s home-district of Jalandhar; he got scent of it
and the family ran away to Calcutta. The social
workers reached Calcutta. Meanwhile, the couple’s
friends tried to obtain a stay-order from the court
but the law was taking its ponderous course. From
Calcutta the couple escaped to some obscure Punjab
village, hoping that the police would fail to shadow
them. But the police caught up with them and began
to question them. His wife was expecting again and
now nearing her time. The Sikh sent the little boy to
his mother and took his wife to a sugar-cane field. He
made her as comfortable as he could in a pit while he
lay with a gun, waiting for the police, determined not
to lose her while he was alive. In the pit he delivered
her with his own hands. The next day she ran high
fever, and in three days she was dead. He had not
dared to take her to the hospital. He was so afraid the
social workers and the police would take her away.
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5.2 Preserving “honour”

Scholars have also shown how ideas of preserving
community honour came into play in this period of
extreme physical and psychological danger. This notion
of honour drew upon a conception of masculinity
defined as ownership of zan (women) and zamin (land),
a notion of considerable antiquity in North Indian
peasant societies. Virility, it was believed, lay in the
ability to protect your possessions – zan and zamin –
from being appropriated by outsiders. And quite
frequently, conflict ensued over these two prime
“possessions”. Often enough, women internalised the
same values.
At times, therefore, when the men feared that
“their” women – wives, daughters, sisters – would
be violated by the “enemy”, they killed the women
themselves. Urvashi Butalia in her book, The Other
Side of Silence, narrates one such gruesome incident
in the village of Thoa Khalsa, Rawalpindi district.
During Partition, in this Sikh village, ninety women
are said to have “voluntarily” jumped into a well
rather than fall into “enemy” hands. The migrant
refugees from this village still commemorate the
event at a gurdwara in Delhi, referring to the deaths
as martyrdom, not suicide. They believe that men
at that time had to courageously accept the decision
of women, and in some cases even persuade the
women to kill themselves. On 13 March every year,
when their “martyrdom” is celebrated, the incident
is recounted to an audience of men, women and
children. Women are exhorted to remember the
sacrifice and bravery of their sisters and to cast
themselves in the same mould.
For the community of survivors, the remembrance
ritual helps keep the memory alive. What such rituals
do not seek to remember, however, are the stories of
all those who did not wish to die, and had to end
their lives against their will.
Ü Discuss...
What ideas led to the death and suffering of so
many innocent women during the Partition?
Why did the Indian and Pakistani governments
agree to exchange “their” women?
Do you think they were right in doing so?
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6. Regional Variations
The experiences of ordinary people we have been
discussing so far relate to the north-western part
of the subcontinent. What was the Partition like in
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Central India and the
Deccan? While carnages occurred in Calcutta and
Noakhali in 1946, the Partition was most bloody
and destructive in the Punjab. The near -total
displacement of Hindus and Sikhs eastwards into India
from West Punjab and of almost all Punjabi-speaking
Muslims to Pakistan happened in a relatively short
period of two years between 1946 and 1948.
Many Muslim families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Madhya Pradesh and Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh
continued to migrate to Pakistan through the 1950s
and early 1960s, although many chose to remain in
India. Most of these Urdu-speaking people, known as
muhajirs (migrants) in Pakistan moved to the Karachi-
Hyderabad region in Sind.
In Bengal the migration was even more protracted,
with people moving across a porous border. This also
meant that the Bengali division produced a process of
suffering that may have been less concentrated but
was as agonising. Furthermore, unlike the Punjab, the
exchange of population in Bengal was not near-total.
Fig. 14.13
Many Bengali Hindus remained in East Pakistan while
Faces of despair
many Bengali Muslims continued to live in West Bengal. A massive refugee camp was
Finally, Bengali Muslims (East Pakistanis) rejected set up in Purana Qila in 1947
Jinnah’s two-nation theory through political action, as migrants came pouring in
breaking away from Pakistan and creating Bangladesh from different places.
in 1971-72. A common
religion could not hold East
and West Pakistan together.
There is, however, a huge
similarity between the Punjab
and Bengal experiences. In
both these states, women and
girls became prime targets
of persecution. Attackers
treated women’s bodies as
territory to be conquered.
Dishonouring women of
a community was seen as
dishonouring the community
itself, and a mode of taking
revenge.
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Fiction, Poetry, Films

Are you familiar with any short stories, novels, poems or films
about Partition? More often than not, Partition literature and
films represent this cataclysmic event in more insightful ways
than do the works of historians. They seek to understand mass
suffering and pain by focusing on an individual protagonist or
small groups of ordinary people whose destinies were shaped
by a big event over which they seemed to have no control.
They record the anguish and the ambiguities of the times, the
incomprehensible choices that many were confronted with.
They register a sense of shock and bewilderment at the scale
and magnitude of the violence, at human debasement and
depravity. They also speak of hope and of the ways in which
people overcame adversity.
Saadat Hasan Manto, a particularly gifted Urdu short-story

writer, has this to say about his work:
For a long time I refused to accept the consequences of
the revolution which was set off by the partition of the
country. I still feel the same way; but I suppose, in the end,
I came to accept this nightmarish reality without self-pity
or despair. In the process I tried to retrieve from this man-
made sea of blood, pearls of a rare hue, by writing about
the single-minded dedication with which men had killed
men, about the remorse felt by some of them, about the
tears shed by murderers who could not understand why
they still had some human feelings left. All this and more, I
put in my book, Siyah Hashiye (Black Margins).
Partition literature and films exist in many languages, notably

in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali, Assamese and
English. You may want to read writers such as Manto,
Rajinder Singh Bedi (Urdu), Intizar Husain (Urdu), Bhisham
Sahni (Hindi), Kamaleshwar (Hindi), Rahi Masoom Raza
(Hindi), Narain Bharati (Sindhi), Sant Singh Sikhon
(Punjabi), Narendranath Mitra (Bengali), Syed Waliullah
(Bengali), Lalithambika Antharjanam (Malayalam), Amitav
Ü Discuss... Ghosh (English) and Bapsi Sidhwa (English). Amrita Pritam,
Was your state or any Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Dinesh Das have written memorable
neighbouring state poems on Partition in Punjabi, Urdu and Bengali respectively.
affected by Partition? You may also want to see films directed by Ritwik Ghatak
Find out how it (Meghe Dhaka Tara and Subarnarekha), M.S. Sathyu (Garam
affected the lives of Hawa ), Govind Nihalani ( Tamas ), and a play, Jis Lahore
men and women in Nahin Vekhya O Jamya-e-nai (He Who Has Not Seen
the region and how Lahore, Has Not Been Born) directed by Habib Tanvir.
they coped with the
situation.
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7. Help, Humanity, Harmony Source 8

Buried under the debris of the violence and pain of
A small basket of grapes
Partition is an enormous history of help, humanity
and harmony. Many narratives such as Abdul Latif’s
poignant testimony, with which we began, reveal This is what Khushdeva Singh
this. Historians have discovered numerous stories writes about his experience
of how people helped each other during the Partition during one of his visits to Karachi
period, stories of caring and sharing, of the opening in 1949:
of new opportunities, and of triumph over trauma. My friends took me to a
Consider, for instance, the work of Khushdeva room at the airport where
Singh, a Sikh doctor specialising in the treatment we all sat down and talked
of tuberculosis, posted at Dharampur in present- … (and) had lunch
day Himachal Pradesh. Immersing himself in his together. I had to travel
work day and night, the doctor provided that rare from Karachi to London …
healing touch, food, shelter, love and security to at 2.30 a.m. … At 5.00 p.m.
numerous migrants, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu alike. The … I told my friends that they
residents of Dharampur developed the kind of faith had given me so generously
and confidence in his humanity and generosity that of their time, I thought it
the Delhi Muslims and others had in Gandhiji. One would be too much for
them to wait the whole
of them, Muhammad Umar, wrote to Khushdeva
night and suggested they
Singh: “With great humility I beg to state that I do
must spare themselves the
not feel myself safe except under your protection.
trouble. But nobody left
Therefore, in all kindness, be good enough to grant until it was dinner time …
me a seat in your hospital.” Then they said they were
We know about the gruelling relief work of this leaving and that I must
doctor from a memoir he entitled Love is Stronger have a little rest before
than Hate: A Remembrance of 1947. Here, Singh emplaning. … I got up at
describes his work as “humble efforts I made to about 1.45 a.m. and, when
discharge my duty as a human being to fellow human I opened the door, I saw that
beings”. He speaks most warmly of two short visits all of them were still there …
to Karachi in 1949. Old friends and those whom he They all accompanied me
to the plane, and, before
parting, presented me with
a small basket of grapes. I
had no words to express
my gratitude for the
overwhelming affection
with which I was treated
and the happiness this
stopover had given me.
Fig. 14.14
The refugee camps everywhere
overflowed with people who needed
not just food and shelter, but also
love and compassion.
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had helped at Dharampur spent a few memorable

Ü Discuss... hours with him at Karachi airport. Six police
Find out more about ways in constables, earlier acquaintances, walked him to the
which people supported one plane, saluting him as he entered it. “I acknowledged
another and saved lives (the salute) with folded hands and tears in my eyes.”
during Partition.
8. Oral Testimonies and History
Have you taken note of the materials from which the
history of Partition has been constructed in this
chapter? Oral narratives, memoirs, diaries, family
histories, first-hand written accounts – all these help
us understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary
people during the partition of the country. Millions
of people viewed Partition in terms of the suffering
and the challenges of the times. For them, it was no
mere constitutional division or just the party politics
of the Muslim League, Congress and others. For them,
it meant the unexpected alterations in life as it
unfolded between 1946 and 1950 and beyond,
requiring psychological, emotional and social
adjustments. As with the Holocaust in Germany, we
should understand Partition not simply as a political
event, but also through the meanings attached to it
by those who lived it. Memories and experiences
shape the reality of an event.
One of the strengths of personal reminiscence –
one type of oral source – is that it helps us grasp
experiences and memories in detail. It enables
historians to write richly textured, vivid accounts
of what happened to people during events such as
Partition. It is impossible to extract this kind of
information from government documents. The
latter deal with policy and party matters and
various state-sponsored schemes. In the case of
Partition, government reports and files as well as
the personal writings of its high-level functionaries
throw ample light on negotiations between the
British and the major political parties about the
future of India or on the rehabilitation of refugees.
They tell us little, however, about the day-to-day
experiences of those affected by the government’s
decision to divide the country.
Oral history also allows historians to broaden the
boundaries of their discipline by rescuing from
oblivion the lived experiences of the poor and the
powerless: those of, say, Abdul Latif’s father; the
women of Thoa Khalsa; the refugee who retailed
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wheat at wholesale prices, eking out a paltry living by

selling the gunny bags in which the wheat came; a
middle-class Bengali widow bent double over road-laying
work in Bihar; a Peshawari trader who thought it was
wonderful to land a petty job in Cuttack upon migrating
to India but asked: “Where is Cuttack, is it on the upper
side of Hindustan or the lower; we haven’t quite heard
of it before in Peshawar?”
Thus, moving beyond the actions of the well off and
the well known, the oral history of Partition has
succeeded in exploring the experiences of those men
and women whose existence has hitherto been ignored,
taken for granted, or mentioned only in passing in
mainstream history. This is significant because the
histories that we read often regard the life and work
of the mass of the people in the past as inaccessible
or unimportant.
Yet, many historians still remain sceptical of oral
history. They dismiss it because oral data seem to lack
concreteness and the chronology they yield may be
imprecise. Historians argue that the uniqueness of
personal experience makes generalisation difficult: a large
picture cannot be built from such micro-evidence, and
one witness is no witness. They also think oral accounts
are concerned with tangential issues, and that the small
individual experiences which remain in memory are
irrelevant to the unfolding of larger processes of history.
However, with regard to events such as the Partition
in India and the Holocaust in Germany, there is no dearth
of testimony about the different forms of distress that
numerous people faced. So, there is ample evidence to
figure out trends, to point out exceptions. By comparing
statements, oral or written, by corroborating what
they yield with findings from other sources, and by being
vigilant about internal contradictions, historians can
weigh the reliability of a given piece of evidence.
Furthermore, if history has to accord presence to the
ordinary and powerless, then the oral history of Partition
is not concerned with tangential matters. The
experiences it relates are central to the story, so much
so that oral sources should be used to check other sources
and vice versa. Different types of sources have to be
tapped for answering different types of questions.
Government reports, for instance, will tell us of the
number of “recovered” women exchanged by the Indian
and Pakistani states but it is the women who will tell
us about their suffering.
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We must realise, however, that oral data on Partition are

not automatically or easily available. They have to be
obtained through interviews that need to combine empathy
with tact. In this context, one of the first difficulties is
that protagonists may not want to talk about intensely
personal experiences. Why, for instance, would a woman
who has been raped want to disclose her tragedy to a
total stranger? Interviewers have to often avoid enquiring
into personal traumas. They have to build considerable
rapport with respondents before they can obtain in-depth
and meaningful data. Then, there are problems of memory.
What people remember or forget about an event when they
are interviewed a few decades later will depend in part
on their experiences of the intervening years and on what
has happened to their communities and nations during
those years. The oral historian faces the daunting task of
having to sift the “actual” experiences of Partition from a
web of “constructed” memories.
In the final analysis, many different kinds of source
materials have to be used to construct a comprehensive
Fig. 14.15 account of Partition, so that we see it not only as an
Not everyone could travel by event and process, but also understand the experiences
cart, not everyone could walk... of those who lived through those traumatic times.
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timeline
1930 The Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal speaks of the need for a
“North-West Indian Muslim state” as an autonomous unit
within a single, loose Indian federation
1933 The name Pakistan or Pak-stan is coined by a Punjabi Muslim
student at Cambridge, Choudhry Rehmat Ali
1937-39 Congress ministries come to power in seven out of 11 provinces
of British India
1940 The Muslim League moves a resolution at Lahore demanding a
measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas
1946 Elections are held in the provinces. The Congress wins massively
in the general constituencies. The League’s success in the Muslim
seats is equally spectacular
March to June The British Cabinet sends a three-member Cabinet Mission
to Delhi
August The Muslim League decides on “Direct Action” for winning Pakistan
16 August Violence breaks out between Hindus-Sikhs and Muslims in Calcutta,
lasting several days and leaving several thousand people dead
March 1947 The Congress high command votes for dividing the Punjab into
Muslim-majority and Hindu/Sikh-majority halves and asks for
the application of a similar principle to Bengal; the British
begin to quit India
14-15 August Pakistan is formed; India gains independence. Mahatma Gandhi
1947 tours Noakhali in East Bengal to restore communal harmony
1. What did the Muslim League demand through its resolution

of 1940?
2. Why did some people think of Partition as a very sudden
development?
3. How did ordinary people view Partition?
4. What were Mahatma Gandhi’s arguments against Partition?
5. Why is Partition viewed as an extremely significant marker
in South Asian history?
2019-2020
Write a short essay

more, read:
6. Why was British India partitioned?
Jasodhara Bagchi and
Subhoranjan Dasgupta (eds.). 2003. 7. How did women experience Partition?
The Trauma and the Triumph: 8. How did the Congress come to change its views
Gender and Partition in
on Partition?
Eastern India .
Stree, Kolkata. 9. Examine the strengths and limitations of oral
history. How have oral-history techniques
Alok Bhalla (ed.). 1994. furthered our understanding of Partition?
Stories About the Partition of India,
Vols. I, II, III.
Indus (Harper Collins), New Delhi.
Urvashi Butalia. 1998.

Map work
The Other Side of Silence:
Voices from the Partition of India. 10. On an outline map of South Asia, mark out
Viking (Penguin Books), Sections A, B and C of the Cabinet Mission
New Delhi. proposals. How is this map different from the
political map of present-day South Asia?
Mushirul Hasan, ed. 1996
India’s Partition .
Oxford University Press,
New Delhi. Project (choose one)
Gyanendra Pandey. 2001.

11. Find out about the ethnic violence that led to
Remembering Partition:
the partition of Yugoslavia. Compare your
Violence, Nationalism and
findings with what you have read about Partition
History in India.
Cambridge University Press, in this chapter.
Cambridge. 12. Find out whether there are any communities
that have migrated to your city, town, village or
Anita Inder Singh. 2006. any near-by place. (Your area may even have
The Partition of India . people who migrated to it during Partition.)
National Book Trust, New Delhi.
Interview members of such communities and
summarise your findings in a report. Ask people
about the place they came from, the reasons for
their migration, and their experiences. Also find
out what changes the area witnessed as a result
of this migration.
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THEME
Framing the Constitution
The Beginning of a N
Nee w Er
Eraa
FIFTEEN
The Indian Constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950,

has the dubious distinction of being the longest in the world. But
its length and complexity are perhaps understandable when one
considers the country’s size and diversity. At Independence, India
was not merely large and diverse, but also deeply divided.
A Constitution designed to keep the country together, and to take it
forward, had necessarily to be an elaborate, carefully-worked-out,
and painstakingly drafted document. For one thing, it sought to
heal wounds of the past and the present, to make Indians of different
classes, castes and communities come together in a shared political
experiment. For another, it sought to nurture democratic institutions
in what had long been a culture of hierarchy and deference.
The Constitution of India was framed between December 1946
and November 1949. During this time its drafts were discussed clause
by clause in the Constituent Assembly of India. In all, the Assembly
Fig. 15.1
The Constitution was signed in December 1949 after three years of debate.
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held eleven sessions, with sittings spread over 165 days. In

between the sessions, the work of revising and refining the drafts
was carried out by various committees and sub-committees.
From your political science textbooks you know what the
Constitution of India is, and you have seen how it has worked
over the decades since Independence. This chapter will introduce
you to the history that lies behind the Constitution, and the
intense debates that were part of its making. If we try and hear
the voices within the Constituent Assembly, we get an idea of the
process through which the Constitution was framed and the vision
of the new nation formulated.
1. A Tumultuous Time
The years immediately preceding the making of the
Constitution had been exceptionally tumultuous: a
time of great hope, but also of abject disappointment.
On 15 August 1947, India had been made free, but it
had also been divided. Fresh in popular memory were
the Quit India struggle of 1942 – perhaps the most
widespread popular movement against the British
Raj – as well as the bid by Subhas Chandra Bose to
win freedom through armed struggle with foreign aid.
An even more recent upsurge had also evoked much
popular sympathy – this was the rising of the ratings
of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay and other cities
in the spring of 1946. Through the late 1940s there
were periodic, if scattered, mass protests of workers
and peasants in different parts of the country.
Fig. 15.2 One striking feature of these popular upsurges was
Images of desolation and destruction the degree of Hindu-Muslim unity they manifested.
continued to haunt members of the In contrast, the two leading Indian political parties, the
Constituent Assembly. Congress and the Muslim League, had repeatedly failed
to arrive at a settlement that would bring about religious
reconciliation and social harmony. The Great Calcutta
Killings of August 1946 began a year of almost
continuous rioting across northern and eastern India
(see Chapters 13 and 14). The violence culminated
in the massacres that accompanied the transfer of
populations when the Partition of India was announced.
On Independence Day, 15 August 1947, there was
an outburst of joy and hope, unforgettable for those
who lived through that time. But innumerable
Muslims in India, and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan,
were now faced with a cruel choice – the threat of
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Fig. 15.3
Jawaharlal Nehru speaking in the
Constituent Assembly at midnight
on14 August 1947
It was on this day that Nehru gave
his famous speech that began with
the following lines:
“Long years ago we made a tryst
with destiny, and now the time
comes when we shall redeem our
pledge, not wholly or in full
measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of the midnight hour,
when the world sleeps, India will
awake to life and freedom.”
sudden death or the squeezing of opportunities on
the one side, and a forcible tearing away from
their age-old roots on the other. Millions of refugees
were on the move, Muslims into East and West
Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs into West Bengal and
the eastern half of the Punjab. Many perished
before they reached their destination.
Another, and scarcely less serious, problem faced
by the new nation was that of the princely states.
During the period of the Raj, approximately one-third
of the area of the subcontinent was under the control
of nawabs and maharajas who owed allegiance to
the British Crown, but were otherwise left mostly
free to rule – or misrule – their territory as they
wished. When the British left India, the constitutional
status of these princes remained ambiguous. As one
contemporary observer remarked, some maharajas
now began “to luxuriate in wild dreams of independent
power in an India of many partitions”.
This was the background in which the
Constituent Assembly met. How could the debates
within the Assembly remain insulated from what
was happening outside?
1.1 The making of the Constituent Assembly
The members of the Constituent Assembly were not
elected on the basis of universal franchise. In the
winter of 1945-46 provincial elections were held in
India. The Provincial Legislatures then chose the
representatives to the Constituent Assembly.
The Constituent Assembly that came into being
was dominated by one party: the Congress. The
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Congress swept the general seats in the provincial

elections, and the Muslim League captured most of
the reserved Muslim seats. But the League chose to
boycott the Constituent Assembly, pressing its
demand for Pakistan with a separate constitution.
The Socialists too were initially unwilling to join,
for they believed the Constituent Assembly was a
creation of the British, and therefore incapable of being
truly autonomous. In effect, therefore, 82 per cent
of the members of the Constituent Assembly were
also members of the Congress.
The Congress however was not a party with one
voice. Its members differed in their opinion on critical
issues. Some members were inspired by socialism
while others were defenders of landlordism. Some
were close to communal parties while others were
assertively secular. Through the national movement
Congress members had learnt to debate their ideas
in public and negotiate their differences. Within the
Constituent Assembly too, Congress members did not
sit quiet.
The discussions within the Constituent Assembly
Fig. 15.4
The Constituent Assembly in were also influenced by the opinions expressed by
session the public. As the deliberations continued, the
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel is seen arguments were reported in newspapers, and the
sitting second from right. proposals were publicly debated. Criticisms and
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counter-criticisms in the press in turn shaped the

nature of the consensus that was ultimately
reached on specific issues. In order to create a sense
of collective participation the public was also asked
to send in their views on what needed to be done.
Many of the linguistic minorities wanted the
protection of their mother tongue, religious
minorities asked for special safeguards, while dalits
demanded an end to all caste oppression and
reservation of seats in government bodies. Important
issues of cultural rights and social justice raised
in these public discussions were debated on the floor
of the Assembly.
1.2 The dominant voices
The Constituent Assembly had 300 members. Of these,
six members played particularly important roles.
Three were representatives of the Congress, namely,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabh Bhai Patel and Rajendra
Prasad. It was Nehru who moved the crucial
“Objectives Resolution”, as well as the resolution
proposing that the National Flag of India be a
“horizontal tricolour of saffron, white and dark
green in equal proportion”, with a wheel in navy
blue at the centre. Patel, on the other hand, worked
mostly behind the scenes, playing a key role in the
drafting of several reports, and working to reconcile
opposing points of view. Rajendra Prasad’s role was
as President of the Assembly, where he had to steer
the discussion along constructive lines while
making sure all members had a chance to speak.
Besides this Congress trio, a very important member
of the Assembly was the lawyer and economist B.R.
Ambedkar. During the period of British rule,
Ambedkar had been a political opponent of the
Congress; but, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi,
he was asked at Independence to join the Union
Cabinet as law minister. In this capacity, he served
as Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the
Constitution. Serving with him were two other
lawyers, K.M. Munshi from Gujarat and Alladi
Krishnaswamy Aiyar from Madras, both of whom
gave crucial inputs in the drafting of the Constitution.
These six members were given vital assistance by
two civil servants. One was B. N. Rau, Constitutional
Advisor to the Government of India, who prepared
a series of background papers based on a close study
of the political systems obtaining in other countries.
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The other was the Chief Draughtsman, S. N. Mukherjee,

who had the ability to put complex proposals in clear
legal language.
Ambedkar himself had the responsibility of
guiding the Draft Constitution through the Assembly.
This took three years in all, with the printed record
of the discussions taking up eleven bulky volumes.
But while the process was long it was also extremely
interesting. The members of the Constituent Assembly
were eloquent in expressing their sometimes very
divergent points of view. In their presentations we
can discern many conflicting ideas of India – of what
language Indians should speak, of what political and
economic systems the nation should follow, of what
moral values its citizens should uphold or disavow.
Ü Discuss...
Fig. 15.5 Look again at Chapters 13 and 14. Discuss how the
B. R. Ambedkar presiding over a political situation of the time may have shaped the
discussion of the Hindu Code Bill nature of the debates within the Constituent Assembly.
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2. The Vision of the Constitution

On 13 December 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru introduced
the “Objectives Resolution” in the Constituent
Assembly. It was a momentous resolution that
outlined the defining ideals of the Constitution of
Independent India, and provided the framework
within which the work of constitution-making was
to proceed. It proclaimed India to be an “Independent
Sovereign Republic”, guaranteed its citizens justice,
equality and freedom, and assured that “adequate
safeguards shall be provided for minorities, backward
and tribal areas, and Depressed and Other Backward
Classes … ” After outlining these objectives, Nehru
placed the Indian experiment in a broad historical
perspective. As he spoke, he said, his mind went
back to the historic efforts in the past to produce
such documents of rights.
Source 1
“We are not going just to copy”
This is what Jawaharlal Nehru said in his famous speech of

13 December 1946:
My mind goes back to the various Constituent Assemblies that
have gone before and of what took place at the making of the
great American nation when the fathers of that nation met and
fashioned out a Constitution which has stood the test of so many
years, more than a century and a half, and of the great nation
which has resulted, which has been built up on the basis of that
Constitution. My mind goes back to that mighty revolution which
took place also over 150 years ago and to that Constituent
Assembly that met in that gracious and lovely city of Paris which
has fought so many battles for freedom, to the difficulties that
that Constituent Assembly had and to how the King and other
authorities came in its way, and still it continued. The House will
remember that when these difficulties came and even the room
for a meeting was denied to the then Constituent Assembly, they
betook themselves to an open tennis court and met there and
took the oath, which is called the Oath of the Tennis Court, that
they continued meeting in spite of Kings, in spite of the others,
and did not disperse till they had finished the task they had
undertaken. Well, I trust that it is in that solemn spirit that we
too are meeting here and that we, too, whether we meet in
this chamber or other chambers, or in the fields or in the
market-place, will go on meeting and continue our work till
we have finished it.
contd
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Source 1 (contd)
Then my mind goes back to a more recent revolution which gave rise to a new
type of State, the revolution that took place in Russia and out of which has arisen
the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, another mighty country which is
playing a tremendous part in the world, not only a mighty country but for us in
India, a neighbouring country.
So our mind goes back to these great examples and we seek to learn from their
success and to avoid their failures. Perhaps we may not be able to avoid failures
because some measure of failure is inherent in human effort. Nevertheless, we
shall advance, I am certain, in spite of obstructions and difficulties, and achieve
and realise the dream that we have dreamt so long …
We say that it is our firm and solemn resolve to have an independent sovereign
republic. India is bound to be sovereign, it is bound to be independent and it is
bound to be a republic … Now, some friends have raised the question: “Why
have you not put in the word ‘democratic’ here.?” Well, I told them that it is
conceivable, of course, that a republic may not be democratic but the whole of
our past is witness to this fact that we stand for democratic institutions. Obviously
we are aiming at democracy and nothing less than a democracy. What form of
democracy, what shape it might take is another matter. The democracies of the
present day, many of them in Europe and elsewhere, have played a great part in
the world’s progress. Yet it may be doubtful if those democracies may not have to
change their shape somewhat before long if they have to remain completely
democratic. We are not going just to copy, I hope, a certain democratic procedure
or an institution of a so-called democratic country. We may improve upon it. In
any event whatever system of government we may establish here must fit in with
the temper of our people and be acceptable to them. We stand for democracy. It
will be for this House to determine what shape to give to that democracy, the
fullest democracy, I hope. The House will notice that in this Resolution, although
we have not used the word “democratic” because we thought it is obvious that
the word “republic” contains that word and we did not want to use unnecessary
words and redundant words, but we have done something much more than
using the word. We have given the content of democracy in this Resolution and
not only the content of democracy but the content, if I may say so, of economic
democracy in this Resolution. Others might take objection to this Resolution on
the ground that we have not said that it should be a Socialist State. Well, I stand
for Socialism and, I hope, India will stand for Socialism and that India will go
towards the constitution of a Socialist State and I do believe that the whole
world will have to go that way.
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES (CAD), VOL.I
Oath of the Tennis Court
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Nehru’s speech (Source 1) merits careful scrutiny.

Ü What explanation does
What exactly was being stated here? What did Nehru’s
Jawaharlal Nehru give for not
seemingly nostalgic return to the past reflect? What
using the term “democratic”
was he saying about the origin of the ideas embodied in the Objectives Resolution
in the vision of the Constitution? In returning to the in Source 1?
past and referring to the American and French
Revolutions, Nehru was locating the history of
constitution-making in India within a longer history
of struggle for liberty and freedom. The momentous
nature of the Indian project was emphasised by linking
it to revolutionary moments in the past. But Nehru
was not suggesting that those events were to provide
any blueprint for the present; or that the ideas of those
revolutions could be mechanically borrowed and
applied in India. He did not define the specific form of
democracy, and suggested that this had to be decided
through deliberations. And he stressed that the
ideals and provisions of the constitution introduced
in India could not be just derived from elsewhere. “We
are not going just to copy”, he said. The system of
government established in India, he declared, had to
“fit in with the temper of our people and be acceptable
to them”. It was necessary to learn from the people of
the West, from their achievements and failures, but
the Western nations too had to learn from experiments
elsewhere, they too had to change their own notions of
democracy. The objective of the Indian Constitution
would be to fuse the liberal ideas of democracy with
the socialist idea of economic justice, and re-adapt and
re-work all these ideas within the Indian context.
Nehru’s plea was for creative thinking about what was
appropriate for India.
2.1 The will of the people
A Communist member, Somnath Lahiri saw the dark
hand of British imperialism hanging over the
deliberations of the Constituent Assembly. He thus
urged the members, and Indians in general, to fully
free themselves from the influences of imperial rule.
In the winter of 1946-47, as the Assembly deliberated,
the British were still in India. An interim
administration headed by Jawaharlal Nehru was in
place, but it could only operate under the directions
of the Viceroy and the British Government in London.
Lahiri exhorted his colleagues to realise that the
Constituent Assembly was British-made and was
“working the British plans as the British should like
it to be worked out”.
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Fig. 15.6
Members of the Interim Government
Front row (left to right): Baldev Singh, John Mathai, C Rajagopalachari, Jawaharlal Nehru,
Liaquat Ali Khan, Vallabhbhai Patel, I.I. Chundrigar, Asaf Ali, C.H. Bhabha.
Back row (left to right): Jagjivan Ram, Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Rajendra Prasad, Abdur Nishtar
Source 2
“That is very good, Sir – bold words, noble words”
Somnath Lahiri said:

Well, Sir, I must congratulate Pandit Nehru for the fine expression he gave to the spirit of
the Indian people when he said that no imposition from the British will be accepted by
the Indian people. Imposition would be resented and objected to, he said, and he added
that if need be we will walk the valley of struggle. That is very good, Sir – bold words,
noble words.
But the point is to see when and how are you going to apply that challenge. Well, Sir, the
point is that the imposition is here right now. Not only has the British Plan made any future
Constitution … dependent on a treaty satisfactory to the Britisher but it suggests that for
every little difference you will have to run to the Federal Court or dance attendance
there in England; or to call on the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee or someone else.
Not only is it a fact that this Constituent Assembly, whatever plans we may be hatching, we
are under the shadow of British guns, British Army, their economic and financial
stranglehold – which means that the final power is still in the British hands and the question
of power has not yet been finally decided, which means the future is not yet completely in
our hands. Not only that, but the statements made by Attlee and others recently have
made it clear that if need be, they will even threaten you with division entirely. This means,
Sir, there is no freedom in this country. As Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel put it some days ago,
we have freedom only to fight among ourselves. That is the only freedom we have got …
Therefore, our humble suggestion is that it is not a question of getting something by working
out this Plan but to declare independence here and now and call upon the Interim
Government, call upon the people of India, to stop fratricidal warfare and look out against
its enemy, which still has the whip hand, the British Imperialism – and go together to fight
it and then resolve our claims afterwards when we will be free.
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Nehru admitted that most nationalist leaders had

wanted a different kind of Constituent Assembly. It Ü Why does the speaker in
was also true, in a sense, that the British Government Source 2 think that the
Constituent Assembly was
had a “hand in its birth”, and it had attached certain
under the shadow of
conditions within which the Assembly had to function.
British guns?
“But,” emphasised Nehru, “you must not ignore the
source from which this Assembly derives its strength.”
Nehru added:
Governments do not come into being by State
Papers. Governments are, in fact the expression
of the will of the people. We have met here today
because of the strength of the people behind us
and we shall go as far as the people – not of any
party or group but the people as a whole – shall
wish us to go. We should, therefore, always
keep in mind the passions that lie in the
hearts of the masses of the Indian people and
try to fulfil them. Fig. 15.7
The Constituent Assembly was expected to express Edwin Montague (left) was the
author of the Montague-Chelmsford
the aspirations of those who had participated in the
Reforms of 1919 which allowed
movement for independence. Democracy, equality and some form of representation in
justice were ideals that had become intimately provincial legislative assemblies.
associated with social struggles in India since the
nineteenth century. When the social reformers in
the nineteenth century opposed child marriage and
demanded that widows be allowed to remarry, they
were pleading for social justice. When Swami
Vivekananda campaigned for a reform of Hinduism,
he wanted religions to become more just. When
Jyotiba Phule in Maharashtra pointed to the suffering
of the depressed castes, or Communists and Socialists
organised workers and peasants, they were demanding
economic and social justice. The national movement
against a government that was seen as oppressive and
illegitimate was inevitably a struggle for democracy
and justice, for citizens’ rights and equality.
In fact, as the demand for representation grew, the
British had been forced to introduce a series of
constitutional reforms. A number of Acts were passed
(1909, 1919 and 1935), gradually enlarging the space
for Indian participation in provincial governments. The
executive was made partly responsible to the provincial
legislature in 1919, and almost entirely so under the
Government of India Act of 1935. When elections were
held in 1937, under the 1935 Act, the Congress came
to power in eight out of the 11 provinces.
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Yet we should not see an unbroken continuity

Ü Discuss... between the earlier constitutional developments and
What were the ideas what happened in the three years from 1946. While
outlined by Jawaharlal the earlier constitutional experiments were in response
Nehru in his speech on the to the growing demand for a representative government,
Objectives Resolution? the Acts (1909, 1919 and 1935) were not directly debated
and formulated by Indians. They were enacted by the
colonial government. The electorate that elected the
provincial bodies had expanded over the years, but even
in 1935 it remained limited to no more than 10 to 15
per cent of the adult population: there was no universal
adult franchise. The legislatures elected under the 1935
Act operated within the framework of colonial rule, and
were responsible to the Governor appointed by the
British. The vision that Nehru was trying to outline on
13 December 1946 was of the Constitution of an
independent, sovereign Republic of India.
3. Defining Rights
How were the rights of individual citizens to be defined?
Were the oppressed groups to have any special rights?
What rights would minorities have? Who, in fact, could
be defined as a minority? As the debate on the floor of
the Constituent Assembly unfolded, it was clear that
there were no collectively shared answers to any of these
questions. The answers were evolved through the clash
of opinions and the drama of individual encounters. In
his inaugural speech, Nehru had invoked the “will of
the people” and declared that the makers of the
Constitution had to fulfil “the passions that lie in the
hearts of the masses”. This was no easy task. With the
anticipation of Independence, different groups expressed
their will in different ways, and made different demands.
These would have to be debated and conflicting ideas
would have to be reconciled, before a consensus could
be forged.
3.1 The problem with separate electorates

On 27 August 1947, B. Pocker Bahadur from Madras
made a powerful plea for continuing separate electorates.
Minorities exist in all lands, argued Bahadur; they could
not be wished away, they could not be “erased out of
existence”. The need was to create a political framework
in which minorities could live in harmony with others,
and the differences between communities could be
minimised. This was possible only if minorites were well
represented within the political system, their voices heard,
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and their views taken into account. Only separate

electorates would ensure that Muslims had a
meaningful voice in the governance of the country. The
needs of Muslims, Bahadur felt, could not be properly
understood by non-Muslims; nor could a true
representative of Muslims be chosen by people who
did not belong to that community.
This demand for separate electorates provoked
anger and dismay amongst most nationalists. In the
passionate debate that followed, a range of arguments
were offered against the demand. Most nationalists
saw separate electorates as a measure deliberately
introduced by the British to divide the people. “The
English played their game under the cover of
safeguards,” R.V. Dhulekar told Bahadur. “With the help
of it they allured you (the minorities) to a long lull. Give
it up now … Now there is no one to misguide you.”
Partition had made nationalists fervently opposed Fig. 15.8
to the idea of separate electorates. They were haunted In the winter of 1946 Indian leaders
by the fear of continued civil war, riots and violence. went to London for what turned out
to be a fruitless round of talks with
Separate electorates was a “poison that has entered
British Prime Minister Attlee. (Left to
the body politic of our country”, declared Sardar Patel. right: Liaquat Ali, Mohammad Ali
It was a demand that had turned one community Jinnah, Baldev Singh and Pethick-
against another, divided the nation, caused bloodshed, Lawrence)
and led to the tragic partition of the country. “Do you
want peace in this land? If so do away with it (separate
electorates),” urged Patel.
Source 3
“The British element is gone, but they

have left the mischief behind”
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel said:

It is no use saying that we ask for separate electorates, because it is good for us. We
have heard it long enough. We have heard it for years, and as a result of this
agitation we are now a separate nation … Can you show me one free country
where there are separate electorates? If so, I shall be prepared to accept it. But in
this unfortunate country if this separate electorate is going to be persisted in,
even after the division of the country, woe betide the country; it is not worth
living in. Therefore, I say, it is not for my good alone, it is for your own good that
I say it, forget the past. One day, we may be united … The British element is gone,
but they have left the mischief behind. We do not want to perpetuate that mischief.
(Hear, hear). When the British introduced this element they had not expected
that they will have to go so soon. They wanted it for their easy administration.
That is all right. But they have left the legacy behind. Are we to get out of it or not?
CAD, VOL.V
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Countering the demand for separate electorates,

Govind Ballabh Pant declared that it was not only
harmful for the nation but also for the minorities. He
agreed with Bahadur that the success of a democracy
was to be judged by the confidence it generated
amongst different sections of people. He agreed too
that every citizen in a free state should be treated in
a manner that satisfied “not only his material wants
but also his spiritual sense of self-respect”, and that
the majority community had an obligation to try and
understand the problems of minorities, and empathise
with their aspirations. Yet Pant opposed the idea of
separate electorates. It was a suicidal demand, he
argued, that would permanently isolate the minorities,
make them vulnerable, and deprive them of any
effective say within the government.
Source 4
“I believe separate electorates will

be suicidal to the minorities”
During the debate on 27 August 1947, Govind Ballabh

Pant said:
I believe separate electorates will be suicidal to
the minorities and will do them tremendous harm. If
they are isolated for ever, they can never convert
themselves into a majority and the feeling of
frustration will cripple them even from the very
beginning. What is it that you desire and what is our
ultimate objective? Do the minorities always want to
remain as minorities or do they ever expect to form
an integral part of a great nation and as such to guide
and control its destinies? If they do, can they ever
achieve that aspiration and that ideal if they are
isolated from the rest of the community? I think it
would be extremely dangerous for them if they were
segregated from the rest of the community and kept
aloof in an air-tight compartment where they would
have to rely on others even for the air they breath …
Ü Read Sources 3 and 4. The minorities if they are returned by separate
What are the different electorates can never have any effective voice.
arguments being put forward
against separate electorates? CAD, VOL . II
Behind all these arguments was the concern with

the making of a unified nation state. In order to build
political unity and forge a nation, every individual had
to be moulded into a citizen of the State, each group
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had to be assimilated within the nation. The Source 5

Constitution would grant to citizens rights, but citizens
“There cannot be any
had to offer their loyalty to the State. Communities
could be recognised as cultural entities and assured divided loyalty”
cultural rights. Politically, however, members of all
communities had to act as equal members of one State, Govind Ballabh Pant argued
or else there would be divided loyalties. “There is the that in order to become loyal
citizens people had to
unwholesome and to some extent degrading habit
stop focusing only on the
of thinking always in terms of communities and never
community and the self:
in terms of citizens,” said Pant. And he added: “Let us
remember that it is the citizen that must count. It is For the success of
the citizen that forms the base as well as the summit democracy one must
train himself in the
of the social pyramid.” Even as the importance of
art of self-discipline. In
community rights was being recognised, there was a democracies one should
lurking fear among many nationalists that this may care less for himself and
lead to divided loyalties, and make it difficult to forge more for others. There
a strong nation and a strong State. cannot be any divided
Not all Muslims supported the demand for loyalty. All loyalties must
separate electorates. Begum Aizaas Rasul, for exclusively be centred
instance, felt that separate electorates were self- round the State. If in a
destructive since they isolated the minorities from democracy, you create
the majority. By 1949, most Muslim members of the rival loyalties, or you
create a system in which
Constituent Assembly were agreed that separate
any individual or group,
electorates wer e against the interests of the instead of suppressing
minorities. Instead Muslims needed to take an active his extravagance, cares
part in the democratic process to ensure that they nought for larger or other
had a decisive voice in the political system. interests, then democracy
is doomed.
3.2 “We will need much more than this Resolution”
While welcoming the Objectives Resolution, CAD, VOL . II
N.G. Ranga, a socialist who had been a leader of the

peasant movement, urged that the term minorities be Ü How does G. B. Pant
interpreted in economic terms. The real minorities define the attributes of a
for Ranga were the poor and the downtrodden. He loyal citizen?
welcomed the legal rights the Constitution was granting
to each individual but pointed to its limits. In his
opinion it was meaningless for the poor people in the
villages to know that they now had the fundamental
right to live, and to have full employment, or that
they could have their meetings, their conferences,
their associations and various other civil liberties. It
was essential to create conditions where these
constitutionally enshrined rights could be effectively
enjoyed. For this they needed protection. “They need
props. They need a ladder,” said Ranga.
2019-2020
Source 6
“The real minorities are the

masses of this country”
Welcoming the Objectives Resolution introduced by

Jawaharlal Nehru, N.G. Ranga said:
Sir, there is a lot of talk about minorities. Who are
the real minorities? Not the Hindus in the so-called
Pakistan provinces, not the Sikhs, not even the
Muslims. No, the real minorities are the masses of
this country. These people are so depressed and
oppressed and suppressed till now that they are not
able to take advantage of the ordinary civil rights.
What is the position? You go to the tribal areas.
According to law, their own traditional law, their
tribal law, their lands cannot be alienated. Yet our
merchants go there, and in the so-called free
market they are able to snatch their lands. Thus,
Ü How is the notion of even though the law goes against this snatching
minority defined by Ranga? away of their lands, still the merchants are able to
turn the tribal people into veritable slaves by
various kinds of bonds, and make them hereditary
bond-slaves. Let us go to the ordinary villagers.
There goes the money-lender with his money and
he is able to get the villagers in his pocket. There
is the landlord himself, the zamindar, and the
malguzar and there are the various other people
who are able to exploit these poor villagers. There
is no elementary education even among these
people. These are the real minorities that need
protection and assurances of protection. In order
to give them the necessary protection, we will need
much more than this Resolution ...
CAD, VOL . II
Ranga also drew attention to the gulf that separated

the broad masses of Indians and those claiming to
speak on their behalf in the Constituent Assembly:
Whom are we supposed to represent? The
ordinary masses of our country. And yet most of
us do not belong to the masses themselves. We
are of them, we wish to stand for them, but the
masses themselves are not able to come up to
the Constituent Assembly. It may take some time;
in the meanwhile, we are here as their trustees,
as their champions, and we are trying our best
to speak for them.
2019-2020
One of the groups mentioned by Ranga, the tribals,

had among its representatives to the Assembly the
gifted orator Jaipal Singh. In welcoming the Objectives
Resolution, Singh said:
... as an Adibasi, I am not expected to
understand the legal intricacies of the
Resolution. But my common sense tells me
that every one of us should march in that
road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there
is any group of Indian people that has been
shabbily treated it is my people. They have
been disgracefully treated, neglected for the
last 6,000 years. … The whole history of my
people is one of continuous exploitation and
dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India
punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and
yet I take Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at his
word. I take you all at your word that now we
are going to start a new chapter, a new
chapter of independent India where there is
equality of opportunity, where no one would
be neglected.
Singh spoke eloquently on the need to protect the
tribes, and ensure conditions that could help them
come up to the level of the general population. Tribes
were not a numerical minority, he argued, but they
needed protection. They had been dispossessed of the
land they had settled, deprived of their forests and
pastures, and forced to move in search of new homes.
Perceiving them as primitive and backward, the rest
of society had turned away from them, spurned them.
He made a moving plea for breaking the emotional and
physical distance that separated the tribals from the
rest of society: “Our point is that you have got to mix
with us. We are willing to mix with you … ”. Singh
was not asking for separate electorates, but he felt that
reservation of seats in the legislature was essential to
allow tribals to represent themselves. It would be a
way, he said, of compelling others to hear the voice of
tribals, and come near them.
3.3 “We were suppressed for thousands of years”
How were the rights of the Depressed Castes to be
defined by the Constitution? During the national
movement Ambedkar had demanded separate
electorates for the Depressed Castes, and Mahatma
Gandhi had opposed it, arguing that this would
2019-2020
Source 7
permanently segregate them from the rest of society.
“We want removal of our How could the Constituent Assembly resolve this
social disabilities” opposition? What kinds of protection were the
Depressed Castes to be provided?
Dakshayani Velayudhan from Some members of the Depr essed Castes
Madras, argued: emphasised that the problem of the “Untouchables”
What we want is not all could not be resolved through protection and
kinds of safeguards. It is safeguards alone. Their disabilities were caused
the moral safeguard which by the social norms and the moral values of caste
gives protection to the society. Society had used their services and labour
underdogs of this country ... but kept them at a social distance, refusing to
I refuse to believe that mix with them or dine with them or allow them
seventy million Harijans
entry into temples. “We have been suffering, but we
are to be considered as a
minority ... what we want is are prepared to suffer no more,” said J. Nagappa
the ... immediate removal from Madras. “We have realised our responsibilities.
of our social disabilities.’ We know how to assert ourselves.”
CAD, VOL . I
Nagappa pointed out that numerically the Depressed
Castes were not a minority: they formed between
20 and 25 per cent of the total population. Their suffering
was due to their systematic marginalisation, not
their numerical insignificance. They had no access
to education, no share in the administration.
Addressing the assembly, K.J. Khanderkar of the
Central Provinces said:
We were suppressed for thousands of years. ...
suppressed... to such an extent that neither our
Source 8 minds nor our bodies and now even our hearts
work, nor are we able to march forward. This is
We have never asked the position.
for privileges
After the Partition violence, Ambedkar too no
Hansa Mehta of Bombay longer argued for separate electorates. The Constituent
demanded justice for women, Assembly finally recommended that untouchability
not reserved seats, or separate be abolished, Hindu temples be thrown open to all
electorates. castes, and seats in legislatures and jobs in
government offices be reserved for the lowest castes.
We have never asked for
privileges. What we have Many recognised that this could not solve all
asked for is social justice, problems: social discrimination could not be erased
economic justice, and only through constitutional legislation, there had to
political justice. We have be a change in the attitudes within society. But the
asked for that equality measures were welcomed by the democratic public.
which alone can be the
basis of mutual respect and
understanding, without Ü Discuss...
which real cooperation is
What were the different arguments that Jaipal
not possible between man
and woman. Singh put forward in demanding protective
measures for the tribals?
2019-2020
4. The Powers of the State

One of the topics most vigorously debated in the
Constituent Assembly was the respective rights of the
Central Government and the states. Among those
arguing for a strong Centre was Jawaharlal Nehru. As
he put it in a letter to the President of the Constituent
Assembly, “Now that partition is a settled fact, … it
would be injurious to the interests of the country to
provide for a weak central authority which would
be incapable of ensuring peace, of coordinating vital
matters of common concern and of speaking effectively
for the whole country in the international sphere”.
The Draft Constitution provided for three lists of
subjects: Union, State, and Concurrent. The subjects
in the first list were to be the preserve of the Central
Government, while those in the second list were
vested with the states. As for the third list, here
Centre and state shared responsibility. However,
many more items were placed under exclusive Union
control than in other federations, and more placed
on the Concurrent list too than desired by the
provinces. The Union also had control of minerals
and key industries. Besides, Article 356 gave the
Centre the powers to take over a state administration
on the recommendation of the Governor.
The Constitution also mandated for a complex
system of fiscal federalism. In the case of some taxes
(for instance, customs duties and Company taxes) the
Centre retained all the proceeds; in other cases (such
as income tax and excise duties) it shared them with
the states; in still other cases (for instance, estate duties)
it assigned them wholly to the states. The states,
meanwhile, could levy and collect certain taxes on their
own: these included land and property taxes, sales tax,
and the hugely profitable tax on bottled liquor.
4.1 “The centre is likely to break”
The rights of the states were most eloquently defended
by K. Santhanam from Madras. A reallocation of powers
was necessary, he felt, to strengthen not only the states
but also the Centre. “There is almost an obsession that
by adding all kinds of powers to the Centre we can make
it strong.” This was a misconception, said Santhanam.
If the Centre was overburdened with responsibilities,
it could not function effectively. By relieving it of
some of its functions, and transferring them to the
states, the Centre could, in fact, be made stronger.
2019-2020
Source 9 As for the states, Santhanam felt that the proposed

allocation of powers would cripple them. The fiscal
Who is a better patriot? provisions would impoverish the provinces since
most taxes, except land revenue, had been made the
Sir A. Ramaswamy Mudaliar preserve of the Centre. Without finances how could
from Mysore said during the the states undertake any project of development?
debate on 21 August 1947: “I do not want any constitution in which the Unit has
Let us not lay the flattering to come to the Centre and say ‘I cannot educate my
unction to our soul that we people. I cannot give sanitation, give me a dole for the
are better patriots if we improvement of roads, of industries.’ Let us rather wipe
propose a strong Centre and out the federal system and let us have Unitary system.”
that those who advocate a Santhanam predicted a dark future if the proposed
more vigorous examination distribution of powers was adopted without further
of these resources are scrutiny. In a few years, he said, all the provinces would
people with not enough of rise in “revolt against the Centre”.
national spirit or patriotism.
Many others from the provinces echoed the same
fears. They fought hard for fewer items to be put
on the Concurrent and Union lists. A member from
Orissa warned that “the Centre is likely to break”
since powers had been excessively centralised under
the Constitution.
4.2 “What we want today is a strong Government”
The argument for greater power to the provinces
provoked a strong reaction in the Assembly. The need
for a strong centre had been underlined on numerous
occasions since the Constituent Assembly had begun
its sessions. Ambedkar had declared that he wanted
“a strong and united Centre (hear, hear) much stronger
than the Centre we had created under the Government
of India Act of 1935”. Reminding the members of the
riots and violence that was ripping the nation apart,
many members had repeatedly stated that the powers
of the Centre had to be greatly strengthened to
enable it to stop the communal frenzy. Reacting to the
demands for giving power to the provinces,
Gopalaswami Ayyangar declared that “the Centre
should be made as strong as possible”. One member
from the United Provinces, Balakrishna Sharma,
reasoned at length that only a strong centre could plan
for the well-being of the country, mobilise the available
economic resources, establish a proper administration,
and defend the country against foreign aggression.
Before Partition the Congress had agreed to grant
considerable autonomy to the provinces. This had been
part of an effort to assure the Muslim League that
within the provinces where the Muslim League came
2019-2020
to power the Centre would not interfere. After

Partition most nationalists changed their position Ü Discuss...
because they felt that the earlier political pressures What different arguments
for a decentralised structure were no longer there. were put forward by those
There was already a unitary system in place, advocating a strong Centre?
imposed by the colonial government. The violence of
the times gave a further push to centralisation, now
seen as necessary both to forestall chaos and to
plan for the country’s economic development. The
Constitution thus showed a distinct bias towards
the rights of the Union of India over those of its
constituent states.
5. The Language of the Nation

How could the nation be forged when people in different
regions spoke different languages, each associated Source 10
with its own cultural heritage? How could people listen What should the
to each other, or connect with each other, if they did not
qualities of a national
know each other’s language? Within the Constituent
Assembly, the language issue was debated over many language be ?
months, and often generated intense arguments.
By the 1930s, the Congress had accepted that A few months before his death
Mahatma Gandhi reiterated
Hindustani ought to be the national language.
his views on the language
Mahatma Gandhi felt that everyone should speak in a
question:
language that common people could easily understand.
Hindustani – a blend of Hindi and Urdu – was a popular This Hindustani should be
language of a large section of the people of India, and neither Sanskritised Hindi
nor Persianised Urdu but
it was a composite language enriched by the interaction
a happy combination of
of diverse cultures. Over the years it had incorporated both. It should also freely
words and terms from very many different sources, admit words wherever
and was therefore understood by people from various necessary from the different
regions. This multi-cultural language, Mahatma regional languages and
Gandhi thought, would be the ideal language of also assimilate words from
communication between diverse communities: it could foreign languages, provided
unify Hindus and Muslims, and people of the north that they can mix well and
and the south. easily with our national
From the end of the nineteenth century, however, language. Thus our national
language must develop
Hindustani as a language had been gradually
into a rich and powerful
changing. As communal conflicts deepened, Hindi and instrument capable of
Urdu also started growing apart. On the one hand, expressing the whole gamut
there was a move to Sanskritise Hindi, purging it of of human thought and
all words of Persian and Arabic origin. On the other feelings. To confine oneself
hand, Urdu was being increasingly Persianised. As to Hindi or Urdu would be
a consequence, language became associated with the a crime against intelligence
politics of religious identities. Mahatma Gandhi, and the spirit of patriotism.
however, retained his faith in the composite character H ARIJANSEVAK, 12 O CTOBER 1947
of Hindustani.
2019-2020
5.1 A plea for Hindi

In one of the earliest sessions of the Constituent
Assembly, R. V. Dhulekar, a Congressman from the
United Provinces, made an aggressive plea that Hindi
be used as the language of constitution-making. When
told that not everyone in the Assembly knew the
language, Dhulekar retorted: “People who are present
in this House to fashion a constitution for India and
do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members
of this Assembly. They better leave.” As the House broke
up in commotion over these remarks, Dhulekar
proceeded with his speech in Hindi. On this occasion
peace in the House was restored through Jawaharlal
Nehru’s intervention, but the language issue continued
to disrupt proceedings and agitate members over the
subsequent three years.
Almost three years later, on 12 September 1947,
Dhulekar’s speech on the language of the nation once
again sparked off a huge storm. By now the Language
Committee of the Constituent Assembly had produced
its report and had thought of a compromise formula
to resolve the deadlock between those who advocated
Hindi as the national language and those who opposed
it. It had decided, but not yet formally declared, that
Hindi in the Devanagari script would be the official
language, but the transition to Hindi would be gradual.
For the first fifteen years, English would continue to
be used for all official purposes. Each province was to
be allowed to choose one of the regional languages for
official work within the province. By referring to Hindi
as the official rather that the national language,
the Language Committee of the Constituent Assembly
hoped to placate ruffled emotions and arrive at a
solution that would be acceptable to all.
Dhulekar was not one who liked such an attitude of
reconciliation. He wanted Hindi to be declared not
an Official Language, but a National Language. He
attacked those who protested that Hindi was being
forced on the nation, and mocked at those who said,
in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, that Hindustani
rather than Hindi ought to be the national language.
Sir, nobody can be more happy than myself that
Hindi has become the official language of the
country … Some say that it is a concession to
Hindi language. I say “no”. It is a consummation
of a historic process.
2019-2020
What particularly perturbed many members was

the tone in which Dhulekar was arguing his case.
Several times during his speech, the President of the
Assembly interrupted Dhulekar and told him: “I do
not think you are advancing your case by speaking
like this.” But Dhulekar continued nonetheless.
5.2 The fear of domination
A day after Dhulekar spoke, Shrimati G. Durgabai
from Madras explained her worries about the way
the discussion was developing:
Mr President, the question of national language
for India which was an almost agreed
proposition until recently has suddenly become
a highly controversial issue. Whether rightly
or wrongly, the people of non-Hindi-speaking
areas have been made to feel that this fight, or
this attitude on behalf of the Hindi-speaking
areas, is a fight for effectively preventing the
natural influence of other powerful languages
of India on the composite culture of this nation.
Durgabai informed the House that the opposition
in the south against Hindi was very strong: “The
opponents feel perhaps justly that this propaganda
for Hindi cuts at the very root of the provincial
languages ...” Yet, she along with many others had
obeyed the call of Mahatma Gandhi and carried on
Hindi propaganda in the south, braved resistance,
started schools and conducted classes in Hindi.
“Now what is the result of it all?” asked Durgabai.
“I am shocked to see this agitation against the
enthusiasm with which we took to Hindi in the early
years of the century.” She had accepted Hindustani
as the language of the people, but now that language
was being changed, words from Urdu and other
regional languages were being taken out. Any move
that eroded the inclusive and composite character of
Hindustani, she felt, was bound to create anxieties
and fears amongst different language groups.
As the discussion became acrimonious, many
members appealed for a spirit of accommodation.
A member from Bombay, Shri Shankarrao Deo stated
that as a Congressman and a follower of Mahatma
Gandhi he had accepted Hindustani as a language of
the nation, but he warned: “if you want my whole-
hearted support (for Hindi) you must not do now
anything which may raise my suspicions and which
2019-2020
will strengthen my fears.” T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar

from Madras emphasised that whatever was done
had to be done with caution; the cause of Hindi would
not be helped if it was pushed too aggressively. The
fears of the people, even if they were unjustified,
had to be allayed, or else “there will be bitter feelings
left behind”. “When we want to live together and
form a united nation,” he said, “there should be
mutual adjustment and no question of forcing things
on people ...”
The Constitution of India thus emerged through a

process of intense debate and discussion. Many of
its provisions were arrived at through a process
of give-and-take, by forging a middle ground between
two opposed positions.
However, on one central featur e of the
Constitution there was substantial agreement. This
was on the granting of the vote to every adult Indian.
This was an unprecedented act of faith, for in other
democracies the vote had been granted slowly, and
in stages. In countries such as the United States
and the United Kingdom, only men of property were
first granted the vote; then, men with education were
also allowed into the charmed circle. After a long
and bitter struggle, men of working-class or peasant
background were also given the right to vote. An
even longer struggle was required to grant this right
to women.
A second important feature of the Constitution
was its emphasis on secularism. There was no ringing
pronouncement of secularism in the Preamble, but
operationally, its key features as understood in
Indian contexts were spelled out in an exemplary
manner. This was done through the carefully drafted
series of Fundamental Rights to “freedom of religion”
(Articles 25-28), “cultural and educational rights”
(Articles 29, 30), and “rights to equality” (Articles
14, 16, 17). All religions were guaranteed equal
treatment by the State and given the right to maintain
charitable institutions. The State also sought to
distance itself from religious communities, banning
2019-2020
compulsory religious instructions in State-run

schools and colleges, and declaring religious
discrimination in employment to be illegal. However,
a certain legal space was created for social reform
within communities, a space that was used to ban
untouchability and introduce changes in personal
and family laws. In the Indian variant of political
secularism, then, there has been no absolute
separation of State from religion, but a kind of
judicious distance between the two.
The Constituent Assembly debates help us
understand the many conflicting voices that had to
be negotiated in framing the Constitution, and the
many demands that were articulated. They tell us
about the ideals that were invoked and the principles
that the makers of the Constitution operated with.
But in reading these debates we need to be aware
that the ideals invoked were very often re-worked
according to what seemed appropriate within a
context. At times the members of the Assembly also
changed their ideas as the debate unfolded over
three years. Hearing others argue, some members
rethought their positions, opening their minds to
contrary views, while others changed their views in
reaction to the events around.
Fig. 15. 9
B. R. Ambedkar and Rajendra
Prasad greeting each other at the
time of the handing over of the
Constitution
2019-2020
Timeline
1945
26 July Labour Government comes into power in Britain
December-January General Elections in India
1946
16 May Cabinet Mission announces its constitutional scheme
16 June Muslim League accepts Cabinet Mission’s constitutional scheme
16 June Cabinet Mission presents scheme for the formation of an
Interim Government at the Centre
16 August Muslim League announces Direct Action Day
2 September Congress forms Interim Government with Nehru as the
Vice-President
13 October Muslim League decides to join the Interim Government
3-6 December British Prime Minister, Attlee, meets some Indian leaders; talks fail
9 December Constituent Assembly begins its sessions
1947
29 January Muslim League demands dissolution of Constituent Assembly
16 July Last meeting of the Interim Government
11 August Jinnah elected President of the Constituent Assembly of
Pakistan
14 August Pakistan Independence; celebrations in Karachi
14-15 August At midnight India celebrates Independence
1949
December Constitution is signed
1. What were the ideals expressed in the Objectives

Resolution?
2. How was the term minority defined by different groups?
3. What were the arguments in favour of greater power to
the provinces?
4. Why did Mahatma Gandhi think Hindustani should
be the national language?
2019-2020
Write a short essay

more, read:
5. What historical forces shaped the vision of the
Constitution? Granville Austin. 1972.
The Indian Constitution:
6. Discuss the different arguments made in favour
The Cornerstone of a Nation.
of protection of the oppressed groups. Oxford University Press,
7. What connection did some of the members of the New Delhi.
Constituent Assembly make between the political
situation of the time and the need for a strong Rajeev Bhargava. 2000.
Centre? “Democratic Vision of a
New Republic”in F. R. Frankel
8. How did the Constituent Assembly seek to resolve et al. eds, Transforming India:
the language controversy? Social and Political Dynamics
of Democracy.
Oxford University Press,
Map work New Delhi.
Sumit Sarkar. 1983.
9. On a present-day political map of India, indicate “Indian Democracy:
the different languages spoken in each state and The Historical Inheritance”
mark out the one that is designated as the in Atul Kohli ed.,
language for official communication. Compare the The Success of India’s
present map with a map of the early 1950s. What Democracy.
differences do you notice? Do the differences say Cambridge University Press,
something about the relationship between Cambridge.
language and the organisation of the states?
Sumit Sarkar. 1983.
Modern India: 1885-1947.
Macmillan, New Delhi.
Project (Choose One)
10. Choose any one important constitutional change

that has happened in recent years. Find out why
the change was made, what different arguments
were put forward for the change, and the historical
background to the change. If you can, try and look
at the Constitutional Assembly Debates (http://
parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm)
to see how the issue was discussed at that time.
Write about your findings.
11. Compare the Constitution of America, France or
South Africa with the Indian Constitution, You could visit:
focusing on any two of the following themes: parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/
secularism, minority rights, realtions between the debates/debates.htm
Centre and the states. Find out how these (for a digitalised version of the
differences and similarities are linked to the Constituent Assembly Debates)
histories of the regions.
2019-2020
Credits for Illustrations

Institutions
Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi
(Figs. 11.6; 11.8; 12.12; 12.13)
Collection Jyotindra and Juta Jain, CIVIC Archives,
New Delhi (Fig. 13.15)
Photo Division, Government of India, New Delhi
(Figs. 14.3; 14.10; 15.3; 15.4; 15.5; 15.9)
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi
(Fig. 15.6)
The Osian’s Archive and Library Collection, Mumbai
(Figs. 11.9; 11.18; 13.17)
Victoria Memorial Museum and Library, Kolkata
(Figs. 10.6, 10.7)
Journals
Builder (Fig. 12.26)
Punch (Figs. 11.13; 11.14; 11.17)
The Illustrated London News (Figs. 10.1; 10.10;
10.11; 10.12; 10.13; 10.14; 10.16; 10.17; 10.18;
10.19; 11.15; 11.16 )
Books
Bayly, C.A., The Raj: India and the British 1600-1947
(Figs. 10.4; 11.10; 11.11; 12.27)
Dalrymple, William, The Last Mughal (Fig. 11.1)
Daniell, Thomas and William, Views of Calcutta
(Figs. 12.7; 12.8; 12.9; 12.19)
Evenson, Norma, The Indian Metropolis: A View
Toward the West (Figs. 12.14; 12.16; 12.20;
12.22; 12.22; 12 23; 12.25; 12.29; 12.30)
Metcalf, T.R., An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture
and British Raj (Fig. 12.28)
Publications Division, Mahatma Gandhi (many of
the Figs. in Ch.14)
Ruhe, Peter, Gandhi (Figs. 13.7; 13.11; 13.12)
Singh, Khushwant, Train to Pakistan (Figs. 15.1;
15.4; 15.12; 15.13; 15.15)
2019-2020

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Textbook in History for Class XII

108, 100 Feet Road

Navjivan Trust Building

Printed on 80 GSM paper with NCERT Editor : Vijayam

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, recommends that

Professor Neeladri Bhattacharya, Centre for Historical Studies,

Archaeologists may unexpectedly come across seals and mounds

CHAIRPERSON, ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Themes in Indian History, Part III is the result of a collective effort of

THEME ELEVEN 288

THEME TWELVE 316

THEME THIRTEEN 346

THEME FOURTEEN 376

THEME FIFTEEN 405

PART I (Pages 1- 114)

PART II (Pages 115 - 256 )

Short Additional More elaborate

These are meant to assist and enrich the learning process,

R Each chapter ends with a set of timelines. This is to be treated as

(c) Sources are enclosed within separate boxes: these contain

The Santhals, however, soon found that the land

Colonialism and the

In this chapter you will see what

Through 12 and 13 May, North India remained quiet. Once

1. Pattern of the Rebellion

revenue demand. If the revenue demand of the state

demand high, arguing that the burden on zamindars

Two rebels of 1857

Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah

The dispossession of taluqdars meant the

groups in Britain who were opposed to the monopoly

3.1 The vision of unity

The Azamgarh Proclamation, 25 August 1857

Aquatint is a picture produced

The proclamations expressed the widespread fear

settled agriculture established, and forest people

attempts to recover Delhi began in earnest in early

turbulent. The Santhals, by contrast, appeared to

The Santhals, however, soon found that the land

Source 3 2.3 The accounts of Buchanan

On clearance and settled cultivation

Passing through one village in the lower Rajmahal hills,

3. A Revolt in the Countryside

Why the burning of bonds and deeds? Why this

settlement. Unlike the Bengal system, the revenue

1801 Subsidiary Alliance introduced by Wellesley in Awadh

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suited for its growth”. India was seen as a country

These developments had a

By the middle of the nineteenth century these

figures. A variety of customary norms regulated the

When debts mounted the peasant was unable to pay

The ryots came to see the moneylender as devious

the law around, forcing the ryot to sign a new bond

How debts mounted

In a petition to the Deccan Riots Commission a ryot explained how the

4. The Deccan Riots Commission

In looking at such sources we have to again

1765 English East India Company acquires Diwani of Bengal

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