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Pre-colonial State and Society
South Asia: today’s India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan
In 18th century, speak of India to cover much of this area
Indian polity in 1750, thousands of polities of all shapes and sizes. Not well-integrated,
unified kingdoms, not well-defined boundaries, not clear linguistic or cultural identities
A discussion of late precolonial polity and society in India helps explain how a western
European nation was able to conquer this vast and diverse area. Lays the ground work for
understanding the nature and extent of the modernization of India under colonial rule.
Two models of the structure of the state in late precolonial India – Hindic and Islamicate.
Hindic—named so because the rulers worshipped Hindu gods; Islamicate—associated with
the institutions of Muslim rulers of India, worshipped only the god Allah.
Hindic: decentralized state administration, weak bureaucracy
No state monopoly of force; no centralized legal system; no fixed geographical
boundaries; no effective, centralized administration for the collection of revenue.
Also called segmentary state because not only one king (as in England or France at this
time), but a number of rulers (rajas) of varying importance and with differing ruling statuses.
There would be one maharaja who held lands over which he had direct rule; then, a number of
rajas of lesser ruling status who had their own territories to administer; there would usually
also be petty (small) rajas and chiefs, each with their own domains of control.
The maharaja did not run a centralized state military administration and did not organize
centrally the protection of the kingdom. While he had his own forces, he was dependent on
the forces organized by the lower-ranking rajas and petty rajas. Unstable polities existed in
India; few Hindic empires of any long-term segnificance; ineffective administration for tax
collection; decentralized legal systems. The maharajas and their courts had great difficulty in
penetrating the areas controlled by the rajas and chiefs. This is in great part due to the
segmentary social system, also known as the caste system.
Caste: distinctive to South Asia, includes probably the most complicated social arrangements
in the world.
People divided into social categories according to work: religious specialists
(brahmins), warriors, merchants, land-holders, peasants, servants, waste collectors
(untouchables). Born to an occupation, could not change. Highly stratified system with
strong ideas of status and rank. Organized in part around ideas of purity (the brahmins, the
purist) and pollution (untouchables, the most polluted). Work associated with death and
human waste products (sweat, blood, urine, feces) the most polluted. Exception was warriors,
who killed enemies of the community and gave gifts to Brahmins to have their pollution
removed ritually. Brahmins had highest social status, warriors had highest political status.
What made caste different from a somewhat weird class system? Intricate organization of kin
relations. Complicated rules of whom one could marry and whom one could eat with and
accept food from. Powerful caste cultures of codes for dress and behavior with caste and
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subcaste rituals, ceremonies, gods, myths. Caste control of conflict and the breaking of caste
codes.
Little room for the state. Rajas protected the right of caste communities to maintain their own
caste organization and culture, their own dharma. Kings did not legislate and therefore had
difficulty in developing the authority and power to develop revenue systems which could
regularly and effectively bring in revenue.
Under British colonial rule, the state would try to make universally binding laws and would
succeed in developing elaborate revenue systems which would employ thousands of Indian
across the empire. The British,however, would build upon another set of institutions, the
Islamicate, bought by Muslims who invaded India and set up governments from about the 13th
century. Brought administrative traditions from the Middle East, especially Persia. Muslims
had one god, one great prophet, a single sacred text (koran) and a single sacred law code
(sharia). They developed in India more centralized and disciplined administration than the
Hindic systems. By the beginning of the 17th century a great Islamicate empire had emerged
with its base in north India—the Mughal Empire—more bureaucratized, used Persian as
universal language of administration. Wiped out maharajas in many parts and put military
and fiscal pressure on rajas and chiefs. Went into decline in beginning of 18th century, had
fragmented into successor states by 1750. These states fought each other for the chance to
develop a new empire. The British would build their rule in the late 18th and 19th century on
the ruins of Mughal administration, adapting it to western European ideas of authority and
control.
The British Establish Dominance in South Asia
From beginning of the 16th century to about 1717, first phase of European trading companies
involved along South Asian coasts. Second decade of 18th century, British East India
Company penetrated Bengal, establishing strong inland networks of trade, credit and defense.
Second phase of European activity, began in 1740’s when British and French trading
companies became deeply involved in conflicts of Indian rulers at the same time as they
fought each other, mirroring the British-French enmity expressed in wars in Europe.
Third phase began with the Battle of Baksar in 1764. It was not the military victory in itself
that was so important as the fact that the British were able to assume with their victory the
civil administration of Bengal.
By 1750’s Mughal Empire only a small state surrounding the city of Delhi, the capital. In
former areas of administration regional powers had emerged which copied the ruling style of
the Mughals and which fought each other in competition to become the heirs of Mughal
supremacy. European powers were still sticking mostly to the coasts of India.
First indication of growing European potential for military intervention came during the war
between the British and the French, which began in 1744 and which was carried out in
Europe, Asia and America. Both parts became increasingly drawn into Indian affairs, taking
sides with Indian rulers waging war against each other.
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Both French and British begin to train Indian footsoldiers in the latest methods of European
warfare, with the infantrymen organized in regular columns and firing in disciplined rhythm
collectively. Such troops were inexpensive to maintain and dealt a blow to Indian men on
horseback. By the time Indian military commanders realised that they would have to adopt
European military tactics, it was too late to stop European expansion. Indian rulers and their
generals had different aims in warfare, which went more in the direction of humiliating one’s
enemy than incorporating his territory under one’s administration and they did not realise that
both the rules of warfare and the political game in general had changed in South Asia.
The British were fortunate in having as a military leader Robert Clive, who was also diplomat,
business man and administrator. He helped the EIC in their dealings with the Nawab (ruler)
of Bengal. EIC forces captured and sacked Calcutta in 1756 and, winning the battle of
Plassey in 1757, became established as a major European political influence on the
subcontinent
After Clive returned to England in 1760, the British began a regime of corruption and plunder
in Bengal. However, they defeated the armies of two major rulers of north India, the Nawabs
of Bengal and Oudh at the battle of Baksar in 1764. Thus the EIC was able to establish itself
as the most important European presence in India. Clive returned for two years in 1865, but
did not have enough time to reorganize the administrative machinery of the Company, which
was geared exclusively for commercial purposes. Conditions among the employees of the
EIC were chaotic, but no north Indian challenger of consequence appeared which could have
destroyed the British bridgehead in Bengal. In the 1790s, as mentioned above, the EIC
underwent administrative reform that would lay the base for stable rule.
The consolidation of British imperial rule began an the 1790’s when a revenue settlement was
carried out in Bengal and the British employees of the East India Company (EIC) were
granted a substantial salary raise, making them professional administration, civil servants, not
Company traders.
What are major points to consider in discussing the nature of British expansion in India.
1. Not the result of deliberate policy from the directors of the EIC back in England.
2. Not the result of mobilized public opinion among the British public, perhaps because
battles were fought with Indian mercenaries at no expense to the British taxpayer.
3. As a trading company, the EIC practiced careful military finance and used military force
sparingly. They kept their engagements limited and took good care of their footsoldiers,
called sepoys.
4. The great Indian warriors were notoriously lax in issues of finance and often landed in
situations where they could not pay their troops, which thereupon vanished.
5. The long voyage between London and India meant that the military men ”on the spot”
could make key decisions without hindrances from politicians and civil servants in Britian
who more impressed by the responsibilities and costs of governing territories.
6. Private interests in England supported British political dominance in India: merchants in
London impressed by the size of potential markets in India; the shipping interests; those
who supplied material needs of British civil and military administration in India; the
cotton interest hoping for a larger market for manufactured goods.
7. Once health conditions in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay improved, the younger sons of
gentry and aristocratic families, unable to inherit the family estate because of inheritance
laws, went to India to seek their fortunes.
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Elements of British Administration in South Asia
The British consolidated their imperial regime in India according to their ideas of what a
colonial state should be. So we can say that a modern state with some modern characteristics
emerged. As in a modern state, the colonial government had a monopoly of force, a
centralized administration for tax collection, a centralized legal system, a professional staff of
administrators and bureaucrats, and clearly defined territorial boundaries. However, in the
same way as the last major empire of India, the Mughal Empire had to make a compromise
with the surrounding Hindu society, so did there occur a ”colonial compromise” as we will
see. British colonial administrators aimed for a rule based on law, administered according to
regulations. At the lowest levels, however, where policy implementation took place, the ties
of caste, clan and kinship and patron-client relations played major roles in how the colonial
state affected local society. After Independence in 1947, the new nation would build its
government on institutions inherited from the colonial regime, with all of their strengths and
their weaknesses.
In the course of the 19th century a British imperial ideology emerged in which the British, as
the wealthiest and most progressive nation in the world, had a duty to help the rest of the
world to prosper and improve. The rule of law would create the conditions for civilized living
and the creation of wealth.
In India the governing ideology was:
1. Indians were not capable of governing themselves.
2. Britain had the duty to supply good government which would would be based on
the rule of law, without interfering in or attempting to manage Indian economy and
society.
The main responsibilities of imperial government were seen as: 1) collecting land revenue and
2) legal administration.
The type of revenue settlements which the East India Company made varied according to the
prevailing ideology of how to create wealth in India, according to the Company’s security
needs and according to experience which the Company gained as new areas came under its
control.
According to the Code of 1793:
1. territory in directly controlled British India was divided into districts which were
governed in provinces
2. each district administered by a Collector
The District Collector was a member of the Indian Civil Service, ICS.
1. until 1853, selected through patronage from banking and commercial families in
England with some sons of clergymen and land-owners.
2. "educated" at Haileybury College--strong belief in importance of "character" and
background; confident of elite status.
3. well-paid, to avoid temptations of corruption.
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4. honest, but mostly mediocre administrators; mostly ignorant of local languages and
local conditions
5. mostly interested in getting in the revenue and not stirring up controversy-pragmatic.
6. completely dependent on Indian subordinates.
ICS consisted of about 1300 civil servants among a population of about 274 million Indian
subjects in the early 20th century.
Indians in the colonial administration.
1. excluded from ICS until toward end of 19th century--slow admission then
2. key source of information about local conditions
3. senior Indian offials locally very influencial
4. came from "literate castes" and from groups with long traditions of government
service in India
5. strong ties to land-holding groups in rural society, either as relatives or as clients.
6. mostly poorly paid
7. divided loyalties between British superiors and Indian patrons and relatives.
"Colonial Compromise":
1. EIC/Government of India (GOI) heavily dependent on land revenue
2. Colonial government often ran a deficit
3. Administration was thin; the colonial police force was a skeleton service and
ineffective; the Indian army could not have put down widescale rebellion in both north
and south.
4. Colonial regime dependent on finding or creating allies on village society.
The impact of finding or creating allies in village society:
1. The rights and status of dominant landholders became strengthened.
2. Caste divisions became more rigid.
3. British conceptions of rights in property and British visions of "native society"-based themselves on ignorance--made an impact on Indian conceptions of their society
and culture.
4. Brahmin and other high castes gained in cultural and political influence.
5. British rule depended on the support of both literate castes in the administration
and of powerful groups in rural society--making for a stable, increasingly hierarchical
society.
Other allies were the "Native Princes," constituting about one third of the land area of the
subcontinent.
If India was not a reliable source of revenue and required constant attention to security, why
did the British bother?
1. Few landed regimes after India.
2. But, by 1880 India became central to the maintenance of Britian as a world power.
a. British investment in India
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b. India took about 19% of British exports
c. gave access to trade with other parts of Asia
d. the Indian Army (consisting of about 250,000 men after the Sepoy
Rebellion , with access to more manpower) secured this trade and gave
opportunities for increased trade and investment throughout India, South-East
Asia and the Far East
e. the India Army was not only a supplement to British sea power generally, it
was a tool of British expansion, generally, in Africa and it defended Australia
and New Zealand.
f. Indian, not British, taxpayers paid for the Indian Army.
The Economic Impact of Colonial Rule
It is not necessarily the case that the most important impact of colonialism in India was
economic exploitation. Recent research argues that Britain did not drain off the wealth of
India during the period 1800-1947. Britain ends up being criticized because the colonial
regime did too little, not because it acted on a large scale. Britain did not steal on a large
scale and, for the most part, it did not set in motion dramatic projects of development We can
talk about the "night watchman" effect.
Colonial officers and their families as a new caste segment, relying on maintaining a vast
structure of domination to serve the needs of political stability. Rather than radically
changing Indian society, in many ways Britain acted to support pre-modern structures and
attitudes.
1) Land and agriculture
In 19th and 20th century economy remained heavily agricultural and the agriculture did not
become substantially more productive. The failure of agriculture to improve became the most
importance hindrance to development generally.
Commercialization of agriculture did occur on some scale, involving especially dominant
caste families in villages. That last half of the 19th century sees the emergence of the "rich
peasant." Cash crops of cotton, opium, rice, wheat, tea, jute. But commercial development is
uneven and unequal.
A major impetus to commercialization was expansion in transportation from mid-19th century
on--especially in railroads. From mid-19th century to end of 1890s there was, then, relative
increase in per capita income, but for the most part consumption was too low to provide a
stimulation to widespead industrialization. The rich peasants put their money into land and
money-lending, not into commercial and industrial activities.
2) Business and industrial development
No widespread industrial development. The industrial development which takes place is
uneven, unbalanced--development in enclaves is characteristic.
"De-industrialization" under colonial rule did not occur on a wide scale. But the handicraft
industry did not end up as a source of economic growth, as in Japan in the early stages of
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industrialization. No substantial change in manufacturing technology or organization in the
19th century.
Modern industrial activity which does occur had a "sluggish" performance. Expansion
occured in cotton and jute. In 1914 India was fourth in cotton manufacturing in world. But
by 1924, India has lost lead in export of cotton yarn to China to Japan.
Unbalanced and uneven—enclave—development meant that there was an emphasis on
consumer industries, that industries were not found widely distributed geographically (cotton
industries in Bombay Presidency, jute and coal in Bengal Presidency). Indigenous merchants
were slow to enter into investment in modern industry. Indians had a flexible, but slow
response to modern industrialization.
3) Investment, trade and the imperial connection
Amount of investment from Britain was low compared to India's needs. That says more about
the scale of the problem in India than it does about a lack of interest from Britain. But the
type of foreign investment and involvement which existed set up barriers to Indian
development. Absence of legislation, absence of modern financial institutions.
The British Indian state was a predominantly conservative force in the economy.
1. Limited attempts to co-ordinate measures to promote modernization and industrial
growth.
2. Development inhibited not by overtaxation, but undertaxation and consequent lack
of flexibility on the part of the state, lack of capacity to stimulate economic activity.
3. State uncommitted to industrialization policy. Foreign impulses not strong enough
and agricultural sector was too strong to allow for rapid economic development.
4. Not sure that an independent India could have competed successfully with Japan.
In 1800 Japan had social stability, state capacity to tax, and high levels of mass
literacy. India had bad luck with timing--Japan got the lead in Asia and pushed out
competition.
Industrialisation in 19th century Europe is often considered to have been an off-shoot of the
quest for political power and status in a situation in which nations were in intense competition
with each other. In India, however, the British regime lacked any fundamental threat to its
position which could have resulted in the state taking steps to encourage enhanced industrial
productivity. The political as well as the economic frameworks for rapid industrial
development were essentially lacking.
What the Indian economic historian Rajat Ray wrote about the inter-war period in India in the
20th century, applies to the entire period of colonial rule: ”only savage, single-minded
determination and will-power, that brooked no obstacle or resistance…could have carried the
Indian economy forward at a pace comparable to that of Japan or Russia”.
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The most profound effects of the colonial regime were political and social, rather than
economic. In an uneven way modern, European-style institutions of state were established
throughout South Asia. The relationship between state and society was radically changed in
most parts of the subcontinent, though the effects of this development took a long time to
emerge.
The Emergence of Civic Arenas in Colonial India
New types of state-society relations and new types of competition among social groups led to
powerful nationalist identities which challenged both colonial rule and harmony between
religious groups in India. One result was the end of British colonial rule in South Asia in
1947. Another result was the creation of two new nations, India and Pakistan, not one, when
the British left. Pakistan itself, initially divided into two parts, East and West Pakistan, split in
1971, when East Pakistan, long exploited by the western part of the nation, broke away and
formed the new nation, Bangladesh.
In the scholarship of the 1960s, 1970s and much of the 1980s, the emergence of an Indian
nationalist movement appeared as the result of western, English-language education and the
formation of new professions in urban areas--the emergence of an Indian, urban middle class.
In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, recent scholarship found the process of the development of
a nationalist consciousness to be more complex, to be the result of a new relationship between
state and society. It is in the transition from Hindic-Islamicate polities to the colonial regime
that we find reasons for the emergence of new types of political organizations and new types
of political consciousness in India.
The decline of the old regime
The political universe for former chiefs and little kings which survived British pacification
was severely altered as imperial consolidation took place. The former chiefs and little kings
no longer were the center of systems of political and religious ideas where they shared ruling
status and ruling authority with the gods and goddesses which ruled the universe. In
precolonial India there had been no "civil society", no large social sphere of human
interaction which was separate from the state. All institutions of rule from the village level up
were loosely linked in ritual networks which focused on the sharing of authority between
ruling men and divinities. Local kingdoms were highly decentralized. The many localised
systems of rule were loosely integrated through ceremonial events in which their leaders
offered gifts to each other.
With the consolidation of the colonial regime, there was a political revolution when one
considers the fate of the ideological structures of the old regime. What was left of networks
of ritual and patronage became warped. The colonial state took the monopoly of force and
assumed responsibility for the management of major conflicts. The former ruling elites lost
their status as the protectors of communities. Former ruling families tried to maintain what
they could of their former status and honor, building palatial mansions and spending lavishly.
They continued to engage in conflict over succession to ruling titles and honor, but these
conflicts were managed in colonial courts of law, not the battlefield. In the course of the 19th
century Indian ideologies and visions of rule became fragmented. No integrated system of
Indian political ideology survived the political disruption of colonial rule. Nationalist leaders
at the end of the 19th century would not look to Indian kingly traditions, but to Western
models of liberal democracy as they thought about the future of an Indian nation.
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State-society relationships in the 19th century
The colonial state developed ways of communicating with its subjects which was radically
different from the old regime. Especially in urban areas, the state emerged in Indian
consciousness as different from society. The cultural and political divide between colonial
officials and Indians grew wider and colonial officials became increasingly convinced of their
duties as the only possible legitimate rulers of India.
One important effect of this cultural and political divide between colonial officials and their
subjects was the emergence of civic arenas in major urban centers in British India. Civic
arenas were the result of the activities of elite urban men who formed western-style
associations and met and discussed issues of common, "public" interest. There was the
emergence of "public spheres," political spaces not controlled by the state where discourse
took place among members of society on topics of common interest, extending beyond the
social segments of caste, sect and lineage. These discourses of the public sphere took place in
civic arenas among relatively wealthy men with special access to information about the
colonial government and western learning. New consciousness of Indian culture and society
development among these men, who came to share new political and cultural awareness.
These men included traders, merchants and those who had the resources to acquire a western,
English-language education. The emergence of civic arenas and the nature of the discourse in
the public sphere differed from region to region.
The early mobilization in civic arenas occurred in the 1810s, 1820s, and 1830s around issues
of cultural identity. Men familiar with British culture explored the difference between,
mainly, Indian religious beliefs and Christianity. Missionary activity was a common focus for
mobilization. In Bengal the division occurred between "reformers" and "conservatives" as
elite Bengalis took different positions on the kinds of changes which they felt were needed in
Bengali society. (There was no concept of an Indian nation in the early 19th century.)
Scholars have traditionally referred to civic arena activities in Bengal as the Bengali
Renaissance. Rammohan Roy was one of the most important figures here and the Brahmo
Somaj (Society of God), which he started in 1828, was a leader for activities of social and
religious reform.
The change in Indian political consciousness occurred in two phases.
1. New elites emerged in urban centers characterized by their access to western
education and they developed a hightened awareness of their cultural identity visa-vis Britons. In new types of organizations, they participated in discourses about
Indian religion and society and the uses of western learning.
2.
From about 1860 western educated elites became defensive about their "national"
customs, began to organize on the basis of an Indian identity, and became
preoccupied with problems of nation-hood. They became interested in more
systematic negotiation with colonial authorities to acquire greater rights and
privileges for Indians. A number of attempts at all-Indian (British Indian)
organization occurred before an organizational model was found which was stable
and had possibilities for expansion and wider mobilization.
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First phase:
British institutions and culture provided models for change for different groups among the
urban elite: for the organization of associations, for scientific and technical knowledge, for
religion and for the status and significance of women. Religion and the status of women
prove to be grounds for conflict among the elite. An overall question appears to have
dominated elite interest in Britain: Why was Britain so rich and so powerful?
Different parts of India had different responses to the challenge of British culture and
learning.
In Bengal Calcutta dominated activities of cutural change, as a magnet for wealth and
talent in Bengal Presidency. Deeply penetrated by Western influence, rapid social
change took place among newly rich high caste families which had moved to the city.
The first European-style college in Asia, Hindu College, was founded by Bengalis in
Calcutta in 1816. The Calcutta School Book Society to provide translations of
western learning for Bengali students was founded in 1818.
In Bengal the elites who wanted to see the expansion of western learning split into two
main groups: 1) those who took their intellectual leadership from Rammohan Roy,
"The Father of Modern India," who were dedicated to reforming Hindu beliefs and
worship and who were interested in changing custom regarding the status of women,
and 2) a larger group who resented British attempts to reform Hindu customs and who
were defensive about orthodox Hindu customs. The reformers were mostly associated
with the Brahmo Somaj (founded in 1828) and the conservatives were mostly
associated with the Dharma Sabha (Society of Duty, founded in 1830). Both groups
took part in short-lived efforts at political organization.
In the 1840s a pattern emerged which dominated protonationalist and nationalist activity as it
developed in India during most of the 19th century. The westernized elites saw themselves as
mediators between the colonial rulers and people without special knowledge of the west.
There was the strong conviction that India needed Britain so that the Indian people could go
through a period of tutelage until they had educated themselves to take responsibility for the
governance of India.
In the 1860s there was a marked change in political moods in Bengal, a defensiveness toward
British influence and a desire to develop "national" feelings among elite men. A wide range
of associations with the word "national" appeared, including physical fitness clubs to counter
the British stereotype of Bengalis as physically weak.
The proto-national organizations criticized the efficiency of the government, and they wanted
Parliament to have direct control of the imperial government, while local governments in
India should have greater powers and Indian have more share in the administration. They
should be in the Indian Civil Service and they should have representation in governing
councils.
In the 1870s there was increasing organizational activity and new types of political leadership
which were openly critical of colonial rule and emotionally nationalist. Surendranath
Banerjee was the main nationalist leader in north India. In 1876 the Indian Association was
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founded and remained important in Bengali political life through the 1880s. Several efforts
were made in the direction of the establishment of a national political association.
In 1876 Naoroji, "The Father of Indian Nationalism," developed the notion of the drain of
resources from India by the colonial regime, impoverishing India.
In the 1870s the colonial government had both positive and negative effects on Indian
political development. Actions of the government would rouse Indians to political activity,
but repressive measures by the government could result in the dissolution of organizations or
their weakening.
In the 1880s controversy surrounding a government bill exposed the racism of the small
community of whites who had settled in India. This had the effect of leading to a successful
attempt to establish a national political association when three Englishmen sympathetic to
Indian interests made contacts among Indians. The results led to the first meeting of the
Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885.
The Early Period of Indian Nationalism
The INC did not quickly develop a well-organized administration capable of mobilizing large
numbers of Indians. It did not become a mass-based organization until Gandhi gained control
of the leadership in 1920. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s it remained under the leadership
of men who shared a common westernised orientation, who stayed away from issues of
religious or social reform, who followed highly anglicized modes of discourse, and who were
not interested in arousing deep political passions. They claimed their loyalty to the colonial
regime and hoped to achieve greater Indian influence within the framework of colonial rule.
From the beginning of the 1890s opposition emerged against the staid and patient style of the
leadership of the INC. Called "the Extremists,"—opposing the ”Moderates”—these younger
men came from the second generation of western-educated nationalists and were not as elitist
as the INC leadership.
Nationalism in Bengal was associated with Hindu symbols and themes. Novelist
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee joined patriotism together with worship of Bengal itself as
the Mother (Goddess). Swami Vivekananda, a famous religious leader, presented an
"Orientalized" version of Hinduism as one of the great religions of the world, better
than what the West could offer, and politician Bipin Chandra Pal became famous for
his emotional "extremist" oratory. In the 1890s Bengal was not particularly militant;
however, Lord Curzon's decision in 1905 to partition Bengal Presidency resulted in
rapid and sometimes violent mobilization against the Government of India. Secret
societies and terrorist groups emerged and swadeshi, the boycott of British goods,
became popular as a way to attain swaraj, self-rule.
The Extremists, also called the "New Party", wanted the INC to become more radical in its
demands. In 1907 the INC split at the Congress annual meeting and the Extremists were
driven out. The INC at this point met only once a year for three days in the cool days of the
winter.
World War I (1914-1918) was a period of major change in Indian nationalist politics.
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In 1916, the major Moderate leaders, died and major Extremist politican and their supporters
could re-enter INC. A limited mass-appeal campaign was started with two Home Rule
Leagues to force the British to leave. The Leagues greatly changed the style of all-India
nationalist politics and recruited new groups in the society, compared to the INC of the
Moderates.
The British respond to the new nationalist activity with both reform and repression.
General points about the development of the nationalist ideological appeal
The Extremists were oriented toward a nationalist identity that was based clearly in cultural
differences between Britain and India. In this they differed from the Moderates, who were
interested in pointing to the similarities between English-language educated Indians and
liberal, democratically-oriented Britons. Before the emergence of Gandhi, the symbols which
Extremist politicians chose in their efforts of mobilization tended to reflect regional, not allIndian, cultures. One of the great Bombay Presidency politicians, Tilak, did not become an
all-India figure until the Home Rule League agitations.
Tilak and other Extremists had used Indian/regional cultural symbols to develop independent
and wider base of support than that generated by following the Moderates' approach.
However, since most Congress men were Hindus, for them, picking Indian symbols implied
picking symbols associated with Hindusim and that this was perceived as threatening by
Muslim groups.
M.K. Gandhi and Mass Nationalist Politics
1914-1915 Gandhi returned from nearly 21 years in South Africa known more as a social
worker than a politician.
1916-1918 He built up local basis of support mainly in Gujarat where he established a
religious community, an ashram, built around his ideas of satyagraha, truth force, an
alternative to violence as a response to conflict.
He carried out three satyagraha campaigns which gave him confidence that he could
expand his activities:
1917: among oppressed indigo workers in Champaran District in Bihar
1917: among peasant cultivators in Kaira District in Gujarat who did want to pay an
increase in their land revenue
1918: he negotiated an agreement between cotton textile workers in Ahmedabad city
in Gujarat and the Indian mill owners.
During this time Gandhi recruited loyal supporters such as Rajendra Prasad, who became the
first president in Independent India. He achieved a continental reputation as an activist.
Gandhi’s faith in the willingness of colonial officials to listen to reason received a brutual
shock in 1919.
He organized in 1919 a day of demotration which is called the Rowlatt Satyagraha. This was
a day of fasting and prayer, a hartal, in protest of the government's draconian legislation to
control terrorism. Gandhi had access to some of the All India Home Rule League networks.
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The response in India was uneven. Shortly after the hartal there was a massacre at Jallianwala
Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, when British forces killed 300 people and wounded 1000. Gandhi
decided to devote himself to swaraj, self-rule for India, and to challenge established Congress
politicians who seemed to block the attainment of swaraj.
1920-1922 The first Non-Cooperation Campaign. Here Gandhi allied himself with Muslims
who were carrying out protests against the dismemberment of the Turkish empire as a result
of the first World War. Gandhi also became the leader of the Indian National Congress (INC)
and put forth a new constitution for INC which gave it a grass-roots organization, a formal
leadership which was elected and which could make decisions throughout the year, and a
source of funding for its activities (membership fees). Gandhi promised swaraj in a year.
Support for Gandhi came in part from parts of British India which had earlier not been
active in nationalist politics: United Provinces, Punjab, Gujarat and Bihar. Bombay
city was also a strong base of support, while Bengalis were somewhat ambivalent
toward Gandhi.
Gandhi argued that, if Indians refused to cooperate with the colonial government, it
could not rule, and urged politicians not to serve in the new government which
resulted from the Montague-Chelmsford legislative reforms of 1920. Indians were to
give back their honors and titles, withdraw from the colonial law-courts and establish
"national" schools, rather that attend government schools and colleges.
Gandhi called off the campaign when it appeared to be getting out of control and
becoming violent, specifically, when a crowd attached a police stations and mutilated
a policeman and burned the building at Chauri Chaura in 1922. Gandhi was jailed for
two years.
India did not achieve swaraj and Indians did not refuse to serve in the new provincial
governments. While only 8% of the electorate voted in elections for the new
government, in some parts of Madras as many as 50% took part in elections.
In the localities where there was political unrest and challenges to order these
happenings were the result of pre-existing tensions which found an outlet in the
campaign.
What were the results of the first Non-Cooperation Campaign?
Gandhi was established as national figure who could not be ignored or ridiculed as
insignificant. Satyagraha proved to be a flexible mode of expressing grievance and putting
pressure on opponents. Even if only temporarily, new groups of people were mobilized for a
"national" campaign. Temporarily the politics of the different provinces and smaller localities
could be welded into a campaign national in its spread, if not in its motivation. Gandhi did
not change the elements of local politics, but allowed for local politics to be expressed in
conjunction with the politics of other regions. Gandhi's satyagraha allowed a national
identity to be realised, even if only briefly.
The INC, with its new organizational structure and new significance, could enable interaction
between levels of politics, showing potential to bond India's political diversity into a national
unity.
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Problems still existed: Because different levels in political interaction had been brought into
contact and the INC could no longer be dominated by western-educated men, new problems
of unity appeared and there were clearly difficulties in coordinating a national campaign.
After the Non-Cooperation Campaign those who wanted all-India political power--colonialists
or nationalists--would have to have deeper and wider networks of alliance and
communication. In some parts of India, sections in the society found the all-India national
strategy to conflict with their local interests or their political style. Even if Gandhi insisted on
non-violence and communal and class harmony, there were many indications that bringing
new groups and interests together would result in the kind of swaraj which Gandhi had in
mind.
Gandhi's Ideology.
It was developed in South Africa as a result of his desire to mobilize Indians with different
social backgrounds into a movement which could pressure on authorities to give Indians civil
rights and end discrimination on the basis of race.
According to Gandhi, people are spiritual beings created to search for truth in their own
deepest nature and underlying the universe. Each person has only a partial or relative truth at
a point in time. Therefore, in conflict, non-violence was essential as a tool of resolution,
negotiation and compromise. Gandhi's commitment to non-violence had roots in Hindu and
Jain practices in Gujarat, in doctrines of ahimsa (non-violence) and dharma (one's duty in
accordence with the order in the cosmos).
Disillusioned with the materialistic and competitive nature of western industrial society,
Gandhi found his model for the life of a seeker after truth in traditional Hindu society, as he
understood it. Gandhi was influenced by a vision of Hindu society as essential spiritual and
by the colonial sociology which said that Indian civilization based upon self-sufficient
"village republics". A life of truth entailed working only for the satisfaction of essential
needs, living in interdependence and cooperation with others, as in a village. Urban industrial
society gave too many opportunities for the exploitation of man by man and for conspicuous
gain at the expense of others.
Gandhi, in Hindu terms, was an unorthodox guru, (spiritual guide). He was a propheticreligious type of politician, practicing the acquisition of strength through ascetic disciplines.
His advocacy of non-violent strength through self-discipline was a teaching which was
familiar to most Hindus, urban or rural, and enabled him to phrase issues of Indian national
identity, appropriate to the struggle for independence, in terms which just about everybody in
Indian society could understand. Whether or not they agreed that Gandhi's method was the
only or best method was another issue. Middle-class people were willing to use satyagraha as
a mobilizing tool in the first Non-Cooperation Campaign, as well as in the Civil Disobedience
Campaign in 1930-1931. But satyagraha was not necessarily their creed. For the masses,
however, Gandhi was the Mahatma, the Great Soul, who expressed their national aspirations .
There were probably not many people who were deeply convinced that Gandhi's idea of
swaraj was possible.
In the meantime, as I explained at the beginning of this lecture, the wide use of Hindu
symbolism made it difficult for important groups of Muslims to believe that a Hindu majority
in an Independent India would rule in their best interests and a movement for an independent
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Muslim state, the Muslim League, led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, gained in popularity in the
course of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
After the Second World War, a Labour Government was voted into power in Britain and
decided to end colonial rule in South Asia. The British flag, the Union Jack, came down in
the subcontinent in 1947, with two independent nations being the result, a Hindu majority and
a two-part Muslim majority state. The Partition of India resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
thousands as desperate Hindus, Muslims and, in Punjab, Sikhs, fled to Indian or Pakistan,
depending on where they felt they would be safest.
Patterns of Postcolonial Politics in India
During the period of mobilization, beginning in 1920 and leading up to Independence in 1947,
the Indian National Congress (INC) developed a consensual style of governance and a
structure of regional support which set its mark on Congress Party (CP) politics in the first
twenty years after Independence. The CP achieved "one party dominance" within what
political scientists came to call the "Congress system." The CP under Jawaharlal Nehru (JN)
as Prime Minister contained a wide range of ideological orientations and JN managed to wield
disparate groups into general consensus as he simultaneously held himself apart from party
conflicts. JN died in 1964 and was succeeded by another figure from the nationalist period,
Lal Bahadur Sastri, who died in 1965. Indira Gandhi (IG), daughter of JN, became the new
Prime Minister.
The "Congress system" had, however, its weaknesses and the arrival of IG in a position of
leadership coincided with emergence of new political forces, communal and ideological, in
the states.. Some regions in India became polarized according to ethnic identities and/or left
versus right ideological alignments.
IG was the first major politician to build a large following around her personality through
electoral politics. She coupled the politics of personality with a populist approach, a formula
for success which has become widespread in India. In attempting to carry out her campaign
promises and in order to keep her position of dominance, IG undermined Congresses bosses
who controlled the INC in the states. From the early 1970s to the present party organization
generally in India has declined as politics has become both more personality based and more
organized around communal, ethno-nationalist issues.
The "Congress system"
Congress bosses in the 1950s and 1960s were linked to rural power structures in patron-client
linkages. Through these patron-client linkages the Congress bosses controlled "vote banks" in
the rural areas. This is why one can say that Congress had a socialist "head" (Nehru and the
Planning Commission and other left administrators and politicians in Delhi) and a
conservative "body" (the state legislatures controlled by politicians supported by rural power
structures based on landholding).
These Congress bosses were themselves divided into rivalrous factions, groups of men
competing for influence and resources. A faction formed around a politician who acted as a
patron to his clients, getting them or their relatives jobs or otherwise distributing the resources
of the state. Factions were person-based, with the faction leader acting as a protector of his
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clients in return for their support. Factional alliances allowed bases of support to develop such
that specific Congress bosses could emerge as powerful in state capitals and in legislative
assemblies.
The Decline of Congress and the Emergence of "Dispersed dominance"
Up until the late 1960s, the Congress Party had what the political scientist Joel Migdal calls
"integrated dominance" in India. However, in the 1960s weaknesses in the system began to
emerge.
1. Outside of bases of support, such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), CP local organization was
incomplete and did not penetrate the village level. Organization rested on these
informal patron-client linkages.
2. Access to higher education, coupled with slow economic growth, created a
generational split in that young men wanted the status and influence they thought they
were due, because of their superior education, but were blocked by the authority
structure in villages. This authority structure consisted of older, landholding
Congressmen.
3. CP's ideology had been oriented toward getting rid of the British and the CP’s
appeal had been based partly on the personal charisma of M. Gandhi and J. Nehru.
The Congress "cosmology," the values and ideology of the party, did not give a vision
of nationhood which was satisfactory to the new groups being mobilised by electoral
politics. Congress ideology was based on a vision of progress which would be
possible because India was free, but poverty remained the main fact of life for at least
half of the population. Middle class educated men were not getting the jobs and
influence they thought would be theirs with the end of colonialism. New national
visons, based on ethnic identities or a stronger ideological appeal (like communism),
gained support in different states, leading to the loss of electoral support to Congress.
Examples are the Communist Party (M) in West Bengal and Kerala and the DMK, a
Tamil nationalist party in Madras state. Sikh nationalism in Punjab also gained in
support in that state.
During the 1970s a direction in political development emerged which saw the spread of
political parties, based on appeals that were: personal, populist, and communal. In
Maharashtra the Shiv Sena, a party of Hindu and Maratha nationalism came to power by
making an alliance with the BJP, a national party of Hindu nationalism. In Tamil Nadu (the
former Madras state) there was a succession of Chief Ministers (including two former film
actors) who encouraged personal cults in which they were honored like royalty and
worshipped like gods. A similar situation emerged in Andhra Pradesh, where the Telugu nationalist party was led by a famous Telugu movie star. In northern and southern states
middle peasant groups have started political parties to advance their cause, while in UP a
party of low caste folk and ex-untouchables successfully launched an ex-untouchable woman
as Chief Minister. In Bihar and parts of UP the state administrative machinery has broken
down. A pattern of "dispersed dominance" appears to have developed in India. No political
party has been able to develop a dominating/hegemonic discourse which can contain the
different groups mobilised around ethnic identities. India has, however, been relatively stable
and democratic for most of the post-colonial period. In the late 1990s a new pattern emerged
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of rule at the center by coalition governments. The Hindu nationalist BJP ruled through a
coalition that lost power in May, 2004. Now the CP has come back to power in a coalition
with left parties. Since the 1990s, India is increasingly seen as an emerging economic and
political power. If it continues to maintain political stability, India with China may make the
21st centery, the new Asian Century.