India XVIII-early XX century. India in the late XIX - early XX century Features of the development of India in the 19th century briefly
By the middle of the XIX century. England finally established her dominance over the whole of India. A complex and contradictory process of Europeanization and modernization began, that is, the introduction of this gigantic colony both to the achievements and benefits, and to the shortcomings of Western European civilization. The Indians did not want to put up with new orders that threatened their traditional way of life.
India - English colony
In response to the colonization of India, a powerful popular uprising broke out in 1857-1859, which was drowned in blood by the civilized British. After that, the struggle for independence continued by peaceful means until its successful conclusion in 1947. This is one of the most remarkable features of modern and recent Indian history.
Ranjit Singh is the great ruler (maharaja) of the Sikhs. In 1799-1839. united the Punjab under his rule, created a huge state of the Sikhs. After the death of Maharaja Singh, his state began to disintegrate and became easy prey for the British.
The British conquered India relatively easily, without much loss and by the hands of the Indians themselves. The English armed forces, consisting of local soldiers - sepoys, conquered the Indian principalities one after another. The last in India to lose its freedom and independence was the Punjab, annexed to the territory of the East India Company in 1849. It took the British about a hundred years to put this huge country under their full control. For the first time in its history, India was deprived of state independence.
The country has been conquered before. But the foreigners who settled within its borders tried to adapt to the conditions of Indian social and economic life. Like the Normans in England or the Manchus in China, the conquerors have always become an integral part of the existence of the Indian state.
The new conquerors were completely different. Their homeland was another and distant country. Between them and the Indians lay a huge gulf - the difference in traditions, lifestyles, habits, value systems. The British treated the "natives" with contempt, alienated and shunned them, living in their own "higher" world. Even the workers and farmers who came to India were inevitably included in the ruling class there. Initially, there was nothing in common between the British and Indians, except for mutual hatred. The British represented a different - capitalist type of civilization, which could not exist without the exploitation of other peoples.
English in India. Europeans felt they were the masters of the country
In parts of Indian territory, the British exercised power directly through their administration. The other part of India was left in the hands of the feudal princes. The British retained approximately 600 independent principalities. The smallest of them numbered hundreds of inhabitants. The princes were under the control of the colonial authorities. So it was easier to govern India.
Colonial exploitation
India was the first jewel in the British crown. In the course of the conquests, the huge wealth and treasures of the Indian rajas (princes) flowed into England, replenishing the country's cash capital. Such replenishment greatly contributed to the industrial revolution in England.
Direct robbery gradually took the form of legalized exploitation. The main instrument for robbing the country was the taxes that went to the treasury of the East India Company. Indian goods, which used to be widely exported, were now denied access to Europe. But English goods were freely imported into India. As a result, the textile industry in India fell into decline. Unemployment among artisans was monstrous. People were on the verge of starvation and died by the thousands. The Governor-General of India reported in 1834: "The plains of India are strewn with the bones of weavers."
India has become an economic appendage of England. The well-being and wealth of the metropolis was largely due to the robbery of the Indian people.
Anti-colonial uprising 1857 - 1859
The establishment of British rule over India sharply increased the misery of the masses. The sane English knew this. Here is what one of them wrote: “Foreign conquerors used violence and often great cruelty against the natives, but no one has ever treated them with such contempt as we do.”
In the 50s. 19th century there was widespread dissatisfaction with the British in the country. It increased even more when rumors swept about the forthcoming forced conversion of Hindus and Muslims to the Christian faith. Hostility towards the British was experienced not only by the poorest sections of the population, but also by part of the feudal aristocracy, petty feudal lords and the communal (village) elite, infringed in their rights by the colonial administration. The sepoys were also seized with discontent, with whom the British, after the conquest of India, reckoned less and less.
In May 1857, the sepoy regiments rebelled. The rebels dealt with the British officers and captured Delhi. Here they announced the restoration of the power of the Mughal emperor.
Tanya Topi. Bodyguard of Nana Sahib, one of the most capable military leaders. He became famous for his partisan actions against the British. He was betrayed by Indian feudal lords, handed over to the British and hanged on April 18, 1859
The performance of the sepoys was not just a military mutiny, but the beginning of a nationwide uprising against the British. It covered Northern and part of Central India. The struggle for independence was led by the feudal lords in order to restore the order that existed before the arrival of the colonialists. And initially it was successful. The power of the British in India hung literally by a thread. Nevertheless, the fate of the uprising was largely decided by the Indians themselves. Not all of them, especially the princes, supported the rebels. There was no single leadership, no single organization, no single center of resistance. Sepoy commanders, as a rule, acted separately and inconsistently. Although with great difficulty, the British managed to suppress the uprising.
Nana Sahib - adopted son of the Baji ruler Pao II, one of the rebel leaders
Nana Sahib led a rebellion in Kanpur. After the defeat, he left with part of the sepoys to the border of Nepal. Nothing is known about the further fate. In all likelihood, Nana Sahib died in the impenetrable jungle. His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a lot of rumors. Some believe that Nana Sahib served as the prototype of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's famous fantasy adventure novels, in which the French writer foresaw the achievements of future science.
The last effort of feudal India to oppose capitalist England ended in complete failure.
Pacifying the rebellious country, the British shot a huge number of people. Many were tied to cannons and torn to pieces. Roadside trees were turned into gallows. Villages were destroyed along with the inhabitants. Tragic events of 1857-1859 left an unhealed wound in relations between India and England.
Beginning of the Indian Renaissance
After the collapse of the Mughal Empire, cultural development stopped. As a result of English colonial expansion and incessant wars, painting, architecture, and other arts and crafts fell into decay.
The new masters of India rejected the values of Indian culture, doomed the population to poverty and ignorance.“One shelf of English books is worth more than all the native literature of India and Africa put together,” one of the British officials cynically declared. But the British could not do without a small stratum of educated Indians - Indian in blood and skin color, English in taste and mindset. In order to prepare such a layer in the 30s. 19th century A small number of European-type secondary schools were opened, in which people from wealthy families studied. The cost of education was miserable. As a result, by the time the British left India in 1947, 89% of the population remained illiterate.
Despite the difficulties, the peoples of India continued to develop their national culture. In addition, there was close contact with the culture of the West. And this served as an important prerequisite for the profound transformations in religious and cultural life, called the Indian Renaissance.
Ram Roy
At the origins of the Indian Renaissance stands Ram Mohan Roy, an outstanding public figure, reformer and educator of the first half of the 19th century. Compatriots call him "the father of modern India."
Indian art: "Two vendors with their products - fish and sweets." Shiva Dayal Lal is one of the famous Indian artists of the mid-19th century.
Ram Roy was born into a Brahmin family. He could lead the measured life of the most learned of scientists far from political storms and worldly worries. But he, in the words of Rabindranath Tagore, decided to descend to the earth to the common people in order to "sow the seeds of knowledge and spread the fragrance of feelings."
For several years, Ram Roy led the life of a wandering ascetic. Traveled in India and Tibet. Then he became an official of the tax department. After retiring, he devoted himself to literary and social activities. He spoke out against the reactionary rites and customs of the Hindu religion, against caste prejudices, idolatry, the barbaric custom of self-immolation of widows (sati) and the killing of newborn girls. Influenced by his campaign for the abolition of sati, the British government banned this rite.
THIS IS INTERESTING TO KNOW
Heroine of the Indian people
Among the leaders of the anti-colonial uprising of 1857-1859. the name of Lakshmi Bai is distinguished - the princess (Rani) of the small principality of Jhansi. After the death of her husband, she was rudely removed from the government of the principality by the British. When the uprising began, the young princess joined the rebel leaders Nana Sahib and Tantiya Topi, who were friends of her childhood. She bravely fought against the British in Jhansi. After the capture of the principality by the enemy, she managed to break through to Tantia Topi, where she began to command a cavalry detachment. In one of the battles, the twenty-year-old princess was mortally wounded. "The best and bravest" of the rebel leaders was called her by an English general who fought against her. The name of the young heroine Rani Jhansi Lakshmi Bai is especially revered by the Indian people.
References:
V. S. Koshelev, I. V. Orzhehovsky, V. I. Sinitsa / World History of the Modern Times XIX - early. XX century., 1998.
India at that time was a colony of England. The metropolis ruled India with the help of officials headed by the viceroy and the police apparatus.
Under the conditions of British colonization, a capitalist system began to emerge in India. The construction of large industrial enterprises based on investments began. In 1886 there were 95 factories in the textile industry. The number of mines increased, the length of the railway network. This was of particular importance for the preparation and transportation of raw materials.
England tried to profitably locate industrial enterprises in India. The main industrial enterprises were prudently built near the coastal port cities, so that it would be cheaper and easier to export the wealth of India. From 1873 to 1883 India's trade with England increased more and more. India has become an investment zone for the British bourgeoisie.
The peasant culture of agricultural technology remained low. The irrigation facilities opened by the colonizers were enough for only 20% of the irrigation of the land. The lands were leased out to the peasants with the condition of paying the bulk of the harvest. More and more people were forced to work to pay off debt.
Capital investment in the most profitable branches of agriculture (tea, hemp, cotton) brought great profits.
India at the end of the 19th century began to export industrial and agricultural products to the world market in large quantities. But the income received enriched the British colonialists. Monoculture has become established in agriculture. Bengal specialized in hemp, Assam in tea, Bombay and Central India in cotton, and Punjab in millet. Landowners, bankers, usurers enslaved the peasants, whose situation was deplorable. During the 1870-1890s in India, the population went hungry more than 20 times. As a result, 18 million people died.
In 1878, the British administration passed the Indian Press Act, published in the national language. By law, all newspapers were transferred to the control of the British. Soon an act was passed banning the possession of firearms.
England at the same time pretended to be making concessions to the local bourgeoisie. Representatives of the local bourgeoisie were elected to the city administration.
Economic situation
At the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism began to develop in India, albeit slowly. By 1910, the number of hemp fiber factories had doubled. 215 enterprises for the preparation of raw cotton, calico weaving factories were in the possession of Indian capitalists. The number of workers employed in industry has reached 1 million people. England took over all the coalfields, the kenaf industry, tea plantations, transport, trading and insurance companies, and established control over the production system of all India.
English capital grew very rapidly. But the condition of the people was appalling. In 1896-1906, more than 10 million people died of starvation in the country. In 1904, 1 million people died from the plague.
Tuition fees at universities have doubled. Universities have closed their law departments. It was forbidden to enter the universities democratically minded students who defend the interests of the people.
National Liberation Movement
The peoples of India waged a liberation struggle against colonial oppression. In 1885, a political party was formed in Bombay - the Indian National Congress (INC), which has a specific program. At the same time, the Muslim League was formed. Now the British have further intensified the Hindu-Muslim confrontation.
The congress united in its ranks representatives of large commercial and industrial capital, liberal landowners and the national intelligentsia. At first, the administration of the English colony did not oppose the Indian National Congress. The Viceroy of England in India, Lord Dufferin, commented on this attitude as follows: "The Indian National Congress will cost less than a revolution."
As the British thought, at first the demands of the National Congress were very moderate. These demands called for some reforms while maintaining British dominance, such as imposing a duty on imported cotton fabrics, expanding the rights of local representative institutions, involving Indians in government affairs, organizing technical education, and so on. But over time, this party began to enjoy great influence.
In 1890, the "left" was formed - a radical movement, led by Bal Gangadhara Tilak (1856-1920). He followed the path of awakening the national consciousness of the Indian people, the growth of national pride. He gave a high appraisal of religion, its power to unite the masses. Soon he built an independent high school in the city of Pune and began to educate students in the spirit of patriotism. Tilak published the newspaper "Kesari" (Lion). The newspaper began to propagate the ideas of patriotism among young people. Tilak, who realized that under the present situation there was no way for India to gain freedom through armed insurrection, was a supporter of the "non-use of force." With this method of struggle, the main attention was paid to the boycott of British goods. Tilak said: "God never gave India to foreign countries." Tilak's supporters propagated hatred for the colonialists among the masses, so the British in 1897 arrested Tilak for a year and a half. But soon they were forced to release him.
Partition of Bengal
In an effort to stifle the national liberation movement, the British colonialists divided Bengal into two parts in 1905, because Bengal had become one of the strongest centers of the anti-colonial movement. This measure backfired. In India, the national liberation movement again intensified. A demonstration was held in Calcutta, in which 100,000 workers and peasants took part. Protest demonstrations gradually covered most of the country.
In December 1906, at the request of the "left" radical trend, the INC adopted an additional resolution. Movements "Swaraj" (Own rule), "Swadeshi" (Own production), "Boycott of English goods" had a great authority among the people. Tilak called for abandoning not only English goods, but also English rule. He called for the nationalization of management, the construction of factories and factories.
The programs of the Swaraj and Swadeshi movements had a great impact on the population. In 1908, the Congress of the INC was held in the city of Surat, Bombay District. The moderate current approved a resolution to remain part of the English Empire and at the same time receive the rights of self-government. The radical movement (led by Tilak) was withdrawn from the INC.
The English administrators soon passed laws prohibiting "illegal" gatherings and the press, and increased repression. Leaders of movements and strikes were sentenced to death without trial. Thus, they achieved a temporary suppression of the liberation movement in India.
On the eve of the warriors
The local ruling circles of India, agreed with the British colonial administration, in 1909 passed the Indian Councils Act. According to this Law, only half of a percent of the population received the right to vote. Elections were decided to be held separately according to the religious denominations of religious communities (that is, Hindus and Muslims had to vote separately). The purpose of this "election game" is to sow discord between Hindus and Muslims.
During this period, India began to play an important role in the plans of England on the eve of the coming world war. Therefore, England sought to soften the situation. So, in 1911, the colonial administration passed a law limiting working hours to 12 hours.
In 1911, the colonial administrators, frightened by the actions of the working people, were forced to unite the divided Bengal. The capital was moved to Delhi, which was in a safer place.
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India in the late 19th - early 20th century Updated: January 27, 2017 By: admin
India XIX-XX centuries
From the very first half of the 19th century, as the position of the industrial bourgeoisie strengthened in England, India began to be exploited by new, more subtle and sophisticated methods. This country is gradually turning into a raw material appendage of the mother country and a market for its manufactured goods, and then into an arena for the application of British capital.
By the middle of the 19th century, almost all of India was under the control of the British. The cruel and predatory policy of the company provoked mass actions of the Indians in 1857-1859. They were crushed. The British in 1858 abolished the East India Company and proclaimed India a colony of the British Crown. After the establishment of English rule, the land tax levied on the peasantry became the main source of colonial income.
After the strengthening of the position of the industrial bourgeoisie in England, the economic development of India was increasingly directed by the interests of the British bourgeoisie. India began to gradually turn into a market for British goods and a market for raw materials for British industry.
The customs policy of England, by means of low duties, encouraged English exports to India, and by means of high duties hindered the import of Indian handicrafts into England. Whereas when imported to India, a duty of 2-3.5% was taken from English fabrics, when importing Indian fabrics to England, the duty was 20-30%. As a result, India has changed from being a textile exporting country to being an importing country. The same thing happened with other goods. For example, the customs policy of the British made profitable even the import to India of steel received by the British from Sweden and Russia, while a small foundry founded in 1833 by an English engineer in Porto-Novo, despite the presence of the most favorable conditions (open-cast mining, a large forest area, the proximity of the port, etc.), turned out to be unprofitable and closed a few years later. In the same way, shipbuilding was stopped in Calcutta, since the ships built there could compete with the English. Only in Bombay, where shipbuilding was in the hands of the Parsis associated with the Company and serviced the Company's trade with China, did it continue to flourish until the middle of the 19th century.
Although English fabrics in India were sold cheaper than Indian ones, by the middle of the 19th century. they were in great demand only in cities and some rural areas close to ports. Indian artisans, who had nowhere to go, were forced to sell their products at the same price as the price of English factory goods. This drastically lowered the living standards of the artisans: in the Madras Presidency, for example, from 1815 to 1844, the weaver's net income fell by 75%. In the 1920s, English factory-made yarn began to be imported into India, and by the middle of the century its imports already accounted for 1/6 of all cotton imports to India. The enslavement of weavers by merchants-usurers, who now delivered yarn to the weaver, also intensified. For example, in 1844, 60% of weavers were in debt bondage to merchants.
Using and strengthening the feudal methods of exploiting the peasantry, the British were able to pump raw materials from small peasant farms with virtually no prior investment of capital. Perhaps that is why the plantation economy did not take root in India (except for the plantations that arose in the middle of the 19th century in the sparsely populated mountainous regions of Assam). When buying opium poppy and indigo, a system of forced contracting was widely used, which essentially turned the peasants who grew these crops on their farms into serfs. The "indigo planters" enslaved the peasants with advance payments, and then took the entire crop from them at an arbitrarily set contract price so low that they could never pay their creditors. The debts of the parents passed to the children. Each planter kept gangs of thugs who followed the peasants and, in case of flight, returned them or kidnapped the peasants who worked on neighboring plantations. The answer to these methods of lawlessness, robbery and violence was the continuous "indigo riots" that continued from the 80s of the XVIII century. until the end of the 19th century. and sometimes ended in victory, until the invention of chemical dyes made the cultivation of indigo unprofitable.
At the end of the 1920s, in Bihar, English entrepreneurs began to encourage peasants to increase the cultivation of sugar cane, in Berar at the same time the Company tried to introduce a culture of long-staple cotton, silkworm caterpillars were brought to Bengal from Italy, and coffee and tobacco began to be grown in Mysore. However, all these attempts to adapt India to the role of a supplier of higher quality raw materials yielded little due to the low standard of living of the peasantry, which was therefore unable to change the traditional way of managing. The Indian farmer often had to sell his produce to pay taxes and rent, regardless of the cost of producing it. In the 1920s and 1930s, due to the mass revision of documents for the ownership of non-taxable plots, the total amount of taxes was increased. Not without reason in the first half of the XIX century. famine hit different regions of the country seven times and claimed about 1.5 million lives. colonial economic policy india
The emergence of India's economic ties with the world market led to the growth of port cities and to the strengthening of trade relations between them and the interior of the country. By the middle of the XIX century. in India, the first railways were laid and repair shops were created to serve them, new port facilities were erected, the construction of a telegraph began, the postal service was improved, old irrigation canals were restored and in some places new irrigation canals were built. This created, especially during the period of Governor-General J. Dalhousie (1848-1856), the prerequisites for the accelerated development of India by industrial capital. In India itself, among the Indian comprador bourgeoisie, there appeared, mainly in Bombay and Calcutta, new trading houses, possessing millions of capital and conducting their merchant and banking activities in a European fashion.
The 1930s and 1950s marked the beginning of the birth of the Indian industrial bourgeoisie, and the first manufacturing enterprises arose almost simultaneously with the first factories - English jute near Calcutta, Indian cotton in Bombay. However, the emergence of the industrial bourgeoisie was slow and difficult. Despite India's involvement in world trade and the growth of new economic ties, the level of commodity-money relations and commodity production in agriculture as a whole was still low. In addition, this level was uneven: the development of commodity-money relations in the Bengal Presidency, which had been ruled by the British for almost a hundred years, and even in the rest of Northern India, allocated in the 30s into a special province called the North-Western Provinces, took place faster than in the interior of the Bombay and especially the Madras presidencies.
In general, the economic policy of the colonial government in India was ambivalent: on the one hand, the development of new economic regions, new means of communication was encouraged, the rural community was disintegrating, on the other hand, the essentially feudal tax exploitation of the peasantry was intensified and the private property of landowners who rented out their land was strengthened. land on share-cropping and essentially introducing enslaving methods of enslaving the peasants. On the one hand, the transformation of India into an agrarian and raw materials appendage of England objectively created the ground for the emergence of capitalist production in the country, on the other hand, the preservation of various kinds of feudal remnants and obstacles erected in the way of the development of national production hampered the development of the Indian economy.
Formation of independent states in India
In the second half of the 17th century, India, thanks to its wealth, became an object of aggression of the European powers. In India, ruled by the Great Mughals, there were several hundred feudal principalities, forever at war with each other. Political fragmentation accelerated the decline of the Mughal empire. India was characterized by peasant communities, division into castes. As a result of the intensification of feudal exploitation, the crisis of peasant farms led to the decline of the state.
The performance of the Maratha peasants under the leadership of Shivachi in 1674 led to the formation of an independent Maratha state.
In the 30s of the XVIII century, Punjab, Maratha, Bengal, Hyderabad were already independent states. In 1764, the state of Sigh emerged.
In 1739, Nadir Shah, having defeated the Mughal troops in the Punjab, annexed the territories inhabited by the Afghans and Sindh to Iran. Nadir's campaign revealed the weakness of the Mughal troops. In 1747, Nadir Shah was killed, after which Ahmed Shah created an independent Afghan state.
At this time, the Maratha state gained political power. This state aspired to hegemony on a pan-Indian scale.
In 1759-1761, the Afghan-Maratha War for India took place. The Battle of Panipat, which took place in January 1761, marked the end of the war. Having suffered a heavy defeat, the Maratha state was no longer able to regain its former glory. The Panipat battle also meant the end of the Mughal Empire. But Ahmed Shah was unable to gain a foothold in India and returned to Afghanistan.
power struggle in India.
The transformation of the country into a colony of England. The unlimited imperial power of the Great Mughals was dealt a blow by the governors. And the power of the governors was undermined by the Marathas. The Afghans put an end to Maratha rule. While in India everyone was at war with each other, England came to the fore and subjugated the whole country.
Of the European countries, England and France enjoyed the greatest influence in India. England colonized India through the East India Company. France was her main rival. This struggle ended in favor of an industrially and militarily stronger England. The colonization of India began with Bengal. In 1757, at the decisive Battle of Plassey, the British defeated the Bengal army, which was defending the interests of the French. The main reason for the defeat was the betrayal of the ruling circles of Bengal and the fear of using the armed detachments of the people. After that, in India, only coastal fortresses remained in the hands of the French.
The management of India was entrusted to the East India Company, which gave the collection of taxes to a short-term farm. The annual increase in land tax, the farming system, the neglect of the irrigation system became the causes of famine. In 1770, every third inhabitant of Bengal died.
In 1774, the English Parliament for the first time passed an act for the government of India, according to which peasant revolts should be suppressed, taxes should be collected regularly, and the colonization of India should be fully completed. After the weakening of the Marathas, the state of Mysore remained the strongest in South India.
India in the first half of the 19th century
The struggle against the British was continued by the confederation of the states of the Sighs and the principalities of the Marathas. In the wars from 1775 to 1805, the defeated principality of the Marathas was forced to make new concessions to the British. At this time, the East India Company formally restored the Mughal dynasty. This made it possible to claim that the company was running India on behalf of the Mughals.
In 1845-1846. the state of the Sighs suffered another defeat in the war with the British. In 1849 the Punjab was taken and the colonization of India completed. The British practiced in India three types of land-tax system:
- Rayatvari (leased from peasants).
- Temporary zamindars.
- Permanent zamindars.
During the reign of the English Governor-General, a unified system of measures, weights and money was introduced, the Calcutta-Delhi highway was built. This contributed to economic growth to some extent. The main goal of the colonizers was to turn India into a market for British goods. In 1833, the English parliament abolished the trade license of the East India Company, which played the role of the administrative-political, military-police apparatus of the English colonial system. This opened up wide opportunities for the import of English goods. In the 30s of the 19th century, plantations of sugar cane and cotton began to be laid in India.
India in the second half of the 19th century
In the second half of the 19th century, the process of turning India into a source of raw materials was completed. Due to the civil war that began in the United States, the supply of American cotton to Europe was greatly reduced and, accordingly, the importance of Indian cotton increased. Increased investment in Indian industry. In 1857, the first railroad was built. This facilitated the transportation of various types of cargo and the transfer of armed forces to the desired points in the country. Irrigation facilities were created.
During this period, the main source of replenishment of the treasury of England was the tax payments of the Indians.
In the second half of the 19th century, military units formed from Indians also joined the fight against English colonialism, which gave this struggle an organized character. The vicious financial system, national oppression, the treatment of sepoys as second-class people, irregular payment of salaries, the low standard of living of Indian officers compared to English officers, persistent rumors about the forced Christianization of the population led to a new uprising. It was called the uprising of the sepoys (“sepoys” - warriors) and lasted from 1857 to 1859. A rumor spread throughout the country that the cartridges distributed by the British to the Indians were lubricated with cow and pork fat. The Indians felt offended because the pig is considered a godless animal by Muslims, and cows are considered sacred animals in India. The sepoys who refused to use such cartridges were punished, this became the reason for the uprising.
The uprising began in May 1857 in the city of Mirut. The rebels captured Delhi and declared Bahadur Shah from the Mughal dynasty as ruler. The uprising turned into a national liberation movement. The driving force behind the rebellion were the peasants, the urban poor and artisans. Large feudal lords also took part in the movement. The sepoy uprising in 1859 was drowned in blood. Reasons for the defeat of the uprising:
- the absence of a single center for commanding the uprising;
- the fragmented nature of the actions of the rebels;
- the colonialists have a regular army and a technical advantage;
- the penetration of the feudal lords into the leadership of the uprising;
- the leaders of the uprising pursued personal or tribal interests.
Sepoy uprising results:
- In 1858 the East India Company was dissolved.
- India was declared a colony of Great Britain, and direct British control was introduced.
- The number of Englishmen increased in the military units, and so on.
In 1885, the All India National Congress was formed in India to lead the popular movement. The congress united the upper strata of the national bourgeoisie. In order to keep this movement under control, at the direction of the Viceroy of India, the English official Hume was elected the first secretary of this organization. The British also used the principle of “divide and rule” here, inflating the contradictions between the leader of the Hindu faction, Tilak, and the leader of the Muslims, Said Ahmed.
India at the beginning of the 20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, capitalist relations in India developed mainly in light industry, especially in textile enterprises. At this time, the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon (1899-1905), pursued a tough colonial policy.
The financial reform carried out in 1899 was carried out in the interests of British capital. At the beginning of the 20th century, in protest against the arbitrariness of the colonialists, a boycott of British goods was announced. It was the first nationwide movement in the history of India. The drought of 1907 caused new peasant uprisings.
At the beginning of the 20th century, two trends arose in the Indian National Congress. Balgangadhar Tilak led the left wing (the so-called "extremes"), which demanded that India be declared a republic. In 1908, Tilak was arrested and sent to hard labor.
The events of 1906-1908 showed that the national liberation movement of the Indian people had entered a new phase. In order to weaken this movement, the British from local reactionary circles created the Hindi Mahashaba organization.
The wars in India intensified the movement to achieve independence. The Indian National Congress Party (INC) launched a campaign of civil disobedience calling for no support for the British war effort. The campaign was crushed, but with the end of the war, India was on the verge of rebellion. The hardships of wartime, the famine caused by the need to supply the fronts, exhausted the patience of the population. In the summer of 1945, uprisings began in some of the largest cities in India. They spread to military units formed from Indian subjects of the British Monarchy.
Granting of independence and division of the country.
At the beginning of 1946, with the consent of the colonial authorities, elections to the legislative assembly were held in India. The majority was received by the INC party, which formed the country's provisional government. At the same time, those provinces and principalities of India, where the Muslim population predominated, refused to recognize the authority of the INC. The Muslim League representing their interests proclaimed the beginning of the struggle for the creation of an Islamic state on the territory of the former British India.
In 1947, the colonial administration announced the granting of independence to India. The previously united colony was divided into two states along religious lines - Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan, which received the status of dominions. The principalities and provinces (states) of British India had to decide which of the states they would join.
As a result, millions of people were forced to move from their homes. Many cities have become the scene of bloody clashes between supporters of Hinduism and Islam. The leader of the liberation movement, M. Gandhi, fell victim to an assassination attempt by an Islamist fanatic. In the autumn of 1947, detachments of the Pashtun tribe invaded the territory of the principalities of Jammu and Kashmir in northern India from Pakistan. Indian troops came to the aid of the principalities that expressed their desire to become part of India. The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947-1949 began, stopped after the intervention of the UN on the basis of a compromise - the division of Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
The final step towards gaining independence was the adoption of the 1950 constitution. The INC became the ruling party, which held power until 1977. Its leader until his death in 1964 was J. Nehru, who was replaced in this post by his daughter, I. Gandhi.
Features of the modernization policy.
Conditions in which India had to solve problems modernization, were extremely complex. The single economic complex of British India was torn apart. Many important enterprises for India, crops ended up in Pakistan, relations with which remained extremely tense. India itself was not so much a state of the European type as the whole world, extremely heterogeneous in all respects. Hundreds of nationalities lived on its territory, each with its own culture, customs and traditions. India included both states with a democratic form of government and semi-independent principalities.
In this situation, the INC showed great caution in carrying out socio-political transformations, trying to overcome the most archaic forms of social life. The caste system was abolished, representatives of the higher and lower castes were equalized in rights (three-quarters of the population belonged to the latter). The basis of the feudal order was weakened: the tenants received the right to buy out the land they cultivated, the landlords were deprived of the right to collect taxes from the peasantry. At the same time, the government did not violate the traditional way of rural life, the system of communities with their subsistence and semi-subsistence farming.
The property of the former colonial authorities became the backbone of the public sector. These are railways, energy, basic industrial, military enterprises, irrigation facilities. A system of five-year plans has been established in the public sector. In their implementation, India used the technical assistance of the USSR, in particular, to create its own metallurgical industry. At the same time, those enterprises and banks that were owned by the national bourgeoisie were not nationalized.
Great importance was attached to maintaining social and political stability, which is a condition for attracting foreign capital. In the 1960s government, seeking to prevent the development of social inequality, to increase the degree of control over economy, nationalized the largest banks, the wholesale trade system, introduced additional restrictions on the maximum size of land holdings. It is indicative that, with a generally low standard of living, the income gap between the 20% of the richest and 20% of the poorest families in India was in the 1990s. only 4.7 to 1, which is close to the indicators of European countries with a socially oriented economy.
Avoiding explosive social polarization in society, the government pursued a well-thought-out modernization strategy. It combined public investment in promising sectors of the economy with protectionist policies. For national and foreign capital, if it was directed to promising industries, the products of which could obviously be in demand on domestic and international markets, special benefits were introduced.
The result of the modernization policy was the formation of a mixed economy, the complication of the social structure of society. From 1960 to 1990, the proportion of the population employed in industry increased from 11% to 16% of the labor force, while in agriculture it decreased from 74% to 64%. Giant cities of the European type have grown in India, enclaves of post-industrial, high-tech production, scientific centers have emerged that operate at the level of the achievements of the technical thought of advanced countries. India independently mastered the technology for the production of nuclear weapons, rocket technology, became the third country in the world, after the United States and Japan, to create advanced computers that make it possible to simulate the processes that occur during nuclear explosions.
Advanced technologies in cities coexist with subsistence farming in the villages (although separate centers of the modern type of agricultural production have developed), combined with a situation where up to a third of the adult population is illiterate, unable to read or write.
Paradoxically, it is the rural, illiterate and semi-literate population, and not the still extremely small “middle class”, that ensures social and political stability in India. Not yet seized by the desire for a constant increase in living standards, content with stability, the traditionally conservative peasantry in elections constantly supports the party or leader to which they are accustomed. Significantly, the Indian National Congress Party (INC) lost power in the 1977 elections after its leaders began pushing for a reduction in the birth rate. In 1976, the marriage age for women was raised from 15 to 18, and a campaign for voluntary male sterilization began. Rural voters regarded such measures as an attack on the foundations of life, although from the point of view of the government such measures were necessary.
As a result of the "green revolution" - the use of new varieties of grain, electrification, the introduction of modern farming techniques, in the mid-1970s. India was able to provide itself with food for the first time. However, with India's population approaching 1 billion, its rate of growth threatens to outstrip its ability to increase food production. However, during the 1980s and 1990s average annual increase in production GNP in India per capita was about 3.2%.
In the 1990s in the conditions of a strengthened economy, the government began to take measures to support private business, partially liberalize foreign trade, and attract capital from abroad.
Foreign policy of India.
In the years " cold war» India adhered to the policy of non-alignment and was one of the founders of this movement. However, India has a tense relationship with Pakistan over disputed border areas.
In 1965, hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan in desert areas where the border was not demarcated (drawn on the ground). At the same time, a war began over Kashmir, which ended in 1966. Through the mediation of the USSR, the parties agreed to withdraw troops to their original positions.
In 1971, another war between India and Pakistan was caused by the crisis in East Pakistan. The outbreak of the uprising in this densely populated and one of the poorest provinces in the world caused an influx of millions of refugees into India. It was followed by a military conflict. Indian troops occupied the territory of East Pakistan, which became the independent state of Bangladesh. Following this, hostilities were also stopped on the western borders of India.
Power in the country passed from the army to the civil administration. Pakistan withdrew from the military alliance with the US and Britain and normalized relations with India. But in 1977, a military regime again came to power in Pakistan, resuming the confrontation with India.
As part of this confrontation, cooperation between Pakistan and China has developed, which also has a territorial dispute with India over the border in the Himalayas.
Since 1998, the Indo-Pakistani confrontation has become nuclear. Both India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons, becoming nuclear powers.
By the turn of the 21st century, India comes with undeniable achievements and complex problems. In terms of its resources and level of technological development, India, along with China, has every chance of becoming one of the superpowers of the next century. At the same time, India faces extremely difficult challenges.
The unevenness in the development of the states of India began to appear, separatist movements intensified, and there was an increase in interethnic and religious conflicts. By the absolute volume of GDP (324 billion dollars) by the end of the 1990s. India has approached the indicators of Russia. However, in terms of GDP per capita (about $340), India belongs to the group of the least developed countries of the world, yielding to Russia by about 7 times, and the USA by 80 times.
Questions and tasks
1. Explain the reasons for the intensification of the struggle for Indian independence after the Second World War. What results did it lead to?
2. Identify the main directions of modernization of independent India. How did this process differ from the development of other Asian countries?
3. Describe the main directions and features of India's foreign policy. What role did relations with the USSR and Russia play in it?
4. Think about what factors give reason to believe that India has great development prospects in the 21st century?
Zagladin N.V., Recent history of foreign countries. XX century: Textbook for schoolchildren of the 7th grade. - M .: LLC Trade and Publishing House "Russian Word - PC", 1999. - 352 p.: ill.
