Appendix A Chronology of
Colonial Period
1498 – Vasco De Gama
lands in India
via the sea route. During this time there existed an elaborate Indian
Ocean economy.
1599 – English East
India Company formed
1602 – Dutch East
India Company formed.
1658 – French East
India Company formed
1707 – Death of
Aurangzeb and end of Mughal rule
1785 – Robert Clive in
India
1835 – Macaulay plans to
civilize the natives so that a class of people is created who think and do
exactly like their masters. His words were to this effect: I have traveled
across the length and breadth of India
and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I
have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that
I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very
backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and,
therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her
culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good
and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self
culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.(Macaulay
was the British version of Allauddin Khilji whose goal was similar to break the
self esteem and the will of the people)
(Source: The Awakening
Ray, Vol. 4 No. 5, And The Gnostic Centre)
The main philosophy
was to incrementally indoctrinate the children with principles that are
sympathetic to colonizer’s philosophy. Make future generations weak in mind,
body and spirit. Avoid teaching children the basic facts about their own
history. Teach them that natural aggression is wrong and docile submission is
right. Teach them that any basis of a moral foundation, like the principles of religion,
is a weakness to be avoided in the name of freedom and also redefine the
concept of patriotism to support colonizer’s views.
1853 - Sir Arthur
Cunningham was the first to archeologically examine Harappa
in 1853 and 1856. Finding some Kushana coins in the site, he attributed the
city to the Kushana period (Imam 1966) It is shocking to note that about one hundered miles of the Lahore-Multan railway was ballasted
by bricks retrieved from the ruins at Harappa by rapacious railroad
contractors; “ No invader of India had ever so ruthlessly and wantonly destroyed her ancient remains as did
the railway contractors in the civilized 19th century ” (Edwin Bryant – Quest
for the origins of the vedic culture Page 331-332).
This made the Anglo Saxon realize that the Indians have the remains of
civilization just like the Mesopotamia. The big plan for
India was
created to change the course of history of India.
The British by this time were already doing research on all the other ancient
civilization such as Egypt,
Mesopotamia etc
1857 – First War of
independence- the sepoy mutiny made the British aware that a united India
would be disastrous for their rule in the subcontinent. This was when they laid
the groundwork for a divide and rule policy for the Indian sub-continent. After
the war, Whitehall assumed direct
responsibility for the administration of India,
ending 250 years of rule by the British East India Company. This war changed
the resolve of the British towards Indians and made them racist towards the
native population. Till then the practice of marriage with the local women was
considered normal (especially Punjabis and Muslims) and mixed blood was not
frowned upon. After the change in attitude the British made sure that they
segregated the native population from themselves and their family and created a
class system for privileges and favor. This was also the beginning of the
creation of cantonments where the British segregated themselves
1863 – Max Muller
proposes the Aryan Invasion Theory – Probably due to the absence of finding any
civilization this concocted theory was proposed and it took a life of its own.
Since the native version of the history was discarded the Harappan phase of
Indian civilization was brushed aside.
1867 - Creation of
Deoband Muslim school so that Ashrafs can come closer to the rest of the local
Muslim converts and create a united Muslim front against the British. Till then
the Ashrafs looked upon themselves as the higher and the ruling
class. Syed Ahmed Khan starts the Aligarh Muslim education center to bring
Muslims to the forefront of the European education. Deobandis
who were Muslim reformers who setup the first madrassahs
for the purpose of training future clerics were not in agreement with the Aligarh
School of reformers.
1875 – First seals of
Indian civilization found by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1875(Source: Ancient
Civilizations by Hugh Bowden) – This made the Anglo Saxons realize that the
Indians have the remains of civilization just like the Mesopotamia.
The big plan for India
was created to change the course of history of India
by influencing the elite class of the Indian society and to shape future
generations, control the schools. The British by this time were already doing
research on all the other ancient civilization such as Egypt,
Mesopotamia etc. They had for the last few centuries already studied the Islamic
civilization( the first Arabic chair in the west was
set up in 1630s). Indus civilization was not pursued
rigorously in case a large section of Indians get nationalistic feelings. The
British had committed a great mistake in 1857 by accidentally uniting Moslems
and Hindus against them in some areas by their policies. They were more careful
in their game after that. However, they saw that the true danger to their
dominance were the educated Hindus who were in possession of both Western and
traditional Indic knowledge. This was the class that could easily challenge
them, as it was still wedded to the Hindu ways and capable of using the power
of the newly acquired Western knowledge against the British. Sir John Stratchey (FInance minister
1874): “The existence side by side of these (Hindu and Muslim) hostile creeds
is one of the strong points in our political position in India.
The better classes of Mohammedans are a source of strength and not weakness.
They constitute a comparatively small but an energetic minority of the
population whose political interests are identical with ours.” Sir James Caird
of Thanjavur, 1879: "there was no class except
Brahmins, which was so hostile to the English."
1881 – The first
census in British India done. This is a massive project
to really classify the largest human group into various classes by their
origins and social strata supposedly for benign motive. This has helped the British
and later the west to target individual groups for various religious and
military purposes. This census also helped the British to map the kinship
pattern among various social groups, which they continued to monitor till the
20th century.
1885 – Indian National
Congress formed as a tool of the British government to influence the course of
the Independence movement and for
the emancipation of the suffering Indians. The main reason for forming this
organization is to create a platform to dissipate the nationalistic sentiments
and to control the nature of the debate and pace of the changes in the
political class of the Indians. The political consciousness of the Hindus could
be molded and controlled with such platform. The terms of debate between the
Hindus and Muslims were also influenced with the help of key people in the
party as it evolved in the next 50 years. The main philosophy was to shape the
political philosophy, infiltrate the government: Whenever and wherever possible
place those sympathetic to your philosophy into office at all levels—the
higher, the better—so they can sway the direction of the country within every
function of government, promising solutions and benefits for all. In such a way
you can tilt legislation toward incrementally increasing the control of and
dependency on government—a government that you are shaping.
1906 - split of Bengal during The Great Game
at the height of rivalry between the Russians and the British in the Eurasian
landmass. The British needed an ally who would be able to resist the thrust of
the Tsars. Russian expansion started in 1582 and continued to central Asia
and the pacific till late 1700s. The next target of the Russians was Tibet
and British were worried about Tibet
coming under the influence of Russia.
The long-term plan was to keep India
under the British dominion for the next 500 years and was expressed in
commonwealth speeches in early 1900-1910.
1911 – Capital shifts
from Calcutta to New
Delhi. This was to reduce the increasing demands for
independence in the enlightened Bengal, which had the
most interaction with the west. This was a diversion so that the seat of power
should be perceived similar to the Mughal Empire. This also broke the deep
intellectual nationalist discourse in Bengal and
weakened it. The ultimate aim is to make sure that the Muslims would also start seeing a Muslim
homeland in Indian sub-continent.
1917 – First World
War. Fall of Ottoman Empire and creation of Middle
Eastern states under the direct influence of the British. British looked at the
Muslims of the Middle East and the Muslims of the India
as one and built relationship with the Arabs and the ashrafs of the
sub-continent. The British oust the Ottomans from Jerusalem
and Baghdad; in the Balfour
Declaration, Britain
declares its support for the
establishment of a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine.
In return, the unwritten agreement with the Arabs is the creation of a Muslim
homeland in the Indian sub-continent.
1920s - Discovery of MohenjoDaro,
Harrapa – final confirmation of the existence and history of Indian
civilization. This may have made the British to push through the plans for
division of India.
1930 – Plans to divide
the country hatched when the Middle East was secure
after the First World War and Saudi Arabia
was already a state. The assessment of the colonial powers was that the history
of the natives has been discovered with archeology and they would find their
true belonging. It would be difficult to keep the country colonized for a long time.
1935 - The GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA ACT passed by the British parliament. Burma
and Aden were separated from India.
British India was divided into 11 provinces, each under
an appointed governor and an
appointed executive council. Each province was to have an elected
legislature (bicameral in six provinces and unicameral in five), with a
ministry responsible to it. Representation was to be based on the communal award.
The provincial governments were to enjoy wide autonomy, though the governors
retained certain emergency powers. The ultimate objective was the establishment
of an All-India Federation, to include the Indian states as well as the
provinces of British India.
1939 – Second World
War – British still to recover from the First World War and willing to lessen
their burden in the empire.
1940 - Lahore
resolution for a separate Muslim homeland. Secretly British were siding with
the Muslim League/Ashrafs to create a homeland for them for future
collaboration. There is increasing evidence that Lahore
resolution was made in that location and time so that the future homeland of
the Pakistan
will have Punjab as the cultural/political and military
center.
1947 – Indian
Independence/partition. Creation of Pakistan.
1971 – Split of Pakistan
the largest Muslim nation into Pakistan
and Bangladesh
Appendix B Chronology of Cold War containment and
elimination of communism
1945-1968 – Chaos in
US and confusion on containment of USSR.
Idealist policy of the US
turns to failure in Vietnam.
1968-1989 – long term
containment of USSR
and communism and propaganda against communism. Nixon and H Kissinger actively
took up a realist policy towards the spread of communism and against supporters
of USSR which
includes India.
Long term India
policy was created after 1971 war and was accelerated after
1975 Pokhran I atomic
test. According to John Pilger: Brzezinski not long ago revealed that on July
3, 1979, unknown to the American public and Congress, President Jimmy Carter
secretly authorized $500 million to create an international terrorist movement
that would spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and destabilize the
Soviet Union. The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and in the following years
poured $4 billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban
means student) Zealot were sent to CIA training camps in Virginia-where future
Al-Qaeda members were taught sabotage skills- i.e. terrorism. Others were
trained in an Islamic school in Brooklyn. In Pakistan,
they were trained by British M16 officers and trained by SAS The result quipped
Brezinski, was a few stirred up Muslims meaning the
Taliban (Pilger 2002) quoted in Afzal Khan 2002. The other target of this
operation was India
with a similar outcome as the Soviet Union. The Indian
strategy was to create sufficient momentum so that a fault line is created
first in the border in Kashmir and then wider fault line
inside India
with the help of minorities. US during the early 70s had the weakest economy
compared to the western European countries. It had to increase its deficit to
fund the massive defense spending and increase its GDP over the next 25 years
to finally become the biggest economy in the world. In the same way they had a
plan to contain the soviet empire and get control over most of the countries. in their economy and strategic space. By developing
technology and having monopoly US was able to create a large lead over many
advanced countries.
For specifically India
US made sure that the goodwill which India
had with the people of US after the independence was reduced by the late 80s
and all India
related culture in the world was in the end of the list in popularity.
US 1945 –1968
1957. The Cold War was
scarcely a decade old. Samuel Huntington : The Soldier and the State constituted a
warning: America's
liberal society, Huntington argued,
required the protection of a professional military establishment steeped in conservative
realism. In order to keep the peace, military leaders had to take for
granted—and anticipate—the "irrationality, weakness, and evil in human
nature." Liberals were good at reform, not at national security.
"Magnificently varied and creative when limited to domestic issues," Huntington
wrote, "liberalism faltered when applied to foreign policy and
defense." Foreign policy, he explained, is not about the relationship
among individuals living under the rule of law but about the relationship among
states and other groups operating in a largely lawless realm. During the Second
World War and the decade following it, the United
States reached its apogee as a classic
nation-state. During the 1960s, as is now clear, America
began a slow but unmistakable process of transformation. The signs hardly need
belaboring: racial polarity, educational dysfunction, social fragmentation of
many and various kinds. William Irwin Thompson, in Passages About Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture,
writes, "The educational system that had worked on the Jews or the Irish
could no longer work on the blacks; and when Jewish teachers in New York tried to
take black children away from their parents exactly in the way they had been
taken from theirs, they were shocked to encounter a violent affirmation of
negritude." US perception of Nehru and India quote from Kaplan in The
Atlantic: Loy Henderson, a U.S. diplomat, showed that insight time and time
again: in the 1930s he was among the first to warn against Stalin; in the late
1940s he was the first to warn against the Soviet threat to the Caucasus and
the Aegean; in the early 1950s he was the first to see that the Iranians would
one day come to despise us and the first to see through Nehru's idealism and
vanity to the anti-Americanism beneath the surface. The Americans for many
generations still remember till today the anti-Americanism which is anti-imperialism
of Nehru and Menon. Kennan displayed insight when he suggested that if the West
held fast, the Soviet Union would eventually implode.
Something similar is being tried on India
with Jihad. This is the most turbulent period in US
history, which created social and demographic change in US
population. The liberation movement and civil rights in the 60 created chaos
and disorder and directly impacted the foreign policy of US during the cold
war. The idealistic phase of the foreign policy was at its peak during this
time. Many commentators point to the feeling of US ripping apart due to the
chaos created by anti-war protest, scandals, assassination and Cuban missle crisis. The influence of Indian culture
, new age movement and eastern mystics and philosophy changed America
for ever but was deeply resented by the conservatives and old social order. The
deep resentment to this influence among the religious right made them view India
and its culture in a negative way. Some of them actually looked at Indian culture
with antipathy combined with Indian support of USSR
by Nehru. The conservative right also were against the culture of defeatism and disorder. The
neo-conservatives were born during this time who
created an entire culture to overcome the disorder of the 60s and 70s. Nixon
probably developed the feeling of hatred against India
and its culture which he believed spawned the liberal culture during this time.
The Neo-cons came to occupy the top echelons of the Pentagon dept by the early
1990s and were influential in developing the post cold war policies.
US 1971-1992
This period US
experienced the ruthless cold war pressure and the US
society changed to the external challenges. The leftists and the right wing
came together for NSC68 and created a plan to contain and eliminate communism
and supporters of communism globally. The climax and sudden end of the cold
war, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Arab-Israeli wars, the
formation and activities of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the oil crisis,
the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the Persian Gulf War, and the Iranian
revolution effected American society as never before. India
after 1971 war and 1975 was a target of the enormous cold war realist plan. The
scope of the plan for India
may never be known but the plan put India
in a path which could disintegrate the country and eliminate the entire
civilization in the long run. During
this period all the culture movement of the 60s and cults, swamis, Buddhism and
other new age groups where discouraged and suppressed though popular western
media. These were considered influencing the anti-war protests and creating
chaos in the society and promoting leftists.
The end of the Vietnam
war created bitter memories of the anti-war protests and also the pentagon by
the end of 80s was filled with war veterans.. The
period after 1980 brought out the new religious right in the main stream and
after 1986 there has been a resurgence of the religious right in US. The
country became more religious during this period due to the experience with
fighting the communist regime.
US 1993-2003
By 1994 the Neo-cons
were in control of the house and the religious right of the conservatives in
1994 passed the Religious Bill act which put countries which do not tolerate
religious diversities under notice and . They were bitter critics of the flower
children who rose to power with Clintons
presidency in 1993. The neo conservatives and the compassionate conservatives
and moderate conservatives took over the senate and the house by 2000/2002
under GW Bush. Israel
is in a position to influence who takes charge of US
foreign policy in its neighborhood. This was analogous to a highly valued
client will be able to exercise his preference that a certain officer handles
his case when dealing with a firm. Given the power of the AIPAC, the entrenched connections
of Israel with
the US
armaments industry and thence the Pentagon, the presence of people like
Wolfowitz in the DOD, it is no surprise. Add to this the oil interest, and it
is a foregone conclusion that those who have the ear of GOTUS highest reaches
(such as Cheney) will be making the decisions. DOD is clearly on top of SD in
the Washington power struggle. SD
gets to take charge of second-string areas (from the White House point of view)
like South Asia. This is as much a reflection on the
relative equality between the lobbying strengths of India
and Pakistan in
Washington, as compared to the
overwhelming power of the Israeli lobby as far as the Middle East
is concerned, as anything else.
Appendix C The Hidden Agenda
Ten reasons why Romila Thapar's meeting with Mahmud of Ghazni at Somnath is
historic
By Chandan Mitra
Typical of the leftist
view of the Muslim invasions is that of Romilla Thapar in her work on Mohammad of Ghazni. Chandan
Mitra, the editor of Pioneer summarizes Ms Thapar’s stance in the following
column;
http://www.sulekha.com/hoppercomments.asp?cid=327007
Eminent historian Romila Thapar has an agenda and a central character in her
authoritative monograph on the high-profile temple at Somnath in Gujarat.
But it is an agenda that dare not take its name. And as for the central
dramatis persona, she does not even mention him. After regretting the
involvement of various Congress leaders, including India's
first President Rajendra Prasad, in the rebuilding of the Somnath temple in
1951, Thapar refers to the most recent challenge to the "secular
credentials of Indian society". That being the rath yatra organised
by the VHP "in association with leaders of the BJP". L.K. Advani, who electrified India with his 1991 campaign and
put his party on the road to power by making Hindutva a mainstream ideology, is
not named throughout the narrative.
As a historical work, Thapar's scholarship is difficult to fault. She has
meticulously studied various accounts of Mahmud of Ghazni's destruction of the
temple in the 11th century. She has carried the narrative through to
contemporary times, explaining the reasons for the resurgence of Hindu
sentiment in the 19th century on this issue, leading
to the temple's rebuilding after Independence.
The volume, however, is so apparent in its purpose that it can only preach to
the converted.
Considering the dwindling band of Marxists and their fellow-travelers in the
arena of Indian history (since they don't control university appointments any
more), it is doubtful how many would uncork champagne bottles at the
publication of this scholastic endeavor. For the general public, the book makes
laborious reading. Even secular fundamentalists from a non-history background
would not be tempted to persevere through the Byzantine complexities of textual
and interpretational rivalries among the Turks, Arabs, Chalukyas, Rajputs, Jainas,
Shaivites, colonialists and the Hindu nationalists.
If a sahmat-type organization were to sum up Thapar's treatise in a pamphlet,
it would read something like this.
Undeniably, Mahmud of
Ghazni raided a temple at Somnath and destroyed the idol there.
Although Persian
sources extol his achievement and refer to the many infidels he killed, the
purpose of the raid was economic, perhaps even iconoclastic, but not communal.
It is even possible
that Mahmud believed the Somnath icon to be that of an early Arabic Goddess,
Manat, for Somnath might even be a bastardization of the Arabic su-manat. She
was one of the goddesses Prophet Muhammad once said could be worshipped, but
then retracted, claiming that the assertion was influenced by Satan. The
reference to Manat is contained in the so-called Satanic Verses, subsequently
deleted from the Quran.
Jaina and Sanskrit
sources, on the other hand, make only cursory references to Mahmud's repeated
raids. They don't repeat stories like Mahmud smashing the idol into smithereens
and feeding Brahmins the lime that emerged from its ruins after breaking his
promise not to destroy the lingam and confine himself only to loot. This
suggests Mahmud did not either divide society or permanently traumatize Hindus
by his actions, as "communalists" have since led us to believe. It is
immaterial that non-Muslims might have feared offending the ascendancy of
Muslim political and military prowess and dared not question such actions.
(Postscript: Alternatively, they may not have wanted to wallow in the angst of
their humiliation at the hands of the Yavanas. But
that would be a politically incorrect position to take.)
Hindu rulers
frequently raided temples for booty and there was nothing extraordinary about
Mahmud's or subsequent Muslim desecrations of Somnath. Anyway, Hindus were not
Hindus (they still aren't), but a group of people divided by caste and sub
caste residing in a place called India.
The Somnath temple was
repeatedly renovated by various local rulers and the worship of the deity went
on. This is contrary to suggestions that it had been converted into a mosque.
The reconstructions were necessitated by sea spray that routinely damaged the
structure. In other words, irrespective of Mahmud's raid, the temple would have
fallen into disuse and, thus, its projection as a symbol of Islamic intolerance
of Hindu beliefs is unwarranted.
The Arabs had settled
in Sindh and Gujarat long before Mahmud's incursions and
lived in perfect harmony with Hindus. A merchant from Hormuz in the Gulf, who
engaged in the trade of horses, was actually given land by a Hindu ruler to
construct a mosque close to Somnath. This suggests there was no antagonism
between the two communities. In fact, Hindus, not uncharacteristically and in a
manner similar to their behavior today, explained the destruction of Somnath as
an inevitability in a dark age called the Kaliyuga.
The entire mischief
began with governor-general Ellenborough who premeditatedly relied on Persian
accounts of Hindu humiliation and decided to play them up to drive a wedge
between Hindus and Muslims. His efforts were challenged by Macaulay who opposed
"Linga-ism" and denounced support for obscurantism and idolatry.
Ellenborough mistakenly sought to appease Maharaja Ranjit Singh and brought
back the gates of Somnath allegedly ferried away by Mahmud, but these turned
out to be fakes.
In the 19th century,
Hindu historians and politicians paid prominence to the significance of Mahmud's raids.
While K.M. Munshi wrote emotion-charged novels, Bengali nationalists got
unnecessarily worked up over these issues. Munshi was influenced by people like
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Aurobindo and Vivekananda. (How terrible!)
Taking a cue from the
likes of Munshi, Gujarati leaders, including Vallabhbhai Patel, supported the
reconstruction of the temple after Independence
much to the chagrin of the secular Nehru. This was an assertion of Hindu, not
Indian, nationalism. It only helped the "communal" forces that
plotted the fall of Babri Masjid at the "supposed" Ram Janmabhoomi by
launching a mobilization drive from Somnath.
I believe I have not unfairly summarized Thapar. She is entitled to her views
and has taken pains to try and establish it through scholarship. Sadly for her,
very few will believe her.
Appendix D
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859):
On Empire and Education
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first selection a speech on the India
bill of 1833 and expresses his view of the achievements and goals of the British
Empire in the East. Between 1834 and 1838 he lived in Calcutta
and served on the British "Supreme Council for India".
His "Minute on Education, " from which the
second selection below comes, touches on the relation of Western and Indian
civilizations.
Education and the English Empire in India
I feel that, for the
good of India
itself, the admission of natives to high office must be effected by slow
degrees. But that, when the fullness of time is come, when the interest of India
requires the change, we ought to refuse to make that change lest we should
endanger our own power; this is a doctrine of which I cannot think without
indignation. Governments, like men, may buy existence too dear. "Propter
vitam vivendi perdere causas," ["To lose the reason for living, for
the sake of staying alive"] is a despicable policy both in individuals and
in states. In the present case, such a policy would be not only despicable, but
absurd. The mere extent of empire is not necessarily an advantage. To many
governments it has been cumbersome; to some it has been fatal. It will be
allowed by every statesman of our time that the prosperity of a community is
made up of the prosperity of those who compose the community, and that it is
the most childish ambition to covet dominion which adds to no man's comfort or
security. To the great trading nation, to the great manufacturing nation, no
progress which any portion of the human race can make in knowledge, in taste
for the conveniences of life, or in the wealth by which those conveniences are
produced, can be matter of indifference. It is scarcely possible to calculate
the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilization
among the vast population of the East. It would be, on the most selfish view of
the case, far better for us that the people of India were well governed and
independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by
their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than
that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English
magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English
manufactures. To trade with civilized men is infinitely more profitable than to
govern savages. That would, indeed, be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India
might remain a dependency, would make it an useless
and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred millions of men from being
our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves.
This much has to be
said about Macaulay. Misguided and naïve he may have been in his goal of
creating brown Englishman (or would he be ecstatic at the results of his
policy) but mendacious and mean spirited he was not in comparison to many of
his countrymen.
”Are we to keep the people of India
ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can
give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do we mean to awaken
ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any of
these questions in the affirmative? Yet one of them must be answered in the
affirmative, by every person who maintains that we ought permanently to exclude
the natives from high office. I have no fears. The path of duty is plain before
us: and it is also the path of wisdom, of national prosperity, of national
honor.
Source
From Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Speech in Parliament on the Government of
India Bill, 10 July 1833,"
Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, selected by G.M. Young (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1957), pp. 716-18
On Indian Education
We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund to be employed as
Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of this
country. The simple question is, what is the most
useful way of employing it?
All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken
among the natives of this part of India
contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor
and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be
easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all
sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who
have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only by
means of some language not vernacular amongst them.
What then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee maintain
that it should be the English. The other half strongly
recommend the Arabic and Sanskrit. The whole question seems to me to be,
which language is the best worth knowing?
I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic.-But I have done what I could
to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most
celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home
with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite
ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single
shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who
support the Oriental plan of education.
It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in
which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met
with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit
poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we
pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and
general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes
absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the
historical information which has been collected from all the books written in
the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England.
In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the
two nations is nearly the same.
How, then, stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present
be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign
language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to
recapitulate. It stands preeminent even among the languages of the west. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has
bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical
compositions, which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom been
surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equaled; with just and lively representations of
human life and human nature; with the most profound speculations on
metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade; with full and
correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to
preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual
wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in
the course of ninety generations. It may safely be said, that the literature
now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the literature
which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world
together. Nor is this all. In India,
English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher
class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the
language of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two
great European communities which are rising, the one in the south of Africa,
the other in Australasia; communities which are every
year becoming more important, and more closely connected with our Indian
empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the
particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to
think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be
the most useful to our native subjects.
The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach
this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal confession,
there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own;
whether, when we can teach European science, we shall teach systems which, by
universal confession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the
worse; and whether, when we can patronize sound Philosophy and true History, we
shall countenance, at the public expense, medical doctrines, which would
disgrace an English farrier [note: a maker of horse shoes] -Astronomy, which
would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school, History, abounding
with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long, and
Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter.
We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several analogous
cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modem times, to go no
further, two memorable instances of a great impulse given to the mind of a
whole society,-of prejudices overthrown,-of knowledge diffused,-of taste
purified,-of arts and sciences planted in countries which had recently been
ignorant and barbarous.
The first instance, to which I refer, is the great revival of letters among the
Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century. At that time almost every thing that was worth reading was
contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors
acted as the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto acted; had they
neglected the language of Cicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention
to the old dialects of our own island; had they printed nothing and taught
nothing at the universities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and Romances in
Norman-French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greek and
Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham [note: English humanists of
the 16th century] our tongue is to the people of India.
The literature of England
is now more valuable than that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanskrit
literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some
departments,-in History, for example, I am certain that it is much less so.
In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am
opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited
means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our
best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom
we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class
we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich
those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature,
and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great
mass of the population.
Source
From Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education," Macaulay, Prose
and Poetry, selected by G. M. Young (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1957), pp-721-24,729.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is
a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level
classes in modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is
copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print
form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the
document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of
the Sourcebook.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1833mac...ulay-india.html
Appendix E The History and
Doctrine of Islam by Craig Branch
Islam is the second
largest religion in the world behind Christianity, numbering 1.2 billion
adherents. Also, it is arguably the second largest religion in the United
States.1 Yet before the events of September 11th, it
commanded the attention of less than 6% of the entire Christian missionary
force. The significance and resurgence of Islam had largely gone unnoticed
except for various conflicts and wars in Iran,
Iraq, and the
Gulf War, and in Croatia-Bosnia. But September 11th, which left over 3,000
dead, has dramatically changed that.
The attack on America
has forced us to focus on the entire mosaic of events and issues such as
attacks on the U. S. Embassy in Beirut in the 80’s, hijacked airlines, American
hostages in Iran, the bombing of the Pan Am flight (1998), traced to Libya,
where 252 were killed, the first World Trade Center bombing (1993), two U. S.
Embassies bombed in East Africa (224 killed), the bomb attack on the U.S.S.
Cole in 2000 (17 killed), the genocide of Christians in Sudan, Pakistan,
Nigeria and other Muslim countries, and the constant and growing conflagration
in Israel and Palestine. Additionally, as Christians first and as Americans
second, we must understand Islam and Muslims both for our apologetics and
evangelistic callings, as well as for our influence on national leaders in the
geopolitical process (1 Tim. 2:1-4; Rom.
13:1-7). In this article, I hope to provide the reader with a basic
understanding of the history and doctrine of Islam.
The History of Islam
Islam is a seventh
century religion based on the testimony and practice of its prophet, Muhammad.
Geographically, Islam rose out of the desert-oasis complex of the Arabian
Peninsula and spread into several continents. The word “Islam” is
derived from Arabic and means “submission,” “surrender,” or “obedience.” A
secondary derivative of the Arabic word is “peace.” Taken together, “Islam”
means that one can only achieve peace through complete submission to the will
of God as revealed to his Prophet, Muhammad. The god of Islam is called Allah.
The word “Muslim” means a follower or one who is submitted to Allah and Islam
as revealed in the Qur’an and the sayings and practices (Sunnah) of Muhammad
recorded in the Hadith.
Since Islam evolved
within a historical context, it is important to understand that context. This
understanding can help us comprehend the current conflicts and issues that much
of the world is facing today…
Appendix F Chronology of interaction between the West
and Islam
1453 Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople and bring the Byzantine Empire to an end.
1492 The Reconquista completed - Christians
capture Granada, capital of last of the Muslim states in Spain. Those Muslims who chose to remain behind were
reconverted to Christianity and the rest were awarded severe punishments during
the Spanish Inquisition.
1517 Ottoman Turks conquer Syria and Egypt and end Mameluk Sultanate which is also a Slave
sultanate of Turkish origin much like the Sultanate of Delhi prior to the
Mughals..
1520-66 Reign of Sultan Suleiman "the
Magnificent"; Ottoman rule extended along the coast of North Africa; by the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman
Empire included present-day Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Albania,
Yugoslavia and parts of Hungary and the Ukraine. 1639 Ottomans take Iraq (from Persia).
First Arabic department established. at Oxford
and Cambridge.
1683 - Siege of Vienna - Turks are turned back
and henceforth the Ottoman threat to Europe ebbs.
1798 Napoleon Bonaparte launches an Egyptian
expedition and brings Egypt under French rule.
1805 The Ottomans appoint an Albanian officer,
Mohammed Ali, as viceroy or pasha of Egypt; he finally breaks the power of the Mameluk.
1820 Britain signs treaty with Gulf sheiks to protect its
shipping.
1830 France begins the conquest of Algeria.
1834 British establish steamship service to India via Suez. (This is why annexing Aden soon after was vital)
1839 The British take the port of Aden.
1869 Suez Canal opened
(A joint Egyptian/French concern)
1882 British captured Suez Canal and assumed sole control.
1912 Morocco becomes a French protectorate; Arab Nationalism and
opposition to Ottoman rule begin to develop.
1914 Ottoman Empire
enters World War One as an ally of Germany.
1916 Arab revolt against the Ottomans in Hijaz; Sheriff
Hussein of Mecca had agreed to enter World War One on the side of the Allies,
in return for British promises of independence of what is now Syria,
Palestine/Israel, Jordan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula; Britain signs a
secret pact (the Sykes-Picot Agreement) with France dividing the Arab regions
of the Ottoman Empire between them.
1917 The British oust the Ottomans from Jerusalem and Baghdad; in the Balfour Declaration, Britain declares its support for the establishment of a
'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine.
1918 End of Ottoman rule in Arab lands.
1920 The League of Nations awards mandates for Syria and Lebanon to France and for Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq to Britain.
1926 Having conquered Hijaz, Ibn Saud proclaims himself king.
1932 Iraq becomes independent; Ibn-Saud proclaims kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1934 Independence of North Yemen recognized.
1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty ends British
occupation except in Suez Canal Zone.
1946 Syria becomes an independent republic; Britain recognizes the independence of Transjordan.
1948 End of British mandate in Palestine; Israel is established; first Arab-Israeli war. 750,000
Palestinians become refugees
1951 Libya becomes an independent kingdom.
1952 Military coup in Cairo; King Farouk abdicates; King Hussein takes over
in Jordan.
1953 Egypt becomes a republic.
1958 Formation of United Arab Republic by Egypt and Syria; civil war in Lebanon; Iraq proclaimed a republic following revolution and
shortly after leaves Baghdad Pact.
1961 Kuwait becomes independent; Syria secedes from the United Arab Republic.
1967 Arab Israeli Six Day War in which Israel
takes over the Sinai, all of Jerusalem, the West bank and Golan Heights
1971 Britain leaves the Gulf. United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain become independent.
1973 Arab-Israeli war of Ramadan/Yom Kippur.
1974 Arab summit recognizes PLO as the sole
legitimate representative of the Palestinian people
1970s - Ascendancy of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and coming together of Wahhabi and Deobandi
schools.