1905 saw a change in the direction of India’s nationalist struggle and deepened a communal divide that would haunt India for decades to come. The reason: Lord Curzon, the imperial ... Read more
1905 saw a change in the direction of India’s nationalist struggle and deepened a communal divide that would haunt India for decades to come. The reason: Lord Curzon, the imperial Viceroy decided it was time to divide British India’s largest province, the Bengal Presidency. The Partition of Bengal was an attempt to divide the Hindu-majority west and the Muslim-dominated east. A year later, the British encouraged the formation of the All-Indian Muslim League. And in 1909, the Raj introduced separate electorates — a move that would cement a separate Muslim political identity, and eventually, Muslim separatist politics. But the Partition of Bengal also galvanized Indian nationalists, furious at the British divide and rule strategy. New forms of protest, from calls for a boycott to the advocacy of swadeshi, emerged. The differences between extremists and moderates sharpened, but Indian nationalist political opinion was united — the Partition was wrong. In 1911, the British reversed the decision, but they had sown the seeds of the eventual partition in the east, four decades later. In this episode, Bhaswati Mukherjee, a former Indian Foreign Service officer and author of the book on the Partition of Bengal, takes us through the roots of that fateful decision and its impact. Read more
It had been three decades since the mutiny. It was a period of gloom, as the Crown consolidated its rule, caring little for the well-being of Indians. But a set of early Indian nat ... Read more
It had been three decades since the mutiny. It was a period of gloom, as the Crown consolidated its rule, caring little for the well-being of Indians. But a set of early Indian nationalists and a somewhat unusual British reformer came together in Bombay in 1885 to set up what was to become the primary vehicle of India’s political aspirations — the Indian National Congress. In the early years, Congress sought reforms and increased political voice for Indians, within the British Empire. Its leaders, especially the remarkable Dadabhai Nauroji, exposed Britain’s great drain of wealth from India through economic exploitation. But as British repression continued, and Indian nationalist tempo increased, the party slowly saw a division between moderates and extremists, with the latter arguing that it was time to assert and confront the Raj. In this episode, Dinyar Patel, a Harvard-trained historian and an accomplished biographer of Nauroji, brings alive the early years of Indian nationalism and the birth of one of the world’s premier political organizations — the Indian National Congress. Read more
The summer of 1857 changed the course of Indian history. For over a century, the East India Company had been expanding its territorial economic control over India. The Company used ... Read more
The summer of 1857 changed the course of Indian history. For over a century, the East India Company had been expanding its territorial economic control over India. The Company used coercion, deception, and cooption, and appeared invincible. But beneath the surface of deceptive calm, there was discontent against what was the foreign corporate rule. From soldiers to peasants, princely rulers to landlords, Hindus to Muslims, the most unlikely of allies came together to wage the most powerful rebellion that the nation had seen. The British, with the utmost cruelty, succeeded in repressing the uprising. But Company Raj ended, giving way to the Crown. In this episode, William Dalrymple, the author of The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, joins HT to discuss the Mutiny, its roots, its significance, and how it changed the British colonial architecture in India. Read more
