The Company Bahadar

Nazar Khan,

Apart from the factual error that the British left india of their own free will, the article nicely sums up their spread of empire.
I`ve considered the british to be political geniuses, who use force only when sure of victory, and compromise with upper hand when in weaker position. Truth be told, in india and elsewhere, by masking their greedy intentions with sophistry, they have been able to conquer the most. But you cannot clap with just one hand. If the emperor of india`s letter to british monarch at a time of india`s stable position is considered, one can see why the ordinary folks of india are not to blame for sucking up to the white skins. You mentioned about the mughals` lack of interest in european science and ideas. You forget that krishnadeva rai had actually implemented irrigation and drainage enegineering concepts by borrowing them from the portugese. And secondly this tendency of looking upto the europeans for anything scientific is worng. Please don`t forget the city planning of jaipur, the jantar mantar etc. and Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta etc., whose works are collecting dust, only because we still think scientific is only western. If the mughals did not take any interest in encouraging science and tech. in india, then its their stupidity. But to think that they should look for ideas outside alone is again a sign of our confidence in ourselves.
Unfortunately for india, her large parts being ruled by mughals, who had slowly become indulgent and oppresive, the generations paid a price by slavery to the british.

Well..

Adios

a large expanse covered in a short essay. i was getting lost, and then the last 2 questions kind of anchored the article.

i think the mughal rule was overall not beneficial. an emperors primary responsibility is towards establishment of peace, which the mughals were not able to do, except in akbars time and shehajehans time. an empire which is not peaceful is useless for the people. i think in absence of mughal empire, several smaller kingdoms would have dotted india, which would find a political balance and prosper. mughals were too restless and really wanted to be on a horse in the steppes.

english rule was yet worst, which turned indians into natives.

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Nazar sahib,

It is very interesting to note that during 1857, hindus and muslims fought together against the british to reinstall the Mughal throne!! This means that hindus actually considered the mughal emperor to be one of their own while considering the british to be the outsiders. That is a direct contradiction to the two nation theory where it automatically assumes that hindus and muslims are incapable of living together and have some kind of permanent hostility. The sad thing is that sikhs and pathans did not collaborate, otherwise we could have destroyed the british vermin a century back.

In my opinion, the british rule was the worst period in Indian history. Every invading force that settled in India, enriched its culture, heritage and economy. This includes the aryans, afghans, mughals etc. The only exception were the british, who reduced us to the status of beggars and a third world country by completely exploiting us in every way possible. If it were not for them, we would have been a much more dynamic place as is slowly happening in India today. We would have been a loose federation of nation states like Europe. Democracy is a natural for our temparament and we would have that as well. The economy would have been miles ahead of what it was in 1947. Also the communal problem would not have existed the way it does with partition and what not. After all a nominal mughal ruler would never pack his bags and shift from Delhi to Lahore!!

Lest we forget the baboons & thugs.
or Setting the record straight--still not the whole story

[excerpted , among others,from Collins encyclopaedia]

[an aside:

The story of freedom fighters like Mangal Paanday, Bhagat Singh, AshfaaqUllah, Subhaash Bose, the shaheeds of Shaamli, Faquir Eppi and thousands of others is Still not taught in goraagoochaater-controlled Pakistan. When Mr. Vajpaee suggested to at least celebrate May 10 as Freedom Day jointly, the uniformed thug and the un-informed Chhittar-lovers
pooh-poohed the idea. There is too much in the Paindoo-raaz`s box to be revealed.

KanjaRRS and Basant OK--Freedom-fighters No No.

Pakistan is ruled by the subalterns who thoroughly enjoy to keep their noses to the grinding-arsetone of goraas. The goraagoochaaters!]

---

READ ON!


PORTUGAL & India After 1498.
(Stuff that could be new for many)

European interest in India has persisted since classical times and for very cogent reasons. Europe had much to steal from India such as spices, textiles and other oriental products. The best classical accounts are in fact the commercial ones. When direct contact was lost with the fall of Rome and the rise of the Muslims, the trade was carried on through middlemen. In the late Middle Ages it increased with the increasing prosperity of Europe.

The REASON:

It should be remembered that the spice trade was not solely a luxury trade at that time. Spices were needed to preserve meat through the winter (cattle had to be slaughtered in late autumn through lack of winter fodder) and to combat the taste of decay. Wine, in the absence of ancient or modern methods of maturing, had to be `mulled` with spices. This trade suffered two threats in the later Middle Ages. There was the threat of Mongol and Turkish invasion which interfered with the land routes and threatened to engulf the sea route through Egypt, and there was the threat of monopoly shared between the Venetians and Egyptians.

In 1510 Affonso de Albuquerque captured the island of Goa on the west coast of India from the Sultan of Bijapur and made it the capital of the Portuguese eastern empire. Its strong points besides Goa were Socotra off the Red Sea (he could not take Aden), Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, Diu in Gujrat, Malacca, the entrepot for the Far East and the spice trade in the East Indies, and Macao in China. The function of Goa was to supervise Malabar, to control the pilgrim traffic to Mecca as well as the general trade to Egypt, Iraq and Persia, and of Malacca to control the East Indian spices at their source.

However, the Portuguese irked some of the Mughal and preceding rulers because of the toll they took of the trade from the port of Surat and the pilgrim traffic. In seizing and retaining their strong points they acquired a reputation for cruelty and peridy because their practice on both these points was below the current Indian standard. They were deeply impregnated with the idea that no faith need be kept with an infidel. It was from this period that the word feringi (lit.farangi, frank) acquired the opprobrium of which echoes may still be heard today. However, the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir admired their pictures and had them copied. Emperor Akbar listened with interest to Jesuit Father`s discourses. The New Testament was translated into Persian.

However, during the whole of the 16th century the Portuguese disputed with the Muslims the supremacy of the Indian seas, and the antagonism between Christianity and Islam became gradually more intense. In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator commanded the first expedition to sail around the world. In the Collins Encyclopaedia it is written that Magellan set sail to check the power of Muslim navy and fleet that was dominant. In 1560, the Portuguese being intolerant in religion, introduced the Inquisition with all its horrors. This was regarded as sub-standard from the Indian standpoint, advertising this trait in their rough handling of Syrian Christians of Malabar to secure their submission to the Catholic faith.

Socially the policy of Albuquerque in encouraging mixed marriages had important results. His object was to rear a population possessing Portuguese blood and imbued with Portuguese Catholic culture who would be committed by race and taste to the Portuguese settlements and so form a permanent self-perpetuating garrison. The result was the race long known as Luso-Indians and now as Goansese or Goans. They are mainly Indian in blood, Catholic in religion, and partially western in outlook. In recent times, they have spread all over India as traders and professionals, a less successful version of the Parsis. (Of all the Asians in Britain, a majority of whom are Muslim, the first Asian MP had to be a Roman Catholic of Goanese descent, Keith Vaz).

Some Portuguese words have even crept into the Urdu language such as the names of items for furniture (mayze for desk, almaari for cupboard/wardrobe). Also vindaloo (curry) is part Portuguese and part Urdu: vian is Portuguese for meat and aloo is the Urdu for potato - thus we have meat and potato curry.

The Portuguese were soon followed by European rivals like the French, Dutch and British. Rivalry between the Dutch and English resulted in the Dutch East India Company ``winning`` Southeast Asia and Indonesia (known to Europeans as the East Indies); and the British East India Company having to settle for ``second-best``, that is India.

And then the Britsih Baboons:

The first Englishman who actually visited India was Thomas Stephens in 1579. He became rector of Jesuits College in Goa. His letters to his father are said to have roused with great enthusiasm in England to trade directly with India. India had an active trade with the Middle East and Europe, the main articles of export being textiles, indigo, saltpetre and spices (Gujrat benefited from the indigo industry and Malabar from the spice trade). In return she received luxuries like wines and novelties and metals, specially bullion, which was in chronic short supply in northern Europe. This constituted the Indian silver drain which was the bugbear of English mercantilists.

Next: The barbarities of the British baboons. not only India. EVERYWHERE! still are going on.

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