class on the history of British India my name is vanilla and I'm pleased to
have you in this course what I want to do today is to we're going to have a
full lecture today I want to begin with some preliminary remarks on sort of
administrative matters having to do with this course the requirements readings so
forth and so on then I'm going to give you a bit of a lecture on what does it mean to study
British India why should we be bothered with British India at all and what are
the kinds of questions that come up in the study not just of the history of British India but in the study of
history per se and then finally and the latter half of the course I'm going to
go through the syllabus carefully tell you what you should expect every week I
hope all of you have had a chance to look at the service because it's you know quite comprehensive everything is
laid down I think very clearly and what you're expected to do for each week so
that's more or less how we're going to proceed today now let me begin with some
administrative matters and let me also remind you that you should have your cell phones switched off preferably not
just in the silent mode because some of you are going to try to do texting or whatever it is googling if you can avoid
doing that I would really much prefer that because it's distracting not just to you but to me all right
I've never had a problem with that in any class and I certainly expect that
that's how it's going to be in this class as well secondly for those of you on the waitlist all you have to do is just wait
a couple of weeks I mean I can guarantee everybody a spot in the class if you happen to be on the waitlist but just
wait until things settle down you know a couple of weeks things will settle down there may be a few people who might
leave a few people who might come and if you find that at the end of the second week you're still on the waitlist all
you have to do is to me and I'll give you a PT number and you'll automatically get into the class I also want to mention to you that there
is another course which I'm teaching for the first time which is a course that
complements this class and this is not a recommendation for you to take that
course I'm simply mentioning it to you because that's a seminar unlike this class which is a lecture course it's a
97 n in the Department of History and it's called the history of modern India
and the burden of colonialism and for those of you who are thinking about a
seminar that's the course that you might want to think about because what it's going to do is it's going to complement this course completely there are few
readings that overlap between this course and that course but very few but
the bulk of that material will be pertaining to British India as well
although as I said you know the vast number of readings that you have are
quite different in both of the courses that we that I'm talking about but it's
it would be a good complement to this course if anyone is interested at all and finally I want to mention that
there's a website I have which is called Manas that's the URL over there and this
is a website that I had put up about 15 years ago so that was in the relatively
early days of you know the world wide web and it was put up explicitly for
pedagogical purposes it was put up basically to complement the courses that I was teaching that the website is not
updated that often in fact I think the last time it was updated was probably two three years ago so I think that when
I said not that often I'm I should probably say it's not updated at all actually but you will find about four or
five hundred articles on it all of them written by myself and a good number of
the articles have to do with the history of British India close to 100 pieces so there may be things that I might be
saying in class which I'm not able to explain at very great length and you'll be able to get a bit more information on
this particular website okay and it is a website that is actually hosted by
UCLA because actually it was set up with an instructional improvement grant 15 or you know maybe even 18 years ago all
right now this class is a classic does not require any prerequisites I want to
make that very clear I don't expect you to have any previous knowledge of Indian
history but just out of curiosity I want to know how many of you have ever had a class in college at UCLA or elsewhere if
you happen to be a transfer student in Indian history sorry yeah I mean any any
portion of Indian history you know anything so I mean about a 15 or 20 of you and
how many of you had a class with me so okay about two or three of you alright so so as I said I mean I'm going
to proceed on the assumption that you really know nothing about Indian history it's a tabula rasa as they say a blank
slate but if but of course you there are things that you will have to pick up on
your own I mean so I'm not obviously going to give you you know a rudimentary lecture on the jabra fee of India the
fact that India is a peninsula and it's surrounded by water on three sides to the east is the Bay of Bengal to the
West is the Arabian Sea to the south is the Indian Ocean and that if you go up north it's landlocked because you get the
Himalayan range right and in fact that's actually somewhat important it's somewhat important because we're looking
at the history of British India and one question we could ask is well how did the British arrive in India unlike for example the Mughals or let's
say the Afghans who came to India you know 1100 1200 1300 right or Alexander
the Great who came to India 330 BCE circa approximately right I mean they
all came by land the British didn't come by land they came by sea and the British War in fact a great maritime power so
this is where knowing even the rudimentary aspects of the geography of India right is important it has some
relevance and so therefore what you ought to be doing is that you know when something of something is assumed and there are some
things that are going to be assumed even though I'm going to teach this course on the assumption that you have no previous
knowledge of Indian history but there are some things that are just too rudimentary for me to be able to explain in class right and
this is why I think it would be helpful if you just picked up you know in your leisure time let's say you know some
kind of history of India or spend a little bit time on - where you get actually quite a bit of information on the course of Indian history or a very
long period of time so forth and so on all right now as far as the requirements
for the class are concerned they are stipulated in the syllabus very clearly so they're basically three requirements
well I should say formally speaking two requirements right so the two formal requirements are a midterm exam which is
going to be a take-home exam so I've made it easy for you really in a way because I think if you've kept up the
lecture as if you haven't well then be prepared to you're not spend of a couple of sleepless nights or you know because
I've been a student myself I mean I know the nature of student life not everybody is going to keep up with all the lectures you've got other things in life
to do and other interests and so forth and so on but when you get the midterm exam well you will have to answer the questions
and you'll have 48 hours effectively to do that so it's going to be handed to
you after class it'll probably be just emailed to you after class and I think
the dates are stipulated but I think it's October 29th which is a Tuesday and then you'll give me back a hard copy a
printed copy in class on October 31st which is a Thursday so that's what I
said effectively you have about 48 hours 46 hours something like that alright and what's the nature of the midterm exam
it's going to cover everything up till October 29th right and you will get most
likely I haven't decided the exact format but generally the way the midterm exam is structured it's quite similar to
how the final exam is going to be structured but let me dispense with the midterm exam so you'll probably get three questions
and you'll have to answer to out of those three questions and you write essentially two to three pages on each
of those two questions so you give me a you know an exam back which is going to
be a four to six pages in length I have specified please use Times New Roman 12 do not use
courier do not use one of those fonts which swallows up the page so to speak
okay if you use courier well courier three pages is equal to two pages of Times New Roman right so you know we we
want to adhere to certain minimum standards here and this there are certain standard academic fonts so use
Times New Roman 12 okay and give me a printout two days later in class and now
the final exam you're responsible for everything on the syllabus including
material covered in the first half of the course and of course there will be
some questions on the final exam which will be tailored more to the second half
of the course but then there'll be some questions which will cover the entire terrain from the outset and the
structure the final exam is it's again a take-home exam okay and you have one
week to write that exam which i think is very generous frankly one week is ample
period of time to finish a final exam now the format of that exam is somewhat
similar so what you get is you get six questions and you have to answer four of
those six questions but those six questions are divided into three groups so Group one two and three each group
has two questions Group one has two questions and you do not get any choice there you have to answer both of those
questions and those are those two questions that are going to cover everything okay so you know that's so
there'll be a question which will which will have make you reflect on everything you've learned from the beginning until the end okay and then groups two and
three each of those two groups will have two questions each and you'll answer one out of two questions from each of those
two groups you'll answer three questions possibly four but then if you sorry for so it's
two from the first group one from group two and one from Group three so that's
four out of six questions that's what you'll answer at the final exam okay and once again a take on final exam and
you've got about a week to write that exam right so those are the those are
the formal requirements now you know if you look at the syllabus it sort of gives you the breakdown of what
percentage of your grade is covered by the final exam and the midterm the final
exam accounts for 55% the midterm 35% well that's 90% and 10% is essentially
class attendance and participation very sometimes I get students asking me well
what does that really mean because I don't obviously take attendance you know we're well beyond that stage where we need to take attendance right
but what it does mean is they said it is somebody in the in class who's really been active you know you and you feel
free to interrupt me and ask me questions I may not be able to answer it immediately I might want to finish my
train of thought but then I'll get back to you okay if you have a certain question all right and I'll answer questions in class and you know I know
who's coming and who is it essentially I mean I have a pretty pretty good idea so that 10% really is neutral but if you've
been coming often okay and you've been asking questions then that will count in
your favor and so it may move your final grade let's say your final grade is hovering between a b-plus and a a - it's
not quite clear well they'll push push you towards the a - that's what that 10% will do there's some people okay who
actually never bother to pick up their midterm now that's one way I know that
you're not coming to class I'm giving you a really good hint here please come and pick up your midterm because frankly
I've had this in every class I mean the midterm is handed back in week 7 and at the end of week 10 that midterm is still
lying in my folder right and that's a very good way for me to know that the
student is not coming to class and is not even remotely interested in what's happening and then
they'll come to me and say well how come that 10 person didn't assist me well it
should be quite obvious why it didn't assist you in that case right so that's
how that 10% is really going to be calculated but but in the vast majority of cases it's simply going to stay
neutral so to speak right because your grade will really be determined by the midterm and the final now let me get to
the subject of readings okay so the the majority of the readings are all online
and I have checked the links all the links are working at present there may
be one or two readings that are not yet linked but all the readings that are
linked those links are in fact operational right um is there anybody
here who doesn't know how to access the readings if you've you know come as a transfer student or something you know
you just go to the syllabus yes yeah
yeah okay so so what you do is you you go to the syllabus of the course and you
click on that reading that reading will be highlighted sometimes it'll be the author sometimes it'll be the title sometimes it'll be the page numbers it
will be one of those three that's been that's highlighted you click on that and it will ask you to log on because those
readings are only accessible to registered students in the class they're not accessible to everybody else okay so
you just click click on that it'll ask you to log in and then you put in your user ID and password and you'll be able
to access all the readings and usually you'll be able to download all of them as PDF documents right what I would
suggest that you do is you download all of the readings at one shot you know put
them in a folder so you have them so that you know if Eddie yeah once in a while I've even had somebody tell me
well my internet connection went out the day before the midterm was due you know that's not my responsibility right so
you just get all of the readings downloaded if you can and you have them
available to you yes yes so I I hadn't finished it with the
reading so as I said the majority of the readings are online some are not so
there are a few books that you are expected to buy they've been ordered for you at the UCLA bookstore in Akron has
anybody gone to the bookstore and are they available all of the books okay right so all the books are available if
for any reason they run out of the books these books are not rare items just go
to amazon.com you'll find used copies okay or whichever your favorite you know
book vendor is okay you'll find use copies there will be used copies because Ackerman usually will order use copies
in addition to new copies if if they are used copies available you should be able to access the books without any
difficulty whatsoever yes okay
I did I did I did ask the library to put them on reserve yeah yeah they should be
on reserve not only the books that are required for the course but there should be a few additional books as well which
might be useful for you when you're writing your papers or exams or whatever yeah if for any reason you find that they are
not unreserved send me an email and I'll look into it okay but they were but I did ask the
library to put them on reserve you know early in the summer so they should be unreserved by now yeah any questions so
far having to do with the requirements readings or anything that I've said up till this point in time okay so I think
that this pretty much takes care of all the administrative matters having to do with the class except that I haven't
mentioned to you my office hours so this is what this is on the board my office is in Bunch five to four zero and my
office has a Thursdays 145 to 415 if you're unable to make it during the
office hours and you'd like to talk to me send me an email and we'll make an appointment right so but but during
these during this period you know this two-and-a-half hour slot I'm there in my
office and you can come and see me and you can come see me about the course or any other matter you know pertaining to your interest in
history or whatever the case might be okay all right now let me move on to
more interesting things more substantive things and then I want to begin as I
said with some comments on what kind of course this is and what is it me to
study the history of British India of course we could ask a similar question of any intellectual enterprise of this
sort what does it mean to study the history of Rome what is it mean to study the history of the Arab world or North
Africa so forth and so on right and some people might say well one obvious reason
we might want to study the history of British India is the fact that a great
deal of what goes on what happens in India today has some relationship to
what transpired in India during the period of colonial rule and when I say
the history of British India we're talking about roughly early sixteen hundreds India did not come
under colonial rule in the early 1600s okay but the British came to India in 1601
and let me say this at the outset because it's something to ponder about
at no time in the next 350 years were
there ever more than 100,000 British errs in India at any point in time a
hundred thousand British ruling a
country in the 20th century with a population of 300 million right so we're
not talking about huge number of Englishmen and English woman and Irishman so we have to make a
distinction between obviously the English and the British sometimes I may be using the word synonymously because
in certain contexts it may make sense to do so but when I say British of course I'm including the English the Irish and
the Scots and you know the Welsh right and then when I'm speaking about the
English I really am I really do mean Englishmen and English women okay and
this distinction is important because the Irish who were themselves colonized
by the English right for those of you know something of the history of the
British Isles you know that Ireland was really to put it quite bluntly brutally
colonized by the English right as there are some people who have ever an argue
that even the great potato famine as a consequence of which you had a huge migration of the Irish to the United
States that the English were responsible for it in many ways now we're not interested in that
assessment at the moment but why am i mentioning this to you because because
even though they might have been colonized by the English the Irish were very good had been colonizers themselves
at least when they were in India and we need to keep that in mind so some so
let's remember that we the distinction between the English and the British is important
but there are certain cases where we can collapse it right so now the question
here was that if you look at the history of British India I'm saying to you that a hundred thousand British shores in
India at most at any point in time governing a country of 300 million in
the early 20th century right how were the English able to persist in
India so long yet it is very clear of course that the English did not colonize India right from the outset in fact they
didn't come to colonize India they came as traders so on 31st December 16
hundred quid Elizabeth then the monarch of Britain Great Britain right she
agreed to give a group of English gentlemen a charter to set up a trading
company their trading company is going to be known as the East India Company and from 1601 onwards the east india
company is going to commence trading with india now in the early 1600s india
is under the rule of the Mughals the Mughal Empire was conceivably the
greatest empire of its day in the world you know in Persia you have the Safavids
right you've got a number of empires but it is generally conceded that the Mughal
Empire at its height was certainly one of the greatest empires in history so
when the English are coming to India they're not coming into a vacuum they're not stepping into a vacuum not that this
ever a vacuum I mean this has been one of the pretenses of colonization you know so there's this Latin phrase it's
called terra nullius right ter analysis empty land nothing so
then when the English go to Australia one of the pretenses is there's nothing there it's just barren wasteland well it's not
a barren wasteland because if you're an Aboriginal and you're living there you know there are things that you see which
the white man is not able to see at all that the person has some familiarity the
aboriginal has some familiarity with the landscape right and sees things and
understands the plants and Europeans coming to Australia I think that well there we come into a place that's a complete
barren wasteland now of course the English when they're coming to India they're not assuming that India is a
barren wasteland all the shades of that helen-alice doctrine are present even in the colonization of the English because
one one different variant of that is oh yes they're Indians there but they don't
make the land productive we hardly Europeans we're going to make the land
productive you know these India just a lazy bunch of fellows just sitting around yeah land is lying waste that's that's a
variation of the terra nullius doctrine it's not like it's empty they know that it's not empty they know that there's a history there right so forth and so on
all right so they come to India early sixteen
hundreds and when they come there there's a great Empire already present
there now gradually there's going to be the decline of the Mughal Empire so this is the common view that as the Mughal
Empire goes into decline and precipitous decline particularly after the death of
the Emperor known by the name of Aurangzeb in 1707 that that then a
vacuum is created in Indian politics and the British are going to take advantage of that that's one common view and so
we're going to take a brief look at that period right the early 1600s and we're
also going to look at the presence of for example the Portuguese because there were other European powers who were in
India as well we're not really going to spend too much time on the French and the Dutch and the Portuguese but we just
got to take at least a peripheral look so that you can see that it's not simply the history of the British in India it's
there's a European presence a larger European presence in India right and
from there then we move into obviously the 17th century but let me return to the question you know why study the
history of British India and as I said you could ask the same question why study the history of Rome so if you said okay well why study the history of Rome
so let me give you one very simple illustration and somebody could argue that well if you look at the form of republican
government that you have okay I mean the United States is a republic right if if
you look at the form of government that you have here and so you've got the House of Representatives in the
legislative branch and you've got the Senate and if for those of you remember your Roman history if you didn't do any
Roman history at UCLA but if you remember your Roman history from high school you remember that
before Rome became an empire it was a republic right and before it was a republic it was a kingdom and when it
was a republic you had councils and senators two groups Abadi to check the
power okay check each other's power as well right so somebody could argue out
what this suggests is that at least in a rudimentary form perhaps even in a more
extensive form the shape of the American government owes something to what had
transpired in Rome say 2,000 years ago my about seven eight years ago I was
absolutely started when I got a call from a person who identified himself as
a lieutenant colonel in the US Army now to be quite honest my politics is I have
a complete aversion to all militaries in any shape or form so wondering why is a lieutenant colonel in the US Army you
know calling me and he said you know you professor law yes what can I do for you
he introduces himself and he says I'd like to come and see you and I said what on earth would you want to come and see
me for I asked him quite candidly I mean and he says that look I mean I'm on leave at the moment from the US Army and
working for the RAND Corporation as a defense analyst and I've been involved
in counterinsurgency in Iraq and I
happen to have some familiarity with your doctoral dissertation my doctoral dissertation which goes back to 1992 had
to do with problems of law and order in British India how did the British deal with problems and law and order now of
course the Americans have to think about law and order or Lauren disorder in Iraq and so he
thought that well perhaps if you spoke to people like myself who specialized in colonial history well he might be able
to get some insights right so he comes to my office and we have a very polite
somewhat constrained chat if I may put it this way for about half an hour and he says to me that look we are having a
bit of a problem I said isn't in Iraq I said that's a massive understate I think a bit of a problem but I said
nevertheless tell me what the nature of the problem is and he says that look we've got this sunni-shia divide and
frankly we can't make head or tail of it I said well look I'm not a theologian and I have no expert on Islam either so
how do you expect me to help you he said that look if you look at India and and
this is where he refers to my dissertation he says that you know you have a Hindu Muslim divide in India how
did the British handle the Hindu Muslim divide in India maybe that might help us
understand how we are going to handle the sunni-shia divide in Iraq and so
then I said to him that well I don't think that there really is any intrinsic
in the Muslim divide in India I was quite candid I said I'm not saying that
look that the history of Hindu Muslim relations has always been hunky-dory oh
you know they've always been on splendid terms for the last 1,500 years no I'm
not suggesting that they've always been on splendid terms and that there were a huge number of inter marriages between
Hindus and Muslims over and so on on the other hand I don't really want to accept
this assumption that there is a divide between Hindus and Muslims in India who
was responsible for this divide did Hindus and Muslims always harbour deep
sentiments of animosity towards each other right when did Hindus become Hindus I how many
of you are aware of the fact that no so-called Hindu in India ever described
himself or herself as a Hindu before let's say I'll give you a ballpark
figure roughly 1800s early eighteen hundreds now that doesn't mean that there were no
Hindus as such but they call themselves shaivites or Vaishnavites or chateaus or
tantrics or Kabir Panth eise so forth and so on this category we called Hindu is a
corporate monolithic category into which all of these people were assimilated all
right so I said how do you is you that there's a Hindu Muslim divide and I can tell you how he assumed it and this
leads to one of the fundamental problems in the study of history particularly the
history of countries such as India and that is that there is always a tendency for the interpreter to use the
categories of European history to understand the non West this is a
fundamental problem and this is why you're going to be reading excerpts from Edward Said's Orientalism okay and
there's no running away from this problem it has to be confronted head-on and brutally in order to be able to
understand the nature of the problem because you see if you are a European you look at your own past and frankly it
is a path to bloodshed I mean look at the look at the sectarian wars that took
place between the Catholics and the and the Protestants I don't have to say this as a historian of India people who are
specialists of European history know that very well so when the Europeans come to India they
just assumed that because religious conflict was endemic to Europe therefore it was endemic to India and this is a
wholly erroneous assumption I'll give you a very different illustration
nothing to do with Indian history and I would recommend this book there's a book by Mark Maas over ma zio wer book is
called Salonika okay unit has Salonika it's in Greece
the book is called Salonika mark mouse-over is a historian at Columbia University it's a fantastic book and
it's basically a history of Salonika where let's say 500 years ago you had
Christians Jews and Muslims all three communities in very large numbers
inhabiting the same space and coming to very reasonable accommodations with each
other understanding each other inhabiting a shared community to some degree there were always differences of
course that we don't want to minimize the difference is either right but they
are inhabiting a shared community to a great degree now what's interesting is
that when the Nazis come into Salonika because the book ends with a description
of what happened to Salonika i think you can imagine what happened once the Nazis come in but what's really interesting is
when the Nazis first come to the Salonika they say where is a Jewish ghetto and they're told there is no
ghetto in Salonika there is no Jewish ghetto now they were completely bewildered because in their experience
of European history everywhere in Europe the Jews always lived in the ghetto their world is forced into a kettle so
therefore assumed that this must be the case right in Salonika as well well some people happen to be a bit more
civilized you know I that's that's one conclusion some people happen to be a bit more
civilized and know how to handle their differences and this is the reason why
it's imperative that we understand okay what are some of the problems in the
writing and interpretation or the history of British India right and so
going back to the case of the lieutenant colonel right who came and visited me he
was acutely disappointed because when he left at the aft at the end of that half an hour I think he probably surmised
that he'd learned nothing from his standpoint because I was trying to tell him that frankly this idea that is this
religious divide in India and that it's always been there okay is it erroneous
and of course the question of how Sunday and Shia all came to be accommodated
under one corporate category again called Islam and then there are many others as well they're the group of
people known for example is there a madea's who are not even recognized as muslims in some cases okay but they
certainly think of themselves as muslims so if one wanted to argue that well one
study is a history of british india because it may have some quote relevance i don't think that that would be quite
appropriate either I don't want to on the other hand give the answer that well things are worthy of study intrinsically
we don't need to give really any reason for why we should study the history of British India any more than we give any
reason for why we study the history of Rome I mean of course I've suggested that I gave you a very rudimentary
example almost wrong from a school textbook in a way that if you look at the former government that you have in
the United States well you could say that in some rudimentary form it was already present in Rome what this might
mean is that history helps us understand the nature of temporality it helps us
understand the nature of temporality you know what is it relationship of the past and the present and the future and most
historians 99% would say well history is the study of the past I think it's actually the study of the future in some
ways right that we are trying to we're trying to understand certain phenomena
and then when we understand these phenomena we give shape to the word in
which we live in and we try to create in some respects a better word there's yet
another way of looking at it somebody might say that well look in order to be a word citizen whatever that means I I
don't like these phrases word citizen it's hard enough being a citizen let their own be a world citizen okay and
many people don't even have rights of citizenship you know you could be nominally a citizen for example I mean
I'll tell you candidly my view I I think African Americans in this country are not really viewed as full citizens I
mean you have legal citizenship there's a difference between legal citizenship and city
ship on the ground where you have full rights of citizenship and claims and
entitlements that you can make okay so I don't know what it means to be a word
citizen but there you often you hear this you know nowadays they like to attach the prefix word to everything you
know we want to be a world-class University of world-class City I just arrived in at LAX from Washington DC two
days ago and there was this big announcement please bear with us while we do improvements to make lax a
world-class airport right and just I'm thinking phrases that they just throw in
regularly nowadays you know it makes you feel good yeah we're trying to do something worthwhile right so somebody
would say well the nature of studying indian history is to better understand india well i think i've been teaching
here for 20 years i take a slightly different view of the matter and that
view is that at the end of the day i'm well aware of the fact that the bulk of
you are here because hey you know many of you're here because you're going to fulfill some requirement in non-western
history so whether it's China India Africa whatever okay some of you have an
intrinsic interest very few of you will persist with this interest and being
realistic I mean because I've gone through college myself there all kinds of classes you take and you know earth
science or whatever because you need six credits and you know such-and-such field so you take it I and try to get to it as
quickly as you can now I'm hopeful that that's not going to be the case here but
that's neither here nor there what I really want to say is let's try to
understand the politics of what it means to do interpretive work you're all
American citizens or permanent residents maybe some foreign students but you're all Americans the greatest imperative
for you is to understand the nature of American history and the nature of your own society and my submission to you is
that you can never understand your own society and your own history unless you understand some other Society
in history well so my endeavor in this class will
be to make sure that when you walk out of here that will be the litmus test for
me and I'd be happy to hear what some of you think about whether I've passed that little it's litmus test or not is that
at the end of week 10 some of you will come to me and say hey not only did I get to know something about India but I
think I'm seeing my own Society in my own history in a slightly different way
that for me would be one purpose that
would have been accomplished because ultimately you're here you're grounded in this society right so how you
understand the nature of for example American exceptionalism there were many
people who quite naively thought that Barack Obama would be very different from you know his predecessors let's not
name all of them you know ok not very ill astraeus most of them if I
may put it this way ok and so what do we have but Barack Obama gives a speech at
the United Nations you know the General Assembly is meeting right and what does he say let's admit it the United States
is an exceptional nation why is it an exceptional nation I mean I find that
hugely offensive frankly you know I mean
I custom to Indians saying that ah this nothing of the world quite like Hindu
spirituality where you're a preeminent you know country for religion in the world half of the world's religions were
founded in India Buddhism Hinduism Jainism Sikhism the place where the
largest number of Zoroastrian stay in the world is India after that they were driven out of Iran India by the way is
one country every historian of global Judaism will agree with that one country
in the world where there was never a single instance of anti-semitism not a
single instance of anti-semitism in India you know so many Indians say uh well that look how exceptional we are
different countries have different reasons for claiming why they're exceptional but I certainly think that
the United States makes this claim far more often than the rest of the world put together right I
think we need to question that you know and if Americans say well the reason why
Americans exception is because here you get these stories from rags to riches I know plenty of rags to riches stories
from every country that I've been to if I look at India and I look at the rise
of the group of people known as the Dalits you know okay I'm not saying by
any stretch of the imagination that the Dalits are now all doing well as a group of people as hundred fifty million
people know there's still among the most oppressed much in the way in which african-americans to distill occupy the
lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder in the United States next to Native Americans that's not a figure that I
have to come up with you read anybody write any sociology is writing in the US but the fact that Barack Obama has risen
to the presidency you know has no real relationship with that at all but
certainly there are plenty of rags to riches stories in India so that cannot
be the grounds on which we say that the United States is exceptional you know right so what I'm trying to
reiterate is this that the reason we're going to be studying the history of British India is not only because I want
you to know about what happened in India for a period of 350 years right and
somebody might say that the sheer fact that I'm standing in front of you is a
consequence of British rule in India I'm speaking to you in English right where did English come from and if you
look at if you look at the elite Indians they all converse with each other in English today you know they look at the
elite institutions do you know that in
India in every court the proceedings
whether the court is in South India and Tamil Nadu whether it's in Bengal whether it's in Delhi the proceedings
are always in English I was just told this by a friend of mine just a few days ago you know I wasn't aware of that I
thought that well maybe in some courts in south india some of the proceedings might be in tamil know all the
proceedings that take place in courts in india extensive system of courts of
course country of 1.2 billion people i all take place in english yes appeals courts okay if you look at
the panchayat level okay panchayat is a local level those proceedings are very often going to be
in the vernacular I'm talking about I'm talking about when I say all courts I mean all high-level course on the state
yeah yeah yeah yeah the courts yeah all in English yeah okay
so you know this is the interesting thing so you would say hey this is this is the consequence of British rule right
in India but nonetheless whatever the intrinsic reasons for studying the
history of British India and suggesting to you and that's what I want to reiterate that I hope it's going to make
you reflect on the nature of American history and American society alright now
what are some of the problems inherent in the study of Indian history I've
already hinted at the largest problem we're going to talk about this at much greater length in the next class in my
introductory remarks on Tuesday I'm going to talk about Orientalism if you have not read that I had asked you to eat read you know read it for today and
you can see some of the comments that I made already touch upon the things that Edward say he talks about but we're
going to talk about this at much greater length and there's an article by Ronald Lyndon which is a very difficult article and as it the syllabus states very
clearly don't worry if you find it too difficult don't worry about it you know I'll try to clarify what Indian is
really saying because Saeed when he wrote Orientalism he was not writing
with specific reference to India at all I mean there of course references to India you know because he was basically
the in so far as he uses examples to make his argument the examples are
largely drawn from French and European inter with the Arab world okay and and what
Ronald in an attempts to do if I'm ever in a very casual way is attempts to use
the Sayid Ian framework or template with reference to India right so if this is
or ageless constructions of India he's got a full-length book but you're obviously not reading that book you're
reading the shorter piece with the forty page piece that you wrote in modern asian studies so what are some of the
problems in the inherent in the study of Indian history and in order to answer
that question we have to ask such question as who's writing these histories who are they writing these
histories for are they writing these histories for other Europeans are they
writing these histories for Indians and when I say these histories what do I mean by these histories so for example
if you look at the 19th century so you look at these administrators there's
actually a phrase used for them the British administrators of India called him the scholar administrator types
because what's really interesting is people like don't worry about the names because you'll encounter them later on
you know if you don't get the names right now you can get them later on and incidentally I think you know itself
expand its it's it's it's obvious all the lecturers here are being podcasted and video streamed so if you miss a
lecture you can access it at your leisure later on that's not a reason by the way not to come to class you know I
hope that the lectures are interesting enough nobody has ever accused me of putting them to sleep there may be other
accusations certainly but I don't think you're going to go to sleep in my lectures in my classes and I think that
there's always a different dynamic when you listen to a lecture life and
there'll be exchanges later on which are not going to be captured very often on
the podcast okay but that's an aside all
right so now what I was trying to suggest is is when I say these histories
what are these histories I'm talking about just one type of history I'm not talking about the totality of all the histories written
about British India but in the 19th century there was a very common type of history written by the scholar
administrator and what I mean by that is these are British administrators who are
governing India for example Thomas Munroe Mount Stewart elphinston John
Malcolm I'm talking about the first half of the 19th century 1820s 1830s 1840s
and and these people are holding very lofty positions I mean they're not clerks these are people who are
governors of Bombay or governors of central province or the governor-general of India this is among the top echelon
of the ruling elite they've got quite a few things on their hands you would
think and yet most of them find time to write voluminous histories so Mount
Stewart elphinston for example writes a really voluminous history I'm talking
about like 1500 pages and that was only by the way one work I mean he writes
several Munro I mean can you imagine george w bush right writing a scholarly
account let's say of iraq that would be a miracle you know i mean you know in
your dreams you might be able to do that because it'd be difficult enough for him to write a memo much less write a 1500
page history of iraq or afghanistan so
notwithstanding my criticism of british rule there interesting things happening
there and some of these people were dedicated scholars they took an effort
to learn languages right and after doing the job of governing the native as i say
you know they come back to their bungalow and you know somebody would put
on the lights there was no electricity of course you know you'd have to you know have the wicks and everything right
candles somebody would put that on you know because of course all of these people had a huge staff domestic
right and then from 9:00 to 12:00 they'd labor on their histories by hand
it's quite quite marvelous frankly you know so these are the scholar
administrator tripe types now the fact that they wrote these histories is marvelous what they're wrote may not be
marvelous because then we'd have to see ah what are the assumptions with which they write about the history of India
and this problem continues down to the present day I mean any time I pick up
the New York Times right which is a newspaper I read every day without fail
I'll see at least one article which will show me the persistence of this kind of
Orientalism okay today without fail and
forget about how they write about the conflict in Palestine I'm talking about
other kinds of you know how they write about Iran how they write about India yeah certain assumptions are just there
I mean any time they have an article in India half of the article is taken up by giving you a capsule history India got
partitioned in 1947 you know half of the article is taken up by that you know they were there Hindus and Muslims in
India right you have to sort of give this summary account before they can even talk about the event in question
that they're interested in you know so this problem persists and when I say
this problem I'm talking about the problem of Orientalism the problem of representation who represents who who
speaks for whom with what consequences with what assumptions right and we will
discuss this in much greater detail so we begin with the read questions such as who is writing these histories and who
are they writing them for what are their presuppositions right what is the
relationship between colonialism and Orientalism right because today for
example you might say well we don't really have colonialism certainly not in the form in which we had it in obviously
the 19th century right they might be new colonial situations today
right certainly under the US for example is still the dominant power right the
very fact that the u.s. can think about well should we or should we not hmm today let's attack Syria should be or
should be noted hack Iran most countries don't have the luxury of thinking that way do they you know think about it so
that what is the relationship of certain representations or societies and what we
call colonialism or neo colonialism right so those are some as I said very
elementary questions that I want you to think about first and we'll have a much greater discussion of these when I give
you a more detailed discussion of Orientalism on Tuesday all right now let
me go through the syllabus so you have an idea what's in store for you and how
we're going to proceed in this class so today it says Edwards side Orientalism you know brief introduction but we'll
continue with this on Tuesday and then week one that's next week so we have km
Panicker km panicker is an indian historian who wrote this book which is called Asia and Western dominance you're
reading some excerpts from that very short excerpts 30 30-yard pages one of
the things that panikkar tried to do was to suggest what is it that made the British period of Indian history
different from the Mughal period so for example the fact that the Mughals are if
I may put it this way a land Empire the British a seaborne Empire right that's a
cardinal difference we could also say extrapolating from panic and many others
that the British unlike the Buggles they don't really assimilate into Indian
society if I may use that phrase you know that there's a you know in India they have what they call the caste
system right so you've got this hierarchy of castes the Brahmins the Kshatriyas ratios sudras we look at this
all of this later on the brahmins are the top of that ladder right what the British one could argue
out Brahman the Brahmins you know they thought they were vastly superior to
even the Brahmins and I think it is a fact that really cannot be disputed that
by and large the British we never integrated into Indian society you know
now they're people who have argued and we're going to do it we look at one of those readings with people who argue
that well in the early 18th century it was quite different it was quite different that English traders English
colonial officials right you know they consorted with indian society and in
particular with indian women but this stopped after a period of time particularly after english women started
coming into India that's the standard argument and when the English women started started coming to India they
told it man well you we can't let you do this hanky-panky stuff anymore now we're here you know right standard argument
that you find that well in the early 18th century things were quite different
but then certainly this feeling of racial superiority became so deeply
embedded among the English that there never really consorted with the Indians and I think it is also generally
conceded by scholars that people who are known as anglo-indians so this is the
offspring of British and Indian marriages the the Anglo Indians were
very badly treated in India by the by the British you know this is as I said
not even really disputed I mean this is quite widely conceded by people who have looked at the role of anglo-indians in
Indian society right and then we have this reading from Metcalfe and Metcalfe so that's one of those books that you
have to buy the readings are not online because you're reading nearly the entirety of the book yeah nearly the
entirety of the book of concise history of modern India and what it does is it gives you the backdrop you know who are the Mughals because as I said the
British are not coming into a vacuum they're not stepping into a vacuum right I mean they're stepping into a place that's full of history so to speak right
the Portuguese have been there that you've got a great Empire there you've got you huge religious and linguistic diversity
right enormous religious and linguistic diversity in India and then we have a
short account by Philip Lawson the East India Company pages one to forty one so you know the founding of the company the
early years of the company what English traders were doing in India and so on and also say at this point that the
inclusion of readings there does not necessarily suggest that I agree with
the point of views of the person who's written that a counter-narrative so
sometimes you'll get a critical reading in my lectures of that sometimes I agree and sometimes have chosen readings that
I think represent my point of view and sometimes have chosen readings that don't but I think that those are
readings that one has to engage with right then in the subsequent week company rule so we look now we begin to
look at once company rule that phrase should already indicate to you what's happened the company is now law no
longer just simply a company of traders right they have assumed certain responsibilities so from traders they
have gravitated towards becoming rulers right well how did that happen what was the nature of their transition what was
the nature of social life in early British India and how was the conquest of India achieved traditionally the date
that is given is 1757 the Battle of Plassey as it's called so we look at that you know and we have a number of
readings there so that reading by Bailey so Sir Christopher Bailey is one of the
most well known historians of India and the world being based at Cambridge University for well over three decades
voluminous works and we're going to look at his interpretation and then we have a
book by William Dalrymple an Englishman who now lives in India and at this this
work I was referring to early on very casually when I was saying that for example is a narrative that well in
early eighteenth-century India for example and you know through and going into the mid eight mid 1700s as well
perhaps in some cases even into the early eighteen hundreds the history of the English in was quite different that there was more
interaction with the Indians Sir William Dalrymple white Mughals love and betrayal in 18th century India we're
reading first eighty pages and then we're reading an essay by Thomas Macaulay called Warren Hastings
I haven't give you given you the link here but this essays available on and I send out an email to the class you know
regarding this particular reading so and you're going to read excerpts from this Warren Hastings was one of the early
Governor General's of India a critical and crucial figure in the history of the
establishment of British rule in India then we get to ruling India texts of governorship theory and practice of
governance well how exactly did they British rule India what were the
theories that they used and you might say well what does it mean to speak about theories well let me give you an
illustration so for example is a school of thought among the British who argue
that Indians are to be treated like children all Indians because frankly the
rational faculty is not that well developed among Indians and therefore
this also means that they will always be
in a position of tutelage because of course you might say well but don't
children at some point become adults but remember that according to this theory all Indian adults are like children in
terms of the rational faculty so it doesn't matter you could say you could have evolutionary theory and say well eventually children become adults and
you know they assume responsibilities for themselves right the problem is and
in India not only are their children but the adults are very much like children
and so therefore this is an argument for saying we shall be ruling India in perpetuity forever in perpetuating this
is one school of thought there's another school of thought which you could call the trustee ship school so we are in
India as trustees you know for example if you're in adult I mean some of you might have been beneficiaries of trustee
accounts you know your parents puttin money into an account and until you reach the age of 18 you can't touch that
account but once you reach that age of 18 so they're acting in trust for you right
they're trustees that once you reach the age of 18 you assume the responsibilities of an adult okay so the
trusteeship theory says that well we're only here to facilitate the growth of Indians bring the blessings of
civilization and Christianity etc etc right to these people once they have
learned the protocols of governance once they understand what it means to have law and order so forth and so on then
the need for us will no longer be felt right so this is what I mean when I said
theories of governor these are not the only two schools of thought there are other schools of thought as well so that's one of the things we are going to
be looking at this section what are the different schools of thought about what it means to govern India right so we
read chapters from Metcalf and Metcalf John Malcolm so here I want to make a little point we're reading primary texts
as well right so John Malcolm is one of these scholar administrator types that I
mentioned to you so this piece is wonderful notes of instructions to assistants and officers so you're an
English colonial official mid-level lower level you're out in the field in the 1830s you know how should you
interact with the native right what are the protocols should you be polite should you not be polite what if they're
practicing some form of religion that you consider to be abhorrent you know should you immediately go try to ban it
right or should you say ah look that might be a little risky because nothing is as dear to a people as a religion so
if we ban certain religious rites that we consider to be barbaric these people
might get upset if they get upset those become the conditions for revolting
right so this is what the notes of instructions it's basically telling English officials how should you behave
you know when you're interacting with Indians right so it's like Little Miss
etiquette so to speak for the colonial age okay then we've got Bernard Cohn the
British in Banaras and from Indian status to British contract Bernard Cohn probably the major historian from
United States of India until certainly very recently I work on British India
and in fact many of the major ideas that have shaped our understanding of relation do you have comes from Bernard
Cohen's works so we're going to read two of his essays it and then Philip Mason the man the man who ruled India very
light work just to give you a little idea of how a sort of quasi journalistic
kind of British you know person writes about the men who ruled India during
this period right and that's why it says skim these pages you know because in comparison with some of the readings
it's not of that level of sophistication but but it'll give you some idea how do
people write about these things at a popular level all right then weeks four
and five the conquest of knowledge so that's the bigger portion of the course now let me make clear why I think this
is in fact the most interesting part of the course certainly from my perspective every conquest no matter what kind is a
conquest of knowledge the British did
not simply have military superiority in India it's not simply the case it's true
that they did but it's the situation is much more complex right they did not
simply in a sense interfere with the
trade in India and eventually establish a kind of economic trade which was in
their favor did all of that right what is more interesting to me is the
colonization of the mind the colonization of the mind and that's more
interesting because its consequences are to be perceived down to the present day
today Orientalism is not simply a problem of how an American or a European
excuse me writes a history of India the problem is that most Indians who write
the history of India are using orient lists ideas and very often they're not even
aware of it very often they're not even aware of it this is a paramount problem
now if you study it on the ground you come up with such things as well why
were the British so interested in translating Indian works works from
Sanskrit or Bengali or some other language into English and of course we
know the European and says well the European answer is they were interested because after all the Europeans
represent enlightenment this is the natural curiosity of the European to know everything well I don't think it
was just a natural curiosity of the European to know everything no I mean they were there were tangible practical
consequences the creations of grammars and dictionaries right huge numbers of
grammars and dictionaries are created and I'll give you very concrete examples of how this work was done and why we
cannot be naive in thinking that well this is simply the Enlightenment urge you know because I've heard that
argument by the way endless number of times even today you know that what distinguishes Europe and America from
you know the Arabs and the Indians if you know this part of the world has a
natural intellectual curiosity about that part of the world but they don't have any curiosity well you know except
to emigrate to America that's different you know right the intellectual curiosity is is a gift of the Europeans
I think the matters far more complex than that alright and in fact the
conquest of knowledge the colonization of the mind was the critical component or what we would describe as colonial
rule you know the idea that Indians are effeminate how did that shape the very
structure of the Indian Army how did that idea come about so there's an essay
by Robert orme who's Robert on Robert or Manson is a British or writing an Indian writing about India on he
Vanessa called effeminacy of the inhabitants of induced an induced on is India right effeminacy
the men are like old women this is a different variation I either they're like children or they're like women you
know what does that mean what is the sexual politics of all of this right McHale a minute on Indian
education where he says that literature in Indian languages is worthless right
so English should be brought into India right I was talking earlier about about
the use of English in India right so these are some of the primary takes so if you see how its divided it says
documents because those are primary texts and then the second half gives you scholarly assessments okay which again a
chapter from Bailey a piece by myself by Bernard code couple of pieces and then
an introduction by myself to a book called the history of railway thieves in India right because here what we're
going to see is we're going to see how anthropology botany geology history okay
huge number of disciplines were all brought into service of colonialism
relationship of the entire apparatus
intellectual apparatus that the British produced that relationship of that to
colonial rule itself right and then we
move into the second half of the course the colorized colonizer and the colonized social encounters so now we
move into a different set of questions what was the nature of social encounters now we're talking about the 19th century
not the early 18th century the Dalrymple book is like 18th century now 19th century so the British have been around
in India for quite some time what was the nature of social interactions between Indians you know there are
certain British institutions such as a club right the club the hill station for
those of you have any familiarity with India you know there's something called the hill station this is where you go to in the mountains when it gets really hot
in the plains and in the hill station the British and created British society completely okay
who are the Indians they interacted with them and it's I think uncontested li
clear that most of the Indians they interacted with were servants most of
the British never bothered to interact with the educated elite you know they
interacted largely with servants and if you were even a mid-level official in in India a Britisher you had a whole
retinue servants whole retinue your servants housekeepers Aya's cooks
gardeners I mean the Viceroy that's the supreme ruler of India you know the vice-regal gardens just okay
the vice-regal palace which was built in the early 20th century and we'll talk about that when we get later on in the course I mean if you read a concert that
20 people were hired just to chase away the birds from the gardens a huge retinue of
people okay that is the colonial officials had and these are largely the
people they're interacting with of course they're going to be exceptions they're going to be Englishmen and
English women I mean let me be very clear who are going to be very strong supporters of the nationalist struggle
in India so there's some interaction there but you're talking about really minuscule number of people there you
know minuscule all right so British life in India verne aid this is an anthology
and we're reading that section called servants forty pages and then I'll review by myself of a book you know on
hill stations okay and you're going to start reading this novel by ianforster for the Passage to India if you haven't
seen the film see it I think the film is quite interesting too you know all these sophisticated critics
as they are called film critics panned the film but I know what do you
sophisticated film critics amount to so I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you you know see the film and don't
think really of making comparisons that's always a problem when you go from the book to the film usually it's the
book to the firm it's very rarely the film to the book usually their films which are based on both but
they're very few books which are based on films you know but there's always this problem this transition and so you
should view it independently and obviously there's a great deal that will resonate with you if you've read the
book and you're not required to obviously see the film then we move into the political economy of imperialism and
when I say the political economy here I'm talking about well what what you know what were the economic consequences
of British rule in India what happened to trade there's an argument that was made famous argument
some people disputed in 1700 it is argued that India and China and Europe
roughly Europe as a whole India China roughly each accounted for one third of
the world trade okay certainly India and China were dominant
players now some people arguing that we're going to return to that age now I'm not so optimistic about it but
that's a different but we leave that aside what is certainly very clear is that by early 1900 India had lost the
ability even to make make matchsticks if I may exaggerate a bit okay very little
industry in India India is going to account for less than 1% of the global
world trade right so what happened during this period of time right um what
is the relationship of such things as the opium wars okay you know with China
we're going to see the connections there right so we go to read excerpts from a
number of works including marks because Marx wrote a whole bunch of essays on
India of course he never went to India but that's not a problem that's never been a problem frankly I mean James
Miller wrote this huge work it's called the history of British India six volumes
have he never left London for ever going to going to India you know and but I by
the way I'm not being completely ironical because sometimes you may go and then see nothing and that
might be a greater problem because then you think you've seen a lot of things and so then you think you have authority that's a different problem you know but
this certainly a problem here that he was an armchair scholar but frankly these essays are brilliant but you know
I have a great deal of difficulty with some of the positions that he enunciates right so that's why we're going to read
it because I think that we need to know what you know one of the two or three major figures of the last hundred fifty
years in the intellectual horizon thought about India and about what the British were doing in India and then
we're going to get into the last segment of the course and that has to do with the rebellion of 1857 so again you know
Metcalfe and Metcalfe a chapter should meet Sircar major historian of India start reading some of
his works so 1857 because the company is going to be abolished and India will now
become what's called a crown colony it falls directly under British rule right and then we're going to see the
emergence of nationalism very gradually we're going to look at such questions as well what was the position of women
under these nationalist movements why was the woman question as it's called
where did that become so important why is it that questions having to do with
women's reform okay women's uplift the improvement of women
in Indian society why do these questions become so critical why are they the
lynchpin for many people for trying to understand the nature of British rule in
India its consequences and so so forth and so on and then finally we get into
full-blown nationalism and what is called communalism communalism is this whole problem we're going to discuss it
at great length problem of religious conflict in India and we are going to look at obviously the role of Mohandas
Gandhi I teach an entire course on course on Gandhi so we're going to really you know have to encapsulate
things because there's no question in my mind that he is the supreme figure you
know and of course I mean I'm well aware of these different kinds of histories and I'm sympathetic to some of them
which even contest this idea of you know looking at elite figures of India national but there is
absolutely no question that Gandhi is a world historical figure okay and that he
is indisputably the most important person not simply in the study of Indian
nationalism but he is a critical figure in world history for many reasons you
know so we are going to look in particular at at some of Gandhi's ideas his role what was the nature of the
struggle because the nature of the struggle in India was really quite different the idea of opposing colonial rule with
non mass nonviolent resistance and this is a unique phenomenon in history and so
I think we need to give it some attention without neglecting the other
strands that had their place as well there were people who were obviously not
sold on the idea of Gandhi's Gandhi and nationalism if we may put it this way right so this is going to be the shape
of the course and we'll end with obviously some reflections on the partition of India 1947 when India is
going to get split a new nation state called Pakistan is going to be created of obviously the British leave India or
are thrown out of India depending on how you want to look at it right and so we're going to end roughly in 1947 alright thank you
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