Some important point

• Old advertisements help us understand how markets for new products were created and new tastes were popularised. This 1922 advertisement for Lipton tea suggests that royalty all over the world is associated with this tea. In the background you see the outer wall of an Indian palace, while in the foreground, seated on horseback is the third son of Queen Victoria of Britain, Prince Arthur, who was given the title Duke of Connaught.


• When New Delhi was built, the National Museum and the National Archives were both located close to the Viceregal Palace. This location reflects the importance these institutions had in British imagination.


• Botanical gardens and natural history museums established by the British collected plant specimens and information about their uses. Local artists were asked to draw pictures of these specimens. Historians are now looking at the way such information was gathered and what this information reveals about the nature of colonialism.


• After Aurangzeb there was no powerful Mughal ruler, but Mughal emperors continued to be symbolically important. In fact, when a massive rebellion against British rule broke out in 1857, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal emperor at the time, was seen as the natural leader. Once the revolt was put down by the company, Bahadur Shah Zafar was forced to leave the kingdom, and his sons were shot in cold blood.


• The treaties that followed the Battle of Buxar forced Nawab Shujauddaulah to give up much of his authority. Here, however, he poses in regal splendour, towering over the Resident.


• The Company forces were defeated by Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan in several battles. But in 1792, attacked by the combined forces of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Company, Tipu was forced to sign a treaty with the British by which two of his sons were taken away as hostages. British painters always liked painting scenes that showed the triumph of British power.


• When Warren Hastings went back to England in 1785, Edmund Burke accused him of being personally responsible for the misgovernment of Bengal. This led to an impeachment proceeding in the British Parliament that lasted seven years.


• In the eighteenth century, French planters produced indigo and sugar in the French colony of St Domingue in the Caribbean islands. The African slaves who worked on the plantations rose in rebellion in 1791, burning the plantations and killing their rich planters. In 1792 France abolished slavery in the French colonies. These events led to the collapse of the indigo plantations on the Caribbean islands.


• In the 1920s about 50 per cent of the miners in the Jharia and Raniganj coal mines of Bihar were tribals. Work deep down in the dark and suffocating mines was not only backbreaking and dangerous, it was often literally killing. In the 1920s over 2,000 workers died every year in the coal mines in India.


• On the evening of 3 July 1857, over 3,000 rebels came from Bareilly, crossed the river Jamuna, entered Delhi, and attacked the British cavalry posts. The battle continued all through the night.


• The British forces initially found it difficult to break through the heavy fortification in Delhi. On 3 September 1857 reinforcements arrived – a 7- mile-long siege train comprising cartloads of canons and ammunition pulled by elephants.


• In June 1857, the rebel forces began the siege of the Residency. A large number of British women, men and children had taken shelter in the buildings there. The rebels surrounded the compound and bombarded the building with shells. Hit by a shell, Henry Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of Awadh, died in one of the rooms that you see in the picture. Notice how buildings carry the marks of past events.


• Machlipatnam developed as an important port town in the seventeenth century. Its importance declined by the late eighteenth century as trade shifted to the new British ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.


• The city of Bombay began to grow when the East India Company started using Bombay as its main port in western India.


• Surat in Gujarat on the west coast of India was one of the most important ports of the Indian Ocean trade. Dutch and English trading ships began using the port from the early seventeenth century. Its importance declined in the eighteenth century


• Patola was woven in Surat, Ahmedabad and Patan. Highly valued in Indonesia, it became part of the local weaving tradition there.


• the East India Company, 1730


• Notice how each item in the order book was carefully priced in London. These orders had to be placed two years in advance because this was the time required to send orders to India, get the specific cloths woven and shipped to Britain. Once the cloth pieces arrived in London they were put up for auction and sold. Jamdani is a fine muslin on which decorative motifs are woven on the loom, typically in grey and white. Often a mixture of cotton and gold thread was used, as in the cloth in this picture. The most important centres of jamdani weaving were Dacca in Bengal and Lucknow in the United Provinces.


• Bandanna design early 20^th century


• Notice the line that runs through the middle. Do you know why? In this odhni, two tie-and-dye silk pieces are seamed together with gold thread embroidery. Bandanna patterns were mostly produced in Rajasthan and Gujarat.


• As European trade expanded, trading settlements were established at various ports. The Dutch settlements in Cochin came up in the seventeenth century. Notice the fortification around the settlement.


• A tanti weaver of Bengal, painted by the Belgian painter Solvyns in the 1790s The tanti weaver here is at work in the pit loom. Do you know what a pit loom is?


• Some communities like the Agarias specialised in the craft of iron smelting. In the late nineteenth century a series of famines devastated the dry tracts of India. In Central India, many of the Agaria iron smelters stopped work, deserted their villages and migrated, looking for some other work to survive the hard times. A large number of them never worked their furnaces again.


• To meet the demands of the war, TISCO had to expand its capacity and extend the size of its factory. The programme of expansion continued after the war. Here you see new powerhouses and boiler houses being built in Jamshedpur in 1919.


• By the mid-nineteenth century, schools for girls were being set up by Christian missionaries and Indian reform organisations.


• Dayanand founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, an organisation that attempted to reform Hinduism.


• When girls’ schools were first set up in the nineteenth century, it was generally believed that the curriculum for girls ought to be less taxing than that for boys. The Hindu Mahila Vidyalaya was one of the first institutions to provide girls with the kind of learning that was usual for boys at the time.


• This coolie ship – named John Allen – carried many Indian labourers to Mauritius where they did a variety of forms of hard labour. Most of these labourers were from low castes.


• Madigas were an important untouchable caste of present-day Andhra Pradesh. They were experts at cleaning hides, tanning them for use, and sewing sandals.


• Dublas laboured for upper-caste landowners, cultivating their fields, and working at a variety of odd jobs at the landlord’s house.


• “Untouchables” were not allowed anywhere near such gateways until the temple entry movement began.


• Thomas Dashwood was married to Charlotte Lousia Aurial. Here you see them entertaining their friends and relatives. Notice the various servants serving tea.


• The discovery of the body of Sultan Tipu by General Sir David Baird, 4 May 1799, painted by David Wilkie (oil, 1839)


• The Storming of Seringapatam, painted by Rober Kerr Porter (panorama in oil, 1800)




• Kali, produced by Calcutta Art Studio, 1880s


• This is an advertisement of an Indian brand of cigarette that was banned by the British in 1905. You can see the heads of British soldiers amongst the demons killed by the goddess. Religious images were thus used to express nationalist ideas and inspire people against British rule.


• The Horse Regiment led by William Hodson, which played an important role in suppressing the 1857 revolt, photograph by Felice Bearto, 1858


• Notice the way the British officer is shown at the centre, standing in an assertive and authoritative way, while his soldiers gather around him.


• Sati Chaura Ghat, Kanpur, photograph by Samuel Bourne, 1865


• Samuel Bourne came to India in the early 1860s and set up one of the most famous photographic studios in Calcutta, known as Bourne and Shephard. Compare this photograph with Fig. 2. Notice how the painter and the photographer are both fascinated by the image of ruins.


• A nationlist demonstration in a Bombay street, photograph by Vikar By the late nineteenth century Indian photographers began taking pictures that often offer us a different image of India. They recorded the nationalist marches and meetings, as well as the everyday life of the people.


• Victoria Terminus, Bombay


• The railway station was built between 1878 and 1887.


• The Banished Yaksha of Kalidas’s poem Meghaduta, painted by Abanindranath Tagore (watercolour, 1904)


• Notice the misty background, the soft colours, and the absence of any hard lines in the painting. These are stylistic elements you will often find in many Japanese water colour landscapes




• Jatugriha Daha


• (The Burning of the House of Lac during Pandava’s exile in the forest), painted by Nandalal Bose (watercolour, 1912)


• Nandalal Bose was a student of Abanindranath Tagore. Notice the lyrical flow of lines, the elongated limbs and the postures of the figures. Abanindranath and Nandalal did not simply follow an earlier style. They modified it and made it their own. In this painting you can see how Nandalal uses shading to give a threedimensional effect to the figures. You will not find this in Ajanta paintings.


• Naoroji’s book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India offered a scathing criticism of the economic impact of British rule.


• – Balgangadhar Tilak


• Notice the name of the newspaper that lies on the table. Kesari, a Marathi newspaper edited by Tilak, became one of the strongest critics of British rule.


• Lala Lajpat Rai


• A nationalist from Punjab, he was one of the leading members of the Radical group which was critical of the politics of petitions. He was also an active member of the Arya Samaj.


• In 1895, along with other Indians, Mahatma Gandhi established the Natal Congress to fight against racial discrimination. Can you identify Gandhiji? He is standing at the centre in the row at the back, wearing a coat and tie.


• In 1927 the British government in England decided to send a commission headed by Lord Simon to decide India’s political future. The Commission had no Indian representative. The decison created an outrage in India. All political groups decided to boycott the Commission. When the Commission arrived it was met with demonstrations with banners saying “Simon Go Back”.


• Sarojini Naidu with Mahatma Gandhi, Paris, 1931 Active in the national movement since the early 1920s, Naidu was a significant leader of the Dandi March. She was the first Indian woman to become President of the Indian National Congress (1925).

Quit India movement, August 1942

• Demonstrators clashed with the police everywhere. Many thousands were arrested, over a thousand killed, many more were injured.


• Maulana Azad with other members at the Congress Working Committee, Sevagram, 1942 Azad was born in Mecca to a Bengali father and an Arab mother. Well-versed in many languages, Azad was a scholar of Islam and an exponent of the notion of wahadat-i-deen, the essential oneness of all religions. An active participant in Gandhian movements and a staunch advocate of Hindu- Muslim unity, he was opposed to Jinnah’s two-nation theory.




• Chakravarti Rajagopalachari speaking to Gandhiji before the Gandhi- Jinnah talks, 1944


• A veteran nationalist and leader of the Salt Satyagraha in the south, C. Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, served as member of the Interim Government of 1946 and as free India’s first Indian Governor-General.




• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel played an important role in the negotiations for independence during 1945-47 Patel hailed from an impoverished peasantproprietor family of Nadiad, Gujarat. A foremost organiser of the freedom movement from 1918 onwards, Patel served as President of the Congress in 1931.




• Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi, Bombay, September 1944


• An ambassador of Hindu- Muslim unity until 1920, Jinnah played an important role in the making of the Lucknow Pact. He reorganised the Muslim League after 1934, and became the major spokesperson for the demand for Pakistan.




• Jawaharlal Nehru listens to Mahatma Gandhi before the Bombay session of the Congress, July 1946 Gandhiji’s disciple, a Congress Socialist, and an internationalist, Nehru was a leading architect of the national movement and of free India’s economy and polity.


• Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Pashtun leader from the North West Frontier Province, with his colleagues at a peace march through Bihar, March 1947 Also known as Badshah Khan, he was the founder of the Khudai Khidmatgars, a powerful non-violent movement among the Pathans of his province. Badshah Khan was strongly opposed to the Partition of India. He criticised his Congress colleagues for agreeing to the 1947 division.


• B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), respectfully referred to as Babasaheb, belonged to a Marathi-speaking dalit family. A lawyer and economist, he is best known as a revered leader of the Dalits and the father of the Indian Constitution


• A state ceased to be a “princely state” as and when its prince agreed to merger with India or Pakistan or was defeated. But many of these states were retained as administrative units until 31 October 1955. Hence the category, “erstwhile princely states” for the period 1947-48 to 31 October 1955.


• Work going on at the Gandhi Sagar bandh


• This was the first of the four dams built on the Chambal river in Madhya Pradesh. It was completed in 1960.


• Jawaharlal Nehru at the Bhilai Steel Plant


• The Bhilai steel plant was set up with the help of the former Soviet Union in 1959. Located in the backward rural area of Chhattisgarh, it came to be seen as an important sign of the development of modern India after Independence.


• Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon arriving at the United Nations


• Krishna Menon led the Indian delegation to the UN between 1952 and 1962 and argued for a policy of non-alignment.


• Leaders of Asian and African countries meet at Bandung, Indonesia 1955


• Over 29 newly independent states participated in this famous conference to discuss how Afro-Asian nations could continue to oppose colonialism and Western domination.

How did Clive see himself?

At his hearing in front of a Committee in Parliament, Clive declared that he had shown admirable restraint after the Battle of Plassey. This is what he said: Consider the situation in which the victory at Plassey had placed me! A great prince was dependent on my pleasure; an opulent city lay at my mercy; its richest bankers bid against each other for my smiles; I walked through vaults which were thrown open to me alone, piled on either hand with gold and jewels! Mr Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my moderation.

What power did the Resident have?

This is what James Mill, the famous economist and political philosopher from Scotland, wrote about the residents appointed by the Company. We place a resident, who really is king of the country, whatever injunctions of non-interference he may act under. As long as the prince acts in perfect subservience, and does what is agreeable to the residents, that is, to the British Government, things go on quietly; they are managed without the resident appearing much in the administration of affairs … but when anything of a different nature happens, the moment the prince takes a course which the British Government think wrong, then comes clashing and disturbance.

Why do we  need cash!

There are many reasons why tribal and other social groups often do not wish to produce for the market. This tribal song from Papua New Guinea gives us a glimpse of how the tribals there viewed the market. We say cash, Is unsatisfactory trash; It won’t keep off rain And it gives me pain So why should I work my guts From coconut trees For these government mutts; Cash cropping is all very well If you’ve got something to sell But tell me sir why, If there’s nothing to buy; Should I bother? Adapted from a song quoted in Cohn, Clarke and Haswell, eds, The Economy of Subsistence Agriculture, (1970).

“There was once a city of this name”

Ghalib lamented the changes that were occurring and wrote sadly about the past that was lost. He wrote: What can I write? The life of Delhi depends on the Fort, Chandni Chowk, the daily gatherings at the Jamuna Bridge and the Annual Gulfaroshan. When all these … things are no longer there, how can Delhi live? Yes, there was once a city of this name in the dominions of India. Over 100,000 Indian princes and British officers and soldiers gathered at the Durbar.

 Language of the wise?

Emphasising the need to teach English, Macaulay declared: All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives … 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 …

An argument for European knowledge

Wood’s Despatch of 1854 marked the final triumph of those who opposed Oriental learning. It stated: We must emphatically declare that the education which we desire to see extended in India is that which has for its object the diffusion of the improved arts, services, philosophy, and literature of Europe, in short, European knowledge

Who could  produce shoes

Leather workers have been traditionally held in contempt since they work with dead animals which are seen as dirty and polluting. During the First World War, however, there was a huge demand for shoes for the armies. Caste prejudice against leather work meant that only the traditional leather workers and shoemakers were ready to supply army shoes. So they could ask for high prices and gain impressive profits.

“Me here and you over there”

Phule was also critical of the anti-colonial nationalism that was preached by upper-caste leaders. He wrote: The Brahmans have hidden away the sword of their religion which has cut the throat of the peoples’ prosperity and now go about posing as great patriots of their country. They … give this advice to ... our Shudra, Muslim and Parsi youth that unless we put away all quarrelling amongst ourselves about the divisions between high and low in our country and come together, our ... country will never make any progress ... It will be unity to serve their purposes, and then it will be me here and you over there again.

• The report of the states reorganization commission (SRC) was implemented on November 1, 1950. This, on its own time and own way, also transformed the political and institutional life on the nation. Gandhi and other leader promised their followers that when freedom came, the new nation would be based on a new set of provinces, these based on the principle of language, however, when India was finally freed in 1947 in , it was also divided.


• Partition was the consequence of a primordial attachment to one’s faith; how many more partitions would that other primordial loyalty, language, lead to? So ran the thinking of Nehru, Patel and Rajaji.


• Far from undermining Indian unity, linguistic states have helped strengthen it. It has proved to be perfectly consistent to be Kannadiga and Indian, Bengali and Indian, Tamil and India, Gujarati and Indian. To be sure, these states based language sometime quarrel with one another.


• While these disputes are not pretty, they could in fact have been far worse.


• It is the formation of linguistic state that allowed India to escape what might have been a worse fate still. If the sentiments, that we might have was: ‘one language: 14 or 15 nations’.