Rediscovering India by Dharampal

[Guest guest]

Namaskar Mitra,

Rediscovering India by Dharampal, Courtesy and Copyright Society for Integrated

Development of Himalayas (SIDH)

 

A number of us who were born after Independence & grew up in urban India have

little idea about how rural India lives, either now or before. We are told that

it is the British who made us civilized, gave us a political system, modern

education, science etc. We are continuously criticized for caste, dowry &

zamindari systems, treatment of backward classes called dalits today and low

agricultural productivity etc. Was India always like this!

· Did we not have a system of community based living?

· Was the caste system as wretched as it is made out to be?

· Were members of the Backward Classes always poor & lacked education?

· Did India have an indigenous schooling system in 1800?

· What was the state of Indian agriculture & industry around 1800.

 

I had numerous questions but could never find comprehensive answers. Not only

did the book answer my questions but enlightened me on matters that I was

ignorant about.

http://www.esamskriti.com/html/new_inside.asp?cat_name=why&cid=1039&sid=170.

Bullet Point Summary of key points.

 

· To the British darkness and ignorance had wholly different meanings and

to the majority of them, these terms conveyed not any ignorance of arts and

crafts or technology, or aesthetics but rather the absence of the knowledge of

Christianity and its scriptural heritage.

 

· Peasants, artisans, those engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel,

or in the various processes of its flourishing indigenous textile industry, or

its surgeons and medical men, even many of its astronomers and astrologers

belonged to this predominant section i.e. Sudras is unquestionable.

 

· Some of the important changes brought about the British were (i)

revenue enhancement and centralization, (ii) attempts at breaking the sense of

community (geographical, or based on occupation or kinship) amongst the people

of India, (iii) reducing their consumption to the minimum through higher

taxation and lowering of wage rates, and (iv) an imposition of newer concepts

of property rights and laws.

· They created a system of landlordism, ryotwari and peasant

indebtedness.

· Deliberate & planned lowering of the wages of Indians.

Caste

· When the British began to conquer India, the majority of the rajas in

different parts of India had also been from amongst such castes which have been

placed in the sudra varna.

Yet it can, perhaps also be argued that the existence of caste has added to

the tenacity of Indian society, to its capacity to survive and after lying low

to be able to stand up again. The British demonized caste because it stood in

the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomization,

and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult. Today’s backward

classes or Sudras cultural and economic backwardness is post 1800 due to impact

of British economic policies. Madras Presidency 1822 survey showed sudras and

castes below formed 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total students in the

Tamil speaking areas.

Some of today’s Bihar’s notified tribes were whose ancestors were warriors and

gave unceasing battle to the British till they got exhausted and succumbed to

the overwhelming British power. Besides being warriors, their main occupations

are said to have been of ironsmith (Iuhar) etc.

Agriculture

· In 1804 according to The Edinburgh Review wages of the Indian

agricultural laborer were also much more than British counter part.

· There is a paper by Capt. Halcott on the drill plough employed in south

India. He has said that he never imagined a drill plough considered as a modern

European invention, at work in remote village in India

· High Yields were on account of the variety of seeds available to the

Indian peasant, the sophistication and simplicity of his tools, and the extreme

care and labor he expended in tending to his fields and crops.

Industry

Around 1800 India had 15-20 lakh weavers with mining being major industrial

activity. Due to British policies by 1820 Indian industry was on its knees.

There are accounts of the Indian process of making steel which was called

‘wootz’. The British experts who examined samples of ‘wootz’ sent to them by

one Dr. Helenus Scott have commented that it is decidedly superior compared in

any other steel they have seen.

· Incidentally, modern plastic surgery in Britain is stated by its

inventor to have been derived from and developed after the observation and

study of the Indian practice from 1790 onwards.

Because of the British desire to invest newly acquired British capital, a new

structure of industrialization began to be established in various parts of

India, especially round Calcutta and Bombay, by about 1880. The larger

proportion of the historical and traditional professionals of Indian Industry

however, even today, work outside the modern industrial complex, and mostly

work individually and on their own. In the idiom of today they would form a

fairly large proportion of the ‘Backward’ and ‘Other Backward’ castes.

According to current findings the India-China region produced around 73 per

cent of the industrial manufactures of the world around 1750.

· Cloth was manufactured in practically all the 400 districts. Many

districts of south India had 10,000 to 20,000 looms in each district even

around 1810. Also India had some 10,000 furnaces for the manufacture of iron

and steel. Indian steel was considered of very high quality and in the early

decades of the nineteenth century, it was being used by the British for the

making of surgical instruments.

 

In 1763 smallpox was consciously and deliberately introduced in North America by

the British military commander to kill local population.

See you at the site, Share the Wealth, Cheers & Om

sanjeev

 

 

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