The Census team visited our Ward Number 16, Gostokanan ,under Panihati Municipality Ruled by Left the Marxists, today and OMITTED us once again despite my Open Letter to RGI, CENSUS, The President of India and the Supreme court forwarded to Media and Posted on Egroups and Blogs. Despite I lodged my Complaint in the Municipality, the Prescribed authority Officer In Charge who assured that the team would visit our place very soon. More than Three Weeks Passed. Being a Social activist and Professional Journalist, I felt NEVER so HELPLESS as my wife SABITA, an M.A. in Economics is alarmed!
Just Count the Brahmins in India and fix Quota for them in accordance with their Population, the Problem of Reservation would Vanish as others would not Need any Reservation or quota as soon as the Creamy layer of Privileged Indian Market Dominating Community Brahamins have their due and others get Equal Opportunity!
My caste is Indian, says Amitabh Bachchan!
Gates help for mouse-eating village
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time- THREE HUNDRED SIXTY SEVEN
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
The Census team visited our Ward Number 16, Gostokanan ,under Panihati Municipality Ruled by Left the Marxists, today and OMITTED us once again despite my Open Letter to RGI, CENSUS, The President of India and the Supreme court forwarded to Media and Posted on Egroups and Blogs. Despite I lodged my Complaint in the Municipality, the Prescribed authority Officer In Charge who assured that the team would visit our place very soon. More than Three Weeks Passed. Being a Social activist and Professional Journalist, I felt NEVER so HELPLESS as my wife SABITA, an M.A. in Economics is alarmed!
No area wise Notification issued! No one knows the schedule of the visiting census team and the wait is INFINITE. Only Landlords and Landladies are Privileged to enroll themselves in the National Population Register. In Central India, Thousands Villages have been Evacuated for Development and the Exodus is Infinite. All Over India, MIGRATION is the Phenomenon of Urbanisation and development as Rural India is DEVOID of Jobs and traditional agrarian Livelihood. Since, this time, the Census is Biometric and meant for Unique Identity as well as Caste Headcount,it is CRIMINAL Offence equal to Capital Offence to deduct citizens by the Census Methodology which does not consider Absence due to Livelihood, working hours and Tour, even location and Political Persecution. Prescribed authorities have NO Sympathy with the EXCLUDED Communities. Deliberate OMISSION due to Political and Social, Economic and Local Reasons are not considered at all. How would Mr Nandan Nilekani get the Finger Prints of Every Citizen? What would happen to those families OMITTED? What about those Tribal Villages and Refugee Colonies, Slums and Colonies which are not on the Revenue Map!
What should be our Position in a state Like West Bengal which is Politically Volatile and vertically Polarised?
Just Count the Brahmins in India and fix Quota for them in accordance with their Population, the Problem of Reservation would Vanish as others would not Need any Reservation or quota as soon as the Creamy layer of Privileged Indian Market Dominating Community Brahamins have their due and others get Equal Opportunity!
Bharat Mukti Morcha has launched NON Stop campaign demanding OBC Headcount as the Jats are also Pressing on the demand pursued by Mulnivasi Bamcef for long. Mind you, Census is the Only Methodology to get the Demographic data to finalise Planning and Budgetary Allocations Proportionate to the Population of the Communities. Bengal has No less than Forty Percent of OBC Population NON Recognised as yet. How do you expect that the Headcount would recognise the Demography hitherto REJECTED to sustain the Hegemony Rule of Micro Minority Three Percent Brahamins in every sphere of life.
Conservative DEM LIB coalition government in Great Britain with the Unexpected rise of Nick Claig to the post of deputy Prime Minister is very Relevant as India has Adopted British Parliamentary system. Liberal Democratic party has Joined the Ministry DEMANDING Proportional Representation and Electoral Reforms which had been Rejected and Undermined by MK Gandhi with Pune Pact long before the Power transfer to the Brahamin Bania corporate LPG mafia Raj in India!Majority Politics of Equation is Rejected in UK itself!
Dr. Ambedkar had advocated ANNIHILATION of Caste but Indian Brahaminical Politics empowered by Majoritarian Electoral System Lives on Caste and community Equation and the Colonial Economy is based on Exclusion of Majority Enslaved SC, ST, OBC and Minority Communities. The Manusmriti Rule is Sustained by the Unworthy Opportunist Caste and community Leaders Purchased or Trapped, co Opted with Indiscriminate use of State Power, Central Agencies and Judiciary. The Ruling Hegemony strikes deal with Powerful communities amongst the Excluded communities and adjusts and readjusts Demography at will. Population Transfer due to Brahmin Manipulated Partition changed the Human scape Countrywide and SC and OBC Bengali Refugees were scattered all over the Country. Nevertheless, the Process continued all on the Name of Industrialisation, Urbanisation and Development changing the Landscape as well as Humanscape across the Nation. Persecution, Repression, AFPSA, Military Rule, Prevention of Terrorism and Insurgency acts, Economic Reforms and SEZ Drive, Infrastructure, unemployment, Green revolution, Bonded Labour, Food Insecurity, Caste Discrimination and Persecution, big dams and Calamities, Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Warfare, Internal Security and War against Terror, Communalism,Riots, Strategical Re alliance, Displacement and Deportation, Retail marketing, IT, Privatisation Of Agriculture and Contract farming, Fiscal Policy and taxation loaded against the Masses, Sensex and Bull market, FIIs and FDI, Foreign Funded Media, Political parties and NGOs, Disinvestment and Sell Out, Closure, Policy Making and Budget making - Every thing Everything contributed to INFINITE Exclusion and Global Phenomenon leading to Unprecedented Violence. Fiscal DEFICIT and INFLATION, Oil Economy, Defence Budget , Government Expenditure,Balance of Payment and Borrowing based Interest rates with Consumer culture and Free Market Democracy have killed the Republic, Democracy, Identities, nationalities, Languages, folk and Rural landscape!
Nandan Nilekani and the Farce of caste Census makes the EXCLUSION and Ethnic Cleansing Systematic as well as Biometric!Amidst the debate on the inclusion of caste in the national census, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has said that he does not believe in caste and neither does his family.Marxists, Socialists, Gandhian, Maoists and RSS Brahamins do calim that they do NEVER Believe in Caste and community and showcase their Commitment to the Manusmriti Hegemony and Ruling class Invoking Blind Nationalism, Hindutva, Ethnonationalism or Regional Identity and in fact, PRACTICING Scientific Untouchability, Exclusion, Discrimiantion and apartheid! In fact the Civil society, NGOs, human Right Activists, Economists and Professionals, Media and political parties and organisation Methodologically use SECULARISM to jsutify Ethnic Claensing and Genocide culture as they have nNO commitment, No Concern, No Sympathy stored in the Heart and Mind,Eurasian GENE for the majority aboriginal, Indigenous and Minority Communities!
A meeting of the Union Cabinet is likely to take a decision on the issue of caste-based census next week, amid indications that the government may concede to the demands from various parties for such an exercise.
"The issue of caste census is expected to come before the Cabinet next week," government sources said.
The indication to this effect came after a meeting of Congress Core Group presided over by party chief Sonia Gandhi.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P Chidambaram, senior leaders Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony and Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel attended the meeting.
Finance Minister Mukherjee has already justified the demand for conducting a caste-based census and said it should not have been discontinued post-independence.
"The caste-based census was last conducted in the year 1931 and the practice should have continued in the post-independence period also but it did not happen. Now the UPA government has taken an initiative in this regard," he had said at Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh a few days back.
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Caste-based census will compound past blunders - The Times of India Ghanshyam Shah () May 22, 1998
Ilovekolkata - The ultimate Calcutta portal, Bengal is the only state that has demanded a caste-based census as part of the 2011 population count set to begin this April.
On Monday, the Lok Sabha erupted with a strong demand for enumerating backward classes as part of the decennial census, which is under way, from virtually all parties. The Lok ...
Page 1 of 4 Source: Office of the Registrar General, India BIHAR DATA HIGHLIGHTS : THE SCHEDULED CASTES Census of India 2001 The State of Bihar was bifurcated, with the formation of the ...
Caste census This refers to the editorial, "Census and caste" (May 7). One wonders what "other ways of gaining information" could exist for the Backward Class commissions ...
Should the Census of India 2011 be tasked with the collection of caste data, returning in a sense to the practice of the pre-Independence, colonial era? Let us start by recognising ...
The Centre is now likely to come under pressure to take recourse to a caste-based census to settle the issue once and for all.
Page 1 of 4 Source: Office of the Registrar General, India Haryana DATA HIGHLIGHTS : THE SCHEDULED CASTES Census of India 2001 The population of Haryana, as per 2001 Census, is 21,144 ...
Caste census sees political…
1 day agoLS saw rare unanimity in pursuing head-count on basis of caste identities.
English caste is from Latin castus "pure, cut off, segregated", the participle of carere "to ... and fluid Jati with the theoretical and rigid Varna scheme starting from the 1901 Census ...
On the other hand,Dodging the media, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi late on Tuesday evening opened a `window' to Microsoft Bill Gates on the life in a Dalit village in Pratapgarh district in UP. He also briefed Gates on the development he had initiated in the social and the health sectors in the Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies represented by him and his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
Kande Rao ka Purwa: After showing Bill Gates a glimpse of the development he had initiated in the social and the health sectors in the Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies represented by him and his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi took the Microsoft chief to experience life in a Dalit village in Pratapgarh district Tuesday evening.
Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
Videos Nick Clegg on coalition government ITN NEWS - 3 hours ago Watch video  Cameron's father always knew he had it in him ITN NEWS - 4 hours ago Watch video  Cameron and Clegg begin political partnership AFP - 6 hours ago Watch video
 Cameron finally becomes British PM, Brown quits AFP - 8 hours ago Watch video  David Cameron's first speech at Downing street as new UK Prime Minister RT - 17 hours ago Watch video
|
Bill Gates checks up on polio eradication in India
Bill Gates To Visit Bihar To See Anti-Polio Campaign, Not To Adopt Village
Gates help for mouse-eating village
Bill Gates to adopt village in northern Indian state Bihar
Bill Gates Gears Up For Philanthropic Works
Bill Gates wants to adopt Indian village
Rahul Gandhi Takes Bill Gates Traveling
Bill Gates opens window to US for Amethi locals
In Rahul Gandhi's Amethi, Bill Gates promises IT hub
Rahul plays translator, shows Gates around home base Amethi
Gates promises to make Amethi an IT hub
In Amethi, Gates opens windows to computers
Rahul guides Gates on rural UP tour
Bill Gates offers to turn Amethi, Rae Bareli into IT hubs
Bill Gates to visit Amethi with Rahul Gandhi
Gates promises to developed Amethi into an IT Hub
Gates to transform Gandhi bastion into IT hub
Bill Gates accompanies Rahul Gandhi on visit to Amethi
Gates may not need Rahul's translation on next Amethi visit
Rahul opens IT Gates to Amethi
Rahul Gandhi is clean-shaven again
With Gandhi as guide, Gates goes to a Dalit village
Rahul, Gates visit Amethi
Bill Gates visited Amethi along with Rahul Gandhi
Bill Gates to join Rahul on Amethi visit
Rahul, Gates visit Amethi; meet aam-aadmi
Bill Gates visits Amethi; to adopt Bihar village
Bill Gates visits Amethi, promises to develop it as IT hub
Bill Gates to visit Amethi with Rahul Gandhi today
Gandhi offers Amethi 'zip' file to Bill Gates
With Rahul, Bill Gates visits Amethi and Rae Bareli (Roundup, Changing dateline)
Bill Gates visits Amethi with Rahul Gandhi, promises to set up IT hub
Bill Gates Joins Rahul Gandhi to Visit Amethi Today
Rahul takes Bill Gates to Amethi
Bill Gates And Rahul Gandhi To Visit To Amethi On Tuesday
Bill Gates to turn Rahul Gandhi's power base into IT hub
After Uttar Pradesh, Gates goes to Bihar
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday telephoned his new British counterpart David Cameron to congratulate him and hoped that he would further strengthen relations between the two countries.
A British High Commission statement said Singh in a 'very warm and friendly call' congratulated Cameron.
'In a 10-minute call, both leaders discussed a number of bilateral issues but foremost was a discussion on the world economy,' said the statement.
He added that both leaders 'reinforced strong bilateral relationship between India and the United Kingdom and looked forward to strengthening it further'.
Singh also wrote a congratulatory letter to Cameron, which was released by the Indian Prime Minister's Office here.
'The elections in the United Kingdom and your stewardship of the Conservative Party reflect the best traditions of parliamentary democracy. I wish you the very best in your leadership in the years ahead,' said Manmohan Singh in the letter.
The Indian leader said he recalled with great pleasure his meeting with Cameron in New Delhi in September 2006.
'Over the years, our bilateral relations have diversified into a vibrant and multi-faceted strategic partnership encompassing almost all areas of human endeavour,' he said.
'We are today well placed to build upon this strong edifice not just for the welfare and benefit of our two peoples, but also to work together to address the pressing global challenges that we face today, and to harness the growing inter-dependence among nations for the good of humankind.
'I look forward to working with you to further advance and strengthen our bonds of friendship, to which India attaches the highest importance,' he added.
'It gives me great pleasure to extend a most cordial invitation to you to visit India at your convenience.'
Cameron, one of Britain's youngest prime ministers in nearly 200 years, got the top job after his party sealed a deal with the third-placed Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg will be Cameron's deputy.
The election marked the end of 13 years of Labour rule.
My caste is Indian, says Amitabh Bachchan
MUMBAI: While the debate over caste census intensifies with most parties rooting for it, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan is clear where he stands on the controversial issue. If ever asked to mention his caste, he says categorically, he would be ready with the answer -- Indian.Census enumerators came calling on the Bachchan household, prompting Amitabh to express his views on the issue of caste census.
"Wary of the sensitivity that this has raised recently by politicians, they keep away from it. They reason that they would wait for some government decision on this. I tell them irrespective of what the system decides, my answer is ready - caste, Indian," he wrote on his blog bigb.bigadda.com.
Big B says that his father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, a noted Hindi poet and litterateur, never believed in caste system.
"My Father never believed in caste and neither do any of us. He married a Sikh (Teji Bachchan), I married a Bengali (Jaya Bhaduri), my brother a Sindhi (Ramola), my daughter (Shweta) a Punjabi (Nikhil Nanda), my son (Abhishek) a Mangalorean (Aishwarya Rai)... in his autobiography he (Harivansh Rai) had expressed that future generations of his family should marry into different parts of the country. So far that tradition has been kept alive!!"
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the government will soon take a decision on caste-based census in the country.
Amitabh recounts the morning the enumerators came to his house.
"From the morning a consensus on the census. Officials from the BMC, the Bombay Municipal Corporation, troop into Prateeksha to detail in on information that shall for the first time in India develop for every citizen the UID - a Unique Identity Card.
"All kinds of information is sought name, place, age, dependents, place of birth, house, residence years and on. I wait for them to come to the crucial controversial one - caste. They don't."
Deputy leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Janata Dal-United (JDU) president Sharad Yadav are amongst those demanding that caste be registered during the census exercise.
Cameron leads Britain into new coalition era
ReutersBritain's first coalition government since 1945 started to sketch out its main policy goals on Wednesday with a core task being to tackle the country's record budget deficit.
New Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats struck a coalition agreement early on Wednesday in a deal between two usually ideologically opposed parties that critics say will lead to future instability.
"This is going to be hard and difficult work. A coalition will throw up all sorts of challenges. But I believe together we can provide that strong and stable government that our country needs," Cameron said in his first speech as prime minister.
The agreement, reached five days after an inconclusive election, ended 13 years of rule by the centre-left Labour Party under Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown.
The partnership will have to tackle a record budget deficit running at more than 11 percent of GDP. The coalition is expected to implement Conservative plans to cut six billion pounds of spending this financial year, earlier than the Liberal Democrats, or Lib Dems, had campaigned for.
"... we're going to undertake long-term structural reforms of the banking system, of education and of welfare so that we have an economy that works for everyone," new finance minister George Osborne told reporters.
Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who will be deputy prime minister, were expected to make an announcement at the prime minister's residence in Downing Street at 1315 GMT.
"What it (the joint agreement) does ... I think is properly balance the need to take some fairly aggressive action to control the budget deficit ... but also to make sure that economic recovery is protected," said Lib Dem politician David Laws, one of the key negotiators during the coalition talks.
The Lib Dems were celebrating after decades spent in the shadow of Labour and the Conservatives.
"There will of course be problems, there will of course be glitches. But I will always do my best to prove new politics isn't just possible, it is also better," Clegg told reporters.
Markets welcomed the agreement, hopeful that a government led by the centre-right Conservatives will take swift action to cut the country's debts. Gilt futures jumped and sterling enjoyed a strong performance overnight, losing some ground later to trade broadly steady against the dollar.
The Conservatives are traditionally seen as hawkish on defence, and stocks in the sector were up 2.35 percent on the FTSE 350 index .
COALITION HONEYMOON?
Cameron, a 43-year-old former public relations executive, took over as prime minister on Thursday evening after Brown admitted defeat in efforts to broker a deal with the Lib Dems.
He is Britain's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years.
Conservative politicians took to the airwaves on Wednesday morning to highlight their new good ties with the Lib Dems.
William Hague, a former Conservative leader who will be the new foreign minister, told the BBC there were no major differences between the two parties on Afghanistan, where Britain is fighting an unpopular war.
He also said neither party was in favour of handing more powers to the European Union. The EU was seen as a stumbling block to a coalition deal between the pro-EU Lib Dems and the anti-EU Conservatives.
"All British governments sometimes face difficulties over European policy, but given the discussions we have had and the agreement that I have just outlined, we certainly don't start off with it as a difficulty," Hague said.
The Conservatives are parliament's largest party after last week's election but fell 20 seats short of an outright majority. With the Lib Dems, they will have a majority of 76 seats.
The prime minister's office said late on Tuesday there would be five Liberal Democrats in cabinet in total, including Clegg.
It did not name the other four ministers but there were reports Vince Cable, the well regarded Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, would have a role overseeing banking and business.
For multimedia coverage, see http://r.reuters.com/quq44j
Graphic of gilt and stg reaction http://r.reuters.com/nec23k
Graphic of results http://r.reuters.com/hym23k
For more on this, click http://uk.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/politics. For Twitter follow -up, click https://twitter.com/reuters_co_uk
(Additional reporting by Rhys Jones, Tim Castle, Peter Griffiths, Michael Holden and Adrian Croft; Editing by Jodie Ginsberg and Charles Dick)
Meanwhile,
New Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia takes oath!
Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia Wednesday became the 38th chief justice of India.Chief Justice Kapadia was administered the oath of office by President Pratibha Patil at a glittering ceremony in the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.He will preside over the Supreme Court till Sep 29, 2012. Born Sep 29, 1947, Chief Justice Kapadia was elevated to the apex court Dec 18, 2003.During the ceremony, Chief Justice Kapadia's wife and family members looked on as he took the oath of office before the president.
Vice President M. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his cabinet colleagues, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, outgoing Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and judges of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court were present on the occasion.
Attorney General Goolam E. Vahanvati and Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam too were present.
After the ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the new Chief Justice's wife visited the Supreme Court where she was seated in the visitors' gallery of court number one whose proceedings were presided over by Chief Justice Kapadia.
Chief Justice Kapadia who is known for his knowledge of taxation and commercial laws has repeatedly said in the recent past that judges at all level should be abreast of the taxation and commercial laws.
He said that in the existing global environment the knowledge of commercial and economic laws was a pre-requisite of good and competent judges and lawyers.
He had expressed apprehensions that not having trained legal human resource in this area would amount to conceding this space to foreign law firms.
The 62-year-old chief justice, who has been associated with 771 judgments, has many challenges at hand in his capacity as the head of Indian judiciary. One of them is the tricky question of whether the office of the Chief Justice is covered under the Right to Information Act.
Chief Justice Kapadia's predecessor had consistently maintained that he would not divulge certain information that concerned others and was confidential in nature.
The former CJI too had resisted moves to divulge details about the proceedings of the apex court's collegium, a panel of judges that deals with issues related to judicial appointments and issue related to judicial misconduct.
Justice Kapadia is known to stress on ethics and integrity of judges.
At a recent public function, he said that 'integrity is his only asset'.
'It is easy to be popular but to be correct is difficult,' he said.
Supreme Court rejects plea for Karkare killing probe
The Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed a petition for a probe into the killing of Hemant Karkare, head of Maharashtra Police's anti-terrorist squad (ATS), during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.The petition wanted an independent fact-finding committee, headed by a sitting or a retired judge of the apex court, to look into the events before Karkare's killing.
A bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar rejected Radhakant Yadav's public interest litigation (PIL) but gave him the liberty to move the high court.
Since Yadav, a three-time Bihar legislator, had moved the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the constitution that deals with citizens' rights, the apex court questioned him on how his fundamental rights had been encroached upon.
Under Article 32 a citizen of India can knock the doors of the apex court for protection of his rights, including the fundamental rights.
The petition 'submitted that there was an abject failure of the state of unparalleled magnitude in protecting the citizens of the country from terrorists, including the death of officers like ATS chief Karkare'.
The petitioner contended that the entire Mumbai terror attack should not be seen as single episode but two different attacks.
The petitioner pointed to the book 'Who Killed Hemant Karkare', authored by former Maharashtra Police chief S.M. Mushrif, which said the government explanation given for the ATS chief's death was not logical and not believable.
He said the R.D. Pradhan Committee, headed by a former senior bureaucrat, was set up by the state government to give a report on various aspects of the Mumbai attack but it did not receive cooperation from various authorities.
Yadav said that Karkare investigated and exposed the plot of 'right wing terror groups' who were responsible for several blasts between 2003 and 2008.
Karkare came to know about the involvement of political and religious leaders and was 'only inches away from arresting some of them' before his killing, the petitioner claimed.
The petitioner also claimed that the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, had sent the Intelligence Bureau precise and actionable information about the Mumbai attack but it was not passed on to Maharashtra police.
New CJI warns on frivolous PILs
New Delhi Hours after assuming the office of Chief Justice of India, Justice S H Kapadia today spoke his mind for conducting the business of the Supreme Court by saying that any attempt to push frivolous PILs would be dealt with sternly."Huge cost will be imposed for filing frivolous PILs," Justice Kapadia, who was heading a three-judge Bench on the first day of his office as CJI, said during the hearing of one such (public interest litigation) PIL.
The fact that there would be no softening of stand on the issue became evident when some of the lawyers appearing in PIL matters did not press for relief after getting the slightest hint that the petitions were not going to be entertained.
However, his humanitarian approach was also clearly visible when on a matter of labour and trade union, he said that "whatsoever be the case, the workers should not lose their jobs".
The style of proceedings by Justice Kapadia in the CJI's court witnessed a remarkable departure from his predecessor Justice K G Balakrishnan.
The CJI said he would not continue with practice of the oral mentioning of the matter at the start of the day which was prevalent till yesterday.
Justice Kapadia said the mentioning matter will come to the Bench through the department concerned where it has to be filed a day before and would be considered for listing only after the lunch break next day.
"No oral mentioning. You have to come through mentioning department," he said to the disappointment of several lawyers who were waiting to mention their matters.
No sooner the new CJI came for holding the court after he was sworn in, he was greeted by Attorney General G E Vahanvati and Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium (as a Chairman of Bar Council of India) and members of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
Accepting their wishes, Justice Kapadia said "I want a pro-active Bar and not a reactive Bar".
He completed his business of the day in little more than half-an-hour during which he heard 39 matters.
Some of the family members of Justice Kapadia were present at the visitors' gallery of his court to watch the proceedings.
BJP rules out sharing power with JMM
Bangalore BJP on Wednesday ruled out sharing of power on a rotational basis with JMM in Jharkhand and asserted that it will soon form the government with its leader as Chief Minister."There is no question of 50:50 ratio power sharing with JMM. We will have BJP Chief Minister in Jharkhand soon," BJP senior leader Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here.
The JMM had on May 10 asked BJP to share power with it on a rotational basis, two days after the latter said it would head the coalition for the rest of the four-and-half-year tenure of the present Assembly.
To a question, Naidu said the delay in government formation was not due to differences of opinion on selection of a chief ministerial candidate, but on account of wider consultations on the issue among party leaders.
Accusing the central government of misusing CBI in a "brazen manner" to further its political interests, Naidu demanded a "White Paper" on the functioning of the investigation agency.
The White Paper should contain information on number of cases referred, registered, investigated and prosecuted by CBI, and the number of cases withdrawn and dropped in between, he said.
"CBI has become the political arm of the government, be it trial of strength during the confidence motion in July 2008 or the recent cut motions in Lok Sabha," Naidu said.
He alleged that Congress was adopting all "unethical, extra-constitutional and immoral" methods by misusing various institutions to further its political interests, harass political opponents and also muster support as and when needed.
The BJP has embarked upon a public awakening campaign from today across the country against the "politicisation of CBI".
He termed as "irresponsible and baseless" the charge by former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh that terrorism was on the rise after L K Advani undertook rath yatra.
Mulayam, Lalu are Sonia's dogs, says GadkariTimes of India - 35 minutes ago CHANDIGARH: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday accused Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad of betraying the opposition on the recent cut motions in parliament, ... Gadkari accuses MNCs of pocketing future forward trading moneyEconomic Times - 28 minutes ago 12 May 2010, 2253 hrs IST, PTI CHANDIGARH: The BJP on Wednesday alleged that Rs 445 crore that came from future forward trading had been pocketed by multi-national companies. Addressing a felicitation function held in his honour by the party here, ... Gadkari calls Lalu, Mulayam Sonia's dogsIBNLive.com - 1 hour ago New Delhi: BJP president Nitin Gadkari has courted controversy for making derogatory remarks against the Yadav troika. Speaking in Chandigarh he called Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad dogs of Congress president Sonia ... Wrong economic policies, bad governance ruined India: GadkariMyNews.in - 5 minutes ago Chandigarh, May 12 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari Wednesday blamed Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for following 'wrong economic policies' and sending the country into inflation and poverty. ... |
Libya plane crash - 'at least one Briton on board'
RTEmail this storyRose garden was like the 'Dave and Nick Show'
ITN NEWSEmail this story40 terror camps active in Pakistan: Antony
India is world's 5th-largest polluter
New Delhi Greenhouse emission levels have been rising in India phenomenally, taking it to the top five most-polluting countries' list.A new study confirmed Tuesday, with its greenhouse gas emissions growing by more than 3 percent annually between 1994-2007. The Asian giant also is suffering from the effects of global warming such as rising temperatures and sea levels along its coasts.
The study represents the first update to an assessment of India's air emissions that was done 16 years ago. More than 80 scientists from 17 institutions across India were involved in the study, said Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister.
The sectors that showed the most significant annual growth in emissions were cement production, 6 percent; electricity generation, 5.6 percent; and transport, 4.5 percent, said the study, which was released by India's Ministry of Environment and Forests.
India's per capita carbon dioxide emissions were roughly 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) in 2007, according to the study. That's small compared to China and the U.S., with 10,500 pounds (4,763 kilograms) and 42,500 pounds (19,278 kilograms) respectively that year. The study said that the European Union and Russia also have more emissions than India.
Still, pollution is causing India's environment to erode significantly, the study said, underscoring the need for India to take action.
Continuous warming and the changing rainfall pattern "may jeopardize India's development by adversely impacting the natural resources such as water, forests, coastal zones and mountains on which more than 70 percent of the rural population is dependent," the study said.
Temperatures in India, which already suffers from economically debilitating heat and drought, could rise by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 F to 7.2 F) by 2050, the study said.
In addition, the study says, India's coastal waters have risen between 0.04 and 0.05 inches (1.06 and 1.25 millimeters) per year over the last four decades, the study said, threatening life along the coasts.
U.N. scientists says greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide - emitted mostly by burning fossil fuels for electricity and transportation - are causing climate change that threatens potentially catastrophic environmental damage such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
A conference in Copenhagen in December failed to reach a new legally binding treaty after two years of U.N.-sponsored negotiations.
Last week, some 40 nations agreed to take individual steps to fight global warming but made little progress during a three-day meeting near Bonn, Germany, toward a new international climate change treaty.
UK-bound migrants to face torrid time
London Skilled professionals and students from India will find it more difficult to come to Britain as the new David Cameron government puts in place the Conservative party's immigration policy that seeks a drastic annual reduction of migrants.The immigration policy of the new coalition government will put an annual limit and new curbs on migrants from India and other countries outside the European Union.
As per the understanding between the Conservative and Liberal Democrats parties, it is the Conservative policy that has been adopted by the new coalition government.
The Liberal Democrats' immigration policy of region-based migration and amnesty to illegal migrants in the UK for 10 years has been given up during the protracted negotiations that preceded the formation of the new government last night.
The overall goal of the Conservative party's policy is to reduce net immigration to the levels of the 1990s - "tens of thousands a year, instead of the hundreds of thousands every year under the Labour government".
The Conservative party's policy adopted by the new government says: "We will introduce an annual limit on the numbers of non-EU economic migrants allowed to work here, taking into consideration the effects a rising population has on our public services and local communities.
The limit would change each year to take into account the wider effects of immigration on society".
The policy also commits the new government to "introduce important new rules to tighten up the student visa system, which at the moment is the biggest hole in our border controls".
To promote integration into British society, there will be an English language test for anyone coming here from outside the EU to get married, the party's immigration policy says.
The policy says: "Britain can benefit from immigration, but not uncontrolled immigration.
"Look at any aspect of life today and you will see the contribution that migrants have brought, and not just to the economy.
"We want to continue to attract the brightest and the best people to the UK, but with control on the overall numbers coming here".
BCCI rejects Dhoni's view, vows change
The Cricket Board (BCCI) today said it is awaiting a report from the team management on India's debacle in the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies before taking "corrective measures".BCCI spokesman Rajiv Shukla said Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men, who could not make the semifinals following their defeat to Sri Lanka last night, put up a below-par show in the Caribbeans resulting in their ouster from the tournament.
"The team did not perform as per the Board's expectation. The overall performance was not that impressive," Shukla said.
"Once we receive the team management's report corrective measures will ensure that something like this does not happen in the future," Shukla said.
India yesterday crashed out of the mega-event in the West Indies after losing their third Super Eight match to Sri Lanka by five wickets.
India looked jaded in the tournament and Dhoni said IPL post-match parties did take a toll on the players' body.
Shukla, however, dismissed the suggestion that IPL fatigue led to the team's flop show there.
"The international calendar is always very hectic. There are back-to-back matches, back-to-back tournaments. Now also two-three tournaments are lined-up. So we really cannot say that (fatigue is the main reason)," Shukla said.
"Apart from that we have enlarged our players' bank. So when any player feel fatigue, BCCI has already told them to take leave and take the selectors into confidence. Then there will be the replacements. I don't think that's a vital reason," he added.
"I am not aware of what Dhoni has said, have not seen his statement as yet. So I cannot comment on that," Shukla said.
Can't let Khaps violate law: Wasnik
Chandigarh After his party colleague Navin Jindal heaped praise on Khap panchayats, Union Minister Mukul Wasnik on Wednesday said while people have the right to vent their views in a democracy, no one can be allowed to violate the law of the land.Commenting on the debate over the diktats of Khap panchayats or caste councils, the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment said, "People are entitled to give their views on any issue in a democratic system, but nobody can be allowed to violate the law of the land."
Wasnik was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a camp of Congress' Sewa Dal here.
Wasnik's colleague Naveen Jindal, considered a forward looking young generation Congress leader, recently attended a Khap mahapanchayat in Kaithal, Haryana, and said he would vigorously take up the issues raised by them with the Congress high command and the party government in the state.
Asked about atrocities against Dalits on the rise in some states including Haryana, where 18 houses of the community were torched by miscreants on April 21 at Mirchpur village in Hisar district, Wasnik said he was visiting states one by one to assess how effectively Prevention of Atrocities (SC & ST) Act was being implemented.
He said he had recently visited Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and would now be going to Orissa with the purpose.
Earlier, Wasnik, who is in-charge of All India Congress Sewa Dal, told the gathering that the Dal was a key pillar of the 125-year-old party and asked its activists to work strongly to weed out evils like female foeticide and dowry from the society.
He also said the Centre has sought a report from states asking them to confirm steps taken by them to rehabilitate manual scavengers under a central government scheme launched three years back.
"We are seeking confirmation from the state governments on this issue. As far as state channelising agencies are concerned, they have reported to us that all manual scavengers have been rehabilitated," he said.
The scheme is meant for the rehabilitation of those scavengers, who clean human excreta with their hands, by providing them with loans plus subsidy so that they could go for alternative means of livelihood.
To a question, he said budgetary allocation for his ministry, whose target groups included Scheduled Castes, OBCs, persons with disability, senior citizens among others, had witnessed a sharp jump from Rs 2500 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 4500 crore at present.
Listing the steps by his Ministry taken for the welfare of weaker classes, he said that post-matric scholarship rates for Scheduled Castes and OBCs that had not been revised for the past many years had been hiked.
British Raj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to British India and the Native States: The British Indian Empire (contemporaneously India) consisted of two divisions: British India and the ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj - Cached - SimilarPresidencies and provinces of British India - Wikipedia, the free ...
Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, ... Company rule in India, 1757–1857. British Raj, 1858–1947 ...
en.wikipedia.org/.../Presidencies_and_provinces_of_British_India - Cached - SimilarIndia Timeline: The British Raj in India
Britain's involvement with India began modestly at the beginnings of the 1600s, and by the 1800s British citizens living in India had created their own ...
history1800s.about.com/.../thebritishempire/.../indiatimeline01.htm - Cached - SimilarImages for BritisH raj in India
- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDone
Videos for BritisH raj in India
The British Raj, occupation of India 1947
4 min 32 sec - 27 Jan 2009
www.youtube.com
Raj India subs part1
10 min - 21 Aug 2009
www.youtube.comBBC - History - British History in depth: From Empire to ...
Jump to 1858: Beginning of the Raj: In 1858, British Crown rule was established in India, ... It is important to note that the Raj (in Hindi meaning ...
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/.../independence1947_01.shtml - Cached - SimilarThe British Raj
Indeed, British Rule in India, known immortally as the British Raj, was a result of the Victorian eraís infusion of British liberal philosophy in colonial ...
www.choose.drake.edu/artsci/PolSci/ssjrnl/.../nunn.html - 22 hours ago - CachedThe British Raj in India essay- rulers British Rulers in Indian ...
The uprising, which seriously threatened British rule in India, has been called many names by historians, including the Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny, ...
www.indianchild.com/british_raj_in_india.htm - Cached - SimilarThe British Raj in India - Colonial India
Britain ruled India between 1765 and 1857; in fact, the British Raj in India was called "the crown jewel of the British Empire." The Raj encompassed much of ...
asianhistory.about.com/od/colonialisminasia/.../profbritraj.htm - Cached - SimilarRootsWeb: Genealogy Mailing Lists: India : INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ
A mailing list for anyone with a genealogical interest in the period of British rule of most of the Indian subcontinent (present-day India, Pakistan, ...
lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/.../INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ.html - Cached - SimilarThe Ancient Indus Valley and the British Raj in India and Pakistan
The story of the ancient Indus Valley and glimpses of India and Pakistan before 1947 during the Raj. Old photographs, rare archival film footage and long ...
www.harappa.com/ - Cached - SimilarThe British Raj in India
The British Empire had a tremendous impact upon India. In fact, it created India. Had Britain never come to India there would now exist a number of separate ...
www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/raj.htm - Cached - Similar
'BJP should be treated on a par with Kasab'
Panaji Congress MP from Goa Shantaram Naik today said BJP should be treated on a par with 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab for "waging war" against the nation."There is no section (of law) to deal with the party which kills secularism. The BJP should be treated on a par with Kasab for waging war against the nation," Naik told reporters here.
"They (BJP) were killing secularism practically every day. There is no provision in the law to book such murders except for the offence of waging of war," he said.
Naik alleged that BJP is making desperate attempts to save its leaders like L K Advani, Narendra Modi and Manohar Parrikar from the clutches of law and hence has initiated an anti-CBI campaign.
"The entire campaign against CBI is prompted from the fact that their leaders are falling in the net.
"The nationwide campaign against CBI is to shield its leaders.
Images for Bill gates
- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDone
Bill Gates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates - Cached - SimilarBill Gates: Chairman
The official biography from Microsoft of its Chairman and Chief Software Architect. Also his speeches and publications.
www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/ - Cached - SimilarBill Gates: Chairman, Microsoft Corp.
William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses ...
www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/bio.mspx - Cached - Similar
More results from www.microsoft.com »News for Bill gates
Rahul plays translator, shows Gates around home base Amethi - 15 hours ago
AMETHI: AICC general secretary and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday wore the hat of a translator to the Microsoft chief, Bill Gates, taking the American ...Times of India - 192 related articles »
Bill Gates (BillGates) on Twitter
Get updates via SMS by texting follow BillGates to 40404 in the United States .... Verified Account; Name Bill Gates; Location Seattle, WA ...
twitter.com/billgates - Cached - SimilarBill Gates - Biography and History of the Microsoft Chairman
A biography of Bill Gates - the founder of Microsoft.
inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Bill_Gates.htm - Cached - SimilarThe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community.
www.gatesfoundation.org/ - Cached - SimilarThe "Unofficial" Bill Gates
Biography, photographs, net worth, family, and the house on Lake Washington for the world's richest man.
www.zpub.com/un/bill/ - Cached - SimilarBill Gates Biography
Bill Gates biography, business quotes by Gates and a brief history of the Microsoft Company.
www.woopidoo.com › Business People Home - Cached - SimilarThe Official Site of Bill Gates - The Gates Notes
The Official Site of Bill Gates. Stay up to date on where Bill is at, What Bill is Learning and what is on his mind.
www.thegatesnotes.com/Default.aspx - Cached - SimilarBill Gates visits Amethi, promises to develop it as IT hub - India ...
11 May 2010 ... The high-profile Amethi Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday had a distinguished visitor in Microsoft chairman ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bill-Gates.../5916663.cms - CachedVideos for Bill gates
Bill Gates on mosquitos, malaria and education
20 min - 24 Jun 2009
www.ted.combill gates
9 sec - 5 Feb 2006
www.youtube.com
Sponsored links
|
Search Options
- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Latest
- Past 2 days
- All results
Orissa trying its best to counter Maoists: Naveen
Left wing extremism needed to be countered to restore the law of the land and Orissa government was trying its best to overcome the Maoist menace, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said today. Elaborating on steps adopted by his government, Patnaik said strength of the special operation group and the anti-Naxalite elite force has been raised to accelerate the fight against Maoists."Maoist violence is unfortunate.
Other states too are experiencing the menace," he said.
Patnaik said socio-economic development of certain areas needs to be expedited in order to tackle the ultras and the state government was working hard to implement at least eight road projects at a cost of Rs 560 crore in the affected districts. Though the state government had been trying to provide surface connectivity to the people in tribal dominated districts prone to Maoist activities, it could not progress due to opposition from the rebels, he said.
|  |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
YOUR PICTURES Share your pictures with us. Send your photos with caption to: Email: ttfeedback@abpmail.com Selected pictures will be included in the 'Your Pictures' section of our Gallery. The gallery is also available on your mobile phone at http://www.telegraphindia.com/wap
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BC, DC or EC? What lies ahead of the census - Haphazard lists and multiple definitions could pose hurdles in establishing identity during the caste count | ||
| RADHIKA RAMASESHAN | ||
New Delhi, May 11: When officials carrying out the 1931 census, the last to take account of caste, asked a "waterman" on the Coorg border his place in the social hierarchy, the answer left them amazed. The "extremely dark individual", wrote then census commissioner John Henry Hutton in his report, said he was from the Suryavamsa (family of the Sun). The focus on skin colour probably reflected Hutton's own prejudice, but the British official anyway thought the waterman would be from a low or intermediate caste, perhaps even an untouchable. He noted in his report that some people were using the census as a ladder to ascend the social order. Today's census officials, as they carry out a caste count almost 80 years later, could face the opposite problem, with the lure of reservation inflating the Other Backward Classes' numbers. But that is not the only reason officials say verifying every Indian's caste identity will take at least five years after the 2011 census simply records citizens' own claims on the matter. Cataloguing the labyrinth of castes, sub-castes and sub-sub-castes — differing from region to region — will be an enormous task because the key issue of who belongs to the Other Backward Classes has historically meant different things in different places, and to different people and politicians. Mishmash In the beginning, the term Backward Class was too wide, with the OBCs left undistinguished from the Dalits and tribals, sometimes even the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. One starting point could be 1918, when "BC" first acquired a technical meaning in the princely state of Mysore, says US academic Marc Galanter, author of the seminal Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. The Maharaja of Mysore was then looking to fix a job quota. However, all communities barring the Brahmins were notified BCs. In 1928, the Hartog Committee tried to narrow down the BCs as "educationally backward" castes/classes. However, already in 1916, another term — the "depressed classes"— had been discussed in the Indian Legislative Council. It initially covered the "criminal and wandering tribes, aboriginal tribes and untouchables". In 1917, Sir Henry Sharp, education commissioner of India, enlarged it to cover the "backward and educationally poor and depressed and also certain classes of Muhammadans". Then began an attempt at sharpening the definition, propelled by the so-called lower castes' resentment at being clubbed with the "untouchables" in the omnibus "depressed classes" label. A memorandum from the United Provinces Hindu Backward Classes League, founded in 1929, suggested that "depressed" carried a "connotation of untouchability in the sense of causing pollution by touch". It proposed the term "Hindu backward", that is castes that were "low" socially, educationally and economically. But in 1930, the State Committee of Bombay mixed things up again, recommending that "depressed classes" should refer only to the "untouchables" while a wider term, "backward classes" or "intermediate classes", should cover even the tribes, whether aboriginal or hill-dwelling. Census & separation Some kind of order was imposed by the 1931 census — just in time too, since it proved to be the last caste census. It separated the Dalits and tribals from its version of the OBCs, whom it called "Hindu backward communities" and whose population it put at 43.7 per cent. The census also counted the backward non-Hindu communities (8.4 per cent). Half a century later, the Mandal Commission primarily used this data to suggest, rather arbitrarily, a 27 per cent OBC reservation figure. But the 1931 figures stayed controversial. Then independent India botched up some more. The term "OBC" was first enshrined in the Constitution through Article 340 in 1953, and efforts began to fix its meaning. The first backward classes commission was set up the same year by a presidential order, and was headed by a Gandhian, Kaka Kalelkar. The panel tried to define the OBCs by their low social position in the caste hierarchy, lack of "general educational advancement" and inadequate representation in business and government service. Its report, submitted in 1955, listed 2,399 OBCs, classifying 837 of these as "most backward". It put the OBCs at about 32 per cent of the population. Deep flaws Critics said the report was "deeply flawed" because it was mainly based on a list of castes prepared by the education ministry in 1949 to award scholarships. Additionally, the panel relied on the "general impressions" of bureaucrats, opinion-makers and social workers. It did not carry out an independent survey, nor did it spell out the basis on which it calculated the reservation percentages in jobs and education. The panel recommended 70 per cent reservation in technical and professional institutions for "qualified" students, and 25 per cent job reservation in Class I, 33 per cent in Class II and III, and 40 per cent in Class IV posts. The panel admitted to being "deluged by communities claiming to be backward", and was later charged with, of all things, mixing up the OBCs with the Scheduled Castes. Back to square one. Jawaharlal Nehru rejected the report for its unverified findings and "unexplained adherence to caste as the principal index". Then home minister, Govind Vallabh Pant, a Kumaoni Brahmin, had a different reason. He said: "The recognition of specified castes as backward may serve to maintain and perpetuate the existing caste distinctions." Bowing to pressure from the Congress's Brahmin lobby, Nehru passed the responsibility for classifying OBCs to the states in 1961. States join party How did the states go about the job? Haphazardly and ad hoc, mostly, thanks to the lack of a clear definition of OBC. For instance, the southern states and Maharashtra had a long history of backward-class reform struggles and reservations from pre-Independence days. They included a huge chunk of their population (from 38 to 55 per cent and more), while Jammu and Kashmir selected the OBCs on a religious basis. US academic Galanter noted: "Caste lists range in magnitude from those which include a substantial portion of the state's population to those comprising a narrow stratum just above the untouchables." By the time the Mandal Commission's (1980) recommendations were implemented by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, the report's anomalies had been highlighted by Neelam Yadav in her Encyclopaedia of Backward Castes. Mandal's data-gathering was random: he covered only two villages and one urban block in each district, for the rest depending on the states' lists and the 1931 census. His findings were a little of this and a little of that, raising the number of OBCs to 3,743 castes while sticking to the 1931 figure of 43.7 per cent of the population. Yadav observed that the Mandal commission had made the "impossible assumption" that the various OBC castes had grown at the same rate as the all-India population over half a century. Although much of the confusion is historical, a lot of it still lingers and could tie up the current caste count in knots. The count of the Scheduled Castes never suffered from such ambiguity, their physical untouchability, as vouched for even by the lowest of the other castes, setting them clearly apart. Denoted "depressed classes", "excluded castes" as well as the "backward classes" at various times, their "SC" identity was established with the Government of India Act in 1935. | ||
 |
Rahul plays translator, shows Gates around home base Amethi
The duo arrived at Fursatganj airstrip on a chartered aircraft under heavy security. Stone-faced SPG personnel guarding Rahul had "companions in arms" — four burly American bodyguards accompanying Gates. The visit was under wrap until Monday night and even party seniors had no inkling about the programme till Tuesday morning.
However, the 300-odd women in festive clothes waiting for 'Amreeka ka seth' were evidently well-prepared. Unfazed by the presence of VVIPs, they surprised Gates with their sharp wit. In one-and-a-half hour at the SHG centre in sweltering UP heat without air-conditioning, Gates was disarmed by their cool repartees to his posers.
Surveying the room full of volunteers, Gates asked how could they persuade their husbands to allow them out of homes. "There were initial problems and the man in the house did make an issue. But later, as the groups grew stronger, the men relented and are now more than pleased to see them leave for work," said Rahul, translating their answer to Gates. The plucky volunteers also described the numerous battles with local authorities to ensure access to basic facilities. Halia Purva, one of them recounted, did not have a primary school. They fought for it, now it has one.
Gates also heard women describe to Rahul how they invite the village pradhan to their meetings so that they take their suggestions and monitoring seriously. Incidentally, Gates was well-briefed by Rahul about irregularities in NRGEA funds and praised his frankness in admitting that a lot of fund was not reaching the intended beneficiaries — although politicians don't say anything that might discourage a donor from giving money.
Nitish's test: marrying development to caste equations |
| SANKARSHAN THAKUR IN LALPUR (DARBHANGA) |
 |
As we left, done with our conversation with chief minister Nitish Kumar, an aide bounded up from behind politely seeking a submission. "The D-word," he said, as if to annotate the burden of his boss's worldview, "is very important, sir, but don't underestimate the C-word, it matters, especially in Bihar." Development, or the talk of it, was all very well, he meant, but caste remains a more insistent reality. A given, you'd think, in these parts, as accepted as the notion of the sun rising in the east. But it's not far to understand why Nitish's men have begun to feel the need to underline the fact of caste being inalienable to the politics of the state. It's a truism they probably require to constantly remind themselves of as well. So much of the projection of Nitish — and Bihar — over the past couple of years has focused on development and governance, so much of it about the creation of a new, overarching "Bihari" identity, that there is palpable concern about losing touch with harder ground reality. "There is some danger here of falling between two stools," cautions a retired bureaucrat who would not be named because he considers himself part of Nitish's advisory council. "Development has not matured into a phenomenon big enough to override other concerns, it has certainly not neutralised the caste factor. Perhaps in little bits of Patna, but not beyond. Nitish should be wary of being deluded by the idea he has already created a new Bihari identity of pride; it is very embryonic." This crossroads in the depths of rural north Bihar is a fair stage to get a measure of just how fragile the noble construct of Bihari identity based on development at the expense of caste identity is. Lalpur has been newly visited by the intimations of change and its manifold possibilities. New roads, narrow but concrete, have cut through it, drastically reducing distances to Patna and district towns closer up like Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga. The local school has been infused with life, its walls plastered and painted, its compound swept and prim. Students have begun to arrive in droves early morning, like vanished migratory birds on a course correction. "It's like a revolution," says Jivanand Chaudhary, who teaches arithmetic and Sanskrit. "Girls, and now boys, have been given free cycles and uniforms, and they've taken to school like ducks to water. It's happening everywhere, a new wave of learning." The local block office is abuzz with attendance, the cobwebs of dereliction wiped out by a top-down get-to-work directive. The impasse over the river — the British-era overpass was swept in floods over a decade ago — is being bridged. There is excited talk about a new power sub-station, although it is only excited talk at the moment; electricity came to these parts in 1969 but that's been mostly an on-paper thing, so its imminent arrival remains a tough thing for folks to believe. "But things are happening," nods Ajit Prasad, ensconced member of the pantheon of Lalpur bazaar, "nobody can deny the change, Nitish Kumar is a man who works, slowly, but he works." His companions on the bench, strips of bamboo nailed to wooden stilts, grunt approvingly, each fanning off flies and heat with respective gamchhas. "You see," offers one of them, "after Lalu, whatever happens looks good because under Lalu nothing happened." But throw the vote question and it scatters the placid accord on the Lalpur bench. "Ah, that we'll have to see," recoils Ajit Prasad, as if to correct some misunderstanding he'd created. "Voting is another thing, other factors come in." Teacher Chaudhary enters the conversation, swatting the pretence off it with a swing of his own gamchha. "But don't you understand," he says sardonically, his barb directed at Prasad, "yahan to jaat par baat hai, kaam lega Nitish se, vote dega Lalu ko (Caste is the truth here, he'll get work done by Nitish and vote for Lalu)." "And so?" Prasad retorts, stung. "It is the job of governments to work, Nitish is not doing anyone a favour. Vote mein apne-paraye ka bhi khayal karna padta hai (When you vote, you have to think of mine and thine)." He's suddenly acquired bench-strength with what he said. "Truly spoken," says another elder, so far quiet. "Hamra raaj bhi chheeniyega aur kahiyega ki vote bhi do? So kaise hoga? Sadak-school to sab banata hai, samman bhi to koi cheej hai (You'll take power away from me and then ask me to vote for you? How will that happen? Everybody makes schools and roads, but there's also something called self-respect)." The drift quite clearly running his way, Prasad delivers what he believes to be his knockout punch to master Chaudhary. "And what about corruption?" he asks, articulating what has become a general grassroots clamour in Nitish's Bihar. "It is officer-raj under Nitish, everyone wants a greater bribe, you pay more for work than you ever did." "Ah," says the schoolteacher, "but the work does get done. And let me tell you, there is corruption because money is flowing down, it is not stuck in Patna in the hands of a few." Such discourse will get livelier and sharper across Bihar's listening posts as elections draw near. But to think that Nitish has turned deaf to the ground rules in his pursuit of higher things — to credit him with eschewing caste and embracing development — is to do his political instinct great discredit. There is smart subterfuge to what Nitish is attempting. Parallel to what the outside world — from the hallowed columns of The Economist to op-ed eulogies in The Wall Street Journal — congratulates him for, he has also chiselled away at an electoral base much his own: the extremely backward among the backwards, the most deprived among the Dalits, the underprivileged among the Muslims. Exclusive concessions and incentives have gone to this constituency under Nitish, and married to acute urban elite/upper caste concerns of keeping the Lalu Prasad years firmly behind, they could well mean a vote bank sufficient enough for Nitish to encash an electoral victory from. Adversaries — even Lalu Prasad who constructed his platform much the same way — might call it cynical identity politics but for Nitish, it is a key survival strategy. He's no babe in these woods; on the contrary, he has roamed it long enough to figure his way out. Development, as his current Vishwas Yatra through the state suggests, remains the core of his call, but he is too rooted of soil to forget what goes into the making of a secure turf. It is how well he ties in the C-word to the D-word that will make the difference between fresh lease and losing. You can tell from his five years in office, he knows. His aide was unduly anxious. |
|
Lalu, Ananth Kumar slug it out in Lok SabhaTimes of India - May 5, 2010 "This House should not get divided because of people like Lalu Prasad Yadav... this House should say we are against internal or external aggression against ... More pressing issues on mind, RJD, BJP patch up Indian Express Lalu Prasad in 'Kushti'indiablooms - 2 hours ago Mumbai, May 12 (IBNS) Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to act in Hindi film 'Kushti'! Well, don't misunderstand, the veteran politician ... Mulayam, Lalu are Sonia's dogs, says GadkariEconomic Times - 2 minutes ago "In front of the TV, Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad stood with Sushma Swaraj (leader of opposition). All these parties stood with us but turned away later," ... Gadkari calls Lalu, Mulayam Sonia's dogs IBNLive.com Email this storyAt Kisan Mahapanchayat, party lines blur, leaders say Nitish growth a mythIndian Express - May 9, 2010 Kisan Mahapanchayat leaders on Sunday likened the rule of Nitish Kumar with the "divisive" regime of Lalu Prasad Yadav and warned people of caste clashes if ... Court orders registration of FIR against Lalu's kinIndian Express - May 10, 2010 A Bihar court on Monday ordered registration of an FIR against RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's brother-in-law and Rajya Sabha member Subhash Prasad Yadav, ... Lalu's kin faces abduction FIR Calcutta Telegraph Rajya Sabha MP, Lalu's kin, didn't pay liquor bill? Financial Express Email this storyGovt in spot over caste-based censusDaily News & Analysis - - May 6, 2010 The debate forced by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav in Lok Sabha to push the government into a tight spot has turned out to be an ... Caste-based census decision soon: PM Deccan Herald Times of India - Calcutta Telegraph - Hindustan Times - IBNLive.com Email this storyMaya, Mulayam, Lalu pay the price!Express Buzz - Apr 27, 2010 As an icing on the cake, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh staged a walkout with their respective RJD and Samajawadi Party MPs, instead supporting the ... UPA Government defeats BJP's cut Motions in Lok Sabha BreakingNewsOnline. Congress turns CBI into toothless and ineffective agency: BJPDaily News & Analysis - 2 hours ago It was CBI's non-filing of appeal in corruption case against Lalu Prasad Yadav which ensured RJD MPs refraining from voting against government in ... BJP workers set to join anti-CBI chorus today Daily News & Analysis Bihar BJP seeks Prez's intervention in CBI 'misuse' Press Trust of India The Inclusion of caste headcount in Census 2011 - Is it pragmatic or political?Merinews - May 11, 2010 The Congress-led UPA government which has seen the outburst of Yadav Trio (Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav) against the government's ... I don't believe in caste: Amitabh Bachchan Hindustan Times Email this storyMaya pleads her case in SC: I am single, living off own incomeIndian Express - Apr 21, 2010 ... period without any justification, whatsoever, I am being discriminated in a hostile manner vis-à-vis Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Video: Maya may be let off in assets case NewsXLalu for caste-wise censusThe Hindu - Apr 24, 2010 PTI PTI RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. File photo RJD supremo Lalu Prasad today called for holding caste-wise census to identify the strengths of all sections ... IPL row: Lalu seeks JPC probe samay live Email this storyLalu, Mulayam & Maya get invite for UPA-II partyHindustan Times - 22 hours ago Singh Yadav and RJD's Lalu Prasad for dinner in acknowledgement of the 'support' they extended to his government during the recent cut motions in Parliament ... PM to address media with report card Economic Times Manmohan to hold press meet on May 24 The Hindu Email this storyBuddha finds friends in Nitish and NaveenCalcutta Telegraph - - 20 hours ago As for Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh, the CPM has lost hope of any meaningful engagement with the Yadav duo after burning its fingers over the cut motion. Stir against Ananth plannedExpress Buzz - May 7, 2010 "Kumar has called Lalu Prasad Yadav gaddaar (traitor) and anti-national. This is too grave a charge to be ignored. Sushma Swaraj's apology was only a ... Women's reservation bill fails to see light of daydomain-B - May 8, 2010 Though the BJP, Left and the Congress passed the bill, the Yadavs comprising SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, and JD-U chief ... Zee News - Daily News & Analysis - Press Trust of India - Hindustan Times Email this storyCaste Based Census Wins The Battleindia-server.com - May 8, 2010 While Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and some members of the BJP including Ananth Kumar were against a caste-based census, RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav ... Caste consensus Hindustan Times Lalu Prasad's improved railway security system gathers dust under Mamata BanerjeeDaily News & Analysis - - Apr 27, 2010 Sources said, in 2007, the then railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav appointed technical consultant agency Consulting Engineering Services India Pvt Ltd ... Court orders FIR against Lalu's kinTimes of India - May 10, 2010 PATNA: A local court on Monday ordered registration of an FIR against RJD chief Lalu Prasad's 'saala' or brother-in-law and Rajya Sabha member Subhash Yadav ... Yadav troika wants Govt to ban IPL, take over BCCIMumbai Mirror - - Apr 19, 2010 The Yadav troika - Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal (United), Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Lalu Prasad Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal) - did not appear ... Modi on turning pitch Expressindia.com Why only Tharoor, probe entire IPL: Lalu Hindustan Times Opposition leaders seek all-party meet on EVMsThe Hindu - May 5, 2010 The other signatories were: Chandrababu Naidu (TDP), Lalu Prasad Yadav (RJD), Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) and Sharad Yadav (JD-U). More results for Lalu Prasad Yadav » | |
Mulayam, Lalu are Sonia's dogs, says GadkariEconomic Times - 3 minutes ago CHANDIGARH: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday accused Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal ... Gadkari calls Lalu, Mulayam Sonia's dogs IBNLive.com Email this storyAmar Singh blogs, calls Mulayam a betrayerTimes of India (blog) - May 10, 2010 Attacking SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh on Monday described him as a "betrayer" who has always played politics to suit his own interests. Amar Singh warn political class to be wary of Mulayam Singh Economic Times Mulayam kin commits suicide Indian Express Yadav trio forces Govt to consider caste censusIBNLive.com - May 7, 2010 After successfully stalling the Women's Reservation Bill, the Yadav trio of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Sharad Yadav are extracting another promise ... Census 2011 to include caste Hindustan Times Caste census sees political consensus Economic Times Times of India - Calcutta Telegraph - Indian Express - Press Trust of India Email this storyPM to address media with report cardEconomic Times - 18 hours ago Though Congress president Sonia Gandhi is keen to secure its passage in the lower House of Parliament, stiff opposition by SP's Mulayam Singh Yadav, ... Lalu, Mulayam & Maya get invite for UPA-II party Hindustan Times Manmohan to hold press meet on May 24 The Hindu Email this storyCaste consensus Hindustan Times - May 9, 2010 Just as one thought the star of north India's best-known OBC leaders, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad, was falling, the duo seem to have been ... Noida scam: ED notices to four IAS officersTimes of India - - May 10, 2010 ... scam that took place during Mulayam Singh Yadav's last regime as chief minister of UP and was detected shortly after Mayawati took over in May, 2007. Amar announces office-bearersExpress Buzz - May 10, 2010 Amar Singh slammed Mulayam Singh Yadav for cozying up to the Congress, by offering support if Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress pulls out of the UPA, ... Amar parades loyalists Calcutta Telegraph Mulayam offers to save UPA from Mamata whimsTimes of India - - May 8, 2010 Mulayam Singh Yadav's overture to the UPA is indicative of the diminished influence of the SP chief in UP in recent times. Mamata slams Cong for 'humiliating' Trinamool Times of India SP support to UPA a speculation, says Cong Press Trust of India Gadkari accuses SP, BSP of double standardsTimes of India - 19 hours ago While SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad openly supported cut motions against rise in fuel prices, they walked out when the same was ... Email this storyIndian PM facing defiance from his cabinet?Daily Times - - May 10, 2010 Even Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad know the real authority is with Sonia Gandhi as they spoke to her in the Lok Sabha on Friday during an adjournment ... Speaker allows cut motions amid Lalu, Mulayam walkoutNew DelhiThe Hindu - Apr 27, 2010 PTI This TV grab shows RJD chief Lalu Prasad and the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav (right) during the cut motion debate in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Lalu hits back after Left barb Calcutta Telegraph Press Trust of India - Indian Express - Hindustan Times - MyNews.in Email this storyBJP to oppose bill in standing panel if Rs 500cr cap on damages staysTimes of India - May 7, 2010 The BJP plans to oppose the nuclear liability bill in the standing committee for energy headed by SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, where BJP too has enough ... N-liability bill tabled with help from SP, RJD Times of India BJP claims success in cornering govt in budget session Times of India UPA a silent spectator to Chinese encroachment: Mulayam Singh YadavDaily News & Analysis - May 1, 2010 PTI Manipuri: Describing China as the biggest threat to the country, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav today slammed the UPA for being a "silent ... Mulayam betrayed Left parties: Amar Press Trust of India Email this storyNanda in lap, Samajwadi Party hires Park for meetIndian Express - May 10, 2010 Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav will be present during through the three-day meet, which is being held here after 11 years. Amar accuses SP of using Chandra Shekhar's name for votesTimes of India - Apr 17, 2010 "Mulayam Singh Yadav was with Chandrashekar in Samajwadi Party but without telling anybody he parted ways and formed his own party. Mulayam asks partymen to gear up for mid-term polls in Uttar Pradesh Daily News & Analysis Mulayam predicts mid-term polls in state by 2011-end Indian Express Oneindia - Press Trust of India - Press Trust of India - The Hindu Email this storyBihar BJP seeks Prez's intervention in CBI 'misuse'Press Trust of India - 5 hours ago "While RJD supremo Lalu Prasad is being helped by the Centre in several cases being probed by the CBI, leaders like SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and SP ... Congress turns CBI into toothless and ineffective agency: BJP Daily News & Analysis BJP leaders court arrest protesting 'misuse' of CBI Daily News & Analysis Email this storyThe Inclusion of caste headcount in Census 2011 - Is it pragmatic or political?Merinews - May 11, 2010 The Congress-led UPA government which has seen the outburst of Yadav Trio (Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav) against the government's ... My caste is Indian, declares Amitabh Economic Times Email this storyThe real idea of justiceLivemint - - 2 hours ago Instead of upholding the rule of law, Yakub Qureshi, one-time minister in Mulayam Singh Yadav's cabinet, offered a reward to anyone who'd kill one of the ... Munde, Yadav trio meet Pranab on caste-based censusHindustan Times - May 7, 2010 Deputy leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and JD-U president Sharad Yadav met ... Mulayam makes Left see redIndian Express - May 9, 2010 Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's change of heart vis-à-vis the ruling dispensation at the Centre looked complete on Friday when he silently ... More results for Mulayam Singh Yadav » | | Featured quote"When the government can count the number of trees and nullahs in the survey, what is the problem in adding a column to include castes in the ongoing exercise" May 6, 2010 Economic Times (6 occurrences) more by Mulayam Singh Yadav |
Quota poser to Kerala |
| OUR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT |
| New Delhi, May 11: The Supreme Court today asked the Kerala government to explain a 2008 order providing education quotas in state-run institutions to the "economically backward" among forward castes. A bench headed by outgoing Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan issued notices to the Left government on the order of September 4, 2008, which had set aside 10 per cent seats in undergraduate and post-graduate courses. The beneficiaries were to be identified from BPL cards issued by the local authorities. The notices came on a petition by Kerala Muslim Jamath Council, which argued that any such quota on the ground of economic backwardness violated the right to equality. Kerala High Court had dismissed the council's plea in January. The council, which claims to espouse the cause of the state's socially and educationally backward Muslims, said the move discriminated against backward classes. "The GO (government order) was issued for political ends. The remedy should have been financial assistance to the economically backward students of all communities," the council said in its appeal. |
Features
- "Mind King" Anand hangs onto FIDE world chess titleReuters - 03:23 PM
Chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand retained the FIDE (governing body) world title, labouring to an energy-sapping 6.5-5.5 win over challenger Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in a dramatic final match in Sofia on Tuesday night.
- Face-to-face time makes us happier than Facebook - studyReuters - Tue, May 11
Nothing makes us happier than our families and loved ones, a new study shows, with face-to-face socialising beating reaching out to people online hands down.
- The Plantations Labour Bill, 2008Y! India News - Mon, May 10
Amending the Plantations Labour Act, 1951, this Bill increases the safety provisions for plantation workers. It prohibits children below 14 years of age from being employed in plantations. It makes rules on safety measures, training of workers and prohibition of employment of women and children regarding usage of insecticides and chemical substances.
- The Payment of Gratuity Bill, 2010Y! India News - Mon, May 10
This Bill amends the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972. The existing Act provides for the payment of gratuity to employees engaged in industries including mines, oilfields, plantations, shops, factories, amongst others. This Amendment raises the ceiling of gratuity to be paid from the present level of Rs. 3.5 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh.
- The Employees' State Insurance Bill, 2009Y! India News - Mon, May 10
The Bill amends the existing Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948. It allows the central government to frame schemes for “other beneficiaries� and their families enabling them to avail of medical facilities in any “underutilised hospital� established by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) on payment of “user charges�.
CWG projects will be completed on time: Dikshit
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Wednesday said that all Commonwealth Games related projects will be completed well before the event starts here Oct 3.'All the projects will be completed well before ...(time),' she said at a function here.
Diskhit appealed to the people of Delhi to contribute to the event's success. Her remarks followed concerns that several Games projects are running behind schedule.
India will miss its power generation target by a bigger margin than previously estimated as local people are opposing new projects, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Wednesday.
"As I speak to you, there are 16 plants in deep trouble as local people do not want power plants in their area," he said.
Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are among those that have witnessed local protest against power plants, the minister said.
India had initially planned to add 78,000 megawatts of capacity in five years to March 2012, but the target was lowered to 62,000 megawatts, Chidambaram told a business conference.
Poor infrastructure, including severe power shortages, is seen as a key obstacle to faster growth in Asia's third-largest economy, but capacity addition has been slow.
Neighbouring China was building power stations much faster than India, which added only 22,300 megawatts in the past three years, Chidambaram said.
"Contrast this to what China does: Adds 100,000 megawatts capacity every year. And we are talking about not reaching even a capacity of 62,000 megawatt in five years," he said.
Protests and controversies have dogged several projects including dams, steel plants and mines in India as local people, including tribesmen in remote regions, are reluctant to surrender their land or they demand a higher compensation.
"They do not want to give away lands...are against nuclear power plants, against thermal power plants and (hydropower) plants," Chidambaram said.
It is indicative of the trust deficit that has developed between people, industry and the government, which needs to be addressed, he said.
India wants to build up to 30 more nuclear reactors in addition to the existing 19 and aims to generate 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power by 2020, up from the current 4,560 MW.
(Editing by Malini Menon)
Making it clear that India is not paranoid over China, Defence Minister A K Antony today said that Sino-Indian bilateral relations were improving and getting better, despite the border dispute.
"Nothing like that," was Antony's response to reporters' queries if the government was paranoid over China and if there was any problem or bad feeling about Beijing.
The government has taken a conscious policy decision to maintain "very cordial and friendly" relations with all the neighbours, he said while interacting with the media after inaugurating a conference of Defence Accounts Controllers here.
"In this context, we are trying to improve our relations with all our neighbouring countries and this includes China also. All are reciprocating well," he said.
Noting that Sino-Indian border disputes still existed, the Defence Minister said the two governments had evolved mechanisms to talk about these disputes.
"Despite these disputes, our relations are improving (with China) in all aspects. China is today our largest trading partner. Our cultural relations are improving.
"Regarding my ministry, disputes are there, but military relations are improving," he said citing the example of two Sino-Indian army exercises held in the last three years and the visit of Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar to China earlier this year.
"Our relations with China is improving and it is comparatively better and the border is peaceful," he said.
Buddha finds friends in Nitish and Naveen | ||||
| J.P. YADAV | ||||
New Delhi, May 11: Mayavati is "not dependable" and the Yadav twins had cut where it hurts. Its third-front dream in tatters, the CPM has, however, secured the support of two chief ministers who don't belong to either the Congress or the BJP in its campaign for "restructuring Centre-state relations". CPM sources said Orissa's Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal) and Bihar's Nitish Kumar (Janata Dal-United) have agreed to join hands with their Bengal counterpart Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to take on the UPA on matters relating to discrimination against states. "Initial-level talks have been held. Both Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar have agreed and a formal meeting could take place soon," a senior CPM leader said. The immediate issue that has brought them together is funds for implementing the Right to Education Act. Patnaik met HRD minister Kapil Sibal here today to demand a 90:10 Centre-state ratio in funding the drive. Sibal, however, is learnt to have stuck to the Centre's 65:35 proposal. Nitish's grudge, like that of Bengal's ruling CPM, is over the entire gamut of Centre-state relations. "The Congress government's conduct is anti-federal," the JD (U) leader had said in a recent interview with The Telegraph. The CPM plans to exploit the unity of the trio beyond the education act to save its declining clout and for the larger issue of Centre-state relations. A recent central committee meeting of the party here decided that a political campaign would be started on "restructuring" Centre-state relations in view of Delhi's "inequitable policies" and "encroachment" on states' powers. Bhattacharjee had played a key role in egging his Orissa counterpart to snap ties with the BJP. The same, however, looks unlikely in the near future with Nitish, who heads an alliance government with the BJP in Bihar, but the Left wants to nurse its "good relations" with him. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayavati, too, is on the same page as Bengal over the education act, but the CPM does not seem to be interested in including her in the club. "She (Mayavati) is not dependable. We have not contacted her," the CPM leader said, citing her support to the UPA over the Left-sponsored cut motions in the Lok Sabha. As for Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh, the CPM has lost hope of any meaningful engagement with the Yadav duo after burning its fingers over the cut motion. Mulayam's Samajwadi Party and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal implicitly helped the government by walking out. Asked about an alliance with the RJD in the Bihar elections later this year, the CPM leader said: "Issue to issue, we will agitate with them, but any electoral alliance with Lalu Prasad is ruled out. In Bihar we will concentrate on Left unity." The issues the CPM plans to raise against the Centre were part of its 2009 election manifesto. The document accused the Centre of being "insensitive" to the rights of states and failing to take steps to devolve more powers and resources to them. The manifesto also said debts of states were not "substantially" reduced, nor were their shares in the divisible pool of taxes enhanced. | ||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||
|  | ||||||||||||||||||||
A blinkered vision
The headlines scream almost every day: 'Girl allegedly murdered because of inter-caste romance', 'Couple killed by relatives because of caste honour'. The matrimonials are unabashed: 'Match sought for fair khatri girl' or 'Brahmin boy seeks Brahmin partner.' A Delhi mother whispers that her daughter's choice of husband is not "our kind of person," but stops short of admitting that the prospective groom is not from the same caste. Characters in Bollywood films bear surnames that are drawn from the very narrow social pool of Sharma, Mehta and Roy. Indians may be holidaying in Phuket, shopping at Mango and devouring Sex and the City. But one social reality just refuses to go away. And that reality is caste.
Should caste matter to a modern Indian? Of course it shouldn't. Yet, whether we like it or not, caste is still a defining category. Excluding a narrow westernised elite band, Indians marry according to caste, socialise within similar castes, education is determined by caste and caste, by and large, corresponds to class when it comes to backwardness. Twenty years ago when then Prime Minister V.P. Singh implemented the Mandal recommendations reserving 27 per cent government jobs for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), many caste Hindus heard the word OBC for the first time. Today there are similar feelings of dread that the government has decided to include caste in the 2011 census. But it's time that the elite and middle class came to terms with caste, debated it openly and exorcised caste demons.
When Parliament pushed for a caste census there was near panic about an impending caste war. It was argued that counting OBCs would only add further muscle power to the caste chieftains to once again lobby for that terrible 'Q' word: quotas. But will counting OBCs make caste loyalties deeper or will it, on the other hand, provide, for the first time, hard reliable information on how many OBC castes are there and what their numerical strength is? Confronted by real numbers, it may be more difficult for the quota warriors to argue for reservations. The Constitution makers aimed to progressively abolish caste discrimination, not abolish caste as an identity. Unless we all understand and study caste, we will never be able to fight it or develop a genuinely anti-caste mindset.
Political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande say that a colonial caste-based census where all castes, including the Hindu 'upper castes' , are counted and ranked is neither feasible nor desirable. What we need is to count OBCs in the same manner as we count SCs and STs. We need to count Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs) in order to get an accurate picture of their actual number. We are, thus, not counting all castes, but only backward communities. When reservations for OBCs have been provided for at the Union and state levels, surely a census is essential to find out what the hard numbers are and whether the quotas are accurate.
So how does caste operate nowadays? There is the robust argument that caste is irrelevant in contemporary India. What matters is quality health and education for all irrespective of caste. Increasingly, elections are showing that caste is no longer the sole criterion for voting preferences: voters are voting for bijli, sadak, pani, padhai and hardworking candidates and not for Gujjars, Reddys and Ezhavas. But while caste may be irrelevant for a minority, it is highly relevant — indeed saliently — for others.
When it comes to social and economic progress, certain castes have done better than others and the advantages of the English language and a modern education are distributed along caste lines. Generalisations are risky, and rural Brahmins can be impoverished and backward too. Yet, access to English and to quality education has traditionally been the monopoly of upper castes. Class and caste are still by and large coterminous, and there is every likelihood that an upper class person in India is also 'upper
caste' and a 'lower class' person is also 'lower caste'. Secure amid our Krishnamurthys, Sens and Vermas, we never stop to think about how we got so secure in the first place.
The English-speaking elite is overwhelmingly 'upper caste' that is comprising the forward levels of the Hindu varna system. The Bengali 'bhadralok' class, or the genteel class, which was supposed to be the only non-caste class in India, is also a caste-based category, as the bhadralok are restricted to the upper caste even though they may not be exclusively Brahmin. A Bengali Dalit bhadralok is still unheard of. In 1996, when B.N. Uniyal undertook a survey of national newspapers, he found that among 686 journalists accredited to the government, 454 were upper caste, the remaining 232 did not carry their caste names and in a random sample of 47, not a single one was a Dalit. In a survey of matrimonial advertising carried out in 2000, ad agency McCann Erickson noted that caste remains as important in the new century as it was four decades ago. In 2002, Virginius Xaxa found that only six of Delhi University's 311 professors are Dalits.
Thus, a caste census should not be seen as simply a political instrument designed to secure quotas. The fight against caste is best fought when we know the enemy. Caste is an immutable, invisible and overwhelming reality in our daily lives. If we continue to act as if caste does not exist, or deny its existence, we would be failing to do battle with one of the most urgent social inequalities of our time.
Sagarika Ghose is Senior Editor, CNN-IBN
The views expressed by the author are personal
MUST READ | ||||||
| ||||||
- stories
- photos
- videos
most viewed
Maoists are not terrorists, says Digvijay SinghHindustan Times - 1 hour ago Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh says that Maoist activities are criminal and totally unacceptable but the Left guerrillas should not be called "terrorists". "No one can defend their criminal activities... but they are not terrorists.. they ... No military ops against Naxals: PCHindustan Times - 1 hour ago Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh says that Maoist activities are criminal and totally unacceptable but the Left guerrillas should not be called "terrorists". For the first time, Home Minister P Chidambaram has ruled out deployment of the ... Digvijay Singh says Maoists not enemies of the State or terroristsNetIndian - 28 minutes ago Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh today said the acts of violence by the Maoists could not be tolerated but they could not be viewed as enemies of the state or equated with cross-border terrorists. "They certainly do not believe in the democratic ... Digvijay: I didn't mean to hurt ChidambaramNDTV.com - 3 hours ago PTI, Wednesday May 12, 2010, New Delhi Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said he was ready to express regret if his criticism of Home Minister P Chidambaram's handling of Maoist problem has hurt him deeply. "If it has hurt, I am prepared to say ... Maoists are misguided ideologues: DigvijayIBNLive.com - 5 hours ago New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh believes the Maoists are "misguided ideologues" and though the country must oppose their violence the rebels are not terrorists. Singh was speaking to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's show Devil's Advocate. ... PM to address media with report cardEconomic Times - 18 hours ago NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to address a press conference on May 24 which will mark a year of UPA II in power. This will be the PM's first press conference in the UPA's second tenure and the second one with the national press since ... Lalu, Mulayam & Maya get invite for UPA-II partyHindustan Times - 22 hours ago To mark the completion of one year in office on May 22, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hold a press conference on May 24. Singh Yadav and RJD's Lalu Prasad for dinner in acknowledgement of the 'support' they extended to his government during the ... Manmohan Singh to present govt's report card to aam aadmiDaily News & Analysis - 22 hours ago New Delhi: Until yesterday, prime minister Manmohan Singh was in two minds whether to hold a press conference to present a report card of the first anniversary of UPA-II. There were many issues he felt would be difficult to handle — price rise, ... PM to break silence, field questions on govt policyTimes of India - - 20 hours ago NEW DELHI: After a long interval, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address a press conference in the Capital on May 24 -- a couple of days after UPA-2 completes a year in office -- and is expected to field questions on a range of policy and political ... Should ministers be barred from discussing other ministries in public?IBNLive.com - May 10, 2010 All's not in order in the house of UPA II. Union Environment Minister has been pulled up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for criticising the Home Ministry's policy on China. The PM has also asked him not to comment about other ministries. ... |
Netanyahu: We will never divide J'lemJerusalem Post - 50 minutes ago By JPOST.COM STAFF "We will never divide Jerusalem," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during his speech at Ammunition Hill in honor of Jerusalem Day on Wednesday evening. "We cannot divide or freeze a city as vibrant and creative as Jerusalem- we ... Jerusalem residents attack writer Elie Wiesel over appeal to Barack ObamaThe Guardian - 23 minutes ago An extraordinary row has broken out between Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel peace prize winner, and a group of Jewish residents of Jerusalem over who speaks for the future of the disputed city. Wiesel prompted the argument with an ... Israel pledges to keep Jerusalem undividedThe Associated Press - - 29 minutes ago JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister pledged to keep Jerusalem undivided despite Palestinian claims to its eastern half, as Israelis celebrated the 43rd anniversary Wednesday of the city's reunification in the 1967 Mideast War. ...
Israel Marks Jerusalem Day, Defends Claim to CityVoice of America - 53 minutes ago Photo: AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he delivers a speech for Jerusalem Day at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem. Jerusalem Day marks Israel's capture of east Jerusalem and the reunification of the city, which had been ... Illegal Arab J'lem homes to be razedJerusalem Post - - 4 hours ago Illegally constructed homes in east Jerusalem will be demolished in the coming days, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch announced on Wednesday. Aharonovitch made the comments in response to a question by ... Israel defiant on settlements as it marks Jerusalem DayAFP - 2 hours ago JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday that construction would continue unabated in all of Jerusalem, as he addressed a ceremony marking the 43rd anniversary of Israel's capture of the city's Arab eastern sector. ... Netanyahu turns to Bible in tussle over JerusalemReuters - - 6 hours ago Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves after his speech at an assembly for Jerusalem Day at the Merkaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem May 12, 2010. Jerusalem Day, which begins on Tuesday night, marks the anniversary of Israel's capture of the ... Aharonovitch: No more delays, we will demolish Arab homes in J'lemYnetnews - - 6 hours ago Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch revealed during a Knesset session on Wednesday that the police will soon be providing security to inspectors slated to demolish illegal Arab homes in east Jerusalem. The minister's comments came in ... Israel pledges a united Jerusalem despite pressureThe Associated Press - 4 hours ago JERUSALEM — Israel is celebrating the 43rd anniversary of Jerusalem's reunification and its leaders are pledging to keep the city undivided. The festivities come as disputes over Israeli building in east Jerusalem take center stage in international ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
|
Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
Videos Oil executives grilled over US spill ITN NEWS - 12 hours ago Watch video  Top oil executives grilled over US spill Al Jazeera - 16 hours ago Watch video  BP Oil Spill: Who's to Blame? CBS - 19 hours ago Watch video  Senate Hearings on BP Spill CBS - 20 hours ago Watch video  Raw Video: BP Tries to Seal Underwater Oil Leak The Associated Press - May 11, 2010 Watch video
|
Industry growth on solid footing, March IIP at 13.5%NDTV.com - - 58 minutes ago The industry continues to grow at more than double digits with the index of industrial production recording a 13.5 per cent growth for the month of March. While the number came in below the 15 per cent growth anticipated by the markets, most analysts ... IIP numbers: a cautionary taleLivemint - 1 hour ago Industrial production growth is slowing. That's the message from the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for March. Industrial growth has been decelerating continuously in the past few months from the heights it scaled in December. ... IIP growth to stay in double digits: MontekNDTV.com - 9 hours ago Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday said he expects the industrial growth to continue its double-digit run in the current fiscal as well. The expansion in index of industrial production (IIP) has stayed above 10 per ... India March industrial output slows to 13.5 pctBusinessWeek - - 5 hours ago Growth in India's industrial output slowed to 13.5 percent in March as supply constraints, rising costs and moves to unwind stimulus measures cooled a six-month streak of rapid expansion, government figures showed Wednesday. ... Factory output logs 10.4% growth in FY10Deccan Herald - 1 hour ago Showing distinct signs of recovery, industrial production during 2009-10 posted a double digit growth rate of 10.4 per cent compared to 2.8 per cent in the previous fiscal. Though there appears to be robust revival in industrial production, ... India's Industrial Growth SlowsWall Street Journal - - 6 hours ago NEW DELHI—India's industrial output rose 13.5% in March from a year earlier, marking a third straight month of slower expansion, but analysts said the manufacturing sector will continue to drive strong economic growth in months ... March IIP lower than expected at 13.5%Economic Times - 11 hours ago NEW DELHI: India's industrial output grew lower than expected in March, weighed down by a partial withdrawal of stimulus measures and a rate hike, data showed on Wednesday. The 13.5 percent growth was the sixth straight double-digit monthly expansion, ... India's March industrail output up 13.5 per centdomain-B - 3 hours ago India's industrial output surged 13.5 per cent in March from a year earlier, the third straight month of slower expansion. However, according to analysts the manufacturing sector will continue to drive strong economic growth in months ahead. ... INSTANT VIEW: IIP numbers lower than forecastBusiness Standard - 11 hours ago India's industrial output rose to a slower than expected 13.5 per cent in March from a year earlier, weighed down by a partial withdrawal of stimulus measures and by a hike in benchmark rates, data showed on Wednesday. The median forecast in a Reuters ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
|
Today's Robin Hood would target media, says Russell CroweIndependent - 27 minutes ago If Robin Hood were alive today he would aim his arrows at media monopolies, Russell Crowe said after a Cannes press screening of a new film on the English outlaw. "My theory would be that if Robin was alive today he would be looking at the ... Cannes Film Festival 2010: Russell Crowe shrugs off muted Robin Hood reactionTelegraph.co.uk - - 2 hours ago Hollywood's reinvention of Robin Hood opened the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, with Russell Crowe hoping to turn the English folk hero's adventures into a blockbuster franchise. By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor The film, dubbed "Gladiator in ... Robin Hood ready to launch Cannes Film FestivalBBC News - 2 hours ago Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe will bring some red carpet glamour to the south of France later as Robin Hood opens the 63rd Cannes Film Festival. The latest retelling of the legendary outlaw, from director Sir Ridley Scott, is showing out of ...
Cannes Film Festival 2010: Robin Hood's topical politicsTelegraph.co.uk - - 2 hours ago Russell Crowe's impassioned speeches in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood could have saved Britain from a hung Parliament. By David Gritten Halfway through watching Ridley Scott's Robin Hood today, my mind wandered a little. It's that kind of movie. ... Cannes 2010 diary: lost in the HoodThe Guardian - 4 hours ago It's the opening day of the Cannes film festival and the town feels all at sea. The freak storms that lashed the coastline this time last week have passed, leaving churned beaches and upturned cars in their wake, so the first thing that strikes me when ... Russell Crowe leads his two Merry Men to Cannes 'Robin Hood' photocallhellomagazine.com - 1 hour ago And so it was on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, as Russell Crowe promoted his new film about the legendary outlaw. Arriving alongside him for the Robin Hood photocall were sons Charlie, six, and three-year-old Tennyson – the ... Seven versions of 'Robin Hood'Independent - 3 hours ago As Russell Crowe takes on the legendary character Robin Hood this week, he follows a legacy of actors who wore the same costume of tights in film and television productions - from Douglas Fairbanks to Kevin Costner to Cary Elwes' send-up and Disney's ... Cannes bows with 'Robin Hood'Variety - - 47 minutes ago Cannes is like a movie star: When the cameras are rolling, everything is sunny and terrific. Despite giant waves last week, volcanic clouds and predictions of heavy rain for Wednesday, the opening of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival saw ... Robin Hood Holidays: landmarks of the outlaw heroSkyscanner News - 1 hour ago As Robin Hood fever hits an all time high with the release of the new Robin Hood film, Skyscanner reveals the destinations which could benefit from the renewed popularity of the world's most famous outlaw and his Merry Men. Nowhere says Robin Hood more ... Russell Crowe: Moon over the French RivieraUSA Today - 5 minutes ago Russell Crowe walks into the room jammed with reporters, turns his back to the flashbulbs, and flips up the back of his jacket -- playfully mooning the world press ... under the guise of adjusting his trousers, of course. It was a joke, but you can see ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
|
Labour leadership: David Miliband enters contestBBC News - 36 minutes ago David Miliband has said he will stand for the Labour leadership, arguing the party needs to "rebuild" itself as a reforming force in British politics. The former foreign secretary is the first contender to declare their interest in succeeding Gordon ... Miliband announces Labour Party leadership bidBBC News - 34 minutes ago Former foreign secretary David Miliband has announced his bid for the Labour Party leadership, saying he hopes the "contest can be a credit to the Labour Party". Former prime minister Gordon Brown stepped down on Tuesday and Harriet Harman is now ... David Miliband: profileTelegraph.co.uk - 53 minutes ago David Miliband is the first out of the traps in the race to replace Gordon Brown as Labour leader. The leading Blairite has left little doubt of his ambition, though some insiders question whether he has the personal steel and the breadth of support in ...
Miliband to stand for Labour leadershipFinancial Times - - 18 minutes ago The fomer foreign secretary announced on Wednesday outside the Houses of Parliament that he would be a candidate in the election to find a new party head, a post left vacant by Gordon Brown's Tuesday resignation in the wake of the ... David Miliband candidate to lead defeated LabourAFP - 57 minutes ago LONDON — Former foreign secretary David Miliband announced Wednesday his candidacy to lead Britain's defeated Labour party, after the resignation of Gordon Brown. Miliband said he will formally launch his leadership campaign, which has already ... David Miliband stands for leaderThe Sun - - 1 hour ago The former Foreign Secretary is the first the throw his hat into the ring to become Leader of the Opposition. It will be Labour's first leadership election in 16 years. Mr Miliband said he will formally launch his campaign in South ... Miliband: I Want To Lead LabourSky News - - 1 hour ago Former foreign secretary David Miliband has formally announced his candidacy to succeed Gordon Brown's as Labour leader. To view this content you need Flash and Javascript enabled in your browser. Please download Flash from the Adobe download website. ... David Miliband launches bid to become Labour leaderJournal Live - - 1 hour ago DAVID Miliband said today he will be standing as a candidate for the Labour leadership. In a statement outside Parliament just before 5.30pm, the former Foreign Secretary said he will launch his campaign next week in his South Shields constituency. ... David Miliband aims to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour leaderInTheNews.co.uk - - 1 hour ago David Miliband has confirmed one of the worst secrets in Westminster by confirming he aims to replace Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour party. The former foreign secretary said he would contest the impending leadership election ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
|
U.K.
Rose garden was like the 'Dave and Nick Show'BBC News - - 2 hours ago By Gary O'Donoghue It's 2.15pm in the Downing Street rose garden and welcome to the Dave and Nick Show. Not quite Eric and Ernie, still less Ant and Dec, but it's what we've got until Thursday 7 May 2015, if the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have ... New leaders play for laughs in double act Reuters UK Labour leadership: David Miliband enters contestBBC News - 37 minutes ago David Miliband has said he will stand for the Labour leadership, arguing the party needs to "rebuild" itself as a reforming force in British politics. New FM invited for talks with Clinton: Foreign OfficeAFP - 28 minutes ago LONDON - New Foreign Secretary William Hague is to travel to Washington on Friday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Foreign Office said on Wednesday. Will Foreign Policy Shift Under Britain's New Government? Voice of America Football fan extradited to Portugal over Euro 2004 riotBBC News - 1 hour ago An England football fan convicted for his role in a riot during Euro 2004 has been extradited to Portugal to serve a two-year jail sentence for hooliganism. Tony Brown welcomes Ken Clarke's appointment in UKBBC News - 1 hour ago The Isle of Man's chief minister, Tony Brown, has said he welcomes Ken Clarke's appointment as Secretary of State for Justice in the UK. Ken Clarke for Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Times Online Liam Fox faces an MoD budget battleThe Guardian - 4 hours ago The new defence secretary, Liam Fox, faces one of the most difficult briefs of any in the new government - and like George Osborne at the Treasury, he knows he must act quickly. Conflict looming over defence cuts Worcester News EDF, E.ON Face Nuclear Hurdle From UK GovernmentBusinessWeek - - 23 minutes ago May 12 (Bloomberg) -- E.ON AG, Electricite de France SA and Centrica Plc may find it harder to build new nuclear reactors in the UK because of a division on energy policy between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats ... UK Coalition Agrees On Low-CO2; But Divided On Nuclear Wall Street Journal Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander to be new Scottish secretaryBBC News - 5 hours ago Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander will serve as Scottish secretary in the new Tory/Lib Dem coalition government. The appointment of the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP came even though his party's policy has been to scrap the Scotland ... Profile: Danny Alexander The Guardian Alex Salmond presses David Cameron for more power for Scottish parliamentThe Guardian - 12 minutes ago David Cameron is coming under pressure to hand over greater powers to the Scottish parliament as he prepares for his first meeting as prime minister with the Scottish National party leader, Alex Salmond. Salmond letter to new PM BBC News Animal cruelty horse man abscondsBBC News - 1 hour ago A horse trader found guilty of the "worst case" of animal cruelty seen by the RSPCA, has absconded as he was awaiting his appeal against sentence. Evil horse trader is on the run The Sun Owner of Spindles Farm near Amersham applies for bankruptcy Bucks Free Press 'Boys, aged 10, raped me'The Sun - 4 hours ago By STAFF REPORTER A TRAUMATISED eight-year-old girl clutched a teddy bear called Mr Happy as she described how two ten-year-old boys led her to a field and then raped her today. Boys aged 10 and 11 go on trial for rape Times Online Owen Paterson 'new NI secretary of state'BBC News - 1 hour ago Owen Paterson is understood to have been appointed as the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland. The 53-year-old becomes the first Conservative Secretary of State since 1997, when Sir Patrick Mayhew held office in John Major's administration. Owen Paterson named NI secretary Belfast Telegraph New face of Northern politics Irish Post Fraudster who nearly brought down Sturgeon is jailedTimes Online - - 2 hours ago Nicola Sturgeon was accused of lacking judgement yesterday after the convicted fraudster for whom she wrote a letter of support was jailed for two years. Benefits fraudster jailed for stealing £80000 The Guardian Coaliton partners in Thirsk and Malton poll 'fight'BBC News - 22 minutes ago The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are to fight each other in the delayed Thirsk and Malton election despite the parties' new Westminster coalition. Acid attack man's hell as thug is jailed for 30 years - computer generated ...Mirror.co.uk - - 2 hours ago A man who had a secret affair with a married woman and was doused in acid by her family in a revenge attack told yesterday of his suffering. LEYTONSTONE: Acid attack victim's horrific injuries Guardian Series Transport funds 'must be spread nationwide'Public Finance - - 14 minutes ago The new coalition government must match regional transport spending with planned improvements for London, regional groups have warned. Samantha Cameron is youngest 'First Lady' for half a centuryTelegraph.co.uk - - 5 hours ago At 39, Samantha Cameron is the youngest prime ministerial spouse to enter Downing Street for more than 50 years. By Caroline Gammell Samantha Cameron, 39, is believed to be the youngest prime ministerial spouse to enter Downing Street. Sam Cam sticks to school run routine This is London Travel industry reacts to government plansTravel Daily UK - 1 hour ago Associations and airlines across the UK have reacted to the policies that are likely to happen under the new Conservative-Liberal Democrats Government. Abta welcomes reform of APD Travel Weekly UK New plan to tackle child poverty in Wales unveiledSouth Wales Argus - 2 hours ago Ministers in Wales signed up to the Labour UK Government's target to eradicate child poverty by 2020. But their latest set of plans, published five years after a previous strategy, aims to "ensure that no child or young person is disadvantaged by ... Welsh Assembly consults on child poverty plans Children & Young People Now Outrage after crossbow attack on town seagulls - Comment on this storyScarborough Today - 4 hours ago SCARBOROUGH residents and bird-lovers have condemned the heartless attacks on the town's seagulls which left one with a dart in its head and another with an injured wing. | Featured photo New FM invited for talks with Clinton: Foreign OfficeAFP - 28 minutes ago LONDON - New Foreign Secretary William Hague is to travel to Washington on Friday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the ... Images Reuters UK  Times Online  Reuters UK  AFP  Legal Week  DefenseNews.com...  New Energy Focu...  The Guardian  Daily Mail |
Proportional representation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
| This article is part of the Politics series | |
| Electoral methods | |
|---|---|
| Single-winner | |
| |
| Multiple-winner | |
| |
| Random selection | |
| Social choice theory | |
| Politics portal | |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010) |
Proportional representation (PR), sometimes referred to as full representation, is a class of voting system aimed at securing a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections, and the percentage of seats they receive (e.g., in legislative assemblies).
PR is often contrasted to plurality voting systems, such as those commonly used in the United States and (much of) the United Kingdom, where disproportional seat distribution results from the division of voters into multiple electoral districts, especially "winner takes all" plurality ("first-past-the-post" or FPTP) districts.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Methods of proportional representation
Proportional representation as an election method allows all voters a degree of influence on the political process. 15% of the votes under such a system award the party in question 15% of the seats[1]. By contrast, the established parties in current US and UK elections can, and most often do, win 100% control of the parliament with support from as little as 20-25% of the eligible voters, at the cost of all parties that are not part of the top two in the country[2]. Hence, proportional representation is often categorized as a democratic system, and the US and UK systems as semi-democratic.[3]
There are different methods of proportional representation which achieve either a greater degree of proportionality or a greater degree of determinate outcome.[4]
Various forms of proportional representation exist, such as party-list proportional representation, where the above-mentioned groups correspond directly with candidate lists as usually given by political parties. Within this form a further distinction can be made depending on whether or not a voter can influence the election of candidates within a party list (open list and closed list respectively). Another kind of electoral system covered with the term proportional representation is the single transferable vote (STV), which, in turn, does not depend on the existence of political parties (and where the above-mentioned "measure of grouping" is entirely left up to the voters themselves). Elections for the Australian Senate use what is referred to as above-the-line voting where candidates belonging to registered political parties are grouped together on the ballot paper with the voter provided with the option of "group voting" a semi-open party list/individual candidate system.
There are also electoral systems, single non-transferable vote (SNTV) and cumulative voting and limited bloc voting (LBV), all of which offer a form of semi-proportional representation (SPR).
[edit] Party list system in a multi-member constituency
The parties each list their candidates according to that party's determination of priorities. In a closed list, voters vote for a list, not a candidate. Each party is allocated seats in proportion to the number of votes, using the ranking order on its list. In an open list, voters may vote, depending on the model, for one person, or for two, or indicate their order of preference within the list.
- This system is used in many countries, including Finland (open list), Sweden (open list), Israel (where the whole country is one closed list constituency), Brazil (open list), the Netherlands (open list), South Africa (closed list), Democratic Republic of the Congo (open list) and for elections to the European Parliament in most European Union countries (mostly open lists, with the exception of Ireland and Northern Ireland using Single transferable vote and the remainder of the United Kingdom using closed lists).
[edit] Additional-member system, mixed-member system
Main articles: Additional Member Systems - mixed member proportional representation and parallel voting; alternative vote and alternative vote top-upMixed election systems combine a proportional system and a single seat district system, attempting to achieve some of the positive features of both of these. Mixed systems are often helpful in countries with large populations, since they balance the mechanisms of elections focusing on local or national issues. They are used in nations with widely varying voting populations in terms of geographic, social, cultural and economic realities, including Bolivia, Germany, Lesotho, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
- Such systems, or variations of them, are used in the UK - Greater London Authority, [Germany], Lesotho, Mexico, Bolivia, New Zealand, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Italy has changed between sub-systems.
[edit] Single transferable vote in a multi-member constituency
This method of proportional representation uses a system of preferential voting to determine the results of the election
A constituency elects two or more representatives per electorate. Consequently the constituency is proportionally larger than a single member constituency. Parties tend to offer as many candidates as they most optimistically could expect to win: the major parties may nominate almost as many candidates as there are seats, while the minor parties and independents rather fewer. Voters mark their ballot, allocating preferences to their preferred ranking for some or all candidates. A successful candidate must achieve a quota, being the total number of votes received divided by the number of candidates to be elected plus one, plus one; i.e. in a nine member constituency the quota would be (the number of votes divided by 10) +1. Only in a few cases is this achieved at the first count. For the second count, if a candidate wins election her/his surplus vote (in excess of the quota) is transferred to her/his voters' second choices; otherwise, the least popular candidate is eliminated and her/his votes redistributed according to the second preference shown on them. If there are more than one candidate who can not get enough votes after the transfer of votes of least popular candidate, she or he will be eliminated too (as they could not avoid it on the next round under any circumstance).
This process continues for as many counts as are needed until all seats are filled either by the required number of candidates achieving a quota and being deemed to be elected or until there are only the number of candidates remaining as there are number of seats. Although the counting process is complicated, voting is clear and most voters get at least one of their preferences elected.
All deputies are answerable directly to their local constituents. Some political scientists argue that STV is more properly classified as 'semi-proportional' as there is no assurance of a proportional result at a nationwide level. Indeed, many advocates of STV would argue that preventing nationwide proportionality is one of the primary goals of the system, to avoid the perceived risks of a very highly fragmented legislature.
- This system is used in Australia (Senate, Tasmanian and Australian Capital Territory Houses of Assembly and the Legislative Councils in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria), the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland (assembly and local government elections), Malta, local government elections in Scotland, Wales and selected (optional) local governments in New Zealand.
[edit] History
The schoolmaster Thomas Wright Hill is credited as inventor of the single transferable vote, whose use he described in 1821 for application in elections at his school. The method, which guarantees proportional representation, was introduced in 1840 by his son Rowland Hill into the public election for the Adelaide City Council. Unlike several later systems, this did not allow for party-list proportional representation.
A party-list proportional representation system was first devised and described in 1878 by Victor D'Hondt of Belgium. The procedure, known as the D'Hondt method, is still widely used. Victor Considérant, a utopian socialist, devised a similar system and described it in an 1892 book. After some Swiss cantons (beginning with Ticino in 1890), Belgium was the first country to adopt list-PR for the 1900 elections to its national parliament. Similar systems were implemented in many European countries during or after World War I. Single Transferable Vote was first used in Denmark in 1857, making STV the oldest PR system, but the system used there never really spread. STV was re-invented (apparently independently) in the UK, but the British parliament rejected it. It was, however, then used in Tasmania in 1907, and has spread from there. In the last Irish elections to the UK Parliament in 1919, STV was used in one constituency (University of Dublin: two Independent Unionists were elected). After Irish independence, the first General Election to Dáil Éireann in 1923 and all subsequent ones have used STV.
Proportional representation is actually used by more nations than the plurality voting system, and it is the dominant electoral system in Europe. It is in place in Germany, most of northern and eastern Europe, and is also used for European Parliament elections: all of the members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, including those elected from constituencies in the UK, are elected by proportional representation. Proportional representation is also used in many European countries. In France, proportional representation was adopted at the end of World War II, discarded in 1958, then used once more for parliament elections in 1986 and terminated immediately afterwards.
While first-past-the-post is commonly found in countries based on the British parliamentary system, and in Westminster elections in the United Kingdom, a form of proportional representation known as the mixed member system is now being used in the United Kingdom to elect the members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly, after being adopted by New Zealand in 1993. Although once an unknown system, proportional representation is now gaining popularity in Canada with five provinces—British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick—currently debating whether to abolish the first past the post system, and at the federal level, a Parliamentary Committee explored the issue in 2005.
Proportional representation does have some history in the United States. Many cities, including New York City, once used it for their city councils as a way to break up the Democratic Party monopolies on elective office. In Cincinnati, Ohio, proportional representation was adopted in 1925 to get rid of a Republican Party party machine, but the Republicans successfully overturned proportional representation in 1957. With proportional representation, otherwise marginalized social, political and racial minorities were able to attain elected office, and this fact was ironically a key argument opponents of proportional representation used in their campaigns — "undesirables" were gaining a voice in electoral politics.[citation needed] From 1870 to 1980, the State of Illinois used a semi-proportional system of cumulative voting to elect its State House of Representatives. Each district across the state elected both Republicans and Democrats year-after-year. While most jurisdictions no longer use proportional representation, it is still used in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Peoria, Illinois. San Francisco did not have proportional elections; rather it had city-wide elections where people would cast votes for five or six candidates simultaneously, delivering some of the benefits of proportional representation, but not all.
Some electoral systems incorporate additional features to ensure absolutely accurate or more comprehensive representation, based on gender or minority status (like ethnicity or race). Note that features such as this are not strictly part of proportional representation; depending on what kind of PR is used, people tend to be already represented proportionally according to these standards without such additional rules.
In Ireland, proportional representation has resulted in a situation whereby a mainly centrist party with a large support base, Fianna Fáil, typically receives 30%-50% of the vote but the opposition parties, traditionally the centre-right Fine Gael and the centre-left Labour Party, are comparatively weak. This has led to a series of coalition governments in power, including coalitions between Fianna Fáil and Labour, Fine Gael and Labour, the current coalition between Fianna Fáil and the left-wing Green Party and a rainbow coalition featuring every non Fianna Fáil member of the dáil. The lack of a unified opposition in Ireland has resulted in a series of centre-right led governments since the state's creation in 1921. Since 1932 Fianna Fáil is the only party in the Republic of Ireland to form a government on its own, however there has not been a single-party government since 1989.
In his essay, Overcoming Practical Difficulties in Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly, Joseph E. Schwartzberg proposes the use of proportional representation in the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly in order to prevent, for instance, lower castes of Indians from being excluded.[5]
[edit] Partial proportionality
Some nations with proportional elections, like Israel and the Netherlands, have one electoral district only: the entire nation, and the entire pie is cut up according to the entire outcome. Most nations have district systems in place where more than one person is elected per district. The constituency or district magnitude (DM) of a system is therefore measured by the number of seats in a constituency, and plays a vital role in determining how proportional an electoral system can be. The greater the number of seats in a constituency, the more proportional the outcome will be. PR applied to a single-member district (SMD) is by necessity majoritarian. If the constituency is in a jurisdiction using list PR in its multi-member districts (MMDs) the winning candidate simply needs a plurality, otherwise called a simple or relative majority, of the vote to win, so that the election in the SMD is by first-past-the-post. If the constituency is in a jurisdiction using PR-STV in its MMDs, an absolute majority of 50% plus 1 will likely be the minimum required for victory (depending on which quota is used) so that the election in the SMD is by the alternative vote. Four elected officials per district delivers a threshold of 20% (1/M+1) to gain a single seat. However, constituency borders can still be gerrymandered to reduce the overall proportionality. This may be achieved by creating "majority-minority" constituencies - constituencies in which the majority is formed by a group of voters that are in the minority at a higher level. Proportional representation with the entire nation electing the single body cannot be gerrymandered.
Multiple-member districts do not necessarily ensure that an electoral system will be proportional. The bloc vote can result in "super-majoritarian" results in which geographical variations can create majority-minority districts that become subsumed into the larger districts. Also, in theory, a party, who does not provide a list with enough people to fill all the seats won by it, may be given those unfilled seats. This is termed an underhang.
Some nations, with either exclusively proportional representation or — as is the case with Germany — additional member systems, require a party list to achieve an election threshold — a certain minimum percentage of votes to receive any seats. Typically, this lower limit is set at between two and five percent of the total number of votes cast. Parties who do not reach that margin will not be represented in parliament, making majorities, coalitions and thus governments easier to achieve. Proponents of election thresholds argue that they discourage excessive fragmentation, disproportionate power, or extremist parties. Opponents of thresholds argue that they cause unfair redirection of support from minor parties, thus giving the parties which cross the threshold disproportionally high percentages of the seats and creating the possibility that a party or group of parties will assume control of the legislature without gaining a majority of votes.
There are several ways of measuring proportionality, the most common being, among others, the Gallagher Index.
[edit] Center based proportional and multi-party systems
Election systems based on proportional representation tend to favor a multi-party result which demands a coalition to form a government supported by a majority of the voters or elected candidates. If the election system as well as the mechanisms for forming a governing coalition also tend to support the existence of a centrist party, the resulting over-all system is often defined as a "center-based proportional representation multi-party system". Election systems which tend to result in so-called two-block (many parties forming coalitions, blocks, but with no party, or "block", in the "center") systems are not seen as "center-based" but multi-party variations of two-party (two-block) systems.
The undesirable "extreme" of a "Center Based" system (like in Condorcet method) might be seen as a party system where the "center" has an unproportional and undesirable strong position in the formation of any governing coalition.[clarification needed]
[edit] List of countries using proportional representation
This is a list of countries using proportional representation at national level.
| Country | Type |
|---|---|
 Algeria | Party list |
 Angola | Party list |
 Australia | For Senate only, Single Transferable Vote |
 Austria | Party list |
 Argentina | Party list |
 Aruba | Party list |
 Belgium | Party list |
 Bolivia | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Brazil | Party list |
 Bulgaria | Party list |
 Burkina Faso | Party list |
 Burundi | Party list |
 Cambodia | Party list |
 Cape Verde | Party list |
 Colombia | Party list |
 Costa Rica | Party list |
 Croatia | Party list |
 Cyprus | Party list |
 Czech Republic | Party list |
 Democratic Republic of the Congo | Mixed member proportional |
 Denmark | Party list |
 Dominican Republic | Party list |
 Equatorial Guinea | Party list |
 Estonia | Party list |
 Finland | Party list |
 Germany | Mixed member proportional |
 Greece | Party list (with plurality bonus) |
 Guinea-Bissau | Party list |
 Guyana | Party list |
 Hungary | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Iceland | Party list |
 India | For Upper House (Rajya Sabha) only, Single Transferable Vote by State Legislatures |
 Indonesia | Party list |
 Iraq | Party list |
 Ireland | Single Transferable Vote |
 Israel | Party list |
 Italy | Party list (with plurality bonus for coalitions) |
 Japan | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Latvia | Party list |
 Lesotho | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Liberia | Party list |
 Liechtenstein | Party list |
 Luxembourg | Party list |
 Malta | Single Transferable Vote |
 Mexico | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Moldova | Party list |
 New Zealand | Mixed Member Proportional |
 Namibia | Party list |
 Netherlands | Party list |
 Netherlands Antilles | Party list |
 New Caledonia | Party list |
 Nicaragua | Party list |
| Northern Ireland | Single Transferable Vote (for regional assembly only) |
 Norway | Party list |
 Paraguay | Party list |
 Peru | Party list |
 Poland | Party list |
 Portugal | Party list |
 Romania | Party list |
 Russia | Party list |
 San Marino | Party list |
 Sao Tome and Principe | Party list |
 Scotland | Additional Member System (for national assembly only) |
 Slovakia | Party list |
 Slovenia | Party list |
 South Africa | Party list |
 South Korea | Party list |
 Spain | Party list |
 Sri Lanka | Party list |
 Suriname | Party list |
 Sweden | Party list |
 Switzerland | Party list |
 Taiwan | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Thailand | Mixed Member Majoritarian |
 Turkey | Party list |
 Ukraine | Party list |
 Uruguay | Party list |
 Venezuela | Party list |
 Wales | Additional Member System (for national assembly only) |
| Wallis and Futuna | Party list |
[edit] Further reading
[edit] Books
- Amy, Douglas J. (1993). Real Choices/New Voices: The Case for Proportional Representation Elections in the United States". Columbia University Press.
- Denis Pilon (2007). The Politics of Voting. Edmond Montgomery Publications.
- Colomer, Josep M. (2003). Political Institutions. Oxford University Press.
- Colomer, Josep M., ed (2004). Handbook of Electoral System Choice. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Martin Linton; Mary Southcott (1998). Making Votes Count: The Case for Electoral Reform. London: Profile Books.
[edit] Journals
- John Hickman and Chris Little. "Seat/Vote Proportionality in Romanian and Spanish Parliamentary Elections" Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Vol. 2, No. 2, November 2000
[edit] News
- Roland Nicholson, Jr., "Proportional Representation Elections in Hong Kong", New York Times, September, 1992
[edit] See also
- Apportionment (politics)
- D'Hondt method
- List of politics-related topics
- Plurality voting system
- Sainte-Laguë method
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/kolesar.htm
- ^ http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout.html
- ^ http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/Brief%20History%20of%20PR.htm
- ^ "Polling systems across the world and how they work - Scotsman.com News". News.scotsman.com. http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Polling-systems-across-the-world.6038354.jp. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- New York Times, May 29, 1993, "Proportional Representation Suits School Elections" by Roland Nicholson, Jr.
[edit] External links
- Proportional Representation Library
- "Proportional representation" Center for Voting and Democracy
- Handbook of Electoral System Choice
- "Electoral Systems", World Policy Institute
- Quantifying Representativity Article by Philip Kestelman
- The De Borda Institute A Northern Ireland-based organisation promoting inclusive voting procedures
- Electoral Reform Society founded in England in 1884, the longest running PR organization. Contains good information about Single Transferable Vote -the Society's preferred form of PR
- Electoral Reform Australia
- Proportional Representation Society of Australia
- Fair Vote Canada
- Voting methods survey Describes 19 multi-winner systems
- Why Not Proportional Representation?
- Vote Dilution means Voters have Less Voice Law is Cool site
British Raj
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
 | This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive and inappropriate external links or by converting links into footnote references. (April 2010) |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Colonial India | ||||||
| Portuguese India | 1510–1961 | |||||
| Dutch India | 1605–1825 | |||||
| Danish India | 1696–1869 | |||||
| French India | 1759–1954 | |||||
| British India 1613–1947 | ||||||
| East India Company | 1612–1757 | |||||
| Company rule in India | 1757–1857 | |||||
| British Raj | 1858–1947 | |||||
| British rule in Burma | 1826–1947 | |||||
| Princely states | 1765–1947 | |||||
| Partition of India | 1947 | |||||
| | ||||||
The British Raj (rāj in Hindustani: राज, Urdu: راج, pronounced: /rɑːdʒ/, lit. "reign"[1]) is the name given to the period of British colonial rule in South Asia between 1858 and 1947;[2] it can also refer to the dominion itself, and even the region under the rule.[3] The region, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by Britain,[4] as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. After 1876, the resulting political union was officially called the Indian Empire and issued passports under that name. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, the United Nations, and a member nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.
The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (and who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India), and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire was made a separate colony in 1937, and became independent in 1948.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Geographical extent
The British Raj extended over all regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In addition, at various times, it included Aden Colony (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf were theoretically princely states of British India until 1946 and used the rupee as their unit of currency.
Among other countries in the region, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), was ceded to the Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was a British Crown Colony, but not part of British India. The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them, and were recognized by the British as independent states.[5][6] The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861. However, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined.[7] The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, but not part of British India.
[edit] British India and the Native States
The British Indian Empire (contemporaneously India) consisted of two divisions: British India and the Native States or Princely States. In its Interpretation Act of 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions:[8]
The expression British India shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. The expression India shall mean British India together with any territories of a Native Prince or Chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty, exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. (52 & 53 Vict. cap. 63, sec. 18)
(In general the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to also refer to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858.[9] The term has also been used to refer to the "British in India."[10])
Suzerainty over 175 Princely States, some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name of the British Crown) by central government of British India under the Viceroy; the remaining, approximately 500, states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner (as the case might have been).[11] A clear distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the courts of the Princely States existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.[11]
[edit] Major provinces
At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does not include those of the dependent Native States):[12] During the partition of Bengal (1905–1911), a new province, Assam and East Bengal was created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became: Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.[12]
| Province of British India[12] | Area (in thousands of square miles) | Population (in millions of inhabitants) | Chief Administrative Officer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burma | 170 | 9 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Bengal (including present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa) | 151 | 75 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Madras | 142 | 38 | Governor-in-Council |
| Bombay | 123 | 19 | Governor-in-Council |
| United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand) | 107 | 48 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Central Provinces (including Berar) | 104 | 13 | Chief Commissioner |
| Punjab | 97 | 20 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Assam | 49 | 6 | Chief Commissioner |
[edit] Minor provinces
In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a Chief Commissioner:[13]
| Minor Province[13] | Area (in thousands of square miles) | Population (in thousands of inhabitants) | Chief Administrative Officer |
|---|---|---|---|
| North West Frontier Province | 16 | 2,125 | Chief Commissioner |
| British Baluchistan (British and Administered territory) | 46 | 308 | British Political Agent in Baluchistan served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Coorg | 1.6 | 181 | British Resident in Mysore served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Ajmer-Merwara | 2.7 | 477 | British Political Agent in Rajputana served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 3 | 25 | Chief Commissioner |
[edit] Native states or Princely states
A Princely State, also called Native State or Indian State, was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. Military, foreign affairs, and communications power were under British control. There were 565 princely states when the Indian subcontinent became independent from Britain in August 1947.[14]
[edit] Organization
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Act for the Better Government of India (1858) made changes in the governance of India at three levels: in the imperial government in London, in the central government in Calcutta, and in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces).[15]
In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member Council of India, whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have spent at least ten years in India and to have done so no more than ten years before.[16] Although the Secretary of State formulated the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was required in most instances to consult the Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending of Indian revenues.[15] The Act envisaged a system of "double government" in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy-making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India.[15] However, the Secretary of State also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the Council's expertise was sometimes outdated.[17] From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals would serve as Secretary of State for India and direct the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859–1866), Marquess of Salisbury (1874–1878) (later Prime Minister of Britain), John Morley (1905–1910) (initiator of the Minto-Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (1917–1922) (an architect of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1945–1947) (head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India). The size of the advisory Council would be reduced over the next half-century, but its powers would remain unchanged; in 1907, for the first time, two Indians would be appointed to the Council.[18]
In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to the nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of State in London and through him to British Parliament. A system of "double government" had already been in place in the East India Company rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784.[18] The Governor-General in the capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for example, were issued in the name of "Governor-General-in-Council" (i.e. the Governor-General with the advice of the Council).[18] The Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made no major changes in governance[18] However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, the Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision-making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead.[18] He therefore requested the "portfolio system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department (the "portfolio") was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single Council member.[18] Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, however, important decisions required the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence of such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act of 1861.
If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative Council—an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to a two-year term—with half the members consisting of British officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half, comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity.[19] All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in Madras and Bombay, required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London; this prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism controlled from home."[20] Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more consultation with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty, and far from representative.[21] Even so, the "tiny advances in the practise of representative government were intended to provide safety valves for the expression of public opinion which had been so badly misjudged before the rebellion." (Bayly 1990, p. 195). Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in the British parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.[22]
Although the Great Uprising of 1857 had shaken the British enterprise in India, it had not derailed it. After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indians; not just between British army officers and their Indian staff, but in civilian life as well. The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded.[23] New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. From then on, the Indian army was to remain unchanged in its organization until 1947.[24] The 1861 Census had revealed that the English population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army.[25] In 1880 the standing Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.[26]
It was also felt that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm."[23] They too were rewarded in the new British Raj, by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.[24] At the same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).[24]
Lastly, the British felt disenchanted with Indian reaction to social change. Until the rebellion, they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on suttee by Lord William Bentinck.[23] It was now felt that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily; consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in matters dealing with religion, even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows).[24]
[edit] Famines, epidemics, and public health
During the British Raj, India experienced some of the worst famines ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died[27] and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.[27] Recent research, including work by Mike Davis and Amartya Sen,[28] attribute these famines directly to British policy in India.
The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[29] Deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 are estimated to have exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917.[30] The Third Pandemic of plague started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading disease to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[31] Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, was the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925, the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.
Fevers had been considered one of the leading causes of death in India in the 19th century.[32] It was Britain's Sir Ronald Ross working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta who finally proved in 1898 that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes.[33] In 1881, around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in India.[34] Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination.[35] Mass vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end of the 19th century.[36] In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox.[37] Between 1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.[38]
Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to the expediency of establishing a systematic institution in the Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives.[39] In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognized colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (others being Elphinstone College, Deccan College and Government Law College, Mumbai).
[edit] Economic impact
Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was actually raised by conservative British politician Edmund Burke who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal India. Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.[40]
P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. Marshall argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past. British control was delegated largely through regional Mughal rulers and was sustained by a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the eighteenth century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.[41] Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation, supported by many scholars in India and the West, in which the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still rejected by many historians working in India, who prefer to 'bash the British'.[42]
[edit] Timeline
| Viceroy | Period of Tenure | Events/Accomplishments |
|---|---|---|
| Charles Canning | 1 Nov 1858 21 Mar 1862 | 1858 reorganization of British Indian Army (contemporaneously and hereafter Indian Army) Construction begins (1860): University of Bombay, University of Madras, and University of Calcutta Indian Penal Code passed into law in 1860. Upper Doab famine of 1860–61 Indian Councils Act 1861 Establishment of Archaeological Survey of India in 1861 James Wilson, financial member of Council of India reorganizes customs, imposes income tax, creates paper currency. Indian Police Act of 1861, creation of Imperial Police later known as Indian Police Service. |
| Lord Elgin | 21 Mar 1862 20 Nov 1863 | Dies prematurely in Dharamsala |
| Sir John Lawrence | 12 Jan 1864 12 Jan 1869 | Anglo-Bhutan Duar War (1864–1865) Orissa famine of 1866 Rajputana famine of 1869 Creation of Department of Irrigation. Creation of Imperial Forestry Service in 1867 (now Indian Forest Service). |
| Lord Mayo | 12 Jan 1869 8 Feb 1872 | Creation of Department of Agriculture (now Ministry of Agriculture) Major extension of railways, roads, and canals Indian Councils Act of 1870 Creation of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a Chief Commissionership (1872). Assassination of Lord Mayo in the Andamans. |
| Lord Northbrook | 3 May 1872 12 Apr 1876 | Mortalities in Bihar famine of 1873–74 prevented by importation of rice from Burma. Gaikwad of Baroda dethroned for misgovernment; dominions continued to a child ruler. Indian Councils Act of 1874 Visit of the Prince of Wales, future Edward VII in 1875–76. |
| Lord Lytton | 12 Apr 1876 8 Jun 1880 | Baluchistan established as a Chief Commissionership Queen Victoria (in absentia) proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi Durbar of 1877. Great Famine of 1876–78: 5.25 million dead; reduced relief offered at expense of Rs. 8 crore. Creation of Famine Commission of 1878–80 under Sir Richard Strachey. Indian Forest Act of 1878 Second Anglo-Afghan War. |
| Lord Ripon | 8 Jun 1880 13 Dec 1884 | End of Second Anglo-Afghan War. Repeal of Vernacular Press Act of 1878. Compromise on the Ilbert Bill. Local Government Acts extend self-government from towns to country. University of Punjab established in Lahore in 1882 Famine Code promulgated in 1883 by the Government of India. Creation of the Education Commission. Creation of indigenous schools, especially for Muslims. Repeal of import duties on cotton and of most tariffs. Railway extension. |
| Lord Dufferin | 13 Dec 1884 10 Dec 1888 | Passage of Bengal Tenancy Bill Third Anglo-Burmese War. Joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission appointed for the Afghan frontier. Russian attack on Afghans at Panjdeh (1885). The Great Game in full play. Report of Public Services Commission of 1886-87, creation of Imperial Civil Service (later Indian Civil Service, and today Indian Administrative Service) University of Allahabad established in 1887 Queen Victoria's Jubilee, 1887. |
| Lord Lansdowne | 10 Dec 1888 11 Oct 1894 | Strengthening of NW Frontier defense. Creation of Imperial Service Troops consisting of regiments contributed by the princely states. Gilgit Agency leased in 1899 British Parliament passes Indian Councils Act of 1892 opening the Imperial Legislative Council to Indians. Revolution in princely state of Manipur and subsequent reinstatement of ruler. High point of The Great Game. Establishment of the Durand Line between British India and Afghanistan, Railways, roads, and irrigation works begun in Burma. Border between Burma and Siam finalized in 1893. Fall of the Rupee, resulting from the steady depreciation of silver currency worldwide (1873–93). Indian Prisons Act of 1894 |
| Lord Elgin | 11 Oct 1894 6 Jan 1899 | Reorganization of Indian Army (from Presidency System to the four Commands). Pamir agreement Russia, 1895 The Chitral Campaign (1895), the Tirah Campaign (1896–97) Indian famine of 1896–97 beginning in Bundelkhand. Bubonic plague in Bombay (1896), Bubonic plague in Calcutta (1898); riots in wake of plague prevention measures. Establishment of Provincial Legislative Councils in Burma and Punjab; the former a new Lieutenant Governorship. |
| Lord Curzon | 6 Jan 1899 18 Nov 1905 | Creation of the North West Frontier Province under a Chief Commissioner (1901). Indian famine of 1899–1900. Return of the bubonic plague, 1 million deaths Financial Reform Act of 1899; Gold Reserve Fund created for India. Punjab Land Alienation Act Inauguration of Department (now Ministry) of Commerce and Industry. Death of Queen Victoria (1901); dedication of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta as a national gallery of Indian antiquities, art, and history. Coronation Durbar in Delhi (1903); Edward VII (in absentia) proclaimed Emperor of India. Francis Younghusband's British expedition to Tibet (1903–04) North-Western Provinces (previously Ceded and Conquered Provinces) and Oudh renamed United Provinces in 1904 Reorganization of Indian Universities Act (1904). Systemization of preservation and restoration of ancient monuments by Archaeological Survey of India with Indian Ancient Monument Preservation Act. Inauguration of agricultural banking with Cooperative Credit Societies Act of 1904 Partition of Bengal (1905); new province of East Bengal and Assam under a Lieutenant-Governor. |
| Lord Minto | 18 Nov 1905 23 Nov 1910 | Creation of the Railway Board Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 Government of India Act of 1909 (also Minto-Morley Reforms) Appointment of Indian Factories Commission in 1909. Establishment of Department of Education in 1910 (now Ministry of Education) |
| Lord Hardinge | 23 Nov 1910 4 Apr 1916 | Visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911: commemoration as Emperor and Empress of India at last Delhi Durbar King George V announces creation of new city of New Delhi to replace Calcutta as capital of India. Indian High Courts Act of 1911 Indian Factories Act of 1911 Construction of New Delhi, 1912-1929 World War I, Indian Army in: Western Front, Belgium, 1914; German East Africa (Battle of Tanga, 1914); Mesopotamian Campaign (Battle of Ctesiphon, 1915; Siege of Kut, 1915-16); Battle of Galliopoli, 1915-16 Passage of Defence of India Act 1915 |
| Lord Chelmsford | 4 Apr 1916 2 Apr 1921 | Indian Army in: Mesopotamian Campaign (Fall of Baghdad, 1917); Sinai and Palestine Campaign (Battle of Megiddo, 1918) Passage of Rowlatt Act, 1919 Government of India Act of 1919 (also Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 University of Rangoon established in 1920. |
| Lord Reading | 2 Apr 1921 3 Apr 1926 | University of Delhi established in 1922. Indian Workers Compensation Act of 1923 |
| Lord Irwin | 3 Apr 1926 18 Apr 1931 | Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926, Indian Forest Act, 1927 Appointment of Royal Commission of Indian Labour, 1929 Indian Constitutional Round Table Conferences, London, 1930-32, Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 1931. |
| Lord Willingdon | 18 Apr 1931 18 Apr 1936 | New Delhi inaugurated as capital of India, 1931. Indian Workmen's Compensation Act of 1933 Indian Factories Act of 1934 Royal Indian Air Force created in 1932. Indian Military Academy established in 1932. Government of India Act of 1935 Creation of Reserve Bank of India |
| Lord Linlithgow | 18 Apr 1936 1 Oct 1943 | Indian Payment of Wages Act of 1936 Burma administered independently after 1937 with creation of new cabinet position Secretary of State for India and Burma Indian Provincial Elections of 1937 Cripps' mission to India, 1942. Indian Army in Middle East Theatre of World War II (East African campaign, 1940, Anglo-Iraqi War, 1941, Syria-Lebanon campaign, 1941, Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, 1941 Indian Army in North African campaign (Operation Compass, Operation Crusader, First Battle of El Alamein, Second Battle of El Alamein) |
| Lord Wavell | 1 Oct 1943 21 Feb 1947 | Indian Army becomes, at 2.5 million men, the largest all-volunteer force in history. World War II: Burma Campaign, 1943-45 (Battle of Kohima, Battle of Imphal) Bengal famine of 1943 Indian Army in Italian campaign (Battle of Monte Cassino) British Labour Party wins UK General Election of 1945 with Clement Attlee as prime minister. 1946 Cabinet Mission to India Indian Elections of 1946. |
| Lord Mountbatten | 21 Feb 1947 15 Aug 1947 | Indian Independence Act 1947 (10 and 11 Geo VI, c. 30) of the British Parliament enacted on 18 July 1947. Radcliffe Award, August 1947 Partition of India India Office changed to Burma Office, and Secretary of State for India and Burma to Secretary of State for Burma. |
[edit] History
[edit] Company rule in India
Although the British East India Company had administered its factory areas in India—beginning with Surat early in the 17th century, and including by the century's end, Fort William near Calcutta, Fort St George in Madras and the Bombay Castle—its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the real beginning of the Company rule in India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), when the defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, granted the Company the Diwani ("right to collect land-revenue") in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras: the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) gave it control over most of India south of the Narmada River.
Earlier, in 1773, the British Parliament granted regulatory control over East India Company to the British government and established the post of Governor-General of India, with Warren Hastings as the first incumbent.[43] In 1784, the British Parliament passed Pitt's India Act which created a Board of Control for overseeing the administration of East India Company. Hastings was succeeded in 1784 by Cornwallis, who promulgated the 'Permanent Settlement of Bengal' with the zamindars.
 Map of India showing British Expansion between 1805 and 1910 |  Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-General who established the Permanent Settlement in Bengal |  Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, who rapidly expanded the Company's territories with victories in the Anglo-Maratha Wars and Anglo-Mysore Wars |
At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories.[44] This was achieved either by subsidiary alliances between the Company and local rulers or by direct military annexation. The subsidiary alliances created the Princely States (or Native States) of the Hindu Maharajas and the Muslim Nawabs, prominent among which were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Kutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).[44] The annexed regions included the North Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801), Delhi (1803), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh two years later.[44]
The East India Company also signed treaties with various Afghan rulers and with Ranjit Singh of Lahore to counterbalance the Russian support of Persia's plans in western Afghanistan. In 1839, the Company's effort to more actively support Shah Shuja as Amir in Afghanistan, led to the First Afghan War (1839–42) and resulted in a military disaster for it. As the British expanded their territory in India, so did Russia in Central Asia with the taking of Bukhara and Samarkand in 1863 and 1868 respectively, and thereby setting the stage for The Great Game of Central Asia.[45]
In the Charter Act of 1813, the British parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly, opening India to both private investment and missionary work.[44] With increased British power in India, supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and parliament increased as well; by the 1820s, British nationals could transact business under the protection of the Crown in the three Company presidencies.[44] In the Charter Act of 1833, the British parliament revoked the Company's trade license altogether, making the Company a part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of Company officers.[46]
Starting in 1772, the Company began a series of land revenue "settlements," which would create major changes in landed rights and rural economy in India. In 1793, the Governor-General Lord Cornwallis promulgated the permanent settlement in the Bengal Presidency, the first socio-economic regulation in colonial India.[47] It was named permanent because it fixed the land tax in perpetuity in return for landed property rights for a class of intermediaries called zamindars, who thereafter became owners of the land.[47] It was hoped that knowledge of a fixed government demand would encourage the zamindars to increase both their average outcrop and the land under cultivation, since they would be able to retain the profits from the increased output; in addition, the land itself would become a marketable form of property that could be purchased, sold, or mortgaged.[48] However, the zamindars themselves were often unable to meet the increased demands that the Company had placed on them; consequently, many defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first three decades following the permanent settlement.[49] In southern India, Thomas Munro, who would later become Governor of Madras, promoted the ryotwari system, in which the government settled land-revenue directly with the peasant farmers, or ryots.[48] Based on the utilitarian ideas of James Mill, who supervised the Company's land revenue policy during 1819-1830, and David Ricardo's Law of Rent, it was considered by its supporters to be both closer to traditional practice and more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the lowest levels of rural society.[48] However, in spite of the appeal of the ryotwari system's abstract principles, class hierarchies in southern Indian villages had not entirely disappeared—for example village headmen continued to hold sway—and peasant cultivators came to experience revenue demands they could not meet.[50]
Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various governments in India under Company rule.[51] In all areas other than the Bengal Presidency, land settlement work involved a continually repetitive process of surveying and measuring plots, assessing their quality, and recording landed rights, and constituted a large proportion of the work of Indian Civil Service officers working for the government.[51] After the Company lost its trading rights, it became the single most important source of government revenue, roughly half of overall revenue in the middle of the 19th century.[51] Since, in many regions, the land tax assessment could be revised, and since it was generally computed at a high level, it created lasting resentment which would later come to a head in the rebellion which rocked much of North India in 1857.[52]
[edit] Indian rebellion of 1857
The rebellion began with mutinies by sepoys of the Bengal Presidency army; in 1857 the presidency consisted of present-day Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and UP. However, most rebel soldiers were from the UP region, and, in particular, from Northwest Provinces (especially, Ganga-Jumna Doab) and Oudh, and many came from landowning families.[53] Within weeks of the initial mutinies—as the rebel soldiers wrested control of many urban garrisons from the British—the rebellion was joined by various discontented groups in the hinterlands, in both farmed areas and the backwoods. The latter group, forming the civilian rebellion, consisted of feudal nobility, landlords, peasants, rural merchants, and some tribal groups.[54]
 Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856, who devised the Doctrine of Lapse |  Lakshmibai, The Rani of Jhansi, one of the principal leaders of the rebellion who earlier had lost her kingdom as a result of the Doctrine of Lapse |
After the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites as landed gentry in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might augur.[55] Some Indian soldiers, misreading the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were persuaded that the East India Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity.[56] Changes in the terms of their professional service may also have created resentment. As the extent of British jurisdiction expanded with British victories in wars and with annexation of territory, the soldiers were now not only expected to serve in less familiar regions (such as Lower Burma after the Second Burmese War in 1852-53), but also make do without the "foreign service" remuneration that had previously been their due.[57]
The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three groups: feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which derecognised adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the British had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group; the latter, for example, was prepared to accept British paramountcy if her adopted son was recognized as the heir.[58] The second group, the taluqdars had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom too now joined the rebellion to the great dismay of the British.[59] Heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British may have resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the British, were particular objects of the rebels' animosity.[60] The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar district, a beneficiary of a British irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut where the upheaval began, stayed mostly calm throughout.[61]
[edit] Economic and political changes
A significant fact which stands out is that those parts of India which have been longest under British rule are the poorest today. Indeed some kind of chart might be drawn up to indicate the close connection between length of British rule and progressive growth of poverty.—Jawaharlal Nehru, on the economic effects of the British rule, in his book The Discovery of India, [62]
In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British crown and the technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution, had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Britain.[63] In fact many of the major changes in transport and communications (that are typically associated with Crown Rule of India) had already begun before the Mutiny. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological change then rampant in Britain, India too saw rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links equally rapidly established in order that raw materials, such as cotton, from India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England.[64] Likewise, finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.[65] However, unlike Britain itself, where the market risks for the infrastructure development were borne by private investors, in India, it was the taxpayers—primarily farmers and farm-labourers—who endured the risks, which, in the end, amounted to £50 million.[66] In spite of these costs, very little skilled employment was created for Indians. The rush of technology was also changing the agricultural economy in India: by the last decade of the 19th century, a large fraction of some raw materials—not only cotton, but also some food-grains—were being exported to faraway markets.[67] Consequently, many small farmers, dependent on the whims of those markets, lost land, animals, and equipment to money-lenders..[67] More tellingly, the latter half of the 19th century also saw an increase in the number of large-scale famines in India. Although famines were not new to the subcontinent, these were particularly severe, with tens of millions dying, and with many critics, both British and Indian, laying the blame at the doorsteps of the lumbering colonial administrations.[68]
Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; with the land tax revenue claiming 15% of India's national income during Mogul times compared with 1% at the end of the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44% during Mogul times to 54% by the end of colonial period. India's per capita GDP decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it had increased to $618 by 1947[69]
[edit] Railways
India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well built system designed for military reasons (after the Mutiny of 1857), and with the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and much too elaborate and expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. However, it did capture the imagination of the Indians, who saw their railways as the symbol of an industrial modernity—but one that was not realized until a century or so later.
The British built a superb system in India. However, Christensen (1996) looks at of colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests. He concludes that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the timely needs of the railways or their passengers.[70]
By 1920, with the fourth largest railway network in the world and a history of 60 years of its construction, only ten per cent of the "superior posts" in the Indian Railways were held by Indians.[71] The Indian railways system, by 1900, provided India with social savings of 9% of India's national income (about 1.2 billion rupees).[72]
By the 1940s, India had the fourth longest railway network in the world. Yet the country's industrialization was delayed until after independence in 1947 by British colonial policy. Until the 1930s, both the Indian government and the private railway companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive drivers (engineers). The government's "Stores Policy" required that bids on railway matériel be presented to the India Office in London, making it almost impossible for enterprises based in India to compete for orders. Likewise, the railway companies purchased most of their matériel in Britain, rather than in India. Although the railway maintenance workshops in India could have manufactured and repaired locomotives, the railways imported a majority of them from Britain, and the others from Germany, Belgium, and the United States. The Tata company built a steel mill in India before World War I but could not obtain orders for rails until the 1920s and 1930s.[73]
 The 1909 Map of Indian Railways, when India had the fourth largest railway network in the world. Railway construction in India began in 1853. |  "The most magnificent railway station in the world." Stereographic image of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888 |  The Agra canal (c. 1873), a year away from completion. The canal was closed to navigation in 1904 in order to increase irrigation and aid in famine-prevention. |
[edit] Beginnings of self-government
The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Municipal Corporations and District Boards were created for local administration; they included elected Indian members.
The Government of India Act of 1909 — also known as the Morley-Minto Reforms (John Morley was the secretary of state for India, and Gilbert Elliot, fourth earl of Minto, was viceroy) — gave Indians limited roles in the central and provincial legislatures, known as legislative councils. Indians had previously been appointed to legislative councils, but after the reforms some were elected to them. At the centre, the majority of council members continued to be government-appointed officials, and the viceroy was in no way responsible to the legislature. At the provincial level, the elected members, together with unofficial appointees, outnumbered the appointed officials, but responsibility of the governor to the legislature was not contemplated. Morley made it clear in introducing the legislation to the British Parliament that parliamentary self-government was not the goal of the British government.
The Morley-Minto Reforms were a milestone. Step by step, the elective principle was introduced for membership in Indian legislative councils. The "electorate" was limited, however, to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members increasingly became an "opposition" to the "official government". The Communal electorates were later extended to other communities and made a political factor of the Indian tendency toward group identification through religion.
 John Morley, the Secretary of State for India from 1905 to 1910, and Gladstonian Liberal. The Government of India Act of 1909, also known as the Minto-Morley Reforms allowed Indians to be elected to the Legislative Council. |  Picture post card of the Gordon Highlanders marching past King George V and Queen Mary at the Delhi Durbar on December 12, 1911, when the King was crowned Emperor of India |  Indian medical orderlies attending to wounded soldiers with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia during World War I |
[edit] World War I and its aftermath
World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army would take part in the war and their participation would have a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia, would travel to distant corners of the world both in newsprint and by the new medium of the radio.[74] India's international profile would thereby rise and would continue to rise during the 1920s.[74] It was to lead, among other things, to India, under its own name, becoming a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participating, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (The British Indies), in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[75] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians.[74]
In 1916, in the face of new strength demonstrated by the moderate nationalists with the signing of the Lucknow Pact and the founding of the Home Rule leagues, and the realization, after the disaster in the Mesopotamian campaign, that the war would likely last longer, the new Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, cautioned that the Government of India needed to be more responsive to Indian opinion.[76] Towards the end of the year, after discussions with the government in London, he suggested that the British demonstrate their good faith – in light of the Indian war role – through a number of public actions, including awards of titles and honors to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled cotton excise duty, but most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete steps.[76] After more discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, announced the British aim of "increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire."[76] Although the plan envisioned limited self-government at first only in the provinces – with India emphatically within the British Empire – it represented the first British proposal for any form of representative government in a non-white colony.[76]
Earlier, at the onset of World War I, the reassignment of most of the British army in India to Europe and Mesopotamia had led the previous Viceroy, Lord Harding, to worry about the "risks involved in denuding India of troops."[74] Revolutionary violence had already been a concern in British India, and outlines of collaboration with Germany were being identified by British intelligence; consequently in 1915, to strengthen its powers during what it saw was a time of increased vulnerability, the Government of India passed the Defence of India Act, which allowed it to intern politically dangerous dissidents without due process and added to the power it already had – under the 1910 Press Act – both to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press.[77] Now, as constitutional reform began to be discussed in earnest, the British began to consider how new moderate Indians could be brought into the fold of constitutional politics and simultaneously, how the hand of established constitutionalists could be strengthened.[77] However, since the Government of India wanted to check the revolutionary problem, and since its reform plan was devised during a time when extremist violence had ebbed as a result of increased governmental control, it also began to consider how some of its war-time powers could be extended into peace time.[77]
Consequently in 1917, even as Edwin Montagu announced the new constitutional reforms, a sedition committee chaired by a British judge, Mr. S. A. T. Rowlatt, was tasked with investigating revolutionary conspiracies and the German and Bolshevik links to the violence in India,[78][79][80] with the unstated goal of extending the government's war-time powers.[76] The Rowlatt committee presented its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial insurgency: Bengal, the Bombay presidency, and the Punjab.[76] To combat subversive acts in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its war-time authority, which included the ability to try cases of sedition by a panel of three judges and without juries, exaction of securities from suspects, governmental overseeing of residences of suspects,[76] and the power for provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without trial.[81]
With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By year's end 1919, 1.5 million Indians had served in the armed services in either combatant or non-combatant roles, and India had provided £146 million in revenue for the war.[82] The increased taxes coupled with disruptions in both domestic and international trade had the effect of approximately doubling the index of overall prices in India between 1914 and 1920.[82] Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a growing unemployment crisis[83] and post-war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal provinces,[83] a situation that was made only worse by the failure of the 1918-19 monsoon and by profiteering and speculation.[82] The global influenza epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic woes,[83] and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.[84]
To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills.[81] Although the bills were authorised for legislative consideration by Edwin Montagu, they were done so unwillingly, with the accompanying declaration, "I loathe the suggestion at first sight of preserving the Defence of India Act in peace time to such an extent as Rowlatt and his friends think necessary."[76] In the ensuing discussion and vote in the Imperial Legislative Council, all Indian members voiced opposition to the bills. The Government of India was nevertheless able to use of its "official majority" to ensure passage of the bills early in 1919.[76] However, what it passed, in deference to the Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first bill, which now allowed extrajudicial powers, but for a period of exactly three years and for the prosecution solely of "anarchical and revolutionary movements," dropping entirely the second bill involving modification of the Indian Penal Code.[76] Even so, when it was passed the new Rowlatt Act aroused widespread indignation throughout India which finally culminated in the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre and brought Mohandas Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.[81][86]
Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[87] After more discussion by the government and parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee for the purpose of identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act of 1919 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919.[87] The new Act enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India's recourse to the "official majority" in unfavorable votes.[87] Although departments like defense, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications and income-tax were retained by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue and local self-government were transferred to the provinces.[87] The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council.[87] The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.
A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate.[87] In the provincial legislatures, the British continued to exercise some control by setting aside seats for special interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to British rule and less confrontational, were assigned more seats than their urban counterparts.[87] Seats were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, and college graduates. The principal of "communal representation," an integral part of the Minto-Morley reforms, and more recently of the Congress-Muslim League Lucknow Pact, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial legislative councils.[87] The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen as instruments of British control.[87] Its scope was, however, unsatisfactory to the Indian political leadership, famously expressed by Annie Beasant as something "unworthy of England to offer and India to accept"[88]
In 1935, after the Round Table Conferences, the British Parliament approved the Government of India Act of 1935, which authorised the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all provinces of British India, the creation of a central government incorporating both the British provinces and the princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities.[65] At this time, it was also decided to separate Burma from British India in 1937, to form a separate crown colony. The future Constitution of independent India would owe a great deal to the text of this act.[89] The act also provided for a bicameral national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the British government. Although the national federation was never realised, nationwide elections for provincial assemblies were held in 1937. Despite initial hesitation, the Congress took part in the elections and won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India,[90] and Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. In Britain, these victories were to later turn the tide for the idea of Indian independence.[90]
[edit] World War II
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in the war effort; however, it now took the view that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress.
The British government—through its Cripps' mission—attempted to secure Indian nationalists' cooperation in the war effort in exchange for independence afterwards; however, the negotiations between them and the Congress broke down. Gandhi, subsequently, launched the "Quit India" movement in August 1942, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. Along with all other Congress leaders, Gandhi was immediately imprisoned, and the country erupted in violent demonstrations led by students and later by peasant political groups, especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. The large war-time British Army presence in India led to most of the movement being crushed in a little more than six weeks;[91] nonetheless, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal.[91] In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive, however it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943.[92]
With Congress leaders in jail, attention also turned to Subhas Bose, who had been ousted from the Congress in 1939 following differences with the more conservative high command;[93] Bose now turned to the Axis powers for help with liberating India by force.[94] With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National Army, composed largely of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured at Singapore by the Japanese. From the onset of the war, the Japanese secret service had promoted unrest in South east Asia to destabilise the British war effort,[95] and came to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India), presided by Bose.[96] Bose's effort, however, was short lived; after the reverses of 1944, the reinforced British Indian Army in 1945 first halted and then reversed the Japanese U Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. Bose's Indian National Army surrendered with the recapture of Singapore, and Bose died in a plane crash soon thereafter. The trials of the INA soldiers at Red Fort in late 1945 however caused widespread public unrest and nationalist violence in India.[97]
[edit] Independence and partition
In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.[98] The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. These mutinies found much public support in India then gripped by the Red Fort Trials, and had the effect of spurring the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading to the Cabinet Mission to India led by the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and including Sir Stafford Cripps, who had visited four years before.[98]
Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India in which the Congress won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[99] The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaimed August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India's prime minister.
Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, and conscious that it had neither the mandate at home, the international support, nor the reliability of native forces for continuing to control an increasingly restless India,[100][101] decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.
As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.
Many millions of Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu refugees trekked across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, massive bloodshed followed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders died in the violence.[102] On August 14, 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The following day, August 15, 1947, India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General.
[edit] See also
- Imperialism in Asia
- Colonialism
- British Empire
- British rule in India for other periods when parts of India were under British rule.
- India Office
- Colonial India
- Historiography of the British Empire
- Indian independence movement
- List of Indian Princely States
- List of Indian Federal Legislation
- Governor-General of India
- Commander-in-Chief of India
- British Indian Army
- Indian Civil Service
- Order of the Indian Empire
- Anglo-Indian
- Anglo-Burmese people
- Macaulayism
[edit] Notes
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: from Skr. rāj: to reign, rule; cognate with L. rēx, rēg-is, OIr. rī, rīg king (see RICH).
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. "b. spec. the British dominion or rule in the Indian sub-continent (before 1947). In full, British raj.
- ^ *Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. Examples: 1955 Times 25 Aug. 9/7 It was effective against the British raj in India, and the conclusion drawn here is that the British knew that they were wrong. 1969 R. MILLAR Kut xv. 288 Sir Stanley Maude had taken command in Mesopotamia, displacing the raj of antique Indian Army commanders. 1975 H. R. ISAACS in H. M. Patel et al. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth 251 The post-independence régime in all its incarnations since the passing of the British Raj. For the latter usage, see: Google Scholar references: ("British Raj" in the primary sense of "British India," i.e. "regions of India under British rule") 1. "The important case of Islamic economics was a consciously constructed effort arising directly out of the anti-colonial struggle in the British Raj" 2 "... time" (1882: v). In keeping with the purpose of the Gazetteer (and indeed all such Gazetteers published for provinces in the British Raj), Atkinson's treatment ..." 3. "... Robert D'Arblay Gybbon-Monypenny, who had been born in the British Raj and educated at Sandhurst, afterwards seeing active service in the First World War ..." 4. "... In contrast, during the independence struggle in the British raj, the emphasis had always been on nationalism..." ("British Raj" in the second sense of "British India," i.e. "the British in India") 5. "Koch and the Europeans were entertained at clubs in the British Raj from which native Indians (called "wogs" for "worthy oriental gentleman") were excluded. ..." 6. "... prejudice and vindictiveness towards one's own race and, especially, toward someone of a different race who, as a servant in the British Raj, occupies a ..."
- ^ First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- ^ "Nepal." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
- ^ "Bhutan." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
- ^ "Sikkim." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 August 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-46212>.
- ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 59-60
- ^ 1. Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume IV, published under the authority of the Secretary of State for India-in-Council, 1909, Oxford University Press. page 5. Quote: "The history of British India falls, as observed by Sir C. P. Ilbert in his Government of India, into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century the East India Company is a trading corporation, existing on the sufferance of the native powers and in rivalry with the merchant companies of Holland and France. During the next century the Company acquires and consolidates its dominion, shares its sovereignty in increasing proportions with the Crown, and gradually loses its mercantile privileges and functions. After the mutiny of 1857 the remaining powers of the Company are transferred to the Crown, and then follows an era of peace in which India awakens to new life and progress." 2. The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the ... by Robert Harry Drayton, Statutes of the Realm - Law - 1770 Page 211 (3) "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed ..." 3. Edney, M.E. (1997) Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843, University of Chicago Press. 480 pages. ISBN 9780226184883 4. Hawes, C.J. (1996) Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833. Routledge, 217 pages. ISBN 0700704256.
- ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II 1908, p. 463,470 Quote1: "Before passing on to the political history of British India, which properly begins with the Anglo-French Wars in the Carnatic, ... (p.463)" Quote2: "The political history of the British in India begins in the eighteenth century with the French Wars in the Carnatic. (p.471)"
- ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60
- ^ a b c Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 46
- ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 56
- ^ Kashmir: The origins of the dispute, BBC News, January 16, 2002
- ^ a b c Moore 2001a, pp. 424-426
- ^ Moore 2001a, p. 424
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 96
- ^ a b c d e f Moore 2001a, p. 426
- ^ Moore 2001a, p. 426, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104
- ^ Quoted in Moore 2001a, p. 426
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 76, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104, Spear 1990, p. 149
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 72, Bayly 1990, p. 72
- ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 147
- ^ a b c d Spear 1990, pp. 147-148
- ^ European Madness and Gender in Nineteenth-century British India. Social History of Medicine 1996 9(3):357-382.
- ^ Robinson, Ronald Edward, & John Gallagher. 1968. Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday [1]
- ^ a b Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1859847390 pg 7
- ^ Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. ISBN 0385720270 ch 7
- ^ Cholera- Biological Weapons
- ^ The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State, By G. William Beardslee
- ^ INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Plague Through History, sciencemag.org
- ^ Malaria - Medical History of British India, National Library of Scotland
- ^ "Biography of Ronald Ross". The Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1902/ross-bio.html. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
- ^ Leprosy - Medical History of British India, National Library of Scotland
- ^ Smallpox History - Other histories of smallpox in South Asia
- ^ Feature Story: Smallpox
- ^ Smallpox and Vaccination in British India During the Last Seventy Years, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1945 January; 38(3): 135–140.
- ^ Smallpox - some unknown heroes in smallpox eradication, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics
- ^ Sir JJ Group of Hospitals
- ^ Rajat Kanta Ray, "Indian Society and the Establishment of British Supremacy, 1765-1818," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 508-29
- ^ Professor Ray agrees that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators.
- ^ P.J. Marshall, "The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700-1765," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 487-507
- ^ The Regulating Act - 1773
- ^ a b c d e Ludden 2002, p. 133
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 135
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 134
- ^ a b Robb 2004, pp. 126-129
- ^ a b c Peers 2006, pp. 45-47
- ^ Tomlinson 1993, p. 43
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 47, Brown 1994, p. 65
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, p. 67
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 79
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 169-172 Bose & Jalal 2003, pp. 88-103 Quote: "The 1857 rebellion was by and large confined to northern Indian Gangetic Plain and central India.", Brown 1994, pp. 85-87, and Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100-106
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 101
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 88
- ^ Metcalf 1991, p. 48
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 171, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 90
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Brown 1994, p. 92
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 102
- ^ Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Metcalf 1991, Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 173
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 92
- ^ Nehru 1946, p. 295
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 259), (Oldenburg 2007)
- ^ (Oldenburg 2007), (Stein 2001, p. 258)
- ^ a b (Oldenburg 2007)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 258)
- ^ a b (Stein 2001, p. 260)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 260) Quote: "The British knew about Indian famines well before the East India Company assumed political responsibility for India. Peter Mundy, an early seventeenth-century Company agent, reported a devastating series of bad harvests and food shortages in Gujarat and elsewhere in western India which drove cultivators and artisans to migrate, some making their way a thousand miles to the southern tip of India, where they continue to live. Mundy described the responses of the Mughal governor of the province, ..., he noted with appreciation the free food distributions ordered by Emperor Shah Jahan."
- ^ Angus Maddison, The World Economy, pages 109-112, (2001)
- ^ R. O. Christensen, "The State and Indian Railway Performance, 1870-1920" in Terri Gourvish, ed. Railways vol 1 (1996)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 159)
- ^ Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railroads that Made India, page 9 (2006)
- ^ Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railroads that Made India (2007)
- ^ a b c d Brown 1994, pp. 197-198
- ^ Olympic Games Antwerp 1920: Official Report, Nombre de bations representees, p. 168. Quote: "31 Nations avaient accepté l'invitation du Comité Olympique Belge: ... la Grèce - la Hollande Les Indes Anglaises - l'Italie - le Japon ..."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Brown 1994, pp. 203-204
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 201-203
- ^ Lovett 1920, p. 94, 187-191
- ^ Sarkar 1921, p. 137
- ^ Tinker 1968, p. 92
- ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 190
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 195-196
- ^ a b c Stein 2001, p. 304
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 208
- ^ Report of Commissioners, Vol I, New Delhi, p 105
- ^ Patil, V.S.. Subhas Chandra Bose, his contribution to Indian nationalism. Sterling Publishers, 1988.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown 1994, pp. 205-207
- ^ Chhabra 2005, p. 2
- ^ (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156)
- ^ a b (Low 1993, p. 154)
- ^ a b (Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 206-207)
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 418-420
- ^ Nehru 1942, p. 424
- ^ (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
- ^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
- ^ Lebra 1977, p. 31, (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
- ^ Chaudhuri 1953, p. 349, Sarkar 1983, p. 411,Hyam 2007, p. 115
- ^ a b (Judd 2004, pp. 172-173)
- ^ (Judd 2004, p. 172)
- ^ Hyam 2007, p. 106 Quote:By the end of 1945, he and the Commander-in-chief, General Auckinleck were advising that there was a real threat in 1946 of large scale anti-British Disorder amounting to even a well-organised rising aiming to expel the British by paralysing the administration. Quote:...it was clear to Attlee that everything depended on the spirit and reliability of the Indian Army:"Provided that they do their duty, armed insurrection in India would not be an insolube problem. If, however, the Indian Army was to go the other way, the picture would be very different... Quote:...Thus, Wavell concluded, if the army and the police "failed" Britain would be forced to go. In theory, it might be possible to revive and reinvigorate the services, and rule for another fifteent to trwenty years, but:It is a fallacy to suppose that the solution lies in trying to maintain status quo. We have no longer the resources, nor the necessary prestige or confidence in ourselves.
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 330 Quote: "India had always been a minority interest in British public life; no great body of public opinion now emerged to argue that war-weary and impoverished Britain should send troops and money to hold it against its will in an empire of doubtful value. By late 1946 both Prime Minister and Secretary of State for India recognized that neither international opinion no their own voters would stand for any reassertion of the raj, even if there had been the men, money, and administrative machinery with which to do so." Sarkar 1983, p. 418 Quote: "With a war weary army and people and a ravaged economy, Britain would have had to retreat; the Labour victory only quickened the process somewhat." Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 212 Quote: "More importantly, though victorious in war, Britain had suffered immensely in the struggle. It simply did not possess the manpower or economic resources required to coerce a restive India."
- ^ (Khosla 2001, p. 299)
[edit] References and further reading
[edit] Contemporary general textbooks
- Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004), From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi and London: Orient Longmans. Pp. xx, 548., ISBN 8125025960 .
- Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (2003), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, London and New York: Routledge, 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 304, ISBN 0415307872 .
- Brown, Judith M. (1994), Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 474, ISBN 0198731132 .
- Hyam, Ronald (2007), Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918-1968., Cambridge University Press., ISBN 0521866499 .
- Copland, Ian (2001), India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire (Seminar Studies in History Series), Harlow and London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. 160, ISBN 0582381738 .
- Judd, Dennis (2004), The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 280, ISBN 0192803581 .
- Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India, 4th edition. Routledge, Pp. xii, 448, ISBN 0415329205 .
- Ludden, David (2002), India And South Asia: A Short History, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Pp. xii, 306, ISBN 1851682376
- Markovits, Claude (ed) (2005), A History of Modern India 1480-1950 (Anthem South Asian Studies), Anthem Press. Pp. 607, ISBN 1843311526 .
- Metcalf, Barbara; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 0521682258 .
- Peers, Douglas M. (2006), India under Colonial Rule 1700-1885, Harlow and London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. xvi, 163, ISBN 058231738 .
- Robb, Peter (2004), A History of India (Palgrave Essential Histories), Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. xiv, 344, ISBN 0333691296 .
- Sarkar, Sumit (1983), Modern India: 1885-1947, Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd. Pp. xiv, 486, ISBN 0333904257 .
- Spear, Percival (1990), A History of India, Volume 2, New Delhi and London: Penguin Books. Pp. 298, ISBN 0140138366 .
- Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, ISBN 0195654463 .
- Wolpert, Stanley (2003), A New History of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 544, ISBN 0195166787 .
[edit] Monographs and collections
- Anderson, Clare (2007), Indian Uprising of 1857–8: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion, New York: Anthem Press, Pp. 217, ISBN 9781843312499, http://atlantis.terrassl.net/anthempress.com/product_info.php?cPath=52&products_id=293&osCsid=9a2s9o8mdu8066m551rr407123 [dead link]
- Ansari, Sarah (2005), Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947–1962, Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, Pp. 256, ISBN ISBN 019597834X
- Baker, David, Colonialism in an Indian Hinterland: The Central Provinces, 1820–1920, Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 374, ISBN 0195630491, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2059781?origin=JSTOR-pdf
- Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 0521386500 .
- Bayly, C. A. (2000), Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 426, ISBN 0521663601
- Brown; Louis, Wm. Roger, eds. (2001), Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 800, ISBN 0199246793
- Butalia, Urvashi (1998), The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Pp. 308, ISBN 0822324946
- Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan (1998), Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 400, ISBN 0521596920 .
- Chatterji, Joya (1993), Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 323, ISBN 0521523281 .
- Copland, Ian (2002), Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 316, ISBN 0521894360 .
- Fay, Peter W. (1993), The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press., ISBN 0472083422 .
- Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
- Gould, William (2004), Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 320, ISBN 0521830613 .
- Hyam, Ronald (2007), Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918-1968., Cambridge University Press., ISBN 0521866499. .
- Jalal, Ayesha (1993), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 334 pages, ISBN 0521458501 .
- Khan, Yasmin (2007), The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 250 pages, ISBN 0300120788
- Khosla, G. D. (2001), "Stern Reckoning", in Page, David; Inder Singh, Anita; Moon, Penderal et al., The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning, Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195658507
- Low, D. A. (1993), Eclipse of Empire, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xvi, 366, ISBN 0521457548 .
- Low, D. A. (2002), Britain and Indian Nationalism: The Imprint of Amibiguity 1929-1942, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 374, ISBN 0521892619 .
- Low, D. A., ed. (2004), Congress & the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle 1917-47, Second Edition, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xviii, 513, ISBN 0195683676 .
- Metcalf, Thomas R. (1991), The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857-1870, Riverdale Co. Pub. Pp. 352, ISBN 8185054991
- Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997), Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, Pp. 256, ISBN 0521589371
- Nehru, Jawaharlal (1946), The Discovery of India, The John Day company, OCLC 186312138
- Pandey, Gyanendra (2002), Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India, ISBN 0521002508
- Porter, Andrew, ed. (2001), Oxford History of the British Empire: Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 800, ISBN 0199246785
- Ramusack, Barbara (2004), The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 324, ISBN 0521039894
- Shaikh, Farzana (1989), Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 272., ISBN 0521363284 .
- Talbot; Singh, Gurharpal Singh, eds. (1999), Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 420, ISBN 0195790510 .
- Talbot, Ian (2002), Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 216., ISBN 0195795512 .
- Wainwright, A. Martin (1993), Inheritance of Empire: Britain, India, and the Balance of Power in Asia, 1938-55, Praeger Publishers. Pp. xvi, 256, ISBN 0275947335 .
- Wolpert, Stanley (2006), Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 272, ISBN 0195151984 .
[edit] Articles in journals or collections
- Banthia, Jayant; Dyson, Tim (1999), "Smallpox in Nineteenth-Century India", Population and Development Review 25 (4): 649–689, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199912%2925%3A4%3C649%3ASINI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Brown, Judith M. (2001), "India", in Brown, Judith M.; Louis, Wm. Roger, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 421–446, ISBN 0199246793
- Caldwell, John C (1998), "Malthus and the Less Developed World: The Pivotal Role of India", Population and Development Review 24 (4): 675–696, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199812%2924%3A4%3C675%3AMATLDW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-%23
- Derbyshire, I. D. (1987), "Economic Change and the Railways in North India, 1860-1914", Population Studies 21 (3): 521–545, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281987%2921%3A3%3C521%3AECATRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
- Drayton, Richard (2001), "Science, Medicine, and the British Empire", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 264–276, ISBN 0199246807
- Dyson, Tim (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part I", Population Studies 45 (1): 5–25, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-4728%28199103%2945%3A1%3C5%3AOTDOSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V
- Dyson, Tim (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part II", Population Studies 45 (2): 279–297, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-4728%28199107%2945%3A2%3C279%3AOTDOSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
- Frykenberg, Robert E. (2001), "India to 1858", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 194–213, ISBN 0199246807
- Gilmartin, David (1994), "Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin", The Journal of Asian Studies 53 (4): 1127–1149, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9118%28199411%2953%3A4%3C1127%3ASEAISC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
- Goswami, Manu (1998), "From Swadeshi to Swaraj: Nation, Economy, Territory in Colonial South Asia, 1870 to 1907", Comparative Studies in Society and History 40 (4): 609–636, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-4175%28199810%2940%3A4%3C609%3AFSTSNE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q
- Harnetty, Peter (1991), "'Deindustrialization' Revisited: The Handloom Weavers of the Central Provinces of India, c. 1800-1947", Modern Asian Studies 25 (3): 455–510, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199107%2925%3A3%3C455%3A%27RTHWO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5
- Heuman, Gad (2001), "Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Abolition", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 315–326, ISBN 0199246807
- Klein, Ira (1988), "Plague, Policy and Popular Unrest in British India", Modern Asian Studies 22 (4): 723–755, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281988%2922%3A4%3C723%3APPAPUI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
- Klein, Ira (2000), "Materialism, Mutiny and Modernization in British India", Modern Asian Studies 34 (3): 545–580, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28200007%2934%3A3%3C545%3AMMAMIB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I
- Kubicek, Robert (2001), "British Expansion, Empire, and Technological Change", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 247–269, ISBN 0199246785
- Moore, Robin J. (2001a), "Imperial India, 1858-1914", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 422–446, ISBN 0199246785
- Moore, Robin J. (2001b), "India in the 1940s", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 231–242, ISBN 0199246807
- Raj, Kapil (2000), "Colonial Encounters and the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities: Great Britain and India, 1760-1850", Osiris, 2nd Series 15 (Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise): 119–134, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0369-7827%282000%292%3A15%3C119%3ACEATFO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9
- Ray, Rajat Kanta (1995), "Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination: The Rise of the Bazaar, 1800-1914", Modern Asian Studies 29 (3): 449–554, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199507%2929%3A3%3C449%3AACITAO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J
- Raychaudhuri, Tapan (2001), "India, 1858 to the 1930s", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 214–230, ISBN 0199246807
- Robb, Peter (1997), "The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s", Modern Asian Studies 31 (2): 245–283, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199705%2931%3A2%3C245%3ATCSACO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Roy, Tirthankar (2002), "Economic History and Modern India: Redefining the Link", The Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (3): 109–130, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28200222%2916%3A3%3C109%3AEHAMIR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
- Simmons, Colin (1985), "'De-Industrialization', Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c. 1850-1947", Modern Asian Studies 19 (3): 593–622, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281985%2919%3A3%3C593%3A%27IATIE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Talbot, Ian (2001), "Pakistan's Emergence", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 253–263, ISBN 0199246807
- Tinker, Hugh (1968), India in the First World War and after. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1918-19: From War to Peace. (Oct., 1968), pp. 89-107, Sage Publications, ISSN: 00220094 .
- Tomlinson, B. R. (2001), "Economics and Empire: The Periphery and the Imperial Economy", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 53–74, ISBN 0199246785
- Washbrook, D. A. (2001), "India, 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 395–421, ISBN 0199246785
- Watts, Sheldon (1999), "British Development Policies and Malaria in India 1897-c. 1929", Past and Present (165): 141–181, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-2746%28199911%290%3A165%3C141%3ABDPAMI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
- Wylie, Diana (2001), "Disease, Diet, and Gender: Late Twentieth Century Perspectives on Empire", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 277–289, ISBN 0199246807
[edit] Classic histories and gazetteers
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II (1908), The Indian Empire, Historical, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxxv, 1 map, 573.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III (1907), The Indian Empire, Economic (Chapter X: Famine, pp. 475–502, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxxvi, 1 map, 520.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV (1907), The Indian Empire, Administrative, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxx, 1 map, 552.
- Lovett, Sir Verney (1920), A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement, New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, ISBN 81-7536-249-9
- Majumdar, R. C.; Raychaudhuri, H. C.; Datta, Kalikinkar (1950), An Advanced History of India, London: Macmillan and Company Limited. 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 1122, 7 maps, 5 coloured maps. .
- Smith, Vincent A. (1921), India in the British Period: Being Part III of the Oxford History of India, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 2nd edition. Pp. xxiv, 316 (469-784) .
[edit] Tertiary sources
- Oldenburg, Philip (2007), ""India: Movement for Freedom"", Encarta Encyclopedia . Archived 2009-10-31.
- Wolpert, Stanley (2007), "India: British Imperial Power 1858-1947 (Indian nationalism and the British response, 1885-1920; Prelude to Independence, 1920-1947)", Encyclopædia Britannica .
[edit] Related reading
- Bairoch, Paul, Economics and World History, University of Chicago Press, 1995
- Bhatia, B. M., Famines in India: A study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India with Special Reference to Food Problem, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 1985
- Bowle, John, The Imperial Achievement, Secker & Warburg, London, 1974, ISBN 978-0316104098
- Chapman, Pat Taste of the Raj, Hodder & Stoughton, London — ISBN 0340680350 (1997)
- Coates, Tim, (series editor), The Amritsar Massacre 1919 - General Dyer in the Punjab (Official Reports, including Dyer's Testimonies), Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) 1925, abridged edition, 2000, ISBN 0-11-702412-0
- Davis, Mike, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World 2001, ISBN 1-85984-739-0
- Dutt, Romesh C. Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land Assessments in India, first published 1900, 2005 edition by Adamant Media Corporation, Elibron Classics Series, ISBN 1-4021-5115-2
- Dutt, Romesh C. The Economic History of India under early British Rule, first published 1902, 2001 edition by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-24493-5
- Forbes, Rosita, India of the Princes', London, 1939
- Forrest, G. W., CIE, (editor), Selections from The State Papers of the Governors-General of India - Warren Hastings (2 vols), Blackwell's, Oxford, 1910
- James, Lawrence, Raj - The Making and Unmaking of British India, London, 1997, ISBN 0-316-64072-7
- Keay, John, The Honourable Company - A History of the English East India Company, HarperCollins, London, 1991, ISBN 0-00-217515-0
- Moorhouse, Geoffrey, India Britannica, Book Club Associates, UK, 1983
- Morris, Jan, with Simon Winchester, Stones of Empire - The Buildings of the Raj, Oxford University Press, 1st edition 1983 (paperback edition 1986, ISBN 0-19-282036-2
- Sen, Amartya, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982
- Srivastava, H.C., The History of Indian Famines from 1858-1918, Sri Ram Mehra and Co., Agra, 1968
- Voelcker, John Augustus, Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture, Indian Government publication, Calcutta, 2nd edition, 1897.
- Woodroffe, Sir John, Is India Civilized - Essays on Indian Culture, Madras, 1919.
[edit] External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: British India |
- British India Website
- The British Crown's consolidation of India
- The New Student's Reference Work/India (1914)
- Images of Empire Library, Bristol, UK
- October Offer regarding India's constitution, of His Majesty's Government 18 October 1939
- August Offer regarding India's constitution, of His Majesty's Government 8 August 1940
- British Ruled India (1757-1947) Bibliography of Books Articles and Dissertations Concentrating on 1914-1947
| |||||
Partition of India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
| Colonial India | ||||||
| Portuguese India | 1510–1961 | |||||
| Dutch India | 1605–1825 | |||||
| Danish India | 1696–1869 | |||||
| French India | 1759–1954 | |||||
| British India 1613–1947 | ||||||
| East India Company | 1612–1757 | |||||
| Company rule in India | 1757–1857 | |||||
| British Raj | 1858–1947 | |||||
| British rule in Burma | 1826–1947 | |||||
| Princely states | 1765–1947 | |||||
| Partition of India | 1947 | |||||
| | ||||||
The Partition of India (Hindi: भारत का विभाजन (हिन्दुस्तान का बंटवारा), Urdu: ہندوستان کی تقسیم Hindustān kī Taqsīm) was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation, on 14 August 1947 and 15 August 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India).
The partition was promulgated in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Indian Empire. The partition displaced up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian Empire, with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million.[1]
The partition of India included the geographical division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India), and the similar partition of the Punjab province into West Punjab (later the Pakistani Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory) and East Punjab (later the Indian Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh). The partition deal also included the division of state assets, including the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service and other administrative services, the Indian railways, and the central treasury.
In the aftermath of Partition, the princely states of India, which had been left by the Indian Independence Act 1947 to choose whether to accede to India or Pakistan or to remain outside them,[2] were all incorporated into one or other of the new dominions. The question of the choice to be made in this connection by Jammu and Kashmir led to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and other wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan.[3]
Contents[hide] |
Pakistan and India
Two self governing countries legally came into existence at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in Karachi, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan, so that the last British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi. However another reason for this arrangement was to avoid the appearance that Pakistan was seceding from a sovereign India. Therefore Pakistan celebrates Independence Day on 14 August, while India celebrates it on 15 August.
Another reason for Pakistan celebrating independence on 14 August is the adoption of new standard time in Pakistan after partition.[citation needed] The new standard time of West Pakistan (modern 'Pakistan') was behind Indian standard time by 30 minutes and the new standard time of East Pakistan (modern 'Bangladesh') was ahead of Indian standard time by 30 minutes, so technically on the stroke of midnight falling between 14 August and 15, when India became independent, it was still 11:30 p.m. on 14 August in West Pakistan.
Background
Late 19th and early 20th century
The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent.
The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests.
The 1932 communal award which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time.
| 1909 Prevailing majority Religions for different districts, Map of British Indian Empire. |  1909 Percentage of Muslims. |  1909 Percentage of Hindus. |  1909 Percentage of Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains. |
 1909 Prevailing (Aryan) Languages (Northern Region). |  1901 Population Density. |
1932–1942
In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conference that seemed to call for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus in the next seven years, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim political parties including the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India[4] Mashriqi was arrested on 19 March 1940.
Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, though against the division of the country, were also insisting on the same chasm between Hindus and Muslims. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:[5]
| " | India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main — the Hindus and the Muslims. | " |
Most of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mashriqi believed that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. Gandhi opposed the partition, saying,
| " | My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God. | " |
For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party (a major exit of many Muslim activists began in the 1930s), in the process enraging both Hindu Nationalists and Indian Muslim nationalists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.)
Politicians and community leaders on both sides whipped up mutual suspicion and fear, culminating in dreadful events such as the riots during the Muslim League's Direct Action Day of August 1946 in Calcutta, in which more than 5,000 people were killed and many more injured. As public order broke down all across northern India and Bengal, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.
1942–1946
Until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India.
Some historians believe Jinnah intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center.[6]
Other historians claim that Jinnah's real vision was for a Pakistan that extended into Hindu-majority areas of India, by demanding the inclusion of the East of Punjab and West of Bengal, including Assam, a Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir, a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.[citation needed]
The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements, like paramountcy.
The British Colonial Administration consisted of Secretary of State for India, the India Office, the Governor-General of India, and the Indian Civil Service. The British were in favour of keeping the area united. The 1946 Cabinet Mission was sent to try and reach a compromise between Congress and the Muslim League. A compromise proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local governments won initial acceptance, but Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralized state and Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan.[7]
The Indian political parties were:
- All India Muslim League,
- Communist Party of India,
- Hindu Mahasabha,
- Indian National Congress,
- Khaksar Tehrik, and
- Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab).
The Partition: 1947
Mountbatten Plan
The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.
The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government-commissioned report usually referred to as the Radcliffe Line after the London lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who wrote it. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of the colony, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.
On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations. The union formed from the combination of the Hindu states assumed the name India which automatically granted it the seat of British India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state.[8]
The 625 Princely States were given a choice of which country to join.
Geography of the partition: the Radcliffe Line
The Punjab — the region of the five rivers east of Indus: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — consists of interfluvial doabs, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Bari doab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs, although some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery (Sahiwal) were all disputed.[9]
All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsils (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. In addition, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).[9]
Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman.[9]
The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as:
"To demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab, on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will take into account other factors."[9]
Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."[9]
Independence and population exchanges
Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition.
About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.[citation needed]
The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.[10]
Punjab
The Indian state of Punjab was created in 1947, when the Partition of India split the former Raj province of Punjab between India and Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab Province; the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern part became India's Punjab state. Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and so the partition saw many people displaced and much intercommunal violence.
Lahore and Amritsar were at the center of the problem, the British were not sure where to place them - make them part of India or Pakistan. The British decided to give Lahore to Pakistan, whilst Amritsar became part of India. Areas in west Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujart, had a large Sikh population and many of the residents were attacked or killed by radical Muslims.[citation needed] On the other side in East Punjab cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Gurdaspur had a majority Muslim population in which many of them were wiped out by Sikh guerrillas who launched an all out war against the Muslims.
Bengal
The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal belonging to India, and East Bengal belonging to Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
While Muslim majority districts of Murshidabad was given to India, Hindu majority district Khulna and the Buddhist majority Chittagong division was given to Pakistan by the award.
Sindh
Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in Sindh following Partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in the cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. However, because of an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India.
Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus moved into India.[11] Unlike the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57 million.[citation needed]
Kashmir conflict
The Princely state of Kashmir and Jammu had a majority Muslim population in the Kashmir valley and a majority Hindu population in Jammu and sparse population elsewhere. The Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India at the outbreak of violence. This Kashmir conflict lead to the 1947 war between India and Pakistan in that region.
Perspectives
The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the subcontinent today. The British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line in India's favour since everyone agreed India would be a more desirable country for most.[12][13] However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.[citation needed]
Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition.[14] Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds[15]
| " | at the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless | " |
However, some argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.[16] Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After World War II, Britain had limited resources,[17] perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances.[18] Historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.[19]
Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire ceased to be a world power, following Curzon's dictum that "While we hold on to India, we are a first-rate power. If we lose India, we will decline to a third-rate power."
Delhi Punjabi refugees
An estimated 25 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs (1947–present) crossed the newly drawn borders to reach their new homelands. These estimates are based on comparisons of decadal censuses from 1941 and 1951 with adjustments for normal population growth in the areas of migration. In northern India - undivided Punjab and North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) - nearly 12 million were forced to move from as early as March 1947 following the Rawalpindi violence.
Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city - the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917.939) to a little less than 2 million (1.744.072) between the period 1941-1951.[20] The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Old Fort Purana Qila), Red Fort (Red Fort), and military barracks in Kingsway (around the present Delhi university). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat.
The camp sites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. A number of housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period like Lajpat Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin, Punjabi Bagh, Rehgar Pura, Jungpura and Kingsway Camp.
A number of schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, easy loans to start businesses, were provided for the refugees at all-India level. The Delhi refugees, however, were able to make use of these facilities much better than their counterparts elsewhere.[21]
Refugees settled in India
Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) settled across Eastern India and Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands.
Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis.
Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, though the loss of a homeland has had a deeper and lasting effect on their Sindhi culture.
In late 2004, the Sindhi diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India which asked the Government of India to delete the word "Sindh" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.
Refugees settled in Pakistan
In the aftermath of partition, a huge population exchange occurred between the two newly-formed states. About 14.5 million people crossed the borders, including 7,226,000 Muslims came to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. About 5.5 million settled in Punjab Pakistan and around 1.5 million settled in Sindh.
Most of those refugees who settled in Punjab Pakistan they came from Indian Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. Most of those refugees who arrived in Sindh came from northern and central urban centers of India, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan via Wahga and Munabao border, however a limited number of muhajirs also arrived by air and on ships. People who wished to go to India from all over Sindh awaited their departure to India by ship at the Swaminarayan temple in Karachi and were visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.[22]
The majority of Urdu speaking refugees who migrated after the independence were settled in the port city of Karachi in southern Sindh and in the cities of Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah and Mirpurkhas. As well the above many Urdu-speakers settled in the cities of Punjab mainly in Lahore, Multan, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi. the number of migrants in Sindh was placed at over 540,000 of whom two-third were urban. In case of Karachi, from a population of around 400,000 in 1947, it turned into more than 1.3 million in 1953.
Former President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, was born in the Nagar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj, Delhi, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan was born in Karnal (now in Haryana). The 7-year longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, General Rahimuddin Khan, was born in the pre-dominantly Pathan city of Kaimganj, which now lies in Uttar Pradesh. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who came to power in a military coup in 1977, was born in Jalandhar, East Punjab. The families of all four men opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition.
 An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White. |  Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947. |  "With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-White, 1947 |  A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan |
 Train to Pakistan steaming out of New Delhi Railway Station, 1947. |
Artistic depictions of the Partition
In addition to the enormous historical literature on the Partition, there is also an extensive body of artistic work (novels, short stories, poetry, films, plays, paintings, etc.) that deals imaginatively with the pain and horror of the event.
See also
- Indian reunification
- British East India Company
- British India
- List of Indian Princely States
- Indian independence movement
- Pakistan Movement
- East Bengal
- History of Bangladesh
- History of India
- History of Pakistan
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
- India (disambiguation)
References
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 221–222
- ^ Revised Statute from The UK Statute Law Database: Indian Independence Act 1947 (c.30) at opsi.gov.uk
- ^ Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990, Roxford Books 1991, ISBN 0-907129-06-4
- ^ Nasim Yousaf: Hidden Facts Behind British India's Freedom: A Scholarly Look into Allama Mashraqi and Quaid-e-Azam's Political Conflict
- ^ V.D.Savarkar, Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya Hindu Rasthra Darshan (Collected works of V.D.Savarkar) Vol VI, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p 296
- ^ Jalal, Ayesha Jalal (1985). The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the Demand Pakistan. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India.
- ^ Thomas RGC, Nations, States, and Secession: Lessons from the Former Yugoslavia, Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 5 Number 4 Fall 1994, pp. 40–65, Duke University Press
- ^ a b c d e (Spate 1947, pp. 126-137)
- ^ Death toll in the partition
- ^ Markovits, Claude (2000). The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750-1947. Cambridge University Press. pp. 278. ISBN 0521622859.
- ^ K. Z. Islam, 2002, The Punjab Boundary Award, Inretrospect
- ^ Partitioning India over lunch, Memoirs of a British civil servant Christopher Beaumont
- ^ Stanley Wolpert, 2006, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-515198-4
- ^ Richard Symonds, 1950, The Making of Pakistan, London, ASIN B0000CHMB1, p 74
- ^ "Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India" Lawrence J. Butler, 2002, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, p 72
- ^ Lawrence J. Butler, 2002, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, p 72
- ^ Ronald Hyam, Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-1968, page 113; Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521866499, 2007
- ^ Lawrence James, Rise and Fall of the British Empire
- ^ Census of India, 1941 and 1951.
- ^ Kaur, Ravinder (2007). Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195683776.
- ^ Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar (2007). The long partition and the making of modern South Asia. Columbia University Press. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EfhqQLr96VgC&dq=&client=firefox-a&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. Retrieved 22 May 2009. Page 52
Further reading
Popularizations- Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre: Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-638851-5
- Zubrzycki, John. (2006) The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince in the Australian Outback. Pan Macmillan, Australia. ISBN 978-0-3304-2321-2.
- Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam: India Wins Freedom, Orient Longman, 1988. ISBN 81-250-0514-5
- Ansari, Sarah. 2005. Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947—1962. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 256 pages. ISBN 019597834X.
- Butalia, Urvashi. 1998. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 308 pages. ISBN 0822324946
- Chatterji, Joya. 2002. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932—1947. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 323 pages. ISBN 0521523281.
- Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
- Gossman, Partricia. 1999. Riots and Victims: Violence and the Construction of Communal Identity Among Bengali Muslims, 1905-1947. Westview Press. 224 pages. ISBN 0813336252
- Hansen, Anders Bjørn. 2004. "Partition and Genocide: Manifestation of Violence in Punjab 1937-1947", India Research Press. ISBN 9788187943259.
- Hasan, Mushirul (2001), India's Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 444 pages, ISBN 0195635043 .
- Ikram, S. M. 1995. Indian Muslims and Partition of India. Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 8171563740
- Jain, Jasbir (2007), Reading Partition, Living Partition, Rawat Publications, 338 pages, ISBN 8131600459
- Jalal, Ayesha (1993), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 334 pages, ISBN 0521458501
- Kaur, Ravinder. 2007. "Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi". Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195683776.
- Khan, Yasmin (2007), The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 250 pages, ISBN 0300120788
- Lamb, Alastair (1991), Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990, Roxford Books, ISBN 0-907129-06-4
- Metcalf, Barbara; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 0521682258 .
- Page, David, Anita Inder Singh, Penderel Moon, G. D. Khosla, and Mushirul Hasan. 2001. The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195658507
- Pal, Anadish Kumar. 2010. World Guide to the Partition of INDIA. Kindle Edition: Amazon Digital Services. 282 KB. ASIN B0036OSCAC
- Pandey, Gyanendra. 2002. Remembering Partition:: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambride, UK: Cambridge University Press. 232 pages. ISBN 0521002508
- Raza, Hashim S. 1989. Mountbatten and the partition of India. New Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 81-7156-059-8
- Shaikh, Farzana. 1989. Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0521363284.
- Talbot, Ian and Gurharpal Singh (eds). 1999. Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 420 pages. ISBN 0195790510.
- Talbot, Ian. 2002. Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 216 pages. ISBN 0195795512.
- Talbot, Ian. 2006. Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar. Oxford and Karachi: Oxford University Press. 350 pages. ISBN 0195472268.
- Wolpert, Stanley. 2006. Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0195151984.
- J. Butler, Lawrence. 2002. Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World. London: I.B.Tauris. 256 pages. ISBN 186064449X
- Khosla, G. D. Stern reckoning : a survey of the events leading up to and following the partition of India New Delhi: Oxford University Press:358 pages Published: February 1990 ISBN 0195624173
- Review by Chudhry Manzoor Ahmed Marxist MP in Pakistani Parliament book by Lal Khan 'Partition can it be undone?'
- Gilmartin, David. 1998. "Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative." The Journal of Asian Studies, 57(4):1068-1095.
- Jeffrey, Robin. 1974. "The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947" - Modern Asian Studies 8(4):491-520.
- Kaur Ravinder. 2007. "India and Pakistan: Partition Lessons". Open Democracy.
- Kaur, Ravinder. 2006. "The Last Journey: Social Class in the Partition of India". Economic and Political Weekly, June 2006. www.epw.org.in
- Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali. 2005. "Divided Homelands, Hostile Homes: Partition, Women and Homelessness". Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 40(2):141-154.
- Morris-Jones. 1983. "Thirty-Six Years Later: The Mixed Legacies of Mountbatten's Transfer of Power". International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), 59(4):621-628.
- Spate, O. H. K. (1947), "The Partition of the Punjab and of Bengal", The Geographical Journal 110 (4/6): 201–218
- Spear, Percival. 1958. "Britain's Transfer of Power in India." Pacific Affairs, 31(2):173-180.
- Talbot, Ian. 1994. "Planning for Pakistan: The Planning Committee of the All-India Muslim League, 1943-46". Modern Asian Studies, 28(4):875-889.
- Visaria, Pravin M. 1969. "Migration Between India and Pakistan, 1951-61" Demography, 6(3):323-334.
External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Partition of British India |
- Select Research Bibliography on the Partition of India, Compiled by Vinay Lal, Department of History, UCLA; University of California at Los Angeles list
- A select list of Indian Publications on the Partition of India (Punjab & Bengal); University of Virginia list
- South Asian History: Colonial India — University of California, Berkeley Collection of documents on colonial India, Independence, and Partition
- Indian Nationalism — Fordham University archive of relevant public-domain documents
- Clip from 1947 newsreel showing Indian independence ceremony
- Through My Eyes Website Imperial War Museum - Online Exhibition (including images, video and interviews with refugees from the Partition of India)
- From Subjects to Citizens: Society and the Everyday State in India and Pakistan 1947 - 1964 Podcast of 12 August 2009 conference at Royal Holloway University of London with Sarah Ansari, Ornit Shani, Vazira Zamindar, Ravinder Kaur, William Gould and others.
- A People Partitioned Five radio programmes broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1997 containing the voices of people across South Asia who lived through Partition.
| |||||||||||||||||
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment