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The Hindu majority in the subcontinent was incapable of grabbing power back from the Muslim rulers. They needed a deliverer. Britain and other European powers arrived in India as traders but became deliverers, much to the displeasure of the Muslims. The latter had come as conquerors from Central Asia and Afghanistan and made India their home. They spread the Muslim faith to one-third of the population, and in the process perpetrated untold misery on the majority. The two-thirds Hindu majority, under their passive religion, had lost their will to fight. They endured whatever was thrown at them.
After 1857 the Hindus sided with the British, who were busy removing any challenge to their authority. The Muslim aristocracy of the Mogul era was hostile to the British Raj. To overcome this, they removed the leadership from its population base and stripped them of their money, power and land. In the absence of all of these, any future challenge to British authority was eliminated.
Within ten years of the British takeover in 1857, the country had been pacified and rule of law and justice established. People's confidence in the new master soared. T.B. Macauly's education system began to pay dividends. Lower-rank administrative jobs were filled with English-educated Hindus and they became the backbone of the Raj.
Muslims stayed out of the British education system, as they were totally unreconciled with the change. It was not until the early 20th century that the Muslim intelligentsia realized their mistake, and by then it was too late. Hindu power was second only to the British. Now, it became an alternative to British rule. Early freedom fighters like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishan Gokhale made resurgent Hindu power the basis of their demand for self rule.
With the return of most foreign soldiers from India, after putting down the great Indian Mutiny (the first War of Independence in 1857), the British went looking for politically reliable communities who could provide them recruits for the newly organized Indian Army. The Muslims of Delhi and the Gangetic heartland were sidelined. So were the Brahmins -- who had initiated the mutiny and hence could not be hired back into the army.
Very cleverly, the British selected politically reliable communities who had not participated in the mutiny or supported the freedom fight and designated them the "martial classes." Future Indian army recruits came from these communities. Hence the Gurkhas, Kumaonis, Sikhs, Rohillas, Madrasis, Punjabi Mussulmen, Pathans, Dogras and Rajputs from the hills of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab became the backbone of the new Indian army. The Madrasis and Bengalis provided technical capabilities.
The newly organized army safeguarded the Indian border, kept Russian influence in Afghanistan in check and also provided internal security. This lightly equipped but highly trained army became the backbone of future India. Today, the British have been gone for 60 years, but the Indian Army still follows the British organization, training and fighting methods.
By the early 1890s, the civil and military organization was as follows: The British "Sahib" sat at the top, but allowed Hindu clerks to run things for him. The judicial system was exclusively British and very fair. Young men of aristocratic background were educated in England in the intricacies of the English judicial system. Back home they provided the necessary legal basis for the justice system. The reorganized Indian army, after the Mutiny of 1857, for 70 years stayed officered by the British and soldiered by the Indians. In short this combination became the backbone of the British Raj. A significant number of British regiments were retained in India for internal security, as the British could never forget the 1857 experience. Indian and Muslim army officers appeared on the scene only after World War I.
Muslim resurgence began early in the 20th century in Muslim majority areas of Punjab and Bengal and in some places in South India. They grudgingly accepted the British mastery and began to join the civil administration and military services in droves. The British badly needed Muslims in the administration. They realized the growing Hindu influence and wished to counter it -- hence they began the great game of divide and rule. This continued, with dire consequences, till they finally left India in 1947. The net impact of the divide-and-rule policy was the creation of the new nation of Pakistan.
In the 100 years of British Crown rule over India, until 1947, the British introduced their legal and justice system, organized a formidable civil service, provided modern military training and organization to a largely medieval army, reorganized the antiquated tax system which had continued since Emperor Akbar (circa 1600), set up an export and import system -- largely for their own benefit but nevertheless as a basis for future trade -- built one of the world's greatest water irrigation systems in Pakistani Punjab, created a rail and road network to facilitate transportation but also to feed the growing import/export trade, extended the education system to include universities and colleges of higher learning and introduced the Western dress code, which has become universal in India. Last of all we should not forget to mention once again that the British ended Muslim rule over a largely Hindu population in the subcontinent.
The British also failed miserably in a few areas -- like food grain output, which resulted in huge famines. They killed industry and commerce for their own benefit, failed to include social welfare in their agenda, took anything of value out of India and left India on tenterhooks when they finally vacated the seat of power. They must also be held responsible for three major wars between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, since they initiated this rivalry.
India's eternal thanks will always be due for all the good things the British left behind. On the contrary the economic devastation they perpetuated over an otherwise prosperous nation cannot be forgotten. To summarize, we must be thankful to the British for restoring Hindus to power, and also remind them that the present state of economic backwardness in India is their creation.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
