The EU

THE EU

The European Union comprises 27 member states. The EU is a trading bloc and a political union.

After the Second World War some people in Europe wanted to prevent war ever again. They believed that commerce and co-operation would achieve this.

Sir Winston Churchill called for a ‘United States of Europe.’ However, Churchill said that the United Kingdom should not join it but encourage it from the outside.

They founded the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).  Several countries in Western Europe joined ECSC. Members of the ECSC shared resources. Steel can be used to make weapons of war. Coal was used to power factories and trains. Factories could manufacture weapons and trains could take soldiers to war. By pooling resources it was believed that these countries could never fight against each other.

In 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC) was founded by the Treaty of Rome. The EEC had six members states: West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Belgium. The EEC was often known as ‘the Common Market’. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg already had a customs union called the Benelux.

Note that from 1945 to 1990 Germany was divided into East Germany and West Germany. West Germany’s official named was the Federal Republic of Germany. Germany reunited in 1990 and has the constitutional title the Federal Republic of Germany.

The EEC was just a common market at first. Goods and services from one country could be bought in another. Until that time each land had its own regulations. Goods and services from other countries were often not been allowed because they did not comply with national regulations. People had to pay tax to move goods across borders.

It was decided to place the capital in Brussels. No one could suspect Belgium of being so strong as to dominate Europe. Belgium is a trilingual country that embodies the European idyll.

The founders of the EEC were two Frenchmen: Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann. They wanted a United States of Europe (USE). They saw the USA as the model. The USA has 50 states. Schumann and Monnet say the European countries as the 20 or 30 future states of their USE. However, they were aware that this plan was far too radical for many people. National identity was very strong. Many people jealously guarded national independence. They believed that their identity would be subverted by joining a USE. Monnet and Schumann said that their European Project had to move very slowly. But step by step European nations would integrate. They would co-operate on more and more issues. They would become inexorably more united.

The EEC was also an attempt to keep Western Europe safe from communism. The founders of the EEC saw that mass unemployment and hyperinflation in the 1920s and 1930s had caused so much suffering and despair that people lost their confidence in democracy and became easy prey for totalitarians like communism and Nazism.

In 1945 the Soviet Union took over several eastern European countries after the defeat of Germany. The Red Army (i.e. Soviet) occupied these countries against their will. The Soviet Union abducted democratic politicians and took them illegally to the Soviet Union where they were held for years of executed. The Soviets rigged elections in Eastern European to ensure that communists were elected. Puppet governments were established in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The communist system was imposed.

In Eastern Europe an organisation was established called Comecon – communist economic community.

The EU wished to resist communism.

The European Parliament was founded. It alternates between Brussels and Strasbourg.  At first its members were nominated by national parliaments.

Not everyone likes the EU. Those who dislike it are called eurosceptics. Those who like it are europhiles.

The EEC took in more member states. In 1973 the UK, Republic of Ireland and Denmark joined.

Norway refused to join because it would have lost exclusive access to its fishing grounds. A proposal to join the EEC was voted down in a referendum.

In 1979 the European Parliament held its first elections. The people elected thereto are MEPs (Members of the European Parliament).

Greece, Spain and Portugal joined in the 1980s.

In 1992 the Treaty of Maastricht was signed. This founded the European Union (EU). The EEC turned into the EU in 1993.

The EU is about the four freedoms. These are the free movement of people, goods, capital and services. You can sell almost any service or product in another member state. You can move money and valuables from one EU country to another.

All EU citizens have the right to live and work in other member states. They can vote in local elections and European elections in another member state. They also have a right to stand for election to the European Parliament in another member state. A French socialist was elected to represent Italy in the European Parliament.

In 1993 European citizenship was created. This adds to and does not replace national citizenship. Everyone in the EU is a European citizen as well as a citizen of his or her member state.

The European Commission is the executive of the EU. It is the equivalent of a cabinet of ministers. There are 27 commissioners. One is from each member state. Only the European Commission can propose legislation.

The European Parliament is the legislature. It is weighted towards the smaller member states. Malta has 12 times the per capita representation of Germany. Germany is the largest member state in population.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is based in Luxembourg. The ECJ is the judicial branch of the EU.

In the 1990s many europhiles wanted to set up a single European currency. They decided on the name the Euro. In 1993 it was decided that the Euro would soon be launched. The UK and Denmark chose not to join the Euro.

In 1995 Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the EU. The EU talked about taking in former communist countries.

In 2002 the Euro was finally launched as a real currency. Most EU countries use the Euro. Countries that use the Euro are said to be in the Eurozone. Some countries are not in the EU but use the Euro. These include Monaco, the Vatican City, Montenegro, Kosovo and Andorra.

In 2004 ten more members joined. These included Eastern European lands as well as Cyprus and Malta.

In 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined. In 2018 Croatia joined the EU.

The EU is grossly profligate. Billions of Euros are squandered every year. There is a great deal of embezzlement. The Common Agricultural Policy keeps food prices high. It pays people not to grow food. Some of the payments for not producing food are paid to very wealthy landlords like Prince Charles (now King Charles III). It dumps food on developing markets. It paid people to grow tobacco which it is illegal to sell because it is too strong.

The Common Fisheries Policy led to overfishing. Many fish are caught and thrown back into the sea dead. EU countries have to share their fishing grounds.

All EU member states have the absolute right to leave the EU at any time.

The UK left the EU in 2020. It is the only member state to ever do so.

Note that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is NOT an EU Court. This is a common misconception. The ECHR is based in Strasbourg.

The EU has a flag with 12 stars. These reflect the 12 member states at the time the flag was conceived in 1992. It was decided not to add more stars as more members joined. The EU has an anthem – the Ode to Joy.

The EU has a Rapid Reaction Force. This is an army in all but name. The EU Rapid Reaction Force has engaged in peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Its naval element has patrolled the Indian Ocean to stop piracy.

The EU has a common foreign policy and defence policy. It has external representative offices.

All citizens of EU states are also citizens of the EU. They have the right to live and work in all other member states unless they are serious criminals.

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1. When was the EEC founded?
2. What does EEC stand for?
3.  What was the EEC sometimes known as?
4. Which Treaty founded the EEC?
5. When did the UK join the EEC?
6.  When was the EU founded?
7. When was the Euro launched as a paper currency?
8.  Are all EU countries in the Eurozone?
9. Name one non-EU country that used the Euro?
10. What is the ECJ?
11. What is the cabinet of the EU called?
12.  Which two cities host the European Parliament?>
13. How many stars are on the EU Flag?
14. What rights do EU citizens have in member states other than their own?
15. Which country has the largest population in the EU?
16.  Do all member states have the same per capita representation in the European Parliament?
17. Does the EU have a common foreign policy?
18. Which Treaty formed the EU?
19. Does a member state have the right to leave the EU?
20.  Do you support the EU? Ten marks.

Indira Gandhi. super advanced course lesson 10

super advanced course lesson 10

INDIRA GANDHI

In 1917 Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was born at Allahabad, India. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru who was a barrister and a luminary in the Congress Party. Her mother was Kamala Nehru. Indira’s grandfather Motilal was also a barrister and had been leader of Congress.

The family were Hindus and had come from Kashmir a century earlier. They were fluent in Hindi and English.

Indira was born several years after her parents wed. She was a much longed for child. Her middle name means ‘dear to the sight.’ She was given the best education money could buy. She grew up in a large and commodious house with extensive gardens and several servants. She was cognizant that not everyone was so blessed as her. Some people in that city lived in abject penury.

In the 1920s her family started to oppose the British Raj outright. Her father and grandfather were frequently arrested. They were fined for civil disobedience. They refused to pay these fines. Policemen came to the house to confiscate goods to the value of the fine. As the police tried to take away the furniture the toddler Indira punched them.

Indira totally agreed with the Congress Party. Her family decided not to buy any British products. They decided that they would also destroy all the British made objects they owned. In public in held a bonfire and burnt their pricey British clothes. In solidarity Indira burnt her treasured dolls.

In the 1920s Kamala was plagued by ill health. She gave birth to a boy who died within days.

In the 1930s Kamala died. Indira’s relationship with her father became even closer. Being an only child was highly unusual back then.

As a teenager she met Ferozevarun Gandhi who proposed marriage to her. She turned him down because she was of legal age but she considered herself too young.

In time Indira was sent to school at Badminton, England. She was fairly scholarly.

In 1935 Indira went to Oxford University. She attended Somerville College. This was an all female college. She joined the Labour Club. Indira was attracted to the UK Labour Party because they were sympathetic to Indian independence.

Whilst in the UK she was dating Ferozevarun Gandhi. He was a Parsee which is a very minor Indian religion. He was studying at the London School of Economics (LSE). Indira and Ferozevarun visited Paris together.

Indira struggled with Latin at Oxford. She soon dropped out.

Ferozevarun and Indira sailed to India. They became engaged. In 1942 they married in Allahabad.  The marriage was conducted according to Hindu usages. Thereafter she was known as Mrs Gandhi.

Indira soon became pregnant. Her husband was arrested for anti-colonial agitation. Indira then gave birth to her firstborn Rajiv in 1944.  In 1945 Ferozevarun was set free. In 1946 their second child Sanjay was born.

In 1947 India became independent. Indira was in the Congress Party. India granted women political equality upon independence.

In the 1950s Indira entered politics. She rose rapidly. Her husband worked as a journalist.

Indira traveled abroad with her father. She and her sons sailed with the prime minister to Indonesia for the Bandung Conference.

By the mid 1950s Indira and her husband were estranged. They lived separately but did not divorce. There was a stigma surrounding divorce at the time.

Indira sent her sons to boarding school. They attended the Doon School which is in Dehra Dun. Dehra Dun is in the hills north of Delhi. The Doon School is one of India’s elite schools and was founded by an Eton schoolmaster in the 1930s.

In 1960 Ferozevarun died. Indira never remarried.

By the early 1960s Indira was a cabinet minister. Her father was visibly ailing.

In 1964 Nehru died. He was replaced as prime minister by Lal Bahadur Shastri.

In 1965 Shastri died in the Soviet Union. Some suspect that he was poisoned.

Indira was made prime minister. She was the second woman in the world to become prime minister. She said she wanted to advance women’s rights and abolish pauperism.

Mrs Gandhi tacked towards the USSR. The prime minister believed that India needed to take advantage of all that the Soviets had to offer.  She was not communist but was not anti-communist either. I P Gandhi scorned American rhetoric about democracy when the US propped up so many pernicious dictatorships. She excoriated the United States for fighting in Vietnam. The USA had decided to back Pakistan a religiously discriminatory military dictatorship over India which was one of the freest countries on earth. Indira visited the USSR several times and lauded it for its achievements.

Indira continued to try to help lower caste people. She believed positive discrimination must be used to help these people. She was also eager to advance women. Mrs Gandhi outlawed dowries. That is because some Hindus believe that a bride’s family must offer a dowry. If a woman’s family did not have enough money then she could not wed. The amount for dowries went up and up. It became ruinous. Mr Gandhi said this system was pernicious and ruined families. A woman who did not wed was scorned by some.

Under Mrs G the licence raj continued. To produce or import things people needed licences. This was intended to ensure there was no useless overproduction. The needs of the poor would be provided for. She did not want wealth leaving India with people buying many costly foreign manufactures. She pursued a socialist economic policy.

Some in Congress were unhappy with her. Some of the old guard were envious because they wanted the top job. They regarded her as inexperienced.

In 1971 she played a blinder against Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from East Pakistan fled to India because the Pakistani Army was slaughtering civilians. When the sympathy of the world was clearly with India Mrs G ordered an invasion. The Pakistani Army in East Pakistan was smashed in short order.

Indians were jubilant. Bangladesh was free. Mrs G’s popularity was at its apogee. She held an election and won a resounding victory.

Her foes accused her of having a conceit of herself. She was depicted by cartoonists as Queen Victoria. Perhaps victory went to her head and she was haughty.

Sanjay Gandhi entered Parliament. Rajiv was not attracted to politics. He flew for Air India.

The Government of India wanted to reduce the population. A policy of vasectomies was introduced. Sometimes it was forced on men and this was illegal. Sanjay was involved in implementing this policy.  Some people left Congress over this.

In 1974 the oil crisis struck. A legal challenge deposed her as an MP. She declared a state of emergency.

The hike in oil prices hit India very hard. It became costly to generate electricity. It became too expensive to transport food and other goods by truck. Therefore the price of foodstuffs increased.

Mrs G met Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was leader of the Conservative Party. She was nervous. Mrs G advised the woman to be more self-assured or she would never make it as PM.

In 1976 Sanjay died in an air crash. Indira was distraught. Her other son Rajiv agreed to enter the political arena.

In 1977 the state of emergency ended. Elections were held. Mrs G was defeated. Congress went into opposition.

In 1979 another election was held. Indira’s party was known as Congress (Indira) to distinguish it from other parties that used the name Congress. Congress (Indira) won a clear victory. Mrs G was back as prime minister.

Mrs G had to contend with an insurgency in the Punjab. She had to order the army to be more pro active.

Indira flew around the world. She was respected by statesmen far and wide. She maintained a cordial relationship with the West as well as the USSR. Mrs G visited the United States and the UK. She also hosted the Queen of the United Kingdom on a state visit to India.

In June 1984 the prime minister ordered the army to defeat the KLF which was holed up in the Golden Temple, Amritsar. This is the holiest site of Sikhism. The army achieved its objective. However, the fighting in the Golden Temple enraged Sikhs.

Some of the PM’s bodyguards were Sikhs. She was advised not to allow Sikh soldiers near her. Some of them might decided to seek revenge for the damage to their holiest site. Mrs G said she trusted her men and would not send the Sikhs away because that would be bigotry.

On 31 October 1984 two Sikh soldiers decided that they would slay the prime minister. Mrs Gandhi was about to give an interview to Peter Ustinov. As they walked across the garden in Safdarjang Road two soldiers shot her. She collapsed. She was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. However, she died of exsanguination.

One of her assassins was shot dead at the scene. The other was shot and wounded. The wounded man was later judicially executed.

Mrs Gandhi was cremated in Delhi at the customary location for the obsequies for Indian dignitaries. She was succeeded as prime minister by her son Rajiv.

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1. In which year was she born?
2. In which city was she born?
3. What was her father’s name?
4. What faith was the family?
5. Which school did she attend?
6. Which British party did she join?
7. Why did she leave Oxford?
8. Whom did she marry?
9. What religion was Ferozvarun?
10. What were the names of her sons?
11. Which of her sons was first politically ambitious?
12. Why was Sanjay unpopular?
13.  Who was PM before Indira in 1965?
14. Why did some in Congress dislike Indira?
15. What year was the victory in East Pakistan?
16. When did Indira lose an election?
17. What year did she return as PM?
18. In which year did she die?
19. What is your estimation for her? Five marks

Mozart

MOZART

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg. The house in which he was born still stands and is open to the public. This Austrian city was ruled by the Archbishop of Salzburg. The city’s name means ‘salt mountain’ because of the salt mines in the mines outside the city. The River Salzch (‘salty’) flows through the city.

The Mozart family were musicians for the archbishop. The Mozarts were Christians of Catholic denomination. It was the 18th century and most people were religious. Wolfgang’s father was a composer for the  prelate. Wolfgang’s middle name Amadeus means ‘love of God’.

Wolfgang was taught music and little else. He had a natural flair for music. But incessant practising meant that he learnt several instruments very fast. He did not go to school. His father kept him at home to teach the boy music non-stop. Wolfgang had several siblings. Most were musical but none were as gifted as he was.

Before long Mozart’s father gave up his job. He took the child around the courts of Europe showing off the boy’s musical accomplishments. They went to London. People paid money to see this little boy play. He also composed music.

Back then the Holy Roman Empire existed. The province where Mozart was born was Upper Austria. This was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The emperor asked Mozart to visit. The child impressed the emperor. In his adulthood Mozart spent most of his life in Vienna close to the emperor.

The Freemasons is a society with strange rituals. Mozart joined this fraternal society. The Catholic Church forbade its communicants from being freemasons. But Mozart did not care. He became disillusioned with the freemasons and their bizarre ceremonies. He left the organisation.

Mozart composed the music for several operas such as The Marriage of Figaro, Escape from the Seraglio, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni.  Mozart was not the librettist for these. The Magic Flute was a send up of the Freemasons. The Freemasons were unhappy at being ridiculed.

The operas were huge hits. Mozart was lionised but he did not make much money.

W A Mozart married. He had several children. None of them were musically distinguished.

Antonio Salieri was a well known Italian composer in Vienna. Mozart came to know him well and they were friends.

Other non operatic compositions by Mozart include Eine Kleine Nachmusik (a little night music) and his French horn concerto.

Wolfgang was incredibly talented. He was also odd and childish. They say that genius comes with madness. He had a scatological sense of humour. He had been denied a childhood so he remained a child all his life.

Mozart’s financial situation deteriorated. He was a mismanager. He fell ill and died in his 30s. Mozart was buried in an unmarked grave. This was the norm for those who were not nobles in Vienna at the time.

Mozart is one of the most popular composers of all time.

In 1984 Peter Shaffer’s play on Mozart became a film. It was called Amadeus. It was a huge hit.

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1. In which city was Mozart born?
2. Who was the most important person in Salzburg?
3. What was Mozart’s father’s job?
4. Why did Mozart not go to school?
5. What does his middle name mean?
6. Why did he travel so much?
7. Name an opera by him?
8. Did he write the words for the operas?
9. Name a non opera composition by him?
10. Did he marry?
11. What is your opinion of him? Five sentences.

 

 

 

Judaism

JUDAISM

Origins

The religion of the Jews is called Judaism. The Jewish people started out in the Middle East. It is probable that they became a distinct people in what is now Iraq.

The holy book of the Jews is the Bible. There are two parts to the Bible: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jews only believe in the Old Testament. Christians believe in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. They word ‘testament’ is like saying ‘witness statement’ because the prophets were supposedly witnesses of God.

The Bible started to be composed as long ago as 800 BC. It was perhaps an oral document and only written down much later.

The first book of the Bible of the Book of Genesis. In Genesis it says that the Garden of Eden was near the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. These rivers are in Iraq.

It is believed that the Jews migrated through the Fertile Crescent. That means the land where crops grew well. They moved through what is now Syria and Lebanon into what is now Israel and Palestine. The Jews called this area ‘Judea’. The word Jew comes from Judea. The names Judas (for a boy) and Judith (for a girl) are derived from Judea.

The Jews sometimes called themselves the Children of Israel. They believed they were the Chosen People of God. They were almost unique in being monotheistic. They did not make images of God. Most other religions were fertility cults and were polytheistic.

The Jews spent some time in Egypt where they were held in slavery. Pharaoh tried to kill many Jewish boys. A baby boy was born to a Jewish family. His parents made a basket for him and put pitch (tar) on it to waterproof it. The basket was then put on the river and hidden in reeds. The baby’s elder sister was sent to watch over the basket. However, Pharaoh’s daughter discovered the baby. She decided to raise him as her own. She named the infant ‘Moses’ meaning ‘water’ because she found his basket on the water. A baby’s basket is sometimes called a Moses basket.

Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go. So God sent ten plagues to punish the Egyptians.

Moses later led his people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. He told them that God would give them this land. The name of God was so holy that Jews usually did not say it but called him the LORD instead.

The escape from Egypt is commemorated at Pesach (Passover). This festival is called this because the tenth plague came. The Angel of Death took the firstborn of every Egyptian family. But the Israelites had been told by Moses to daub blood on their doorposts. The Angel of Death passed over the Jewish homes and did not cause their firstborns to die.

The Jews fled Egypt in a hurry. They did not have time to leaven their bread before they went. So they ate unleavened bread. That is why in the runup to Passover Jews avoid leaven.

Jews fled through the Red Sea. The chariots of the Egyptians came after them. The sea opened to let the Israelites. Then the sea came in and drowned the Egyptians. The truth behind the story is that they fled through a marshy area of reeds. The tide then came in and soaked the pursuing Egyptians.

The Bible

The first five books of the Bible are called The Books of Moses. They are The 1st Book of Moses commonly called Genesis, the 2nd book of Moses commonly called Exodus, the 3rd book of Moses commonly called Leviticus, the 4th book of Moses commonly called Deuteronomy and the 5th book of Moses commonly called Numbers. Moses dies during the 2nd book of Moses! How can he have written the rest? The oldest of these stories are thought to date to roughly 800 BC but perhaps not to have been written down till later.

The Five Books of Moses are sometimes called the Pentaeuch of the Torah (Law).  It has the name Pentateuch because ‘pente’ in Greek means ‘five.’ Judaism is very textual. The word God is ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh’ – it is debatable how it should be pronounced. The Jews did not like to say their word for God out loud or even write it. To this day some Jews will not write the English word ‘God’ and only write ‘G-d’. The name is to holy to say or even write!

Genesis begins with the words ‘In the beginning …’ In Greek ‘Genesis’ means ‘beginning’ or ‘origin.’ We call the book Genesis because of its first words. Exodus has that name because it has the Jews fleeing Egypt. That is because ‘Exodus’ means ‘exit’ in Greek. Leviticus has that name because the book contains rules about Levites (priests). Deuteronomy means ‘second law’ in Greek because much of the Jewish Law is repeated in this book. Numbers has that name because it contains a census.

The Jewish dietary laws come from these books. Jews are forbidden to eat pork or shellfish. Shellfish rot very quickly so they can make people ill. They cannot eat rabbits since they eat their faeces. Animals are to be slaughtered in a particular way. The throat must be cut with the heart still pumping so the blood is got rid of. Meat and dairy products cannot be consumed at the same meal. There are separate sets of cutlery, crockery and fridges for meat and dairy products.

Dairy products and meat cannot eaten together because it would be perverse to eat an animal cooked in its mother’s milk.

A schochet is a Jewish butcher. A strict Jew will only eat meat that has been slaughtered by a schochet. This is schechita butchering.

The Jewish people believed that if they kept to their covenant with God then God would bless them with health and wealth. God commanded them to take the land of other people.

Jews consider life sacred. They greet each with ‘Shalom’ meaning ‘peace.’

Jews believed they are descended from Abraham. His wife Rachel could not have children for years. Finally she bore a son named Isaac. He was almost sacrificed. Then the Lord provided Abraham with a ram. The ram was sacrificed instead. Jewish people sometimes have the surname Abraham, Abrahams, Abramovich Isaak, Isaacs or Isaac because of this.

Abraham’s other son was Ishmael. The Arabs are descended from him. Arabs are sometimes called Ishmaelites because of this. They say that Ishmael was the legitimate son and that Isaac was not. The Jews say it was the other way around. The Muslims call Abraham ‘Ibrahim’ and they call Ishmael by the name of ‘Ismail’.

The Jews observed the Sabbath. It is called Shabbos or Shabbat in Hebrew. It is the seventh day because after making the world in six days God then rested. Therefore no work is permitted on this day. It is a day for worship. They were not to cook or prepare food.  Jews greet each other with the word ‘Shabbat Shalom’ on the Sabbath.

Ancient Israel

The Jews traveled through the wilderness for 40 years. They defeated the Canaanites and drave them out. Then the Jews came to inhabit the land that is called Israel. It had formerly called Canaan.

After some time they were defeated by the Babylonians. The Jews were taken into captivity. They were taken to Babylon in what is now Iraq.  A Jewess named Esther married Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon. The king had an evil vizier named Haman. Haman wanted to annihilate the Jews. However, Esther persuaded the king to have Haman’s ears cut off. Haman was then executed. Jews perform a play about Haman every year. Whenever his name is mentioned people boo and jeer. This festival is called Purim. People say of Haman ‘may his bones rot’.

The Jews lamented their exile in Babylon. They wrote songs about their yearning to return to their homeland.

After some decades they were freed and allowed to return home. The Jews used to put all the sins of the nation onto a goat and chase it into the wilderness. It was the scapegoat.

The Israelites asked the Lord for a king. Most other nations had a king. The Lord warned the Children of Israel that kings were sometimes wicked. Nevertheless the people insisted that they wanted a king. Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest annointed Solomon the king. King Solomon built a temple in Jerusalem. He met the Queen of Sheba – she was from Ethiopia. Solomon was a great lawgiver. Solomons is a Jewish surname because of him.

After Solomon came Saul. The next king was David. As a little boy David had defeated and killed the Philistine giant called Goliath. David killed him with only stones and a sling. A David and Goliath contest is when the weak fight the mighty.

Sacrifices were carried out in the temple. Levites (priests) conducted these. There were courts in the Temple in Jerusalem. There was the Court of Gentiles where non Jews were permitted. The  inside that was the Court of Women. Jewish women were allowed there. Inside that was the Court of Men. Only Jewish men were allowed in that. Inside that was the Court of Priests – only levites were allowed in. Inside that was the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest was allowed there. There was a curtain to separate it from the Court of Priests. People believed that God was present there.

Anyone who went into a court where he was not allowed in the Temple he would be slain on the spot. It would be a sacrilege.

Some Jewish people have the surname Levy or Levi because of the levites in ancient times. There are other Jews with the surname Cohen because it comes from ‘kahin’ meaning ‘priest’ in Hebrew.

The Greeks eventually invaded Judea. The Jews fought back but their fight was unavailing. Many young men gave their lives defending their homeland. Until that point Jews had not believed in an afterlife. But it was hard to accept that so many youths had gone to oblivion. Jews then began to believe in heaven.

A lot of Greek immigrants arrived in Judea. Some Jews adopted Greek customs and the language. These Hellenised Jews were disapproved of by Jews who kept to the old ways. The Greeks are called the Hellenes so being Hellenised means adopting the Greek culture and language.

In time the Romans conquered Judea. The Jews were permitted to keep their religion. The Romans wanted the Jews to worship the Roman Emperor as well as Jehovah. The Jews refused. The Romans looked on Jews as a troublesome people.

Some Jews split off and became Samaritans. They were detested by mainstream Jews.

In the 1st century AD the main Jewish denomination were the Pharisees. They believed in an afterlife. The minority denomination were the Saducees. The Pharisees like to stick rigidly to their laws. They made a great show of abiding by these laws.

The Jews rebelled against the Romans. In 70 AD the Romans defeated the Jewish Revolt. Jerusalem was stormed.  The Temple of Solomon was demolished all except for the Western Wall. Josephus was a Jewish insurgent who changed sides. He wrote an account of it called The Jewish War. He also wrote The Antiquities of the Jews which is a vital source. Both of these tomes are in Latin.

At Masada many Jews committed suicide rather than surrender. The Jews were scattered around the Mediterranean. This is called the Diaspora – the dispersal.

Some Jews clung on in Judea for another 50 years. A second insurrection led to them being expelled too.

The Diaspora 

Jews became a minority in other countries. They settled in Spain and other lands. They learnt other languages.

Christianity became the major language of Europe. Christianity had been founded by Jews. At first people even regarded Christianity as a form of Judaism.

Christians started to be anti-Jewish. They said that Jews had killed Jesus Christ. Christian governments passed laws discriminating against Jews. Guilds were open to Christians only. Jews were often forbidden to farm or engage in forestry. In Europe Jews had to lend money or deal in gold and jewels. This is why Jews sometimes have surnames like Gold, Goldman, Silver, Goldschmid, Goldsmith, Silbermann, Diamond and Kaufman (‘buying man’ in German).

The Bible forbade Jews to lend money for interest to other Jews. However, they were allowed to lend money for interest to non-Jews. Christians believed that they were the new Jews. Therefore Christians were not allowed to lend money for interest to their co-religionists. Those who lent money for interest were called ‘usurers’. The practice of lending money for interest is called usury.

Jews were often blamed for things. Christians false accused Jews of spreading bubonic plague. Jews were regularly set upon and killed by Christians. This particularly happened in the Rhine Valley of Germany in the 14th century.

There were pogroms against Jews. In England Jews were slaughtered in York and at Lincoln. In 1290 Jews were expelled by the Edict of Explusion.

There was the blood libel. Jews were blamed for unsolved murders. People said that Jews kidnapped and murdered a Christian virgin at Passover and mingled it with the flour to make their Passover bread.

In the Islamic World the Jewish community found more acceptance in the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages. Muslims accepted Jews as people of the Book.

Jews moved to far away lands such as India and China. They were a tiny minority in these lands.

In Europe Jews were obliged to live in a ghetto in each city. This was a small walled off area. They could go out in the day but had to be back by nightfall. Jews studied their religious texts intently. This became the most prestigious thing for a man: to be a biblical scholar.

In Venice there was foundry or ‘ghetto’ in  Italian. This was where the Jewish area was concentrated. That is why say ghetto for a poor or crowded area for an ethnic minority.

Poland welcomed the Jewish community. Poland had the largest Jewish community in Europe. 10% of Poland’s population was Jewish. Poland back then included Belarus, Lithuania and half of Ukraine. In time Russia conquered this and so Russia acquired a large Jewish community.

Out of the ghetto

In the 18th century some European lands removed their discriminatory laws against the Jews. Jews acquired legal equality and were allowed out of the ghetto. Some seized educational opportunities avidly.

The 17th century saw a growing fissure in the Jewish community. This was between Orthodox Jews and Reform Jews. Orthodox Jews kept strictly to the laws of Judaism and engaged with Gentile society only a little. Reform Jews believed that Judaism could be modernised and some rules did not need to be adhered to any longer. They became ever more integrated into Gentile society. Reform Jews are sometimes called Liberal Jews. Reform Jews became lax about eating kosher food. Some of them married Christians.

Orthodox Jews tended to wear dark clothes and grow beards. They wore skullcaps always. Reform Jews rarely grew beards and wore the same clothes as most people in their country. They only donned a skullcap in a synagogue.

Orthodox comes from the Greek words meaning ‘straight path’. Orthodox Jews believe they are on the right path and others have turned off in the wrong direction.

Reform Jews often prospered in trade and the professions. Some of them entered politics Reform Jews were usually attracted to liberalism and socialism. These movements had supported the emancipation of the Jews. Orthodox Jews treated politics with suspicion.

There are gradations within Orthodox Judaism. Ultra Orthodox Jews are sometimes called Haredim. They often wear black suits and sometimes dress like they are in 17th century Poland. They grow their hair long in front of their ears. That is because the Bible says ‘you shall not round the corners of your heads.’ They usually refuse to watch television regarding it as iniquitous at worst and at best distraction from their piety. They regard marrying out as an abomination. They want to win back Reform Jews to Orthodoxy.

Ultra Orthodox Jewish women who are married do not show their hair outside the home. They wear wigs. That is because a hair is a woman’s glory. She is not trying to be attractive to other men. Apart from that they dress very modestly. She will dress from her collarbone to her knees at least.

For Ultra Orthodox Jews marriage is an obligation and a couple should have as many children as possible. Ultra Orthodox Jews are the most conservative kind of Orthodox Jews. Ultra Orthodox Jews tend to dress like they are in 17th century Poland. They keep themselves to themselves. Ultra Orthodox study the Bible intensely. Ultra Orthodox Jews are unconcerned with amassing wealth. They tend to marry very young and have as many children

Ultra Orthodox women will not act on stage or sing in the presence of men. That is because the Bible says ‘the female voice is nakedness.’ Ultra Orthodox Jewish men do not cut off the hair in front of their ears. These is called their sidelocks. That is because the Good Book says ‘you shall not round the corners of your heads.’ These men often wear white aprons with tassles. They pray with phyllaceteries – that means leather boxes and leather straps wrapped around their arms and heads. The phyllaceteries contain tiny handwritten scrolls of the law. These are sometimes called ‘tefelin’.  This is because the Bible says ‘bind the word of the Lord to your head and to your arm.’ They often don a white prayer shawl when they pray.

Some Jewish houses have a mezzuzah on the doorpost. It contains a scroll of the law. People touch it as they enter and leave the room.

Some Jews sailed to America, Brazil, Argentina and other countries in the New World. Jewish people moved to Australia and South Africa in the 19th century.

Synagogue

A Jewish place of worship is called a synagogue. It is the Greek word for ‘assembly’. There is an ark (box) which contains the scrolls of the law. This is redolent of the Ark of Covenant. In Orthodox Judaism men and women must be physically separated in the synagogue. In Reform Judaism they can mingle.

When a Jewish boy reaches 12 or so he learns to read the Torah in Hebrew. When he does so in the synagogue for the first time it is a celebration called Bar Mitzvah (son of the law). He becomes a man in religious terms. In Reform Judaism girls are also allowed to do this and she is called Bat Mitzvah (daughter of the law).

A Jewish wedding takes place under a huppa (canopy). A glass is broken to commemorate the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. People say ‘Mazel Tov’ meaning ‘good luck’ because something lucky has happened.

A scroll of the law wears a jacket and breastplate. It might have crowns on it or symbols of that state. People do not touch the text with a finger when reading but use a metal pointer.

Some synagogues have flags in them. A synagogue will not have images of people or animals because that could be idolatry.

A Jewish religious leader is called a rabbi (teacher). Reform Judaism allows women to be rabbis.

An Orthodox rabbi’s wife is a significant figure. She regards herself as the leader of womenfolk and polices their dress and morality.

Sermons can be in Hebrew or the local language.

Some synagogues have a mikvah. This is a ritual bath for women after menstruation.

Jews often say L’chaim meaning ”to life” as a joyful motto. A popular Jewish boy’s name is Chaim (sometimes spelt ‘Haim’). This name means ‘life’.

Judaism has its own 12 month calendar. The Jewish calendar is lunar not solar. The Jewish year falls a bit behind the Christian year of 365 days because a Jewish year is shorter. Every fourth year the Jewish calendar has an extra month to catch up with the Christian calendar.

Hannukah is a Jewish festival a bit before Christmas. It is about candles. Jews only had oil for the candle to be alight for one day but miraculously it stayed aflame for nine days. A menorah is a nine branched Jewish candlestick which is lit at Hannukah. The menorah is a symbol of Judaism.

Pesach or Passover is the most important festival. At the meal a seat is left for the Prophet Elijah. A child has to ask the father ‘why is tonight different from every other night.’ The father then tells the tale of the escape from Egypt. The food is all significant. The bitter herbs remind people of bitter experiences.

In the runup to Passover Jews do not eat anything with leaven in it. That is because at Passover they had to leave quickly and did not have time to let their bread rise.

Purim is the festival when Jews celebrated defeating Haman’s plot.

Holocaust Memorial Day is another Jewish festival.

There is the Festival of Booths. Some Jewish people live in sheds or tents for a week as part of this.

Yom Kippur is in late September or early October. It is the Day of Atonement. It is just before the Jewish New Year. Yom Kippur is for the people to say sorry for their transgressions.

A ram’s horn is blown to signal the start of the Jewish New Year.

 

Zionism

In the early 19th century some Jews made aliyah. That meant that they returned to Israel. It was then called Palestine and was part of the Ottoman Empire. Some Jews had drifted back over the centuries. But in 1798 Palestine was about 5% Jewish. The Palestinians were mostly Arabic speaking Muslims.

In the 19th century a Hungarian Jew called Theodor Herzl overheard a crowd chanting ‘Death to the Jews.’ Herzl believed that Jews would never be safe until they had their own homeland. He established the World Zionist Federation. His idea was called Zionism because he wanted Jews to settle around ‘Zion’ which is a mountain in Jerusalem. Some Jews disliked the idea. They were integrated in Western nations. They did not wish to be accused of divided loyalties.

Herzl wrote a novel about his vision of  Jewish homeland. It is entitled ‘Oldnewland’. Israel was the Jews’ old country and it would be their new home. He envisioned the Arabs welcoming Jews.

Herzl died before his ideas gained much ground. In the early 20th century Zionism gained support from Jews and some Gentiles.

Zionists decided they needed a language. Hebrew was an ancient tongue. It was written and not spoken. People read it aloud. But it was the logical choice as the language of a new Israel. Hebrew was then modernised and made to express modern ideas.

Perhaps ironically the German Emperor endorsed the idea of a Jewish Homeland. However, it seemed that Palestine would a province of the Ottoman Empire. Germany and the Ottomans had a good relationship at the time.

Some Jews wondered about living somewhere more fertile. Uganda was even touted as a solution.

In 1917 Palestine was conquered from the Ottomans by the British. The UK Government issued the Balfour Declaration: ‘His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish national home. This is without prejudice to the right of existing communities.‘ The language was purposively ambiguous. Was this Jewish Homeland to be independent? Would it be a British colony? Or a province of an Arab State?  Britain came to rule Palestine.

In the 1920s more Jews particularly from Eastern Europe shifted to Palestine. The Palestinians became alarmed and started fighting the Jews.  The advent of Nazism made more Jews flee Europe. In the 1930s Jewish immigration spread up. The British were piggy in the middle.

In 1939 the UK declared it would withdraw from Palestine within 10 years. Much of the Arab world was incensed by excessive Jewish immigration to Palestine. They said the Palestinians would be driven out.

In 1942 the Holocaust began. A third of all the Jews in the world were murdered in three years. The Jewish community has only just recovered its number from that time.

Many Holocaust survivors wanted to head to Israel. They were afraid of staying in Europe. The British were trying to appease Arab opinion which said ”no more Jewish immigration to Palestine.” Zionist extremists attacked the British Army. The UK was outraged. The United Kingdom was the only country in Europe that had fought Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945. The UK was the least anti-Semitic country in the continent. Moderate Zionists said that it was wrong to attack the British.

Much of the Muslim world expressed solidarity for the Palestinians. Non-Muslims Arabs felt likewise.

The United Nations drew up a plan for the Partition of Palestine. Two-thirds of the land was allotted to the Jews and was to be called Israel. The Palestinians got the rest. The Palestinians were irate because they were the majority and they got a third of the land only.

In 1948 the UK granted independence to Palestine and Israel. A war began which Israel won.

Israel declared its capital to be Jerusalem. The Palestinians dispute this and claim Jerusalem as their capital. Israel is the only Jewish majority country in the world. It is 75% Jewish. There are Christians, Muslims and others there too. Most countries have their embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv.

Only about a third of the Jews in the world live in Israel. That is at the conservative end of the definition for who is Jewish. The world Jewish population is anything from 15 000 000 to  70 000 000 depending on who you count as being Jewish.

Israel includes the Western Wall of the Temple of Solomon. People worship there. Some called it the Wailing Wall.

 

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Trains

TRAINS

The train as we know it was invented in 1825. George Stephenson is credited with inventing it. Stephenson was a Briton. However, a Frenchman invented something very similar just before him. Therefore France disputes the United Kingdom’s claim. It could be that the French invented the train and not the British.

The steam engine was invented in the late 18th century. Richard Trevithick invented it. This was a very powerful machine for pulling heavy loads. It was extremely long but moved slower than walking pace. It worked by burning coal which boiled water. This caused steam to rise. The steam turned turbines and made pistons moved which turned the wheels.

There were also rails in the 18th century. When horses or ponies pulled a wagon or a cart along a road the surface mattered. People noticed that on a bumpy surface the wagon moved slower because the friction was taking a lot of energy out of the kinaesthetic energy. On the other hand if the road was smooth then the cart or wagon moved much faster. However, if the road was totally smooth then the horses would slip and fall. It would be too slippery for their hooves. They needed some traction. The solution was to build something that would allow the rails to travel easily but without making the horses fall over for lack of grip.

People built metal rails and put the wheels of the cart of wagon on the rails. People noticed that the wagon or cart moved much faster. The wheels slid along very fast because there was little friction. The people had to built wooden sleepers to keep the rails in place. The rails needed to be parallel so the wheels could go along. If the rails moved too far apart the cart would fall off. If the rails moved too close together then the cart would fall off.

Rails were built in coalmines. Pit ponies were a  special breed of ponies that were short but strong. They were used in coalmines to pull carts of coal up on wheels. Sometimes people had to pull these carts.

George Stephenson hit on an ingenious idea. Why not take the steam engine which was very strong and put it on the rails which allow a vehicle to move fast? Stephenson did just that. He called a train. He called the rails that the train traveled on a ‘railway.’. In the United States it is called a ‘railroad.’

At the front of a train is a locomotive. This contains the engine and makes the train move. There was a train driver who actually drove the train. There was also a fireman whose job was not to put out fires. The fireman’s task was to shovel coal into the engine and keep the fire burning to keep the water boiling and the steam rising. Sometimes there was an assistant fireman. Because of this the fireman’s section was uncovered. He was exposed to the cold. But the fire kept him warm.

The locomotive pulls carriages. The carriages are where the passengers sit. A carriage can be called a car or a coach. The carriages are sometimes numbered A, B, C and so on. Sometimes

Before railways we had trains but these meant trains of horses or camels. This meant a long line of horses one in front of the other. Each horses was tied to another behind or in front. The same applied to a train of camels.

The first railway line in the world was Stockton to Darlington. These two towns are in north-east England. This region is rich coal.

In 1830 the first railway line opened between two major cities. It was the Liverpool to Manchester Railway. It was an event that was heralded with ado and fanfare. The Prime Minister was present. He was the Duke of Wellington. The President of the Board of Trade was William Huskisson. Huskisson’s post in the cabinet meant that he was in charge of commerce. Railways were going to be vital to trade. Huskisson has the dubious distinction of being the first person killed by a train.

In the UK railways were built by private companies. It required an act of Parliament to built a railway line. A man who wanted to build a railway had to buy all the land along it.

Some fuddy duddies vehemently objected to the construction of railway lines. Those who owned turnpike trusts (road companies) took exception to railways because they stood to lose financially. There were some people who dislike any innovation. The noise and grit of trains irked some.

Oxford University did not want a railway in Oxford. They said it would distract the undergraduates. Eventually the university was able to prevent the construction of a station no longer. But the university did win one concession. The city would not be the site of a junction. The main east-west to north-south junction was sited further west at a village called Swindon. Swindon had previously been a village. The railway junction caused it to grow into a major town.

Trains were not good at going up and down hill. They had to build viaducts to make the route as close to level as possible. They built up earth embankments sometimes to keep the railway level. If a slope was steep a train would go out of control going down. Going up a steep slope the train might not be able to make it.

Trains were divided into different classes. On some trains there were three classes. First class was the most expensive and the most comfortable.

Different railways had different gauges. The gauge is the distance between the two rails. But this meant that if one railway had a gauge if 1.55 metres and another railway had a gauge of 1.6 metres then the train built for a 1.6 metre gauge could not travel on the railway with a 1.55 metre gauge.

Railways were built all over the United Kingdom. Railways soon spread to other lands. British railway engineers traveled the world building railways and teaching people how to do this.

It was said that the United Kingdom ‘girded the world in iron’. The United States started to build railways in the 1830s. By the 1860s these were significant and had an effect on the outcome of the American Civil War.

Russia started to construct railways in the 1850s. The first was from Moscow to St Petersburg.

Countries started to co-ordinate on railways. They decided to have the same gauge so trains could travel from France to Belgium for instance.

Trains traveled faster than horses. Moreover, trains do not get tired but horses do. On the other hand every few hours a train had to stop to take on coal and water as they were running out of it. This is why in old stations you often see huge water tanks.

Steam and smoke rose from trains. Therefore the roofs of stations were very high to let the steam and smoke rise. If the ceiling was low the steam and smoke would be trapped near head height.

Excess steam was left out of the boiler. This made a ‘choo choo’ sound which is why trains were known as a ‘choo choo’ by children.

A train was a more comfortable way to travel than in a horse drawn coaches. Train rides were smooth and not bumpy. It was possible to have a good sleep on a train.

In the 20th century electric trains started. Then diesel trains were made. Steam trains were a thing of the past.

In the 1950s train travel went into decline. This was because so many people bought automobiles. Railway lines were torn up.

In the 1960s Dr Beeching was commissioned by the UK Government to write a report entitled Reshaping Britain’s Railways. His idea was close two-thirds of the railway stations and half the mileage of track. Fewer people were traveling.

These days there are magnetic levitation trains. They are called maglev for short. The Germans invented them in the 1980s. They hover a few milimetres off the track. There is no friction on the track. They can go 500 km an hour. However, in practice they usually travel at a more sedate 200 km per hour. If you go 500 km per hour you must treat the maglev like a plane and sit down with a seatbelt on.

Maglev tracks are extremely costly to build. This is why very few countries operate them. China and Japan have a few maglevs in use.

==============

1. Who invented the steam engine?
2. Who invented the train?
3. How were rails first used?
4. Explain how a steam engine and rails were used together. Five marks.
5. What is a pit pony?
6. What is the part of the train that pulls the carriages?
7. Which was the first railway line in the world?
8. Which was the first railway between two major cities?
9. What is Huskisson’s unenviable claim to fame?
10. What is a maglev?
11. What report did Beeching write?
12. What is the gauge of a railway?
13. Why did children call a train a choo?

 

The British Indian Community

The History of the British Indian Community

 

First contact

India and the United Kingdom have interacted before the UK even existed as such. In the 1500s an English priest traveled to India. He was the first person from the UK to set foot in India. A few English and Welsh merchants traveled to India to trade. India was then ruled by the Mughal Empire.

In 1600 Queen Elizabeth I issued a charter to the Company trading unto the East Indies. This became known as ‘the East India Company.’ By the ‘East Indies’ people meant what is today India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and even Indonesia. The voyage from Great Britain to India went around the Cape of Good Hope. Sailing all the way around Africa meant that the voyage took four months at least. The East India Company bought land at Surat. This is on the west coast of India. Later the Company mainly traded with Bengal.

From the early 17th century some Indians came to England. They came as merchants and sailors. At first the Indians in England were a tiny, tiny number. There were only a few dozen Indians in England which then had a population of 4 000 000. The Indians who came to England were almost all men. Very few Indian women arrived. Therefore these Indians often married white Englishwomen. Their children were half white. Their grandchildren were three quarters white and in the next generation they gradually disappeared into the white community and their Indian ancestry was largely forgotten.

The Indians who came to England in the 17th century were most Bengalis and mostly Muslims. They lived in port cities such as London, Bristol, Southampton and Liverpool. Indians occasionally visited Wales. Outside the main port cities an Indian was virtually never seen. Note that the United Kingdom did not exist until 1707. Scotland and England were separate kingdoms prior to that.

 

1. When did a Briton first go to India?
2. What company was founded in 1600?
3. What was meant by the East Indies?
4. What route did Britons said to India?
5. Why did the Indians who arrived in England in the 1600s soon blend into the white majority?

Growing prominence

 

Indians started to appear in some of the oil paintings of the period. In 1707 Scotland, England and Wales formed the United Kingdom. This was called the Act of Union. Scots joined the East India Company. Indians started to move to Scotland.

The British elite became more interested in India. Some British intellectuals became fascinated by India’s ancient civilisation. Some British scholars learnt some Indian languages such as Bengali, Sanskrit and Urdu. Much of the Indian ruling class spoke Persian back then. Very few Indians learnt English back then. The East India Company owned a few ports on the coast. Only in the mid 18th century did it start to acquire more land in the hinterland.

Around 1800 Dean Sake Mohammed founded the first Indian restaurant in the UK. Other Indians introduced shampoo to the UK. Indian architecture started to be popular. The Prince Regent famously built an Indian style edifice in Brighton: the Royal Pavilion.

 

1. Who founded the first Indian restaurant in the UK?
2. When was the UK founded?
3. What Indian style building stands in Brighton?

The Irish in India

In 1801 Ireland joined the UK. Some Irishmen went to work in India. One Irishman the Earl of Mayo became Viceroy of India. Lord Mayo College is name in his honour. This is the most estimable school in the Subcontinent. It is located Ajmer, Rajasthan.

The East India Company had its own army. Besides that the British Army started to be stationed in India. British soldiers picked up some Indian words.

Various words from Hindi and other Indian languages entered the English language such as pyjamas, bungalow, polo, pukka, thug, loot, pundit, guru, yoga, wallah, dum dum, dungarees, doollaly, jodhpur, catamaran and tiffin.

In the 19th century the number of Indians who moved to the UK increased. Those who came were mostly middle class and upper class from coastal cities that already had a lot of contact with the British.

Some Indian princes spent time in the United Kingdom. They bought houses in London and its environs. Near Eton there is a palatial house called ‘Maharajah’s’ because it once belong to an Indian prince. It overlooks the Thames.

In 1812 the Earl of Liverpool became Prime Minister. Lord Liverpool was one-eighth Indian. Can he be regarded as Indian? He was the first person of part Indian blood elected to the UK Parliament. The British nobility sometimes wed Indians.

In the 18th century a British lord married an Indian woman and dwelt in India. Their descendants married full blooded Indians. The grandchildren were three-quarters Indian and the great grandchilren were seven-eights Indian. By 2004 they holder of the title could barely speak English yet he was known as ‘the Englishman’ in his part of the country.

In 1841 David Dyce Sombre was elected MP for Sudbury. D D Sombre was half Indian. He was the first half Indian person elected to Parliament. However, he is usually overlooked in the annals. 

1. When did Ireland join the UK?
2. List five English words of Indian origin.
3. Why is a house near Eton called Maharajah’s?

Indian educational achievement in the UK

Indians enrolled at some of the top schools in the United Kingdom such as Westminster School, Eton College, St Paul’s School and Harrow School. Some went on to Oxford University and Cambridge University. The two great English universities only admitted Christians until the 1870s. Very few Indians subscribed to the Christian faith. These universities opened themselves to non-Christians in the 1870s.  Sri Aurobindo went to St Paul’s and became head boy. Nehru went to Harrow.

An Indian woman named Cornelia Sorabhji went to Oxford University in the 1870s. She was the first Indian female to study at a UK university. She was also the first woman of any nationality to graduate in law from Oxford. Miss Sorabhji was like quite a few Indians in the UK from a tiny minority religion – Zoroastrianism. Cornelia Sorabhji was also the first woman to qualify as a solicitor (lawyer) in England.

Zoroastrians (Parsees) put their dead in Towers of Silence. Such a method of disposal of the dead was not permitted in the UK. Therefore they had to be buried. At Brookwood Cemetery a special section was founded for Parsees.

1. Name a famous Indian who went to St Paul’s.
2. What was astonishing about C Sorabhji?
3. Why could Indians not attend Oxford or Cambridge until the 1870s?

Victoria

The Maharajah of the Punjab came to the UK as a child. He was brought up by Queen Victoria. His sons went to Eton. The maharajah converted to Christianity. He spent a lot of time in Scotland and was known as the black prince of Perthshire. Later he reconverted to Sikhism and attempted to return to India. The British authorities prevented him from doing so fearing he would stir up trouble.

Victoria was very fond of one of her Indian servants. His name was Abdul Karim but he was known as the Munshi. She interceded with the authorities in India to make sure this man’s relatives were promoted. The rest of the royal family was not overfond of Munshi. When Queen Victoria died they told Munshi to get out of the Palace.

Some rich Indians became britannicised. They spoke English more than their native languages, they wore British clothes and played British sports. They tended to be British in everything but religion. Very few Indians converted to Christianity. Nonetheless some Indians were worried that their sons in the UK were being de-racinated.

Many key figures in the Indian and Pakistani independence movements came to study in the UK. These included Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Gandhi, V K Krishna Menon, Allama Mohammed Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan, M A Jinnah , Dr Ambedkar and C Rajagopalachari. Most of these men qualified as barristers.

 

1. Which maharajah was raised by Queen Victoria?
2. What does it mean to be britannicised? 
3. What profession did most leaders of the Indian independence movement belong to?

Into politics

 

Some Indians visited Ireland. Ireland was part of the UK until 1921. Some were inspired by the Home Rule Movement.

Dadabhai Naoroji was elected a Liberal MP in London in the 1892. He won by only five votes and people dubbed him ‘narrow majority’ which was supposed to sound like his surname. Mr Naoroji was elected to represent Finsbury Park which is an area of London. There was not a single other non white person in his constituency. Lord Salisbury had said that racial prejudice was strong and Naoroji would not win but Lord Salisbury was proven wrong. 

Mancherjee Bhownaggree followed as a Conservative MP just after that. Naoroji and Bhownaggree were both elected on their first attempt. Some people stand for Parliament several times without success. Naoroji narrowly lost his seat in 1895. Bhownagree held Bethnal Green constituency from 1895 till 1906. He was unseated when the Liberal Party made major gains. The election of these men demonstrates the relative lack of racialism in the United Kingdom.

Mr Bhownagree was an ardent advocate of the British Raj. Some Indians disliked him for this. Some scornfully dubbed him ‘bow the knee’ or ‘bow and agree.’

Dadabhai Naoroji argued that India owed Britain much for its beneficence. However, he said too much wealth was leaving Indian and it was UK-bound. He called this ‘the drain’.

By the dawn of the 20th century the UK was about 0.1% Indian. People from any country in the British Empire had the right to settle anywhere in the British Empire. They were all British subjects whatever their colour or birthplace.

A mosque was founded in Woking. It was mostly for Indians. There was another mosque established in Cardiff. This served the needs of Indian sailors. It was in the Tiger’s Bay area of the city which was quite multiracial.

Cricket became a craze in India in the late 19th century. Soon India played against England and Wales. The Indian team toured the UK.

Some Indians were fed up with the British Raj by the 1910s. One of them was named Madan Lal Dhingra. Dhingra came to London with the aim of  assassinating a British official. He shot Sir Curzon Wyllie. When Wyllie was shot an Indian doctor named Cawas Lalcaca went to his aid. The assassin fired two more bullets and accidentally shot Dr Lalcaca. The doctor was a Parsee and he died. He was buried with great honour at Brookwood. Many Indians said he had saved India’s reputation by his conspicuous gallantry.

The man was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial he said that the British had starved millions of Indians to death. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The condemned thanked the judge saying that dying for India was a privilege. He was hanged.

 

1. Was Ireland part of the UK?
2. Who was the first Indian MP in the UK?
3. What party was M Bhownaggree? 
4. Where was the first mosque in the UK built?

War and progress

An Indian poverty-stricken, self-taught mathematician enrolled at Cambridge University after winning a scholarship. His name was Srinivas Ranamujan. Ranamujan was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Trinity is perhaps the most illustrious of Cambridge’s colleges. The First World War broke out. He is commemorated in the film The Man who knew infinity. 

Many Indian soldiers served the British cause in the First World War. Indian soldiers wounded in France were evacuated to the UK for hospital treatment. But some died of their wounds. Those who were Sikh or Hindu were cremated as per the funereal customs of their faith. The ghat on which they were cremated still stands as a memorial to them.

Shapurji Saklatvala was of Indian Mr Saklatvala was a Parsee on his father’s side. He was in the UK in the 1920s. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Saklatvala was elected to Parliament for Battersea in London. However, he soon lost his seat.

Romesh Palme Dutt was half Indian and half Swedish. He became the key theoretician of the CPGB.

The Parsees are a microscopically small proportion of the Indian population. However, they achieved a staggering degree of success in business, politics and the professions.

By the 1920s London had a significant Indian minority. But even then London was only 1% Indian which was much more than any other UK city. They mostly lived in the East End.

Members of extremely rich Parsee families were in the UK. These were the Cowsajees and the Tatas. The Tata family became prominent in the mid 19th century due to their business acumen. The Tata dynasty became wealthy through banking, construction and automobile manufacturing.

By the 1930s there were a few Indian doctors in the UK. At this time a gurdwara (place of worship) was founded for Sikhs in Shepherd’s Bush, London.

Indian students in the UK founded an organisation called India House. It was for them to live in. They also discussed Indian affairs. Many of them campaigned for independence. The police kept India House under surveillance because they were worried about Indians using force to advance the cause of independence. India House was an actual building as well for the students.

Indira Nehru studied at Badminton School and then went up to Somerville College, Oxford. But she left without a degree because she could not cope with Latin which was obligatory. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. Ferozevarun Gandhi was at the London School of Economics (LSE). There was a significant number of Indian students at LSE. Indira later married him. She became Indira Gandhi. Ferozevarun and his wife were both active in Congress.

 

1. Which communist Indian was elected to the British Parliament?
2. What was Saklatvala’s ancestry?
3. What do you call a Sikh place of worship?
4. What was India House?
5. Which school did Indira Nehru attend?

In the Second World War more Indian troops came to the UK to fight for the British Empire. Indians in the RAF helped to win the Battle of Britain. However, even troops in the pro-British Indian Army often wanted independence for their country after the war.

Udham Singh was a Punjabi who came to the UK during the Second World War. Udham Singh sometimes called himself Mohammed Ram Singh Azad. He took one name for Muslims, one for Hindus and one for Sikhs. His surname ‘Azad’ means ‘free’ in many North Indian languages.

Mr Singh was irate because of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919. He wanted to kill Sir Michael O’Dwyer who had been Governor of the Punjab in 1919. O’Dwyer had not ordered the massacre he had defended it after it occurred. O’Dwyer was utterly impenitent.

Singh found out that Sir Michael would address the Central Asiatic Society at a certain hall in London on a certain day. It was Caxton Hall was a well known venye for public meetings. Udham Singh went along with a revolver.  The Marquess of Zetland would also be here. Lord Zetland was the Secretary of State for India  and Burma. He stepped forward and shot Sir Michael as well as the Marquess of Zetland. O’Dwyer died instantly but Lord Zetland survived. Singh was surrounded by the crowd and overpowered. He was arrested. Udham Singh happily confessed to the police. He was sentenced to death and executed.

Nehru and Gandhi denounced what Udham Singh had done. But they asked the UK authorities not to hang him because this would inflame Indian opinion. Perhaps unwisely Singh was put to death at Pentonville Prison. In the 1970s his mortal remains were returned to Indian and interred with great honour. He has since been declared a martyr of India. Udham Singh is given the honorific ‘shaheed’ in front of his name as his voluntarily laid down his life for the nation.

 

1. What did Indians do in the Battle of Britain?
2. Who shot Sir Michael O’Dwyer?
3. Why did Udham Singh kill him?

After the war

After the war the UK had a labour shortage. More Indians came to fill the gaps. The UK Government advertised jobs in India. India became independent in 1947 but Indians had the right to reside in the UK. They also had the right to vote in the United Kingdom as Commonwealth citizens so long as they lived in the UK. Indeed an Indian citizen resident in the United Kingdom has the right to be elected to the British Parliament because of the Commonwealth.

In 1947 a former officer of the Indian Army became a factory manager in Southall, London. He recruited many of his former Sikh soldiers to work in the factory. More and more Sikhs moved to Southall. By 2000 Southall was over 50% Indian or British Indian. Southall is the most Indian area in the UK. Southall is also very close to Heathrow Airport. Many Indians who flew over in subsequent decades.  They chose to live together because there is safety in numbers. There were other advantages such as being able to find shops that stocked their preferred foods. It was also convenient for people to live close to a place of worship of their religion. It was pleasant to have familiar faces around. Southall Station has signs up in Punjabi.

Churches started to be sold to the Indian community. The Indians turned them into gurdwaras, mosques and mandirs.

Some white Britons were prejudiced against Indians. A few whites were so ignorant that they thought that India was in the Caribbean. They assumed that the West Indies and India were the same. This was even more confusing for whites because some Indians lived in Caribbean countries particularly Trinidad and Tobago. The same goes for Guyana.

Some whites refused employment or accommodation to Indians. There was some racial animus towards them.

Pakistan was created in 1947. Many Britons did not even realise Pakistan existed. Some whites thought that Indians were Pakistanis.

In 1947 there were only 5 Indian restaurants in the United Kingdom. British people almost never ate rice except in rice pudding.

 

1. Why did the UK ask Indians to come after the war?
2. Do Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in the UK? 
3. Why did many Sikhs move to Southall?
4. When was Pakistan created? 

Commonwealth Immigration

The British Empire was being transformed into the Commonwealth of Nations. Former colonies could join the Commonwealth. Most did so. The Commonwealth consults on matters of common concern. The Commonwealth could not force countries to do anything. It could only try to persuade countries to do things. The UK had no especial power in the Commonwealth. All member nations are equal. It has a Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting every two years. There is the Commonwealth Games. In those days Commonwealth citizens all had the right to move to the UK.

People who immigrated to the UK were able to obtain British citizenship after 4 years residence. British Indians who married someone from abroad had the automatic right to bring the spouse to the UK. Many people in India did not speak English in the 1950s. Some arrived in the UK speaking fluent English. Others spoke it reasonably well and some spoke none at all.

The number of immigrants from India increased in the 1950s. The UK also experienced significant immigration from the former British colonies in the Caribbean and countries such as Malta, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Kenya.

By the 1960s some white Britons were worried about the level of immigration. Some whites were opposed to immigration for openly racist reasons. Some whites said there were too many Indians and that ‘they are taking over.’ The UK’s population was stable at the time. Though 10 000s of immigrants arrived each year a similar number of white Britons emigrated each year. The white Britons moved to Australia, the USA, Canada and South Africa in most cases. There was net emigration: more people were moving out than were coming in.

There was white immigration into the UK after the Second World War. This was from the Republic of Ireland, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Italy and Spain. Few white Britons objected to this. Some of the white immigrants came from countries outside the Commonwealth. India was in the Commonwealth. Indians arrived in the UK speaking English in most cases. The Poles, Spanish and Italians often arrived speaking no English. Therefore the objection to Indian immigration was often due to colour prejudice. Almost no white Briton objected to the religions that Indians followed: Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. The average white British knew nothing about these religions.

In the 1960s some Sikhs got jobs as bus conductors. The bus company said that they must not wear turbans as it was a non-uniform item. There was a row about this. The bus conductors went on strike saying the rule was racist. The bus company said this was not racist since no one is born with a turban growing out of his head. Wearing a turban is a choice and not all Sikh men do it. In the end the strike was successful.

In the 1960s the UK Government stated that Sikh men would be allowed to wear turbans as part of various uniforms. In British India Sikhs had been allowed to wear turbans as part of military and police uniforms. Therefore this rule was extended to the UK. Legislation mandating the wearing of helmets when on motorbikes exempted Sikhs who wore turbans.

A number of Hindu temples and Sikh temples were established. These were often in former churches.

1. What countries did white Britons emigrate to?
2. Which white majority countries sent lots of immigrants to the UK?
3. What is the evidence that opposition to Indian immigration into the UK was largely due to colour bigotry?
4. What exemptions were granted to Sikh men?

Powell

In 1968 a Conservative MP called Enoch Powell gave a speech on immigration. Powell represented Wolverhampton South-West. This town near Birmingham had a serious number of immigrants from South Asia and from the Caribbean. Powell gave his notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ oration. He did not oppose immigration for economic reasons. He said he was against large scale immigration because it changed the character of the country. Powell accused immigrants of bad behaviour. He did not say that all immigrants were bad but that was the implication. Nor did he acknowledge that some white Britons behave badly too.

Enoch Powell said, ”Like the Roman I am filled with foreboding. I see the Tiber foaming with much blood.” His incendiary speech caused a huge reaction.

80% of people said they agreed with Powell’s sentiments. Dockers – usually Labour voters – marched to the House of Commons chanting ‘We want Enoch Powell’ and holding placards ‘Enoch for Prime Minister.’

Powell received tens of thousands of letters of support and a few of condemnation. Royal Mail had to lay on a van just for his post.

Edward Heath was Leader of the Conservative Party. He sacked Powell from the Shadow Cabinet for his inflammatory speech. It caused hatred towards immigrants. Heath noted that as Health Secretary Powell had purposefully recruited doctors and nurses from abroad.

Labour censured Powell for his speech. Ethnic minority children were bullied at school because of what he said. Powell had not urged anyone to insult others or hit others. However, his unhelpful words had caused many whites to become viciously anti-immigrant. Powell had damaged Commonwealth relations.

Most British Indians supported Labour. They were horrified by his speech. Racist insults and graffiti became commonplace due to Powell.

Left wing people detested Powell. Some students chanted ‘Disembowel Enoch Powell.’ Whenever he tried to speak at a university his opponents would try to ruin his speech. People held placards reading ‘Powell is foul.’ 

Powell said he was not opposed to immigration from any country. Immigrants could come but only in tiny numbers. He also approved of interracial marriage.

The Race Relations Act was passed in 1968 as a reaction to Powell’s speech. Inciting racial hatred became a crime. Racial discrimination was also prohibited.

 

1. Which MP made an inflammatory speech in 1968?
2.  What is the title of Powell’s speech?
3. Which constituency did he represent?
4. Why did some people hate Powell?
5. Which party did most British Indians support?
6. What law was passed to prevent racism?

Indian Africans

In the 1960s all of the UK’s African colonies became independent. There were Indians in Kenya and Uganda. These Indians were granted British citizenship. They had never lived in the UK though. Some of the Indians resident in East Africa moved to the UK. Some Britons said these Indians from Uganda and Kenya should not be allowed in.

In 1972 the President of Uganda expelled people of Asian origin. This usually meant Indian. They were British citizens and made plans to come to the UK. One Tory MP Alan Clark said, ”they must be told ‘you cannot come here because you are not white.’ ”. The Conservative Prime Minister of the time was Sir Edward Heath. Heath stood up to pressure from within his own party and allowed these British Indians in. He said there was no legal reason to prevent these people from moving to the UK since they were British citizens and had the absolute right to live in the UK.

In the 1950s and 1960s many Indians in the United Kingdom established small businesses such as corner shops. Indian restaurants were a novelty. But they gradually became part of the urban scene.

In the 1970s the National Front (NF) was active. It was an openly white supremacist organisation. It wanted to expel all non whites even if they were British citizens. National Front members often shaved their hair and were called skinheads. Some admired Hitler. The NF sometimes beat up ethnic minority people.

Immigration continued in the 1970s. The UK started to suffer high unemployment. Some people blamed immigrants. The government further restricted immigration. The first Indian joined the British Police. It was headline news.

The Labour Government in the late 1970s passed another Race Relations Act. It enhanced the definition of incitement to racial hatred and racial discrimination.

Enoch Powell left the Conservative Party in 1974. He urged people to vote Labour. But some in the Conservative Party still approved of his anti-immigration stance.

 

1. What citizenship was granted to Indians in Kenya and Uganda?
2. What did the President of Uganda do to Asians?
3. What did the NF believe in?
4. What did Powell do in 1974?

Integration and division

In 1979 the NF marched through Southall to protest against the presence of Indian whether British citizens or not. The police advised the Indian community to stay indoors. Some British Indians and white anti-racists launched a counter protest against the NF. The police strove to keep the NF and their opponents apart. In clashes with the police an anti -NF protester called Blair Peach was killed by a police baton. Blair Peach was a white who was disgusted with white supremacy. Many Sikhs attended his funeral to express their solidarity. They knew that not all whites were anti-Indian. The British Indian community appreciated fraternal support from decent whites. 

In the 1980s the British Indian community was riven by controversy. In the Punjab a Sikh organisation called the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) started to fight for independence. The Indian Army fought against the KLF. Many Sikhs accused the army of brutality. There was bad feeling between Sikhs and Hindus.

In 1984 the Indian Army attacked the KLF in the Golden Temple, Amritsar. Hundreds of KLF combatants were killed. Sikhs were enraged that their holy of holies had been desecrated. But that was the fault of the KLF for turning it into a terrorist camp. The army had tried to resolve the situation peacefully. The KLF had refused to surrender.

Indira Gandhi was PM of India at the time. In October 1984 she was assassinated by a Sikh soldier for what she had done to the Golden Temple. Some British Sikhs danced in the streets in jubilation.

By the 1980s there were many people of British descent born in the UK. They were sometimes more Indian and sometimes more British in culture. Other people were bicultural. The British Indians were finding acceptance.

British Indians made waves in literature. V S Naipaul was knighted. Stuart Hall had many books published. Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses provoked intense controversy.

Indians started to appear on television in dramas and comedies. Freddy Mercury (real name Freddy Mercury) set the world ablaze as the front man of the band Queen. The UK Indian community reached 1% of the population. This might surprise people if they live in certain areas. The British Indian community is heavily concentrated in the major concentrations. Being a relatively young community the population is most visible among children. Few of its members are nonagenarians.

Some Indians stood for Parliament but in the early 1980s none were elected. Many of them complained that British Indians were selected as candidates for the major parties (Labour and Conservative) but only in unwinnable seats. That means a Labour candidate would stand in rock solid Conservative territory and therefore lose. Conversely, a Conservative would stand in an area where Labour was safe as houses and the Conservative would be defeated.

In 1983 Jonathan Sayeed was elected a Conservative MP. This former Royal Naval officer is half Indian. He was the first Indian Tory MP for almost 70 years.

A British Indian woman was elected Mayor of Windsor. She was later ennobled by Margaret Thatcher. The woman was given the title Baroness Flather. The baroness said she was given grief by the rest of the Indian community which tended heavily towards Labour. They were pro-Labour because Labour had agreed to independence. They believed that Labour was anti-racist. But in 1987 Jonathan Sayeed was elected as Conservative MP and he was a British Indian.

In 1987 Keith Vaz was elected for Leicester East. Vaz was a British Indian of the Christian faith. But he was elected for the most Hindu constituency in the UK.

1. What happened to Blair Peach?
2. Why was Indira Gandhi shot?
3. What did Baroness Flather achieve?

The rise and rise of the British Indian community

In 1992 Piara Khabra was elected in Southall. He had formerly served in the Indian Army during the Second World War. Khabra was a Labour man. Piara Khabra was the first Sikh elected to the UK Parliament. 

In the 1990s the British Indian community was increasingly affluent. 1 in 10 British Indian men were doctors. The British Indians grasped educational opportunities with alacrity and achieved above average results in school and university. The London School of Economics (LSE) had and has an extraordinarily high proportion of British Indian students.

In the 1990s Goodness Gracious Me started to be shown on TV. This was a comedy show by British Asians. It was mainly about their community. The title of the show recalls a 1960s funny song of the same name. 

In 1997 the Labour Party won a landslide victory. This brought several more MPs of Indian ancestry into the House of Commons. Some were appointed to the cabinet. Several British Indians were made lords. They included Lord Swarj Paul and Lord Alli. The Liberal Democrats asked the Queen to ennoble a British Indian. Mr Dholakia was elevated to the title Lord Dholakia.

By the 2000s the British Indian community has a higher than average income. If the UK population is divided by religion the richest community per capita is the Jewish community. The second richest is the Sikh community. They are followed by Hindus and then Christians. Prejudice also moved towards Eastern European immigrants such as Poles and Romanians. The Indians were no longer such a target of racism.

Racism started to move away from British Indians. Some white Britons were prejudiced against Muslims but not Hindus or Sikhs. The British Indian community has existed in serious numbers for quite a long time. The British Indian community had become part of the furniture.

British Indians started to feel more welcome in the Conservative Party. Some were elected Conservative MPs.

Immigration from India increased substantially in the 2000s. The British Indian community came to feel increasingly secure. In some areas of London, Birmingham and Leicester British Indians are the majority. In 2004 the largest Hindu temple outside India opened in London.

There was talk of founding a British Sikh Regiment. However, race relations experts said it would be bad because it would be divisive British Indians have a low rate of joining the armed forces and the government had been trying to change that.

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was married to a British Indian. Under him the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is a British Indian. Sunak represents a constituency that is 99% white. There is not much anti-Indian prejudice any more. The Home Secretary Priti Patel is also a British Indian. Sunak is tipped as the next leader of the Conservative Party. There are other British Indians such as Suella Fernandes (nee Braverman).

In 2020 the Labour Party elected a new leader. The runner up was Lisa Nandy who is British Indian. In 2020 the Liberal Democrats had their first MP of Indian stock. The Scottish National Party has several politicians of Indian descent.

2% of Indians are Sikhs. But 30% of British Indians are Sikhs.

1. Who was the first British Indian MP for Southall?
2. What proportion of British Indian males are doctors?
3. Who is the first Indian Liberal Democrat lord?
4. Which religious community suffered prejudice in the 2000s?
5. Which is the second richest religious group in the UK?
6. What was special about the Hindu temple built in London in 2004?
7. Should a British Sikh Regiment be formed? Five marks
8. Who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
9. What job does Priti Patel have?
10. What is unusual about the number of British Indian Sikhs? 
11. What are the achievement of the British Indian community? Five marks
12. Which British Indian do you most admire and why? Five marks

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Rahmon

PRESIDENT RAHMON

Emomali Rahmon is the President of Tajikistan.

President Rahmon is respected by the people of his nation. He was born in Tajikistan in 1952. He came from an ordinary family. At school he learnt Tajik and Russian and acquired fluency in both languages. He joined Komsomol which was the Communist youth organisation.

In the 1970s there was compulsory military service in the USSR. Rahmon served in the Soviet Navy. He sailed around the Pacific Ocean. This was far from his homeland which is landlocked.

Upon returning to Tajikistan he enrolled in a state university. He was awarded a bachelor’s degree. Later Rahmon became manager of a collective farm. He wed and had seven daughters and two sons.

In 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved. Tajikistan resumed its sovereign independence. In 1992 Rahmon became independence. A civil war broke out. Religious maniacs rebelled. The Taleban from Afghanistan helped the rebels Kazakhstan and Russia sent troops to help Tajikistan.

Eventually President Rahmon prevailed. He has been re-elected several times by an incredibly high percentage of the vote.

The president is respected and adored by all the people of Tajikistan. The media has only positive things to say about him. People like nothing better than to sing his praises. Every poets extolls him and composes paeans dedicated to him.

Emomali Rahmon is a Sunni Muslim. He has been on the Haj several times. He has assured people that they have the right to practice any faith. However, religious extremism of any kind is not permitted.

The president’s son Rustam is assumed to be his heir and holds a high public office. Rustam has adopted ‘Emomali’ as his surname. This is in line with traditional Tajik naming practices. Rustam is his father’s favourite son.

Rahmon is lauded for his strength, his courage, his indefatigability and his articulacy. He is admired all across the globe as a superb leader. He is a steady hand on the tiller of state. People are eternally in his debt because of the continuity, safety and prosperity that he has secured to his adoring people.

 

====================

1. In which year was Rahmon born?
2. Which country was he born in?
3. What branch of the armed forces did he serve in?
4. Where did he go to university?
5. Which languages does he speak?
6. How many children does he have?
7. What is his favourite son’s name?
8. In which year did Rahmon become president?
9. What happened in the 1990s that was bad?
10. How do you explain his incredible popularity? Five marks.

 

Mohammed Ali Jinnah. super advanced course lesson 8

super advanced course lesson 8

MOHAMMED ALI JINNAH

Jinnah was born in Karachi. The city lay in the province of Sindh which was part of British India. He was brought up a Muslim in the Shia denomination. The Jinnah family were prosperous merchants. They spoke the Kutchi language. Mohammed Ali had one sister Fatima to whom he was very close. He had several other siblings but he was not to close to them.

The family later shifted to Mumbai which was then called Bombay. M A Jinnah did very well at school and acquired absolute fluency in English.  He briefly attended the University of Bombay. It was decided that he should be called to the bar. He set sail to England and enrolled at the Inns of Court in London. Jinnah studied law. M A Jinnah chose Lincoln’s Inn out of the four inns. Why? Because there was a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed there as a lawgiver. Jinnah later said he saw the name ‘Mohammed’ written on a wall in Lincoln’s Inn to honour the Prophet as a magnificent lawgiver. M A Jinnah did not want to tell Muslims elsewhere that there was an image of the Prophet in London because most Muslims consider it an abomination to fashion such an image. He had to sit exams some of which were in Latin. Whilst in London it was decided that he should wet. He agreed. Jinnah married in Mumbai.  He spent only a few weeks with her before setting sail. Later that woman died without Jinnah having any children.

After being called to the bar Jinnah returned to India. He practised law in Bombay and did extremely well for himself. He soon amassed a fortune. He spoke only English and his native language. The Muslims of North India mostly spoke Urdu which is Hindi with some Persian words. He never learnt that language.

Mr Jinnah met a young lady named Rutti Petit who was Parsee. The Parsees are a religion which only has 100 000 adherents. This miniscule minority achieved a most mind blowing degree of success in many fields in India. In business, law, politics, science, music and military affairs the Parsees are worth their weight in gold. Rutti Petit whom Jinnah fell in love with was the daughter of a colleague. A Parsee can only be a Parsee if both the mother and father are Parsees. The child who has one Parsee parent and one non-Parsee parent is not a Parsee. Jinnah and the woman decided to marry. They informed her father Mr Petit. He was apoplectic with rage! Mr Petit would never consent to his daughter marrying a non-Parsee. Petit’s grandchildren would not be considered Parsee. Despite this the 18 year old Rutti Petit bravely chose to wed the middle aged Jinnah. Her father never spoke to her again. Rutti converted to Islam.

Dina was Jinnah’s only child. She was raised in Islam. When Dina was only 11 her mother died of an illness. Jinnah did not marry again.

Jinnah was a slim, effete, calculating and aloof man. He was very self-assured but desiccated. He never did anything without reason. Jinnah was also a chain smoker. Observant Muslims disapproved of smoking.

The Indian political party called Congress was making waves in the early 20th century. Jinnah joined it. He was very anglophile and wore British clothes. He drank alcohol and made little attempt to practise Islam. He did not socialise with Muslims all that much.

The Muslim League broke off Congress and Jinnah went with it. Jinnah was not concerned about pushing for Indian independence.

Some Muslim intellectuals like the poet Allama Mohammed Iqbal and Chaudhry Rehmat Ali said their ought to be a homeland created for the Muslims of India. What should this be called? Ali said ‘Pakistan.’ How did he come up with the name? ‘P’ for Punjabis, ‘A’ for Afghans, ‘K’ for Kashmiris and ‘S’ for Sindhis and ‘tan’ for Baluchistan. In Urdu ‘Pakistan’ means ‘Land of the Pure.’

Muslims predominated in the north-east and north-west of India. The Muslims in the north-east were mostly Bengalis. There is no ‘B’ in Pakistan. What about the Bengalis? For some reason Ali only identified with Muslims in the west of India. Why was there letter ‘A’ for Afghans in the name Pakistan? Afghanistan is a separate country. By ‘Afghans’ and Pathans. These people often speak Persian or Pashto which are the languages of Afghanistan.

In the 1930s the notion of establishing Pakistan seemed far-fetched. Jinnah called it, ”an impossible dream”. Some Muslims said in an independent India they would be treated unfairly. The activities of some hardline Hindus made this seem plausible. The Hindu Mahasabha organisation said that an independent India must be zealously Hindu and the law of the land must reflect that. They wanted Muslims to become Hindu. They wished to make killing cows a felony. The Hindu Mahasabha noted that Indian Muslims had converted from Hinduism centuries before. The Hindu Mahasabha wanted these Muslims to reconvert. The Hindu Mahasabha recalled that Muslims had destroyed hundreds of Hindu temples in the 16th and 17th century. A few Hindus said it would be payback time once independence came!

At that time Jinnah was more worried about his only child. His daughter Dina fell in love with a Parsee. She requested her father’s approval to marry him. Jinnah refused to consent to her marrying outside the faith. She left and married the man anyway. Jinnah never spoke to her again. He was hypocritical since she was doing exactly what her mother had done with Jinnah.

Congress campaigned ardently for ‘Swadesh’ or independence. The Muslim League was preoccupied in securing the wellbeing of Muslims and was not het up about independence. Congress were being sent to prison for illegal protests. The Muslim League never broke the law. They were allowed to continue their activities.

The Second World War broke out in 1939. Congress resigned for the provincial governments it was running. This was a protest at the UK bringing India into the war without the agreement of Indians. The Muslim League took over some of these provincial governments. Astonishingly they sometimes went into coalition with the Hindu Mahasabha.

It seemed that the British Empire was living on borrowed time. Jinnah turned his mind to the post-British era. He decided that creating a new country for Muslims was a must. In the meantime the Muslim League adopted a posture of neutrality towards the Second World War. They neither encouraged nor discouraged men from joining the Indian Army.

In 1940 Jinnah addressed a crowd in Lahore.  M A Jinnah spoke in English for the benefit of foreign journalists. He could not speak the languages of the local people – Punjabi or Urdu. He issued the Lahore Declaration. He said that when British rule in India ended a new homeland must be created for Muslims in the north-east and north-west of India. His statement did not make it clear if there were to be two separate Muslim homelands or one united Muslim homeland. He later said he meant one Muslim homeland. There as a big problem. What about the 1 000 miles of Hindu majority territory in between the two Muslim majority areas? Jinnah said the two Muslim areas could still be a single country despite not being geographically contiguous.

The Lahore Declaration did not contain the word ‘Pakistan’. It has since been given the misnomer ‘the Pakistan Declaration’. Pakistan has the Minar i Pakistan (Tower of Pakistan) in the park where the declaration was made.

The war ended in 1945. Congress leaders were let out of prison. For six years Congress had not been running any provinces. In those 6 years the Muslim League had become popular in areas where Congress had been strong in the 1930s. Congress perhaps made a grave mistake in their Non-Cooperation campaign. Congress had once had been strong in places like the North-West Frontier Province.

A lot of Congress disliked the Muslim League. It had done nothing to end British rule but was going to reap the reward. Jinnah had only campaigned legally for his ideal.  Jinnah had never been arrested. If Congress had not broken the law then the British Raj would not be drawing to a close or certainly not so soon.

The idea of Pakistan was gaining ground. Jinnah demanded Partition. The British did not want this nor did Congress nor did the Sikhs nor did the Hindu Mahasabha. But Jinnah’s will was inflexible. He argued that the Muslims of India were a nation. Muslims and Hindus were different in clothing, cuisine, music, law and architecture. He said that the new India would be Hindustan and run for Hindus.

In 1946 Jinnah found out he his tuberculosis was fatal.  M A Jinnah had been suffering from this disease since the 1930s. He knew he was dying. But this was a closely guarded secret. Lord Mountbatten and others tried to talk Jinnah out of the idea of partitioning India. Could the Muslim provinces not band together to form mega-provinces in India? Muslim rights would be guaranteed. They could have a lot of autonomy within India. But Jinnah was not to be moved. He demanded that Pakistan must become a totally separate country. He said that Muslims had ”nothing in common with Hindus but their slavery to the British.” That was the only time he referred to the British Raj as ”slavery.”

Jinnah started wearing traditional Muslim clothing. Until that point he had been completely anglicised. He started to sport a Kashmiri cap.

Lord Mountbatten became viceroy in 1947. He had a number of one on one meetings with Jinnah. He tried to talk sense into Jinnah – as Mountbatten saw it anyway. The two did not form a rapport. His lordship found Jinnah desiccated, false and distant. By contrast he had an excellent working relationship with Nehru. Nehru got along with the vicereine very well indeed.

Mountbatten subsequently said that if he had known Jinnah was dying he would have stalled and stalled. The Pakistan Movement was based around his personality. If Jinnah had died he movement might have run out of steam. Partition could have been avoided.

Jinnah wanted the whole of the Punjab. Muslims made up just over 50% of the Punjab. But Jinnah said that a Punjabi is a Punjabi first and foremost. That matters more than religion. Mountbatten said that showed how ridiculous partition was. If religion did not determine nationality then do not divide India. Jinnah wanted the whole of Bengal too despite Muslims only being about 55% of the people. Again he said a Bengali is a Bengali before he is Muslim or Hindu. Mountbatten said that Jinnah was contradicting himself. It was as though Jinnah was eloquently pleading his opponent’s cause. Jinnah said he did not want ”a moth eaten Pakistan”.

Punjab is the homeland of the Sikhs. Almost all Sikhs lived there. They did not want their homeland being cut in two. There was a lot of bad blood between Muslims and Sikhs.

With a heavy heart Lord Mountbatten and Congress agreed to Partition. But where was the boundary to be? A British judge called Sir Cyril Radcliffe was brought out. Sir Cyril had never been to India before. He worked in uttermost secrecy. He had to give as many Muslims to Pakistan as he could without taking more Hindus and Sikhs than absolutely unavoidable. He asked for submissions from both sides. The Indians wanted to give Pakistan almost nothing. Contrarily, the Muslim League claimed huge swathes of land that contained almost no Muslims. The border he drew is called the Radcliffe Award. When it was announced amazingly both sides accepted it.

When it was announced that Pakistan would come into being Jinnah made a speech on the radio in English. He ended with ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ – in Urdu that means ‘Long Live Pakistan!’  He hardly spoke any Urdu. Many people believed that he was speaking English even at the end and had said ‘Pakistan’s in the bag!’

Lord Mountbatten thought that having a country with two wings that were not connected by land was crazy. West Pakistan and East Pakistan were separated by 1 000 miles of India. He said with incredible prescience that this arrangement could not last 25 years. It lasted 24.

On 14 August 1947 Pakistan was born. Lord Mountbatten went to Karachi with Jinnah for the celebrations. Jinnah became the Governor-General of the Dominion of Pakistan. The Prime Minister was Liaquat Ali Khan. There was said to be a Hindu fanatic in the crowd who wanted to assassinate Jinnah. Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten drove very slowly in an open car through the crowded streets. In the end the would be assassin did not try to kill M A Jinnah.

The next day India became independent.

Millions of Hindus and Sikhs fled Pakistan. Many were waylaid and slaughtered. Many women were subjected to a heinous crime. Millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan. Many of them were killed too. About 14 000 000 people moved. Many people had to leave all their property behind.

Had Jinnah caused catastrophe? He laid the blame on his opponents. But if he had not called for Partition none of this would have happened. Pakistanis say that had Partition not happened then Muslims would have been killed en masse and those who survived would have been forced to to change to Hinduism. The Government of India said this is nonsense. There are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. There are countless mosques in India and Muslims worship freely.

There were many teething problems for the new country. There were millions of refugees to accommodate. Many of them arrived wounded or ill. What would Pakistan do about the property of Hindus and Sikhs who fled? There were lots of missing people and orphaned children. The country was in chaos.

All the property of pre-1947 India was divided on a 70:30 basis. 30% of the property went to Pakistan. This was true of armaments, furniture, money in the bank and so forth. This all required a huge amount of reorganisation.

Pakistan had to set up its army. These were made up of former Muslim regiments of the Indian Army. The Pakistani Navy was established and so was the Pakistani Air Force. The civil service also had to be established.

Pakistan was still using the Indian Rupee. It stamped the notes with a ‘P’ for Pakistan. In time the country printed its own currency.

There were Dalit Hindus in Karachi who ran the sewage system. They were attacked for their religion. Jinnah issued them with special bands to indicate that they were Dalits and not ordinary Hindus. They were vital to the running of the city.

Christians and Parsees in Pakistan were left unmolested.

In October 1947 Pakistani tribesmen attacked Kashmir. This was a huge Muslim princely state run by a Hindu. The Maharajah of Kashmir then asked to join India. The Indian Army was airlifted to Kashmir. Pakistan made war on India. The UN brokered a ceasefire the next year. It is a frozen conflict to this day.

Jinnah said Pakistan must be a secular country. Though it was a home for Muslims it was not to be an Islamic state. Sharia was not to be the law of the land. People were free to practise any faith. There are Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jews and Parsees in Pakistan. Jinnah said they must have equality. They were guaranteed representation in the National Assembly (parliament).

In September 1948 Jinnah died of tuberculosis. He is remembered as ”Qaid i Azam” meaning ”The Great Leader”. He has a mausoleum in Karachi. His house in Mumbai still stands. His descendants do not still live there. His birthday is 25 December. Therefore it is a public holiday in Pakistan not because it is Christmas Day!

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1. In which city was Jinnah born?
2. What was his religion?
3. Which denomination of Islam did he belong to?
4. What was his father’s trade?
5. Which city did M A Jinnah grow up in?
6. What does ‘ M A’ stand for in the name  M A Jinnah?
7. What was his profession?
8. Why was his marriage controversial?
9. What was his personality like?
10. Which party did he first join?
11. What did the Muslim League do with regard to its place within Congress?
12. Who invented the name Pakistan?
13. What is the etymology of Pakistan?
14. What did the Lahore Declaration say about Pakistan?
15. Why was Jinnah never imprisoned by the British?
16. Why did Jinnah say Muslims were a nation in India?
17. What did Jinnah prefer to call India post 1947?
18. When did he die?
19. What is your opinion of him? Five marks.
20. Was the Partition of India good or bad? Five marks

 

 

 

 

Sardar Vallabhai Patel

VALLABHAI PATEL

In 1875 Vallabhai Patel was born in Gujarat. He was born into a Hindu family without much money. His father had been a soldier and had rebelled against the British in 1857. Vallabahai grew up on tales of derring do against the British in 1857. He was not raised with the awe that many held for the British Raj at that time. Patel went to school which many children did not. Very people learnt English in India at that time. But he learnt the language and mastered it. He came to speak several Indian languages. He was extraordinarily inquisitive. Patel had an insatiable appetite for newsprint. He read several newspapers from different regions of India each day. In this manner he kept himself up to speed with developments in all parts of his country.

Patel married young and had several children. He worked hard and prospered. He decided that he wanted to be a barrister. This was a very considerable ambition for a man without much means. But to practise at the Bar of India one must first of all be called to the Bar of England and Wales. Therefore he sailed to the United Kingdom.

Becoming a barrister involved joining an Inn of Court in London. Patel had very little money. He had to eke out every farthing. V Patel walked six miles to the Inns of Court every day to save money on the bus fare. He was a driven man. His endeavours were crowned with success when he was called to the bar. As a barrister qualified in England and Wales he was entitled to practise law in Hindustan. The day that he was called to the bar he did not celebrate like most callees. Instead he went straight to the docks and boarded a ship for India.

Alighting in India he immediately established a legal practice. It flourished and he became wealthy. His deft courtroom manner won him plaudits from other barristers and from the bench. He joined Congress. Soon Patel was traveling all across India on Congress missions. He became acquainted with the other luminaries of Congress. However, his life was touched with tragedy when his wife died young. He brought up his children on his own. Patel never took another wife.

In the 1920s Congress initiated its non-co-operation campaign. Patel threw himself into it with all the courage and passion of his intensely determined persona. He was arrested and thrown into a dark and fetid dungeon. He had been a scrupulously law abiding man. Never before had this pillar of society had to rub shoulders with brigands and conmen. In prison he bore himself with a dignity that everyone would profit to study. He was willing to pay the very heavy price that was needed to accomplish his purpose of achieving Swaraj (self-governance) for Bharat. He was released and rearrested on several occasions. He could have lived in the lap of luxury. Patel chose hardship over comfort on point of principle. Thugs in prison did not scare him. He was hard as nails.

In 1942 he fronted the Quit India Campaign. The British said they were fighting for democracy. Yet they deprived India of the same. It made a mockery of the British claim to advance the cause of freedom. In 1942 Patel was arrested and spent three years in prison for anti-colonial activities.

In 1945 he was set free along with the other Congress doyens. The UK had agreed to expedite Indian independence in short order. The aim was to do so by 15 August 1948. This was later brought forward to 30 June 1948.

After 1945 Indians were brought into the Cabinet of the Government of India. The top posts had previously been held by Britons. The viceroy was Lord Wavell. Wavell was finding the task exceptionally challenging. The Muslim League was demanding the cession of a large portion of Indian soil.  It was led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. They wished to create a totally new country called Pakistan. Lord Wavell thought the idea was pernicious lunacy. He considered Indian unity to be a major British achievement and wanted it to be preserved after the termination of the British Raj. Patel was also adamantly against setting up Pakistan since it was necessitate the Partition of India. He was a Hindu who had grown up with Muslim neighbours. He harboured no animus against those who subscribed to the Islamic faith. The idea of setting up a nation dedicated to followers of the Prophet Mohammed seemed ludicrous to him. If a land for Muslims was to be created why not unite with nearby Muslim lands like Afghanistan and Iran? The Muslim League did not wish to do that.

In February 1947 Lord Wavell and Lady Wavell walked through the Gateway of India in Bombay (Mumbai). They then set sail for the British Isles. Lord Mountbatten arrived in India. He was to be the last viceroy. Lord Mountbatten met all the key Indian leaders for one on one sessions including a meeting with V Patel. He found Patel to be astute, tough, direct and very capable. There was little warmth between the two men but there certainly was respect.

Lord Mountbatten strove might and main to persuade the Muslim League to drop the madcap notion of creating a never heard of before country called Pakistan. But the Muslim League leader was determined. Nothing would shake him. His unwavering resolve led to success. The Muslim League wanted land in the very north-west and the very north-east of India. The people in the north-east were Pathans, Punjabis, Sindhis and Baluchis. In the north-east they were Bengalis.  These were to be the two wings of Pakistan: West Pakistan and East Pakistan. There was to be a thousand miles of India in between the two wings. What did the Bengalis have in common with the Punjabis? Lord Mountbatten said that they were as similar as the Finns and the Greeks. The Finns and the Greeks are both Christian but they do not try to form a single nation with a thousand miles of foreign territory separating them.

Lord Mountbatten unhappily arrived at the conclusion that the foundation of Pakistan could not be precluded. Congress came to the same view.

India was going to become the Dominion of India. Finally it was decided that Pakistan would come into being. But what about the Princely States? India comprised 585 princely states as well as British India. The Princely States would be asked to join either India or Pakistan. Strictly speaking once the British Raj ended the Princely States were independent if they had not chosen to join either India or Pakistan. Patel thought it would be disastrous if there were hundreds of tiny independent countries scattered across India.

The task fell to Patel to ask the Princely States to join India. The Muslim majority states usually opted to join Pakistan. Patel accepted this. Some princes agreed readily to merge with the Dominion of India. With others he had to offer inducements or cajole them. His objective was to absorb all of them. He succeeded in all but three cases.

Mountbatten saw the security situation deteriorating rapidly. He decided to prepone independence. It was brought forward to 15 August 1947. The day before that Pakistan came into being.

Patel became the first Home Minister of India. He was in charge of policing, prisons and suchlike. It was a crucial role. India was facing a very testing time. There was massive inter-religious violence occasioned by Partition. India had to cope with 14 000 000 refugees. Then Pakistan made war on India.

Dominion status was accepted only as an interim. Patel and most of Congress wanted a republic to be declared. This was signal India’s absolute sovereignty.

In 1950 Patel died from a heart attack. He was given a traditional Hindu funeral and cremated. He is fondly revered. He is known as ‘Sardar’ as an honour.

In 2017 the tallest ever collosus was put up to his memory in Gujarat. It is 85 metres tall.

1. In which Indian state was Patel born?
2. What was his religion?
3. What was his profession?
4. What did his father tell him about 1857?
5. What party did Patel join?
6. Did Patel spend time in prison?
7. What was Mountbatten’s view of Patel?
8. What did Patel do about the Princely States?
9. What was Patel’s job in the Government of India?
10. What is your opinion of him? Five marks.

 

 

 

 

Subhas Chandra Bose. super advanced course 11

SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE. super advanced course 11

Bose was born in Cuttack, India. This city lies in Bengal. His mother tongue was Bengali and he was raised in the Hindu religion. His father was a highly successful barrister so the family was well off. Subhas Chandra Bose was a serious minded and studious child. He was always grave beyond his years.

Subhas Chandra did very well at school. His endeavour was crowned with success. He mastered English. Very few Indian spoke English at the time. He was known for standing up to the authorities. He had some British teachers. Bose found some of them very condescending . He felt that they demeaned Indian culture. He read about history. In 1857 many Indian soldiers had mutinied against their British officers. Indians now call it the First War of National Liberation. The British call it the Indian Mutiny. The British lost control of much of North India for six months. Most Indian soldiers remained faithful to the British. The British won in the end.

Bose took a degree from a university in Kolkata. His study of history convinced him that the British Raj was about extracting wealth from India and not about assisting the advancement of India. S C Bose had heard the British rationalisations for their presence in the Subcontinent. The British boasted of all they had done for India in terms of building railways; founding schools; and universities; introducing modern medicine and better agricultural methods; establishing a new judicial system, keeping Pax Britannica between the different peoples of India, defending India from Afghanistan and so forth. The British claimed they ruled India because they had purchased some of the land and ruled the rest through the consent of Indian princes. Bose was unconvinced by the case for the British Raj. He believed that the British had done all this only insofar as it benefited them. They had forced Indians to grow inedible crops such as cotton, tea, opium and jute and this caused hunger. There were several famines under the British Raj and millions of peopled died.  Bose became convinced that the British presence in India was unjustified. He said that India was overtaxed and had to pay the cost of its own occupation. The Indian Army was used as cannon fodder for the UK’s wars of aggression elsewhere.

 

1. Which Indian province was Bose born in?
2. What was his father’s occupation?
3. What happened in India in 1857?
4. What were the British justifications for ruling India? Five marks
5. Did Bose agree with these claims?
6. What harm did Bose say the British had done to India? Five marks. 

Study abroad 

Bose then enrolled at Cambridge University. After taking a degree from Cambridge Bose was offered a very well paid job with the Indian Civil Service. He turned it down. Bose had become convinced that the British Raj was very harmful to India. He wanted to end baleful foreign rule. 

Upon returning to India Bose threw himself into nationalist activities. He joined Congress. Bose campaigned zealously for independence. He came to be one of the leading figures in Congress in Bengal.

Many Congress luminaries condemned those who used force against the British. Bose sympathised with those who took up arms against the British Raj.  He did not regard them as terrorists but as freedom fighters. Bose believed than the British cultivated enmity between different communities in India. The British strategy, according to Bose, was divide and rule. He said it was duty of every Muslim and every Hindu to oppose the British Raj. The British spoke of democracy but would not allow it in India. Bose thought the British talk of freedom was nonsense. The British had a great capacity for self-delusion according to him. As the British had used force why should the Indians not? Bose held that the use of force was mere self-defence against the inherent violence of British rule.

Bose asked how it was that the British reigned in India when Indians outnumbered them 1 000  to 1? The British had co-opted a class of well remunerated traitors. There were a few Indians at the top of the pile who genuinely benefited from the British Raj. They told their subordinates to obey the Britishers and many obeyed. There were the princes. Bose loathed them as collaborators and exploiters. Some Indians held the British in awe. It seemed that the British won, won, won so some Indians admired them. He longed for the day when the downtrodden people would rise up against their cruel oppressors.

1. Which UK university did Bose attend?
2. What job did Bose say no to?
3. Why was there ill-feeling between different groups of Indians according to Bose?
4. How did Bose explain the fact that millions of Indian assisted the British Raj?  Five marks

British Propaganda

In Kolkata there was a monument to the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. This was an incident in the 18th century when some Britons were imprisoned by Bengalis. The British civilians were held in a small room during a hot night. There was insufficient airflow and many British people died as a result. The British constantly harped on about this as exemplifying Indian cruelty. Bose took the gravest possible exception to the memorial. He held that it was there to make Indians seem wicked and, by implication, make British people seem civilised. The British said that the Indians were a benighted race who need the enlightenment of British rule. Bose thought this claim was offensively dishonest. He said that many famines had been caused by the British Raj. Bose said that several million Indians had starved to death due to British greed. S C Bose led a campaign to have the memorial removed. He was successful.

Looking to world affairs Bose say that whites could be defeated. Some Indians seemed to think that whites were unbeatable. This was the myth of white invincibility. People said that whites sometimes lost a battle but never lost a war. Bose noted that the Japanese had thrashed the Russians. In the 1842 the Afghans, a very low technology people, had beaten the British. Victory was possible. But the British had bribed some Indians and intimidated the rest.

In the 1930s there were dictatorships in many countries. Bose admired the strength and sense of purpose of Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union. He agreed with the British on one thing only. India was unsuitable for democracy at this stage in history. It needed an authoritarian government. But Bose believed it must be an Indian government that worked for the betterment of the Indian people and not a foreign government for the enrichment of foreigners.

1. What happened in the Black Hole of Calcutta incident? Five marks
2. Why did Bose insist on removing the memorial? 
3. What was the myth of white invincibility? Five marks
4. Why did Bose like dictatorships?

Time to fight 

Traveling extensively in the 1930s Bose met an Austrian woman. He wed her and they had a daughter. Bose’s marriage gives lie to the idea that he was anti-white.

In 1938-39 he briefly led the Congress Party. Many in Congress disliked him and called him a fascist. He was not a good people person and not good at managing relations with his colleagues. Bose was cold, distant and austere. He almost never smiled.

Bose was later under house arrest for anti-colonial activities. In the middle of the night he slipped out of his house. He attained a false Italian passport. Using his bogus identity he traveled to Afghanistan. Once there he was out of the reach of the British. He traveled overland all the way to Germany.

Adolf Hitler had a meeting with Bose. Germany was willing to help anyone who would cause a pain in the neck for Britain. Some Indian soldiers who had been fighting on the British side had been captured by the Germans. Germany allowed Bose to recruit these men for his Indian National Army (INA). This was as opposed to the Indian Army which was pro-British. Bose broadcast by radio to India. He incited Indians to rise up against the British. What about the Indian Army and the Indian Police? If they believed that Bose would punish them if he won then they would fight all the harder against Bose. On the other hand if Bose promised to forgive them if he won then they would say they might as well carry on serving the British. Bose said that soldiers and policemen who had served the British would not be punished when independence came so long as they had not been too keen to suppress freedom fighters.

Eventually Bose traveled by submarine to Japan. The Japanese were attacking the British colonies in Asia. Bose was mightily impressed with the Japanese with their vim, fighting spirit and technological prowess. This was a shining example for other Asian nations.

The British and their colonial allies surrendered to the Japanese at Singapore. Bose went to Singapore. 40 000 Indians had become prisoners of war. Bose persuaded many of them to join his Indian National Army (INA). It was sometimes called the Azad Hind Fauj (Free India Army). Those who refused were treated brutally and some were shot. The INA was supposed to attack the British Army in India and the pro-British Indian Army. The INA wanted liberate India from colonial rule.

1. Which party was Bose a member of?
2. When he escaped from Indian which nationality’s passport did he use? 
3. Which German leader did he meet?
4. What was Bose’s attitude to soldiers and police who had served the British?
5. Which Asian country helped Bose?
6. At what South-East Asian city did the British sustain a massive defeat? 
7. What was the INA? (Five marks)

THE I. N. A.

The Japanese had invaded China in 1931. Millions of Chinese had been killed in the war. The Japanese sold opium to the Chinese but would not allow their own people to take opium. The British had banned opium in the 1920s. Japanese rule was so brutally exploitative that it made British rule seem benign by comparison. Within days of capturing Singapore the Japanese arrested several thousand Chinese civilians and took them to the beach. They were shot dead. This was a massacre several times bigger than Jallianwala Bagh. Some of the INA soldiers were disturbed by this. Were they really on the right side? Bose believed that his duty was to India only and not to China. If he had to make alliances with distasteful governments he would do it for the sake of emancipating India.

The INA had a flag. It was the Indian Tricolour but the symbol on the central bar was a leaping tiger. Bose decided that he would be called ‘Netaji’ meaning ”respected leader.” The motto of the INA was in Urdu ‘Itmad, Ittefaq, Kurbani’ meaning ‘unity, faith, sacrifice’.  Bose decided that the greeting among his soldiers would be ‘Jai Hind’ meaning ‘Hail India’. It remains a popular patriotic slogan in India today. He used Urdu partly to placate Muslims. He was aware that the Muslim League was demanding the Partition of India. After Indian independence Bose wished to preserve the unity of the nation. Therefore Bose was keen to ensure the Muslims of India that they would be included and treated fairly.

The INA even had a section for women. It was called the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. The regiment was named after an Indian queen who led her troops into battle against the British in 1857. She was the only senior commander of the rebels in 1857 to be killed in combat. Rani is a title like ‘queen’ and Jhansi is an Indian city.

In 1942 the United Kingdom promised to grant independence as soon as the war was over. Bose said that the Brits were promising this because he had them on the run. He did not believe they would fulfill their solemn promise.

Some of the INA were disturbed that while they were required to salute Japanese officers the Japanese soldiers were not required to salute INA officers. The Japanese promised India would join the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Was this a cover for being a Japanese colony as had happened in China? The Japanese slogan was ‘Asia for the Asiatics’. Some INA men were concerned that if they let the Japanese into India they would never get them out. The British repeatedly promised to expedite Indian independence as soon as they could after the war. Were they to be trusted?

Bose appointed himself provisional president, prime minister, foreign minister, defence minister and commander of the INA. The British said that Bose was a megalomaniac and a fascist.

1. Which country did Japan invade in 1931?
2. Why were some INA soldiers unsure about their alliance with Japan?
3. What was the INA Flag?
4. What was Bose’s honorific title? 
5. What was the women’s section of the INA called?
6. Who was the Rani of Jhansi?

Chalo Delhi

What language was to be used for the INA? Indians spoke so many languages. Bose decided that Urdu should be used since that was the language that the pre-British rulers of India had spoken: the Mughals. Urdu was spoken by Muslims in North India. The language is mainly Hindi vocabulary with some Persia words and it is written in the Arabic alphabet. Persian is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and a little bit in India. The problem with using Urdu was that it was associated with Muslims and some Hindus disliked that. It was also a northern language and this alienated the south. It was written in the Arabic script which most people did not understand. They used Devanagari script. Moreover, it was written right to left. Most Indian languages are written left to to right.

Bose broadcast on the radio to India. He spoke in his native Bengali. He sometimes addressed his hearers in English. His slogan was ‘Chalo Delhi’ (”on to Delhi”). He called upon Indians to fight. Bose stirringly declared, ‘Give me blood and I shall give you freedom!’  Although he was anti-British he did not reject their language. A language is a mere means of communication like a radio. He spoke only two languages so he had to use those. Some Indians understood English who did not understand Bengali. There was nothing anti-national about speaking English. After all English was not even originally a British language. English is a blend of Saxon, Old Norse and Norman French. At the end of each broadcast he would say, ‘India shall be free and before long. No power on earth can keep India enslaved!‘

The INA fought the British in Burma (Myanmar) and achieved some success. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal were taken by the INA. These were Indian islands. The INA even crossed into the mainland of India but only penetrated a few miles. However, the Burma campaign stalled. British counterattacks forced the INA and their Japanese allies back. The Japanese were being defeated on other fronts. Japanese soldiers were transferred to other sectors. Indian civilians suspected of collaborating with the British were sometimes killed by the Japanese. There were two battles that the INA fought in India with the Japanese by their side. These were Kohima and Imphal. The INA and Japanese lost both. The INA sometimes fought the Indian Army (pro-British). The INA hoped that the Indian Army would come over and join their side. But it did not happen. The INA was obliged to retreat from the tiny area of mainland India it had taken.

Some INA soldiers noted that the Japanese had behaved appallingly in Burma. Prisoners of War and civilians had been made to do slave labour. Many died due to their cruel treatment. The Japanese did not hesitate to kill civilians on a large scale if there was even any passive resistance. It seemed much worse than the British Raj. One Burmese leader Aung San had fought against the British even changed sides to support the British. He said, ”the British suck your blood but the Japanese also take the marrow from your bones.”

1. Why did Bose speak English in some radio broadcasts to India?
2. Which islands were taken by the INA?
3. Did the INA reach mainland India?

The end

The Japanese advance had caused the British to destroy bridges and boats in Bengal to slow down the Japanese. Then the rice crop failed and it became impossible to distribute supplies to the stricken area. In 1942 a famine began. The official death toll was 1 500 000 Bengalis who died of starvation. Some Indians believed the true figure is much higher. A few INA soldiers wondered if their attempt to liberate India was making things worse for India. Others said it was typical British genocide.

By 1945 the Japanese were in retreat. The British retook Burma. Bose fled to Taiwan.

The Japanese surrendered. Bose did not want to fall into the hands of the British. He decided to go to the Soviet Union. The Soviets were committed anti-imperialists. They constantly demanded the termination of the British Raj. Bose boarded his plane. It crashed a minute after take off. He was killed.

Why did the plane crash? Was it an accident or sabotage? Who would want to kill Bose? The British? Congress? Or someone else? Although independence was coming for India the British wanted to maintain the maximum possible influence afterwards. They viewew Nehru and a gentleman and someone they could do business with. London did not want Bose causing problems

There are some who claim that Bose is still alive. He would be well over 100 if he were still alive.

There are statutes of Bose all over India and things named in his honour.

1. What happened in Bengal in 1942?
2. What is the minimum death toll from the famine?
3. Where did Bose end up in 1945?
4. What happened when he tried to fly to the Soviet Union?
5. Is it certain why his plane crashed?
6. What is your opinion of him? Five marks