The British and the Indian Mutiny

                 India was always a proud and independent country. Whether it was the Rajputs at the early 11th and 12th century, or the Mughals of the 17th century, India has always been self-ruled. However, during the Imperial Era of Europe, India became an important colony and trading outpost for many countries including Portugal and the Netherlands. England was the most influential country that went into India. Through the form of the English East India Trading Company, England covertly influenced India to the point in which India was like a colony. To further prove the point, the English East Indian Company arrived with an army numbering 200,000. (1)

                Soon afterwards, India rebelled against Great Britain in the Indian Mutiny. (2) The Indian mutiny was a rebellion by the Indian people in order to gain back their land.  India was split into two factions, those loyal to Britain and those loyal to India. (3) Many battles occurred with Britain and India each gaining victories. Finally, Britain marched upon Delhi, the capital and fought against the heart of the Indian Empire. (4) By September 20, the British had defeated India in what was a long and costly battle. As rebel forces retreated, the British deposed of the rebel leaders, and India officially became a British Colony. (5)

                Even though India was defeated at that moment, the British realized how powerful the country was. What was initially a peasant rebellion grew into a movement which would influence future movements against British people. The Indian mutiny was the first step to the Indian independence.

Bittersweet Evolution

The British brought many good and bad things to India. They gave the Indian population, men and women alike, an opportunity at education. (6) They were also able to improve previous medicine and technology. Although the British greatly improved Indian technology and advanced their culture, India still came to resent their conquerors. This resentment came from the consequences of the British’s actions.

                The British brought the textile mill to India as a means of cheaper production. (7) After the Industrial revolution, the British outsourced factories to India in order cut down the salaries of their employees. With little to no laws regulating worker’s rights, many Indians suffered. Previous textile industries that had existed in India were driven out of business and as a result, many were left without a job. Those who joined the factories received worse treatment than the English during the industrial revolution. However for all the England brought technologically, it did not bring anything socially. It did not do anything to promote a democracy or update the outdated “caste system” that was already in place. (8) Thus lower class people suffered as much as they did under previous rulers. Furthermore, higher taxes were put in place. Many landowners in small villages were now allowed to place heavy land taxes which evicted previous tenants and made them servant to these men. (9) With all the good that the British created, the bad was much worse and fueled a hatred against all things British.

India's Founding Fathers

               August 15, 1947, a day which India will remember forever. On this day, about 20 years of long, drawn-out, tensions between India and Great Britain came to a close. From this time on colonial India ceased to exist and a new India, an independent India, came into fruition. This can be attributed to men such as Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. These men greatly influenced the events leading to total independence such as the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Muslim-Hindu tensions, and the “Quit India Movement.”

                Mohandas Gandhi was able to help drive the British from India by using one banner, salt. Among the many unfair things that the British imposed upon the Indian was the salt tax. (10) Salt was a staple in India and by taxing it, they were putting an unfair price on every person’s life. Even Gandhi said, “The tax constitutes therefore the most inhuman poll tax the ingenuity of man can devise.”(11) Under the banner of salt, Gandhi began the Civil Disobedience Movement and started nationwide protests against the British. (12) By weakening the domestic support of the British, Gandhi had started the road to Indian Independence.

                Nehru, the first prime minister of India, was a man who was the diplomat to the British and one of the leaders of the independence movement. His influential support of the Quit India Movement helped him gain much political power in India. By making congress boycott the British, he was able to weaken much of the British stranglehold on India. With the resulting arrests of nearly every congressman, Nehru was one of the few remaining free Indian national leaders, thus putting himself in major power for the rest of India.

                Jinnah may have been the most influential, yet least known of the three, simply because of his radical movement to separate India from their Muslim inhabitants. (13) As the leader of the All-India Muslim league, he fought hard with the British and Indians for a separate Muslim country. (14) He called for Muslim to rebel against the British and Indians. (15) With massacres in Bihar and Calcutta of both Hindus and Muslims, the British called for a ceasefire in which they finally gave up India. (16) However with Jinnah as the leader, he replied, “they (the Muslim League) will not yield an inch for Pakistan.” (17) With that demand, India was liberated from Great Britain and Pakistan, Jinnah’s dream country, separated from India.

                These three men led the biggest revolution in India’s history. Without any of these men, India would be a very different country and still part of Great Britain. Twenty years of their hard work and dedication led to August 15, 1947, the official Indian Independence Day.