THE INDIAN “MUTINY” (1857-9).

RUNNING A CAPITALIST EMPIRE. Accounts of the Indian “mutiny” often focus down on little events or issues which tripped the “mutiny” into action, but it was part of a long British capitalist annexation of the East by the East India Company. It is possibly the biggest example of capitalist political control ever. The East India Company (EIC) had both a fleet and an army with which it gradually subdued an area which extended into Afghanistan and east into Burma and China. It annexed territories or reached agreements with rulers to suit its trading plans. Its oak armed monsters on the water intimidated local boats. Cannon could be used to subdue territories and gradually a control system was established. Soldiers could mow down any native people who objected to this control with rifles. The military ability to kill and dominate led to economic enslavement. This British pattern began in the late 17^th century and extended throughout the 18^th with land and naval battles and new trading patterns. Gradually, the British Empire forged ahead of other European Empires – the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Russian and French especially in its control of the Indian subcontinent.

THE COTTON CONTROL SYSTEM. The economic control was exercised through trade and then focussed on products like tea, cotton and opium. The East India Company opened up farms, estates, factories, markets, employment and slavery to extend their economic reach, and a lot of colonials became extremely rich and then retired home to enjoy their wealth. They changed the Indian economy. The opium poppy was cultivated by over 1.3 million peasants in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who would otherwise grow food. We see the significance of that later. The British could control India’s trade through tariffs. In the early 18^th century India was responsible for 25% of the world’s textile trade. Within a century that had fallen drastically. We all know about Lancashire cotton cloth and the Industrial Revolution. Cotton clothes were manufactured in Lancashire towns and wool ones in Yorkshire towns as the industrial revolution got underway. Except it was not like that. India grew cotton and made efficient industrial cloth in the 17^th century and 18^th century, well before Lancashire got going. Gradually the East India Company took over the trade, in competition with the Dutch, and imported about a million and a half pieces every decade through the 18^th century. Most of those nice 18^th century clothes we see in pictures of the Aristocracy were Indian cloth. The EIC had its own factories and ran cotton worldwide. But they transferred the manufacture to Britain. When the Industrial Revolution got underway Lancashire factories began to do the manufacturing, partly financed from capital from Indian profits, and India was relegated to producing the raw material and its markets closed through tariffs. Later American slave labour produced it even more cheaply.  

MILKING THE INDIAN ECONOMY TO MAKE BRITAIN RICH. We now see that the Indian economy was used and exploited in a whole load of ways to support Britain. The cost to the Indian economy ran into trillions. It was de-industrialised to suit us. There were land taxes. Territory was appropriated by the EIC. It produced opium for our trade. We raided anything we wanted. A ten year old Prince was forced to hand over the Koh i Noor diamond, cut down to half its size, for Queen Victoria’s brooch in 1849 along with the annexation of the Punjab. The colony was milked by the colonial power. The East India Company had developed its own army, or three armies, mainly using Indian soldiers, because that was far cheaper. The soldiers were given privileges and the system of control that had gone through many generations was assumed and unassailable. This is the age-old pattern of a colonial power exploiting its controlled policy to bring wealth back home. The wealth came back to build expensive homes, boost share prices, invest in industry and build warships and weapons. There was some Indian investment in canals and  railways, obviously built with Indian labour, but the net impact of colonial rule was to limit, close down and use Indian productivity for British enrichment on a substantial scale. The rupee sank in value. Silver declined, and the relative stagnation of the Indian economy was a big part of the colonial heritage.

FAMINE. It was also kept in place through famine. Countries face famine and learn to handle them, but when your agriculture is controlled, taxes take income, poverty is acute, cotton and opium replaces food, and a policy of not interfering is in place, the famines intimidated the population. There was one in the 1780s which killed more than ten million, and one in 1837-8 which killed 0.8 million. In other years there were shortages. Three in the 1860s killed 4.5 million and probably took the sting out of the “Mutiny”and then there was the Great Famine of 1876-8 which killed from 6-10 million. When issues of food are immediate, colonial confrontations recede in priority. Later in the century Florence Nightingale and others insisted the issue be addressed in Britain..

THE “MUTINY”. So, in 1857 the East India Company, vast, profitable and milking India successfully was in control. It ran native armies to subdue the populations it controlled and had agreements with vassal rulers which kept the situation stable. By 1857 the three EIC armies had about 280,000 soldiers. Those from two of the three armies also served in other areas like China and Burma. British soldiers always outranked Indians. They would be paid and equipped from the taxes and profits made by the East India Company. By 1857 there were a range of dissatisfactions among the troops which exploded when Mangal Pandey rebelled against the east India Company and shot at his commanders. He was hanged. Antagonism spread. A dispute over the greasing of cartridges created more points of tension. Eighty five soldiers at Meerut who refused to use their cartridges were sentenced to ten years imprisonment with hard labour. Their comrades saw them shackled and led off, and then revolted killing four men, eight women and eight children. A wider revolt occurred, and then action moved to nearby Delhi where there were riots and killings. Troops blew up an arsenal of arms and explosives before it could be captured and another magazine with 3,000 barrels of gunpowder was secured against the “rebels”. There were Hindus and Muslims who “rebelled” or stayed loyal. Most of the Bengal soldiers “rebelled” and the main “rebel” areas were in the Ganges valley especially around Meerut and Delhi. Soldiers rebelled or stayed loyal.

THE BRITISH GET VICIOUS. Bahadur Shah Bafur the old Mughal Emperor was proclaimed Emperor of India in Delhi and the uprising spread among populations in the area. The British were slow getting troops together, and were also fighting in the Crimea, but then moved on Delhi, hanging rebels they captured to show they meant business. A three month siege of the City occurred from the ridge overlooking the city. Eventually, with sufficient fire power of cannon and guns the city was captured and pillage and revenge killings took place. Another problem occurred at Kanpur in June 1858 where a siege was mounted against the occupying British force. An agreed evacuation turned into a massacre including of women and children and it became the moral justification for later British revenge killings. Reliable reports of what happened are difficult, but soon the atrocities committed by Indians were dwarfed by systematic British killings. Mass hangings of Indians occurred at Fatehpur. Sepoys were tied to the mouth of a cannon and blown up, as the picture at Peshawar at the top shows. Rape and torture occurred on a large scale as the British eliminated the rebellion. In Britain the press focussed on the atrocities committed by Indians and ignored the much large number done by British troops. 6,000 of the 40,000 British living in India were killed, but more than a hundred times that number were killed by the British in this completely disproportionate response.

BRITISH STATE CONTROL OF INDIA. The British state troops had held India and the whole territory therefore moved from East India Company ownership to the Crown. Victoria became Empress of India and the political Empire took over from the EIC. Three lessons were learned. First Hindu and Muslim ways needed showing more respect. Second, elite Indians needed training into British Government. Third, the troops needed securing as British troops with greater British control over arms and key militias. Few concluded that British control of India was wrong. India was used to enrich Britain; William Digby estimated that from 1870–1900 £900 million was transferred from India to Britain. So, the famines came and the control continued for another eighty years. There were many good British people who served in India, and there were benefits in technology, patterns of government and other areas that the British may have brought. Probably the missionaries with hospitals, schools and better motives than the colonialists brought other long term benefits and there are many Anglo-Indian friendships and links which we respect and celebrate, but the Indian mutiny, reflecting a mainly selfish British colonialism, was a despicable part of British history, which we should regret.

REMORSE. Some 6,000 British died in the mutiny, and we remember them. Some 800,000 Indian troops and people died during the “Mutiny”, often vicious and appalling deaths to reinstate colonial control. If we are silent remembering the British troops who died for two minutes, we will be silent remembering the Indian people for four and three quarter hours, and when we have done that, we apologize to our Indian friends with remorse.