After a brief look at the jubilees celebrated in India the presentation looks at the proposed 1905 Bengal partition and its consequences. Partition is justified by administrative concerns but the partition map effects religious differences and a policy of divide and rule. Muslims in Bengal support the partition but the Indian National Congress opposes it.The reaction is to combine support of native industry with boycott of foreign goods. Opponents divide into moderates who support just these efforts . and extremists who advocate swaraj or self-rule. The Raj counters with the Minto-Morley reforms which give a small increase in local self-government. In 1911 the partition is repealed
2. 1896 Bombay Plague
• Probably came from Hong Kong
• British India Government response
Plague Commission
• Assume localized to slums with overcrowding,
poor sanitation, poor ventilation
3. Fighting Plague
• Inspection and
disinfection of houses
• Quarantine
• Travel restrictions
• Native medical
practice restrictions
General Gatacre states that it was " gratifying to note the extreme cordiality that
existed throughout the whole period during which the troops were employed
between the military on duty and the civil population. “
Plague report
4. 1897 Fight Plague, Pune
• Inspection ordered to be carried out with respect for
religious groups
• Carried out by British India Army
– Allegations of forced entry, destruction of property,
stripping of women
• C. W. Rand, plague administrator and his guard are
assassinated by Chapekar brothers
• Tilak arrested and convicted for seditious articles
that provoked the assassinations
9. 1903-4 Tibet Expedition
• Fear of China giving Russia control of Tibet
• Maxim guns against muskets, swords and
amulets
10. Partition of Bengal
• Public reason
– Bengal with a population of ~78.5 million was too
large to administer
– Calcutta administration out of touch with east
• Private reason?
– Congress dominates public opinion
– Division would weaken the power of Congress
11. Partition of Bengal
Muslims 18 million
Hindus 12million
Total 31 million
Muslims 9 million
Hindus 42 million
Total54 million
12. Original Plan for Partition
• Transfer areas to Assam to give Assam an
outlet to Chittagong
• Consolidate Uriya speaking people in Bengal
• Generate more than 300 public protests
– Educated Bengalis were almost all hostile to the
partition plan and the masses were indifferent.
13. Partition
• Generally on religious grounds. Why not on
linguistic grounds?
– Transferred districts “the hot bed of the purely
Bengali movement, unfriendly if not seditious in
character . . .” Fraser, Lt. Governor under Curzon
• Economic
– Jute mills in Calcutta, jute in East Bengal
– Potential for redevelopment of Dacca (Dhaka)
14. Muslim Support
English speakers
22 out of 10,000 Muslims; 114 out of 10,000 Hindus
Higher government positions
41 Muslims; 1,235 Hindus
Police in East Bengal
4 out of 59 Inspectors (59% of the population)
15. Comments on Reorganization of Provinces
“The last thing that we want to do is to consolidate the
Mahratta race. We hear quite enough of Sivaii as it is”
[On adding a Maratha speaking area to Bombay] Curzon
“The best guarantee of the political advantage of our
proposal is its dislike by the Congress Party”
[On the advantages of his plan] Curzon
“Bengal united is a power. Bengal divided will pull in
several different ways. That is perfectly true and is one of
the merits of the scheme.”
[summarizing ideas from Lt. Gov. Fisher and Curzon] Risley
16. Minto, New Viceroy
• Though partition had problems with public opinion
“the diminution of the power of Bengali political
agitation will assist to remove a serious cause for
anxiety.. . The growing power of a population with great
intellectual gifts and a talent for making itself heard . . .
is not unlikely to influence public opinion at home most
mischievously.
Therefore from a political point of view alone, putting
aside the administrative difficulties of the old province,
I believe partition to have been very necessary. . .”
18. Swadeshi Movement
• Revive indigenous industry which could not grow in
the face of free competition with foreign countries
which had highly developed industry.
• Bring pressure upon the British public by the
economic loss they would suffer by the boycott of
British goods, particularly Manchester cotton goods
• Publicize by newspapers, processions and popular
songs
21. Responses
• August 1905 Boycott resolution focused on
Manchester cloth and Liverpool salt
• Fasting, large gatherings, singing Band Mataram
• Spread through India
– Poona and Bombay: Tilak
– Punjab: Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh,
– Delhi: Syed Haider Raza,
– Madras: Chidambaram Pillai.
22. Congress
1905, Banaras, Gokhale
• Condemns Curzon and partition
• Supports Swadeshi in Bengal; rejects swaraj
1906, Calcutta, Naoroji
• Supports swaraj
“self government means that obtaining the self
governing British Colonies“
1907, Surat, Rashbehari Ghosh
• Party splits over moderate-extremist divide
23. Newspapers (Incite to Offences) Act, 1908
• Magistrates could confiscate the printing press and
property of newspapers which published
objectionable materials such as:
– Incitement to murder or acts of violence.
24. Morley-Minto Reforms
• Added elected members to the central and provincial
councils.
Other members nominated by the Viceroy.
• Increased the sizes of the councils
• Separate electorate for Muslims.
• Legislative Councils were permitted to discuss
budgets, suggest amendments and vote on them
except items that were included as non-vote items.
25. Morley-Minto Reforms - Councils
• Two Indians were nominated to the Council of the
Secretary of State for Indian Affairs.
• The Viceroy could nominate one Indian member to
his Executive Council.
26. Legislative Council 1909
• India: 68 total (69 with the Governor-General).
– Eight ex officio members (Governor-General's council, the
Commander in Chief and Lieutenant-Governor of the
province in which the council sits);
– 35 nominated members;
– 25 elected members
• 12 from provincial councils and municipal committees
• Six from landholders in seven provinces,
• Five from the Muslims of five provinces,
• One each from the Chambers of Commerce of Calcutta
and Bombay).
27. 1910 Press Act
• Repeats registration requirement with the addition
of payments in the case of offensive publications
• Defined offenses
– Incite murder or anarchical outrages
– Tamper with the loyalty of the Army or the Navy
– Excite racial, class and religious animosity and hatred and
contempt of the Government or a native prince
– Incite criminal intimidation and interference with law and
order,
– Intimidate public servants with threats of injury
28. Boycott
• Government schools and colleges,
• Government service, courts, legislative councils,
municipalities,
• Government titles, etc.
• Refuse to wash foreign clothes
29. 1911 Repeal of Partition
• Bihar and Orissa removed from Bengal
• Assam was made a separate province.
• Capitol moved to Delhi
30. Consequences
+ Establishment of a University in Dhaka
+ Increase in national Hindu solidarity
- Increased antagonism between Hindu and
Muslim communities
Notes de l'éditeur
I know that it was pure philanthropy which flooded India with English-made goods, and surely, if slowly, killed out every indigenous industry-pure philanthropy which, to fa- cilitate this, repealed the import duties and flung away three crores of revenue which the rich paid, and to balance this wicked sacrifice raised the Salt tax, which the poor pay... .the phantasm of free trade drains us .... Free Trade, fair play between nations, how I hate the sham! What fair play in trade can there be between impoverished India and the bloated capitalist England? ....No doubt it is all in accordance with high eco- nomic science, but, my friends, remember this-this, too, is starving your brethren. es.28 Lala Murdlihar, 1891 INC
Kumar, Mukesh. "QUESTION OF QUARANTINE OR POLITICISING THE" PLAGUE"? INDIANS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY NATAL." Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Vol. 75. Indian History Congress, 2014.
Dube, Francis. "PUBLIC HEALTH AND RACIAL SEGREGATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: MAHATMA (MK) GANDHI DEBATES COLONIAL AUTHORITIES ON PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURES, 1896-1904." Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria (2012): 21-40.
Arnold, David. "Disease, Rumor, and Panic in India’s Plague and Influenza Epidemics, 1896–1919." Journal of World History 13.2 (2002): 429-49.
Emilsen, William W. "Gandhi and Mayo's ‘Mother India’." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 10.1 (1987): 69-81.
1908 There was wide acceptance of a plague vaccine
Up they came, more and more, new types, new realms at every couple of yards an anthropological museum - a living gazetteer of the British Empire. With them came their English officers, whom they obey and follow like children. And you begin to understand, as never before, what the Empire amounts to. Not only that we possess all these remote outlandish places ... but also that all these people are working, not simply under us, but with us - that we send out a boy her and a boy there, and a boy takes hold of the savages of the part he comes to, and teaches them to march and shoot as he tells them, to obey him and believe in him and die for him and the Queen ... A plain, stupid, uninspired people, they call us, and yet we are doing this with every kind of savage man there is. And each one of us - you and I, and that man in his shirt-sleeves at the corner - is a working part of this world-shaping force. How small you must feel in face of this stupendous whole, and yet how great to be a unit in it!
hirdly the splendid troops of native Indian Cavalry, the Indian Princes in their magnificent native costumes & riding the most splendid horses. The last, riding alone, was Sir Pertab Singh, A.D.C. to the Prince of Wales, & the great polo player.
Curzon's letter of 2 February 1905 to St. John Brodrick, Secretary of State for India, give an idea of his aims in partitioning Bengal:
"Calcutta is the centre from which the Congress Party is manipulated throughout the whole of Bengal, and indeed the whole of India. Its best wire pullers and its most frothy orators all reside here. The perfection of their machinery, and the tyranny which it enables them to exercise are truly remarkable. They dominate public opinion in Calcutta; they affect the High Court; they frighten the local Government, and they are sometimes not without serious influence on the Government of India. The whole of their activity is directed to creating an agency so powerful that they may one day be able to force a weak government to give them what they desire. Any measure in consequence that would divide the Bengali-speaking population; that would permit independent centres of activity and influence to grow up; that would dethrone Calcutta from its place as the center of successful intrigue, or that would weaken the influence of the lawyer class, who have the entire organisation in their hands, is intensely and hotly resented by them. The outcry will be loud and very fierce, but as a native gentleman said to me – 'my countrymen always howl until a thing is settled; then they accept it'."
Zaidi, Z. H. "The Political Motive in the Partition of Bengal, 1905." Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 12.2 (1964): 113.
McLane, John R. "The decision to partition Bengal in 1905." The Indian Economic & Social History Review 2.3 (1965): 221-237.
