How important are Dates?
Certain historical events need to be seen in the context of dates.
A major part of history is about kings and rulers.
Ascension of a ruler to the throne, important battles fought by him and succession of power are some of the events which can be expressed with reference to time.
Dates are important for correlating such events.
Some events do not happen on a particular date but take a very long period to materialize.
For example; the freedom of India took many years of mass struggle to turn into a reality.
Such events are studied in the context of various other events.
Which dates?
The dates we select and compose our story of the past are not important.
They become vital because we focus on a particular set of events as significant.
The chronology of different personalities’ lives marked the different chapters of the history of British India.
It is to give each chapter some coherence.
It is to tell a story in a way that makes some sense and can be followed.
How do we periodise?
James Mill was a Scottish economist and political philosopher.
In 1817, James Mill, published a massive three-volume work, A History of British India.
In his book, he divided Indian history into three periods – Hindu, Muslim and British.
Mill thought that all Asian societies were at a lower level of civilization than Europe.
According to his telling of history, before the British came to India, Hindu and Muslim despots ruled the country.
Religious intolerance, caste taboos and superstitious practices dominated social life.
According to him, British rule could civilise India.
In this idea of history, British rule represented all the forces of progress and civilization.
Historians had divided Indian history into ‘ancient’, ‘medieval’ and ‘modern.
Criticism of Mill’s Periodisation:
Although Hinduism is the religion of most of the Indians; the Muslim period did not begin one fine day.
Muslims had been living in India from much earlier than beginning of the Islamic rule in India.
Even during the peak of the Mughal Empire, there were many territories which were ruled by Hindu kings.
Moreover, the British projected the so called Hindu and Muslim periods as the dark ages.
They thought that the British rule would take India towards enlightenment.
This was also a wrong notion.
What is colonial?
By reading this chapter we will understand how the British came to conquer the country and establish their rule, subjugating local nawabs and rajas.
How they established control over the economy and society, collected revenue to meet all their expenses, bought the goods they wanted at low prices, produced crops they needed for export and we will understand the changes that came about as a consequence.
We will get to learn about the changes British rule brought about in values and tastes, customs and practices.
When the subjugation of one country by another leads to these kinds of political, economic, social and cultural changes, it is referred to as colonisation.
How do we know?
Administration produces records:
British believed in the act of writing which produced an administrative culture of memos, notings and reports.
They also carefully preserved important documents and letters.
Important records are preserved in all administrative institutions.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, these documents were carefully copied out and beautifully written by calligraphists – by those who specialised in the art of beautiful writing.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, with the spread of printing, multiple copies of these records were printed as proceedings of each government department.
Administrative Records:
Official records of the British administration serve as important source of history of this period.
The British rulers believed that every instruction, plan, policy, decision, agreement, investigation should be clearly written up.
This was necessary for proper study and debate about an issue.
They carefully preserved all official records and created several archives for the purpose.
While these records provide valuable information, we need to be careful while interpreting them.
We should keep in mind that those records were written from the perspective of the British officials.
They may have overlooked certain issues or may have modified certain aspects to suit their needs.
Surveys become important:
The British believed that a country should be known in a better way to rule it in a better way.
Under the colonial administration, the practice of surveying became common.
By the early nineteenth century, detailed surveys were being carried out to map the entire country.
In the villages, revenue surveys were conducted to know the topography, the soil quality, the flora, the fauna, the local histories, and the cropping pattern.
From the end of the nineteenth century, Census operations were held every ten years which prepared detailed records of the number of people in all the provinces of India, noting information on castes, religions and occupation.
There were many other surveys – botanical surveys, zoological surveys, archaeological surveys, anthropological surveys, forest surveys.
What official records do not tell:
Official records will not help us to understand what other people in the country felt, and what lay behind their actions.
Records like diaries of people, accounts of pilgrims and travelers, autobiographies of important personalities, and popular booklets are found other than official records.
Printing was introduced and newspapers were published and issues were debated in public.
Leaders and reformers wrote to spread their ideas, poets and novelists wrote to express their feelings.
But, from these sources, history cannot be explained and how the tribals and the peasants, the workers in the mines or the poor on the streets, lived their lives.
