Empire: World History - 19. Federal India, indentured labour, and naked yogis

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

This week, Anita and William are doing two episodes in which they answer all of your questions about Empire. Join William and Anita today as they discuss whether partition was inevitable, why the British never settled India, what the best books on Empire are, and much much more. To get your free two week trial for Find my past, go to www.findmypast.co.uk and sign up.   LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/xempire   Twitter: @Empirepoduk   Goalhangerpodcasts.com   Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. And welcome to a very special Q&A version of Empire with me, Anita Arndham. And me, William Durenful. So that is the first question. that was asked by many people, which is what has happened to his pregnant pause. Well, I think we found out, haven't we?

It was always there. What you should do is we should do it more often after my siesta in the afternoon, and then you get the pregnant pause. It's just a sort of natural thing. I don't know. I've got a feeling that this thing goes on holiday. I hope it's never going to come back, and it returns with its luggage, a sun tan. It's there.

An annoying sombrero, and here it is, everybody. The pause is back. It's in your pause. And a peanut collider as well. Yes, anyway, we're here and you've been sending your questions in there, hundreds. We are really overwhelmed by the response. Sometimes it's wonderful. We just talk to each other and we forget there's a world out there listening in.

Occasionally we go out of our houses and meet people that are actually listening. Not very often. Not often. You'll be delighted to hear. But look, the questions are really clever and smart and then making us think about things in more depth and perhaps in a different way than we have before. I think a lot of people are also saying that this is all stuff they just haven't got in school. I assume that this would be new to a lot of Brits,

but that Indians would know it from their school lessons. And we're getting so many people telling us that even in India, they get either a very politicized version of their history. For example, the Indians never learn anything nice about Jinnah, and the Pakistanis never learn anything nice about Gandhi or Neri. and all sorts of people seem to be finding that the stuff we're talking about is quite new to them, which shouldn't be the case because these are really important issues that have shaped the modern world. So, I mean, you're absolutely right.

I mean, I thought in India that this would have been taught and it was just here that it wasn't taught. But also, we've been getting a lot of responses from Canada, from Australia, from Germany this morning. There was one popped in in Germany saying, look, I'm recommending your podcast to all of my friends, because the subjects that you're talking about may not involve our country, but the themes certainly did. which, you know, it's our little international family, and I couldn't be happier. But it is interesting, isn't it, William? How many people are saying this resonates no matter what my politics are, no matter where we are? Even we got, I don't know whether you've seen this, because we have banged on about it quite a lot.

Hello, Malcolm Turnbull. One of our many prime ministers listening to us, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure we've got loads, but Malcolm actually tweeted in and we're going to try and pull him in on one of the future podcasts. But again, you know, these are our subjects and themes. that have resonance around the world. And I think it's also just a subject which, partly because I think it's new in a sense, you know, it's even ongoing, has failed to make it into educational syllabuses. And yet, in a sense, it's what people have to deal with every day,

whether you're a Brit going abroad and having to meet a whole load of Indians who know about Gillian Wallabug and you don't or knowing about the potato famine in Ireland and you don't or going to the Caribbean and knowing all. that stuff and you don't know it, or whether it's stuff because of political reasons you've been given a particularly tilted version. And of course, you know, there are many takes on this. We're just giving our particular versions and many people can and will disagree with what we say. Shall we start with some of these questions? And also those of you who are fretting saying, oh, you've left India too soon. You've gone, you've gone, you've gone. We're going to circle back

because there are so many subjects. We're absolutely right. Also, I mean, frankly, it's the stuff that Anita and I both know about best and have spent. to do at least about it. But also, I mean, I'm longing to do some of the early Indian stuff, stuff I'm working on for my current book, the Palavas, the Cholas, the early Indian emperes, the Rastrakutas, the Chalukyas. Again, this is stuff that is very little known, even in India. And then, of course, there are all the, you know, there's the moguls, there's the great game, there's the whole history of Afghanistan, and these, again, things that we've both written about. So we're definitely heading back. But the feeling was that we've, that we've,

should explore territory that was neither a British Empire nor about India. So we decided to go for the Ottomans. Well, let's talk about that a bit more at the end, because let's stick with the questions that we've got now. You don't understand the drama. It's like just going straight to them. It's not crazy. You are the man in a play who's swinging from the curtain call right in the next one. You know who did it? I can tell you that. No. No, not yet. That's not how you build drama. Right. First question for you. This is from Professor, Professor Jim Malinson, who says, I'd like to ask the Empire Gurus, that's us, whether the East India Company would have beaten the Marathas without the help of Himmat Bhaadur,

Anup Gehiri's army of naked yogis. This is an obscure question, but it's a terrific one. You will not surprise you to know that I'm drawn to the naked bit of this. What? What now? Explain. So, not a bit of history that anyone knows, but a fascinating bit of history. When the East India Company was trying to complete its conquests of Northern India at the end of the 18th century, they ended up allying with one of the most colorful figures in Indian history, who's a guy who was originally called Anukiri Gosen, and after he allied with the moguls, became known as Himat Bahado. Now, already, this is not sort of following stereotype at all.

What is a naked yogi, A, being doing being a warrior and bearing arms? And everything else. Everything else as well. And literally. And B, if he's a naked yogi, why is he allied with the moguls? And so when this character joins at one point with the army of the moguls and the noab of Avad, who's the mogul governor of what's now UP, and the Afghans against the Hindu Marathas.

So breaking every stereotype in Indian history. So you've got a naked Hindu only man fighting with Afghans against the people who are now in modern India seem to be the great nationalist Hindu heroes, the Marathas. There are a lot of complaints from the Afghans saying, please, can you cover up a little? But these guys are actually crucial crack forces. And I think the idea behind Jim's question is this crucial. role that he played. And at this absolutely central moment when the British East India Company in 1803 is looking to take over Delhi and attack the mighty armies of the Marathas who outnumber

them and now are equally well trained, the person who swings it in favour of the British is none other than our arms bearing naked, naked warrior Sadu. You can't talk about naked worries and saying swings it. Listen, this is a family show. I don't know what you're doing. Did you know him at Bado by the way? It means bravery, bravery. Did you know that?

I did not have him at this to be brave. And Bahadur, a Bahadur is somebody who is a brave man. He was very, very brave. Just tell me, I mean, the army of naked yogis, I mean, what made them so terrifying? How did they fight? Are there in the accounts of how they charged onto the battlefields and what damage they could do?

There are lots of accounts. and if you think this is actually not something that's completely over now, because if you've been to the Kumela or seen pictures of the Kumela, the Nagasadus, who come for their bathe at the confluence of the Gangeshs and the Amunert, Priag Raj or Al-Habhad. And they come with their spears. And indeed, there are often, even today, scuffles between one group of Nagasadus and their rivals. And these are the modern descendants of actually.

active yogi warriors who played a major role in Indian history. At one point, the Emperor Akbar, I think, comes across a bunch of Vashnav Saddu's. And Vashnav, we should explain, those who follow the cult of Vishnu. About to have a fight with the followers of Lord Shiva. And there's a famous picture and description of this battle. But in the 18th century, when the whole place, India disintegrates, and you have all these city-states, fighting against each other, and then even more bizarrely, these company armies weighed in and start taking over increasing

chunks of India. These guys are crucial allies who can actually be bought. They are, you know, they're commercial operations in many cases. And Anup Giri allies with the moguls and becomes him up Bahado because he's fighting bravely for the moguls. And then he's bought off by somebody called Gulam Khadir, who's about, who wants to take revenge on the moguls. and at a crucial moment when Gulam Kadir,

who's this kind of rollicking Afghan marauda, turns up at Delhi, Himat Bahadu is meant to be guarding the ferry crossings, disappears just at the crucial moment, and the idea is that he's been bought off and paid money. So he's a slippery character, but he's a fascinating character, and if anyone wants to know more about worry, you're not allowed to laugh at this, you can't see.

Listeners, but Anita is convulsed. I can't help you. I mean, the swinging it and the slippery character. I mean, do you know what you're doing? Or is this just all Freudian slippage going on like the place? Complete innocence. I'm a good Catholic boy. I used to be an altar boy, I'll have you now.

Never crossed my mind. No, thank you. Thank you so much. Anyway, this guy swings the entire course of Indian history. Right. Well, listen, thank you very much for that comprehensive and slightly X-rated answer. What is our next question? Where are we going next? I think you've got one for me, haven't you? I do. So there are lots

questions about this. This is a particular one is from Ravel Pillai. And the question is, I'm wondering after your last podcast with Mahmoud Mamd Mamdani, whether you had any plans to discuss the migration of indentured Indian labourers around the world, especially in the sugar-growing British colonial territories after the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. That's brilliant. And I've had some people from Mauritian descent, again, whose families were brought over to work on plantations saying, can you tell us a little bit more? Well, look, we probably will return to this in much more detail, but in a nutshell, people have asked why did Indians become indentured labours? Why did they agree to sign these ridiculous contracts that, in effect,

made them modern slaves? And the fact is, it's famine, it's poverty, it's desperation. 19th century, famine has decimated crops. People are dying. They're dying in such enormous numbers. we touched on this. So this is the only hope that they have. And the demand for Indian indentured labors increases so much more after the abolition of slavery. So you've got the abolition of slavery in 1834. Plantations still need workers. They can't haul over slaves anymore, not legally they can't. So they turn to India for very, very cheap labour. And this is where you get this, this term, Cooley arrives. Now, those people in Hinty will know Cooley as a... A porter, someone at a train station, yeah. In the train station, they wear red.

As they did, incidentally, in mogul times. And those red jackets, you see coolies wearing at train stations, are there in mogul miniatures. There's a wonderful picture in the Metropolitan Museum that I saw very recently, actually, of people carrying the Emperor Orangzeb in the palanquin. And, bizarrely, the palanquin bearers have exactly the same red jacket, which railway port is wearing Delhi today. Well, this entire Bollywood film, I mean, you know, we're going off on tangents, but this entire film.

It was Amazon Batchettian. I remember it, but my very first visit to Inj, 1984 it came out. Yeah. So he's one of these coolies, which still exist, on the platform,

and the most prize possession is one of these badges that allows you to work on the stations. Anyway, that's my digression. But then it started me thinking, actually, with this term, coolly, where does it come from? Do you know where it comes from?

It comes from the Tamil. It actually means, it comes from the word for payment for occasional menial work. I didn't know that. Quite literal. You are a menial worker paid a pittance. It's what, you know,

they wear their function on their badge. And before 1840, a lot of these labourers who were then sent all over the world were so-called, this is what the Brits called, Mahal Coalys. So these are the indigenous people around the plain, the gangatic plains, you know, what we would call Dravidians, I guess, darker, smaller, small-boned. But later, when this sort of terrible famine starts sweeping, this indentured labour system sweeps across cars. So you'll have high, cast, low-cast, Dravidians, all seeking work to feed their families. And just to give you an idea, one of my friends who also wanted to know the answer to this question,

so thank you very much, Ravelle Biela for asking it. But it's just numbers. So let's just talk about Mauritius for a second, which is where my friend Maya comes from. In 1834, just one year, 41,000 Bengali laborers were sent to Mauritius. Amitav Ghosh writes rather beautifully about this in his... his Opium War saga and these characters going off to Mauritius on an indentured laborship having been conned in the novel into signing one of these contracts.

Yeah, because most of them are, you know, a lot of people are illiterate, they don't know what they're signing. They have no idea how long are they going to be kept in these conditions. We had our lovely Professor Mandani talking about, you know, the lions of Savo. I don't think we did that enough justice, but these two lions in Savo who were patrolling up and down what was then known as the lunatic line, this railway that was being laid by the British with a lot of indentured labels at the beginning.

These lines picked off hundreds of coolies, hundreds of them, and disease carried off hundreds more. But the conditions are so bad. I mean, the salvo example is just one, but there are missionaries who are following these migrations to work on plantations, basically do the jobs that slaves once did. And these reports start coming in by about, I mean, after such a great number, since 1835, 1836, saying that this is not how Christian people treat people. And so in 1838, there was so much reporting of abuse and torture of these Indian indentured labourers that it became illegal. Until 1842, when British Prime Minister Robert Peel said, actually, we do need them,

we'll have safeguards, but we're going to start the system again. So, I mean, you know what? There's an awful lot more we can say. You have just reminded me how rich this subject is. And this is a major piece of history. There are entire settler colonies now. Why are the Indians in the Caribbean? Why, for example, V.S. Nyples' ancestors in Chihuahuannas in Trinidad. The answer, his ancestors in UP signed a contract and found themselves carted off to Trinidad. Yeah, no, 100%. 100%. The whole of Guyana. What, Jamaica, British Guyana, Trinidad. Immigration to these places was only legalised in 1844. But, you know, the workers were often there before that. You had immigration to Grenada, St. Lucia, that was, I think, legalising the mid-1850s. It's as big a thing in determining sort of world migrant population as the slave trade itself.

It's a huge part of history. And while there's a lot written on slavery, there's much less written on indentured labour. It is a subject we must come back to, I think. Absolutely. And you know what? If we do come back to it, there is an absolute direct link between that generation here in Britain and a lot of people who came over on Windrush as well. So I think Nypole was one of those.

It may well be the case. That's right, isn't it? B.S. Naiple, the writer, is exactly one of those who spans that history. And that makes me think, actually, William, in the future, we might want to bring some actually literature, high literature, you know a thing or two about that. We should bring that in. There is a very good book on indentured labourers in specifically Guyana

by something called Gaucho Bajara. And we've had her at the Jaiapolitic festival, and she was astonishing. And again, this made a huge impact because it was a story that affects a lot of the people, that a lot of people have relations or ancestors who have this history, but there's nothing written on it.

It's again, one of these weird little corners of history that's really important, but unwritten. And if you sort of scratch the surface of it, you see there are some really familiar names that come into play. So, I mean, I was looking through some documents. The colonial office was written to, there were accounts and held by the colonial office.

from people like Anthony Troller and Charles Kingsley, saying, no, it's fine, it's fine. His system is fine. Why don't what the fuss is about? Insisting that indenture was positive for migrants. What is the relation, Anita, and I don't know the answer to this, what's the relation between colonial indentured labour, which is something that seems to have been around, particularly the early 19th century, and modern bonded labourer, where you have people who've gotten to debt, for example, in Sindh and Pakistan, there are large numbers of labourers who are often still shackled and you see occasional human rights reports about this. Is it the same system? I mean, effectively, yes.

I mean, it feels to me. It feels. And I don't know. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this. And somebody who's listening may know better than me, but it feels like semantics to me. Because, you know, if you're put on foreign soil and you have to stay within your camp and you're not allowed to go and there are men with arms who are supposedly guarding the camp but really keeping you in, How is that different to actually being chackled and not being able to go? Either way, you know, you're either paying off a debt or you're getting paid very little subsistence to, who you're hopefully sent back. So there is a financial exchange which makes this different to slavery, but otherwise between the two, I don't see a whisker between them. I remember covering this in the 90s when I was first a foreign correspondent in India in my 20s.

And there were large numbers, I mean, in the tens of thousands of these people, particularly. I remember in Sindh. But I think is it still survive in some parts of India or not? Not that I know. I mean, you would know better than me about that. But you do get human rights reports about this or certainly did in the 90s. Well, I mean, also there are, I mean, if we're talking about it's not quite indentured labor, but this is, again, a very interesting avenue, I think.

I mean, it's a, it's a faroe eye plow, which is that the workers who come over with the Raj to Britain. So like the Lashkas, who are the seamen, who carry all of the stuff that is being harvested, the tobacco, the tea, the indigo from all over the colonies, and they bring them back to Victoria Docks. They get here. They're sometimes not paid, or they're sometimes paid so little. They can't even afford to get back, let alone all these dreams of supporting their families. And they are then inhabiting the East India Docks, called the East India Docks for a reason. where there's now these huge sort of Canada wharfs, Canada Wharf, Butler's Wharf, all of these things. They're now very expensive real estate. Some of the most expensive real estate in London.

But at the time, you know, these were places which were outside civil society. So, you know, nice British people wouldn't have to look at these creatures, benighted creatures. And what would happen is that opium dens would spring up because, you know, for a couple of pennies you could get out of your head and out of misery. The number of reports, again from missionaries of Lashkas who don't have shoes, and don't have coats for just freezing to death and causing an encumbrance because their bodies have to be cleared up.

There are also reports of actual torture so there are some refuges which are set up, which I've written about, I think they might be in Sapphire because her father set up a refuge for Lashkas. But these places where a gangmaster, it is just redolent

of really modern, horrific history where they will get Muslim Lashkas and tie pig centrails around their throats around their necks and make them wear them all day as a sign of humiliation. We didn't discuss this before we came on. This was, again, a story which I researched in my 20s very heavily. I went off to South Shields next to Newcastle.

Which is in the northern, for those of you abroad, the northern part of Great Britain. Right. Do carry on. And the Yemeni community of South Shields is the oldest Muslim community in Britain. And these guys arrived in the 18th century with East India Company ships. And the reason Yemenis rather than Indians was that these ships would change their crews at Aden. Yes. And a whole new crew. Aden was also part of the East India Company territories.

And again, one thinks of the East India as occupying India, but of course East Indy Company took over great chunks of territory like modern Dubai, briefly Somalia, Yemen. and so the Indian crews would get off at Aden and they'd take on new Yemeni cruise and the Yemeni cruise would then get stuck in Newcastle. Wow. And there's a, I think, a dispute on whether the Yemeni community mosque at Cardiff or the Yemeni community mosque at South Shields is the oldest in Britain. And the historians tussled over this, but they're within a year or two of each other and they date back to the 18th century. And in the late 80s, when I was fresh out of university working on the independent, I went and spent a couple of of weeks with the Yemeni community of South Shields who are no longer there because they found

Yemen was at that point getting richer than poor old South Shields that was in a post-saturite depression. And there were these complete communities of Yemenis wearing Yemeni clothes, chewing gut, rather like you're talking about opium to get over the misery of their lives. These guys were high on gut every evening. And quite a lot of them had got Geordie wives. So you'd see these sort of Jordie wives sitting there with their Yemeni husbands, and some of them converted to Islam, some of them haven't. And they were talking about being this community, which had been Muslim in Britain for 150 years.

Well, so I don't want to fall out with you. You know, I don't mind you all that bit. But can I just say the oldest mosque in Britain as far as I thought, and again, please feel free to write in your droves, was the Shahjahan mosque in Woking, also known as the Woking mosque, which is the maybe it's the first purpose built mosque. This is one of those moments that Tom Hollis says you have to go to the bodily,

in other words, look up Wikipedia. It's how old he says he said. But I think that's the case. And the reason I know this, I think I did a TV piece about it many, many moons ago. But the one very, very fascinating fact about this Woking mosque, the Shahjohan mosque, is that the front man of the jam, poor Weller,

his mum was a cleaner. No. I love the story. I just love a little titbit. I'm just making a quick visit to the Bodleyn as we speak. And you're quite right. It comes straight up, the Shah Jahan Mosque are right. I mean, I don't want to say this.

But it is true that I think my communities are the oldest communities. You don't know if they haven't got the oldest mosque. I mean, it's still not right. Still wasn't right. Just saying it was right. Let's just stay with that for more than the nanosecond. Anita was right. Okay.

So I think we've answered that in such exhaustive detail. We might have to be a bit quicker Are there questions? I think we're banging on too long. Time for a break. Welcome back to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duremple. You get better, didn't you, with time?

I'd be practising. It's better by the second half. It's more of practice. Right, so where were we? Paul Cook. Are there any titles you'd recommend that I should watch or read, let's say read as well, and why?

Do you want to kick off with that? That's a lovely question. Well, our books, obviously. Well, obviously. obviously all of our Ove. But apart from that, look, I'll start. There's a wonderful historian who has written about that sort of whole period

of the Lashkirs, the I, as the first emigrants to Britain, and I owe her so much. She's wonderful. Rosina Vizram. Rosina Vizram, who is fabulous. So anything by Rosina Vizram is worth reading. I'm going to give you two, okay? I'm going to give you one,

which is a sort of serious academic book. That's Rosina. And the second thing I would recommend, if you just want to get into the sentiment, of perhaps modern India. And you'll enjoy it no matter where you're from the world. There's a lovely film that came out about 50, 20 years ago called La Darm, which is all about the game of cricket.

And it's all about the cricket sahibs, the British. You're not going to tell me it's a true story, is it? No. No, is it nothing? It just has to do that. Just keepering around. No. But it's just fun.

So look, it's just a fun thing about Indians how they see themselves and how they saw those times, if you want to sort of have just a popcorn afternoon, I can recommend it. So the premise of it is, is you've got the British sahibs in there, Jim Kahners, who don't like the natives coming in. They've brought cricket to India,

and this is the first time, Tom Holland's going to hate this movie. I don't know Tom's seen it, but it's going to make his skin feel off. Anyway, they suddenly teach the natives how to play cricket, and guess what happens? Anyway, I'll leave it to you. I don't want to blow the ending.

I'm like, William. What is Ramgoor's famous? line that cricket is an Indian game accidentally invented in Britain? I don't know. Okay. Well, anyway, that's my quick answer. What should people read? What's a really good read on Empire?

What would you say? Oh, goodness. I mean, I've got a library here of God knows how many books all about this. If I had to take one or two to my desert island. Well, we've just been talking about And of Gehry swinging through North India in the 19th century. And there's this extraordinary book by William Pinch on warrior yogis, which is one of the strangest and most wonderful, wonderful books. I'll throw one more in. You know what? We should do a little, either a book groupie thing or something where we do recommendations every month.

I love to do that. To really think of this through and come up with, yeah. No, listen, thank you for that. Paul Cook. Stormingly good question. Okay, I'm going to roll two questions into one. So this question is from Ian Charmy. Why did Europeans manage to completely take over countries like America, New Zealand and Australia, yet did not do the same in Africa and India. Was it due to the size of the population, the existing size of the population? And let's just tie that together with another question here. Why were the British unable to settle permanently in India like Australia and other countries? Were their interests purely economic and transitional, or they weren't accepted by Indians to live among them?

So this is really one of the crucial questions on the British in India. is that the British in India, particularly after the collapse of the American colonies, when in the 1780s, Washington and all the other fathers, the American nation fought off the British. The British reacted to that by making sure that there was never going to be in India a settler class who had land and began passing it permanently onto their, their security. And one of the people who put this into law was Cornwallis, who of course was the person who was defeated at Yorktown by Washington and who then got hired by the East India Company to come and run their Indian possessions. You'd have thought, as he'd made such a mess of America,

they could find someone useful. What were the references? Anyway, but this is a crucial, crucial point. So Cornwallis, having seen that British and other European migrants settled in America, put down roots, took farmland, and then rebelled against the British, took out legislation to make sure that would never happen in India. And it became illegal for the Brits to own property in India. So throughout their entire time, most Brits, with the exception, I think, of hill stations and though there were special permits for those who had indigo plantations or opium plantations. But beyond that, no Brit could own land in India.

And so they lived in rented houses, largely, and they retired at the end of their career, which meant you had whole colonies of ex-colonials in towns like Cheltenham and Tumbridge Wells. So all these people who would spend their entire working life in India always ended up at the end of their careers, coming home. Those who couldn't afford Tunbridge Wells or Cheltenham went to Australia. And from the 1840s onwards, you begin to get large numbers of the poorer, less successful, less colonial,

who have made it further down the ladder than some others, buying land among what were then the former convicts of New South Wales. That is so interesting. Isn't that interesting? It is interesting. And this is something that I think many people don't realize, and I didn't realize it for a long time until I had to follow up on this with my research. In a sense, the good thing about this was that it meant that when the Brits were kicked out of India, they were literally able to pack up their bags and go. They would march through the gateway of India, board a troop ship, head home, and that was that. There were a few that stayed on as judges or initially as army officers and so on for two or three years afterwards the stay is on. But what there wasn't was there wasn't

colonial class with plantations, with agricultural land that they'd passed on from father to son and would defend. So this was the difference between the British in Rhodesia, who did fight the anti-colonial movements and you have long-running wars with insurgencies in Rhodesia against a white settler colony, or even more bloody, the French in Algeria. So the French Pied Noir put down roots in Algeria. They violently take. over land, they evict the existing holders of land in Algeria. And when the independent struggle in Algeria reaches its peak, you have years of violent conflict and terrorism and counterterrorism and torture and bombs going off in cafes and Algiers and that whole sort of battle of Algeria's

scenario. And it leaves a kind of major scar on the French psyche. And you get whole generations of of ex-coloners, people like Bernard Henri Levy, who then make a whole career out of suspicion of Islam. And many of Bernard Henri Levy's writings subsequently are tinged with a very deep suspicion of radical Islam born from his childhood in Algeria. And I once remember reviewing his book on Daniel Pearl, and that seemed to me to be almost completely unhinged. So Daniel Pearl, we should say, was a British journalist who was covering the early stages of the Taliban's operations, had been in Pakistan, knew it very well inside outside, but then was taken one day, going to meet a contact, and then was, I mean, horrifically beheaded.

Was it one of the first sort of videos of a beheading that the world had known? It was certainly one of the most horrific. Yeah. But anyway, so this is by the bye, but the crucial point to the story is that the British never put down routes in India and the colonials who were in India, however long they stayed there during their career, retired to England.

Well, this is so strange. And drag pink jins in Tambridge Wells. I mean, Tambridge Wells, notwithstanding, though, you do have generations of Brits who live in India. I mean, I'm just thinking of Reginaldaya, just circling back to the programme that we did about the massacre. So Reginaldair was the man who was in charge of the shooting party who gave the order to shoot, shoot, fire, fire, fire,

firing those 1,650 bullets at a crowd of people who couldn't get out. But he would have considered himself to be an Indian. I mean, really, I mean, he went, there are accounts of him coming back to Britain or Middleton College in Ireland where he was abjectly miserable, wanted to go back to India. And I think he was third generation, Brit, because I think his dad and his granddad ran a brewery. That's right, which still survives. It's the Murray Brewery. The Murray Brewery.

So, you know, so I don't know to reconcile that. exception, like the plantation. I know the indigo farmers, for example, had a, had permits, basically, to get out of this rule. It could pass on their indigo plantations until they went bust from father to son. But it's an interesting question that, whether there were exceptions for those that had businesses like breweries. I don't know. Well, I mean, certainly, certainly, I mean, it happened with the Dyer family. So, yeah, okay, something again that we, you know what? It's a wonderful thing about doing a podcast like this. You scratch something. You go, oh, that's good. good avenue to explore. So many avenues, so little time. Right, have you got a question for me? I do, Anita. So Jassy Alualia asks,

can you clear up Queen Victoria's attitude to Indians and Africans? Interesting question. You said Princess Sophia was her goddaughter. I think there were other non-white ones. Was she just more progressive than her age? Such a good question. Such a good question. So, yes, Princess Sophia,

the suffragette princess we talked about earlier in the series, was her goddaughter, and Queen Victoria had affection for her. Queen Victoria had affection for her father. We've talked about that as well. But to a point, when they started crossing boundaries, when they started challenging authority, the love was easily withdrawn, and Queen Victoria famously couldn't stand Sophia's two sisters because she didn't think they were deferential enough. Not the only one, though. There was another, you know, Sarah Forbes Bonetta. So King Dahomey, the famous slaver, had killed her parents, traumatised this child, taking her in. And there was a British captain, sea captain,

who bought her as a gift for Queen Victoria. And Sarah Forbes-Bernetta then becomes a fine lady of the Victorian court, a bit of an oddity. But, you know, there's fondness there. There's another one, Princess Gorama of Coorgh, who comes to mind, another goddaughter of Queen Victoria. So the Kingdom of Coorg, the Maharaja of Coorg, again trying to get in with the British

because he doesn't want his kingdom to be looted and taken tries to cozy up to Queen Victoria says, you know, take my daughter and be responsible for her education even though he loves her very, very much. I think he refers to her as his little pigeon and is deeply broken when he hands over his little pigeon. He also famously tries to evade rapacious British hands by burying jewels, his crown jewels in the mud of Coorgue.

And I'm not sure if they found them again, but that's what he did. You've also got, of course, the Abdul Karim. You've got the Munshi, which the famous wonderful book by Shrabbly Basso, which we'd highly recommend it. hugely recommend it. And so again, you know, she was fond of him. The rest of the world family was not. Other attitudes at the time were racist. And so, you know, she does stand up for their rights. She takes in Sophia and she looks after her when her own father has kind of detonated the relationship. But it is limited by the willingness of the native, we can put it that way in terms of the time, to adopt Christianity. That's the number one. That's a deal breaker. They have to embrace Christ. And also they have to be obedient. And so her attitude in 1857, when the Great Uprising breaks out, is far from liberal. The background to this is that the British press is entirely full of reports about murdered and raped British women. So the pressure everyone in Britain is getting is of a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers and rapists.

And no one is getting the other side of the story, of course. So she's being fed a line. but her response is far from Clement, should we say. No. So it's a complicated, can we say it's a complicated relationship? It's all, it's nuanced. Yeah. So progressive in a way that she went against her courtiers for individuals,

but actually of its day when it went along with, as William was saying, you know, the conception that actually this was a land of savages that needed saving. It was exotic and it was exciting and the Maharaja class was interesting. But, you know, that's kind of. where it ended. I think that's probably fair to say. I've got another question for you, Anita. This is from Ian Miller. My question is whether you think, from the point of his appointment, Mabatton A should have handled partition differently, or whether his hands were tied by circumstances he found on arrival, and B, if so, how?

The idea of a more orderly transition via dominion status and the independence seems more logical looking back. How is the refusal of Gandhi to accept that when Jinnah was in favour looked at now. Well, I think this all, doesn't this throw us all back to the cabinet mission plan? Which is a crucial thing, which maybe we didn't focus on enough at the time. We didn't, did we? We really skirted over that. My son, Sam, who's a partition specialist, criticised us for not making more of the cabinet mission plan. Did he? So your son rings you up and says, you should have made more of the cabinet mission plan. My mom says, Mommy, where are my socks? Mommy, where are my socks? Where I left my jacket? It's an age difference. They're

maybe, I hope. Look, Cabinet Mission Plan, we should talk about that a lot more. So this was the first attempt. I mean, notions of diarchy where you would share rule. So Indians and the British would share rule at certain areas. So some of the powers would absolutely remain with the British state and others could be hide off. So, you know, this idea of a diarchy, it didn't really go very far because it was very unpopular. In Britain, among those, who said, you know, why should we share any power with people who are not capable of handling it and wielding it, meaning the Indians. And the Indians say, why should we? Because it's not your country get out. So, you know, it wasn't, it was doomed. But then you've got this, this cabinet mission

plan where you have a group of people coming up with proposals to have some kind of peaceful transition to this greater India, to something that would suit both Jinnah and Nair. Which seemed like an impossible, impossible ask. And they were, as I understand it, or should I say, my son explained it to me patiently. The idea was a much more federal India with weaker, centre and stronger regions.

So, Jenner wanted six full provinces. You know, six full provinces that had power and muscle. And these would be equal to. That's when you wanted two equal states. the centre's power would be confined to foreign affairs, defence, currency and communications, but then there would be federated provinces which would be able to control other things. So this would be a bit like the EEC maybe. This would be like a sort of India as a European community of various provincial powers coming together

and pooling their power in Brussels in the same way this federated India would have a weak centre which could act together in important matters. But I mean, so with the European Union, you've got sort of sovereign states each with their own integral borders and with almost equal weighting, like moving out economic power. But as a system of rights and integrity and expression of a nationhood, they're kind of equal.

But the provinces, there were three groups. And again, you know, Sam and others will be able to say this in much more detail, but there were three groups. So you have like two groups constituted by mainly Muslim, Western and Eastern provinces. This is for Jinnah's.

This is Jinnah's plan. The third group, mostly Hindu areas, in the South and in the centre. And they wanted to have this sort of federation which would equalize the powers. But the key thing was

it would avoid a partition. It would avoid the two different countries having to separate. And this was something that Jinnah accepted. Well, Jinnah accepted. And it, And at first, Neri did, and then Neri said no.

And Congress said no. So when you go to the argument, some people say actually it was Neri who torpedoed a cabinet mission plan. Others say it was an absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable plan. Why on earth would India accept it? But there certainly is an argument that I've heard made that this was something which could have avoided partition, all that bloodshed could have been avoided if people had followed this plan. And people take positions on this. Yeah, but I mean, all the way through, I think now all the way through says that this scheme is going to leave the centre without any strength to achieve anything.

You know, we can have no power at all. If you federate to this level, what is New India going to mean? What is it going to mean? You know, if we want to industrialise the country, how do we do that? We've got these separated, federated existences. And I think he does this pivotal speech on the 10th of July, 1946, where he rejects any idea that provinces will be obliged to join one of the great. groups. Because he also says, you know, it's a self-expression thing. Why should we force someone to be under Jinnah's umbrella when they don't want to be under Jinnah's umbrella?

So anyway, that falls apart. And then we have, you know, sort of after that, the response to that, again, the first, I suppose, episode of enormous violence is Direct Action Day. And that's as a result of the Cabinet Mission Plan being rejected by Nairu. Jinnah and Surawadi, who we've talked about, who are in Bengal, in Calcutta. So this is an absolute, lute betrayal of what we thought we were on the same page and we're not. So we're going to show them with direct action, which is walking out of our businesses and a strike. And then there is the gray area of, is this orchestrated violence that follows?

Is it accidental violence that follows? Go back to Isha Jalal's episode that she did with us. But it is the very first sweep of mass communal violence. And it is absolutely a foreshadowing of what's going to happen during partition. when people try to simplify the blame game in a sense in partition there are those who say it was all the British they deliberately did this or deliberately that you find some historians particularly on the right who point to the cabinet mission plan and say all this bloodshed could have been avoided if only they'd accepted that one of the positions taken by defenders of the British who said that who say that this could have been avoided is that they argue that the cabinet mission plans should have been accepted and that Neri was wrong to veto it. Yeah, yeah. Whether that's right or not, of course, is another question entirely.

And as Zanita says, it would have led to very, very weak India with different regions permanently at logheads with each other. With their own self-interest, yeah. Well, so this, we're getting the red light. Not for the first time. And greening. And we've completely failed to be brief and succinct. So I think we're going to have to do two parts, William,

this question answered thing given how long we've been talking and also just your excellent excellent question so do keep your questions coming in and we'll be back on Thursday a very special episode because we went on for too long for the Tuesday episode we're backed on and on and on so we'll see you then it's goodbye for me and goodbye for me