Indo-UK News and Discussion - April 2013

[vishvak]

An analogy here is how opium trade & even violent bloody opium wars have ended post end of colonialism. So colonies can't be blamed for opium trade but it is colonial masters who are answerable or not is relevant question.

[Lalmohan]

in both cases, the colonialists are accountable (but not always directly responsible)

[shiv]

Remains of 100 Indian soldiers excavated from well in Punjab

The excavation work at a well in Ajnala near Amritsar, in which 282 Indian soldiers were thrown into on August 1, 1857, on Saturday threw up the remains of around 100 martyrs.

Sikh historian Surinder Kochar and Gurdwara Shaheed Gunj Management Committee have started excavation of the Rebel's Grave, popularly known as the ' kaalon ka kuan', where the Indian soldiers were pushed into by British officials.

I hope DNA samples are taken so that at some future date a correlation can be done to find descendants. We have a lot of fake claims like Suresh Kalmadi's web page claiming that his father was a freedom fighter. His father was a jolly doctor in Pune who liked his drink

[Lalmohan]

these men are likely to be from awadh, from the former nawab's forces who were recruited into the EIC army

[brihaspati]

^^^ all combinations of the above. the british encouraged score settling by any means possible

By "all combinations" in the context of my post - you are saying that "the reprisals were unsupervised by British officers" or the ""native" troops acted in excess of or above the level formally ordered by the British officers on their own initiative".

That means the British officers were not at all responsible for the excesses. Are you sure that the Brit's own narratives support this version? I can think of one excuse that might be forwarded - [a la Thaparite ideological sadism about Islamic "atrocities"], but would be interested to know of the source material you have in mind.

[brihaspati]

in both cases, the colonialists are accountable (but not always directly responsible)

Would be very very curious to see this supported in narratives. Most of the stories end up in the opposite direction to what you are claiming. For example the enforced prostitution thingie under direct military orders of these reluctantly "atrocious" Brits.

[brihaspati]

Over the centuries there were always Brits who had collaborated with the "invaders" of the British isles. Many got rewarded and incorporated into the new regime if the invasion was successful. The British taste for S&M probably came out of this sequential justification of trumping and twisting of everything that is considered humane and civilized in the history of humanity. Because some Brits collaborated with invaders in the sadism on their fellow countrymen to settle scores or benefit from the new regimes - does not reduce one bit the enormity of the atrocities or the primary responsibility of the invaders in creating the conditions by which those rascals among the natives behaved so.

Trying to somehow reduce the primary role of the Brits in atrocities on the excuse that they were carried out sometimes by native Indians, is thinking like the Brits.

I think we can do without that.

[Lalmohan]

brihaspati - am not suggesting anything. you are the scholar and better read, i am a dabbler in history books. you also have opinions about various things, i am happy to listen to them and sometimes be educated. where you are taking this is looking for an angle to show that i am justifying or absolving the british of accountability - common theme on this thread. please don't do that. the ugly truth remains that many indians did the dirty work for their colonial masters, either voluntarily or for money or under duress. that is all.

[svinayak]

the ugly truth remains that many indians did the dirty work for their colonial masters, either voluntarily or for money or under duress. that is all.

It is not their fault. They were patsies.
Now leave them alone

[brihaspati]

brihaspati - am not suggesting anything. you are the scholar and better read, i am a dabbler in history books. you also have opinions about various things, i am happy to listen to them and sometimes be educated. where you are taking this is looking for an angle to show that i am justifying or absolving the british of accountability - common theme on this thread. please don't do that. the ugly truth remains that many indians did the dirty work for their colonial masters, either voluntarily or for money or under duress. that is all.

There are always collaborators in every culture - including the brits - who help the outsider/invader in their dirtiest desires on the collaborators fellow countrymen and women. You are repeatedly emphasizing that "Indians did it...", and even supported the contention that the atrocities were not "supervised" by the British, or that these were personal vendettas and not ordered by the Brits. This is exactly the same meaowing that hagiographers and apologetics in favour of the British or European record try to do. It starts from the mumbling about the Goan inquisition having nothing to do with the Catholic church or a certain "Saint", all the way through the record of EIC and the empire.

How "many" Indians really did their "masters' dirty work? How do they represent the majority of our society? Why should they be at all accepted as "Indians"? Why should this minuscule minority's role be somehow defining British role in promoting and facilitating such atrocities - as negligible? Why should some Indian's deviation have to be highlighted in equal strength to the Brit role?

The british did it, the british did it, the british did it - the british did it, and the british did it. They are responsible for each and every atrocity that happened under their command, their rule, their instigation, their provocation, their bribery, their gifts, their distributed privileges, their shared profits with some natives - through each and every act of it - the Brits did it.

It is indeed time enough since they formally left - but obviously not from admiring and sympathetic minds - that we ask people to take clear positions on this. If it is your position that you do not accept primary British role in the atrocities that happened under their watch, and you want collaborator Indians to share equal blame or more, fine - at least we know which side of the line and divide you stand on.

I stand with people who will never forgive the British, or forget what their role has been. All the more so because they have never suffered punishment for what they did, and they never on the whole have acknowledged the truth of what they did, while lying, deceiving, destroying their own records of their dirtiest side, and carrying out a propaganda of being the humane/good/benevolent for India all the while holding the most murderous hatred and intent to destroy our heritage/culture/identity.

I do have opinions. Yes. Just as you have. The difference is - on whose favour and on which side.

[Hitesh]

I would never absolve or forgive or forget the atrocities that the British initiated in India while under its rule but at the same time, I cannot forgive those people who enabled the British to do what they did because if you take a look at the British numbers, there was no way in hell that even with technology that they could have taken over Indian without willing local collaborators. That is the harsh truth we must accept and learn from.

Remember the saying, "Evil exists when good men do nothing." That parable holds truth during the early days of British occupation when we had strong viable states that were capable of resisting the British but the prejudice and greed of local rajas and mahajas clouded their thinking and made them collaborators and fell prey to British machinations. Soldiers who took pay from the British and followed British masters were also complicit in allowing the British to do what they did without fear.

So equal blame must pass on to the collaborators who assisted the British in taking over India and the atrocities that came with it.

[panduranghari]

B ji,

One of my patients read the diary of her late father who was an affsar in army stationed in Lahore. She said she still does not have the courage to go to India though she would like to. This is because the things she said her father did- the ones that were written in his diary- were so appaling, so gross she could not understand an otherwise normal man would do. She does feel they should have been punished for it, even if it was belated.

[svinayak]

B ji,

One of my patients read the diary of her late father who was an affsar in army stationed in Lahore. She said she still does not have the courage to go to India though she would like to. This is because the things she said her father did- the ones that were written in his diary- were so appaling, so gross she could not understand an otherwise normal man would do. She does feel they should have been punished for it, even if it was belated.

During which period was this?
During partition or after partition

There are lot of Pakis who are roaming around as if nothing has happened.
But I am more interested in Brit and Amir Khan who listen to the stories from Paki about affsar pak did to Hindus. This secret code of bond is what we need to understand and see what further plans they have.

A poster in youtube was even boasting about how they want to wipe out India and this maniacal mindset has been supported by the Brits for several centuries.

[panduranghari]

B ji,

One of my patients read the diary of her late father who was an affsar in army stationed in Lahore. She said she still does not have the courage to go to India though she would like to. This is because the things she said her father did- the ones that were written in his diary- were so appaling, so gross she could not understand an otherwise normal man would do. She does feel they should have been punished for it, even if it was belated.

During which period was this?
During partition or after partition

There are lot of Pakis who are roaming around as if nothing has happened.
But I am more interested in Brit and Amir Khan who listen to the stories from Paki about affsar pak did to Hindus. This secret code of bond is what we need to understand and see what further plans they have.

A poster in youtube was even boasting about how they want to wipe out India and this maniacal mindset has been supported by the Brits for several centuries.

Around 1901. She clearly did not want to elaborate.

[Klaus]

Britain's invaded all but 22 countries in the world

The remainder have been included because the British were found to have achieved some sort of military presence in the territory – however transitory – either through force, the threat of force, negotiation or payment.

Incursions by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers have also been included, provided they were operating with the approval of their government.

So, many countries which once formed part of the Spanish empire and seem to have little historical connection with the UK, such as Costa Rica, Ecuador and El Salvador, make the list because of the repeated raids they suffered from state-sanctioned British sailors.

* Cuba, where in 1741, a force under Admiral Edward Vernon stormed ashore at Guantánamo Bay. He renamed it Cumberland Bay, before being forced to withdraw in the face of hostile locals and an outbreak of disease among his men. Twenty one years later, Havana and a large part of the island fell to the British after a bloody siege, only to be handed back to the Spanish in 1763, along with another unlikely British possession, the Philippines, in exchange for Florida and Minorca.

*Iceland, invaded in 1940 by the British after the neutral nation refused to enter the war on the Allies side. The invasion force, of 745 marines, met with strong protest from the Iceland government, but no resistance.

* Vietnam, which has experienced repeated incursions by the British since the seventeenth century. The most recent – from 1945 to 1946 – saw the British fight a campaign for control of the country against communists, in a war that has been overshadowed by later conflicts involving first the French and then Americans.

In the case of Mongolia, for instance – one of the 22 nations “not invaded”, according to the book – he believes it possible that there could have been a British invasion, but could find no direct proof.

The country was caught up in the turmoil following the Russian Revolution, in which the British and other powers intervened. Mr Laycock found evidence of a British military mission in Russia approximately 50 miles from the Mongolian border, but could not establish whether it got any closer.

The research lists countries based on their current national boundaries and names. Many of the invasions took place when these did not apply.

[brihaspati]

I would never absolve or forgive or forget the atrocities that the British initiated in India while under its rule but at the same time, I cannot forgive those people who enabled the British to do what they did because if you take a look at the British numbers, there was no way in hell that even with technology that they could have taken over Indian without willing local collaborators. That is the harsh truth we must accept and learn from.

Remember the saying, "Evil exists when good men do nothing." That parable holds truth during the early days of British occupation when we had strong viable states that were capable of resisting the British but the prejudice and greed of local rajas and mahajas clouded their thinking and made them collaborators and fell prey to British machinations. Soldiers who took pay from the British and followed British masters were also complicit in allowing the British to do what they did without fear.

So equal blame must pass on to the collaborators who assisted the British in taking over India and the atrocities that came with it.

If you want to do an "equal-equal" - you are most welcome to do so. For me, it is a British and "western" standpoint and thinking procedure - by which the target society gets to share the blame for its victimization. Many of these stories of "Indians did it" is also told by British pens - and if you had done your homework, you would have found that an absolute majority of these stories cannot be traced to the alleged perpetrator Indians acknowledging or narrating themselves.

The Brits especially the "ruling" types, have always been liars, deceivers, and the most twisted of imaginations ever I have come across in reconstructing histories and narratives, after the greeks and the romans. If you are most eager to believe these stories and not try to think logically with the regular dose of critical analysis accepted and applied nowadays by formal "historians" to defend and whitewash the record of islamism or christianism or colonialism, again you are most welcome to do so.

I do appreciate that you have made your position on the "equal-equal" divide open and clear. I stand on the other side, which would urge looking up these source materials and discover that they are almost always penned by the brits, who almost always try to show themselves in better light, or suppress their own atrocious behaviour from narratives [which comes out in later research]. The British tendency to suppress their own dark-side records, destroy records of colonialist atrocities - have been repeatedly borne out in current research.

I would chastize the colaborators, but will not keep Indians as equal-equal in sharing the blame for atrocities with the Brits. Those who do so, for me, are indulging in a very opportunistic interpretation of bharatya "neutrality/impartiality", and in doing so actually helping injustice.

One of my ancestors came into rest-of-life tussle with the Brit gov, after he clashed over such treatments during the uprising, and I know that he was instrumental in bringing a lot of "refugees" from such atrocities into his own rougher and hence less lucrative-for-the-Brits land. I have every reason to be in touch with the other side of this story, where Indians seem to have been not as "atrocious" as represented by the sundry Brit colonels and commanders.

[Yogi_G]

One gori colleague of mine who is basically a slav proudly claimed being able to invade and conquer other nations is a sign of "western civilization's" superiority and exceptionalism. I told her that there is white on white racism -- Anglo saxon on Slav and if she knew about it. No response.

There is something to the Anglo-Saxon gene which relishes violence in many a myriad ways of achieiving say through violent sports, wars and massacres. I fret to think how this white race may behave if mired in poverty, which will eventually happen. We have already seen how the Muzzies behave when in poverty, for example the so called Palestinians.

The most misbehaved race on the planet perhaps is the Anglo Saxon one with irritable and frequent claims on superiority and other nonsense considering their ancestors where still hunter gatherers while most civs from Central Asia, India, China and Japan had already started agricultural cultivation. This race needs to go down just like the Arabs and you will see a whole plethora of sub-humanness without a precedent in human history.

[SanjayC]

I do appreciate that you have made your position on the "equal-equal" divide open and clear. I stand on the other side, which would urge looking up these source materials and discover that they are almost always penned by the brits, who almost always try to show themselves in better light, or suppress their own atrocious behaviour from narratives [which comes out in later research]. The British tendency to suppress their own dark-side records, destroy records of colonialist atrocities - have been repeatedly borne out in current research.

Absolutely true. Even some Brits have noticed this tendency.

Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them
New evidence of British colonial atrocities has not changed our national ability to disregard it

There is one thing you can say for the Holocaust deniers: at least they know what they are denying. In order to sustain the lies they tell, they must engage in strenuous falsification. To dismiss Britain's colonial atrocities, no such effort is required. Most people appear to be unaware that anything needs to be denied.

The story of benign imperialism, whose overriding purpose was not to seize land, labour and commodities but to teach the natives English, table manners and double-entry book-keeping, is a myth that has been carefully propagated by the rightwing press. But it draws its power from a remarkable national ability to airbrush and disregard our past.

Last week's revelations, that the British government systematically destroyed the documents detailing mistreatment of its colonial subjects, and that the Foreign Office then lied about a secret cache of files containing lesser revelations, is by any standards a big story. But it was either ignored or consigned to a footnote by most of the British press. I was unable to find any mention of the secret archive on the Telegraph's website. The Mail's only coverage, as far as I can determine, was an opinion piece by a historian called Lawrence James, who used the occasion to insist that any deficiencies in the management of the colonies were the work of "a sprinkling of misfits, incompetents and bullies", while everyone else was "dedicated, loyal and disciplined".

The British government's suppression of evidence was scarcely necessary. Even when the documentation of great crimes is abundant, it is not denied but simply ignored. In an article for the Daily Mail in 2010, for example, the historian Dominic Sandbrook announced that "Britain's empire stands out as a beacon of tolerance, decency and the rule of law … Nor did Britain countenance anything like the dreadful tortures committed in French Algeria." Could he really have been unaware of the history he is disavowing?

Caroline Elkins, a professor at Harvard, spent nearly 10 years compiling the evidence contained in her book Britain's Gulag: the Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. She started her research with the belief that the British account of the suppression of the Kikuyu's Mau Mau revolt in the 1950s was largely accurate. Then she discovered that most of the documentation had been destroyed. She worked through the remaining archives, and conducted 600 hours of interviews with Kikuyu survivors – rebels and loyalists – and British guards, settlers and officials. Her book is fully and thoroughly documented. It won the Pulitzer prize. But as far as Sandbrook, James and other imperial apologists are concerned, it might as well never have been written.

Elkins reveals that the British detained not 80,000 Kikuyu, as the official histories maintain, but almost the entire population of one and a half million people, in camps and fortified villages. There, thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery. In some camps almost all the children died.

The inmates were used as slave labour. Above the gates were edifying slogans, such as "Labour and freedom" and "He who helps himself will also be helped". Loudspeakers broadcast the national anthem and patriotic exhortations. People deemed to have disobeyed the rules were killed in front of the others. The survivors were forced to dig mass graves, which were quickly filled. Unless you have a strong stomach I advise you to skip the next paragraph.

Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women's breasts. They cut off inmates' ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound.

Elkins provides a wealth of evidence to show that the horrors of the camps were endorsed at the highest levels. The governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, regularly intervened to prevent the perpetrators from being brought to justice. The colonial secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, repeatedly lied to the House of Commons. This is a vast, systematic crime for which there has been no reckoning.

No matter. Even those who acknowledge that something happened write as if Elkins and her work did not exist. In the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan maintains that just eleven people were beaten to death. Apart from that, "1,090 terrorists were hanged and as many as 71,000 detained without due process".

The British did not do body counts, and most victims were buried in unmarked graves. But it is clear that tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Kikuyu died in the camps and during the round-ups. Hannan's is one of the most blatant examples of revisionism I have ever encountered.

Without explaining what this means, Lawrence James concedes that "harsh measures" were sometimes used, but he maintains that "while the Mau Mau were terrorising the Kikuyu, veterinary surgeons in the Colonial Service were teaching tribesmen how to deal with cattle plagues." The theft of the Kikuyu's land and livestock, the starvation and killings, the widespread support among the Kikuyu for the Mau Mau's attempt to reclaim their land and freedom: all vanish into thin air. Both men maintain that the British government acted to stop any abuses as soon as they were revealed.

What I find remarkable is not that they write such things, but that these distortions go almost unchallenged. The myths of empire are so well-established that we appear to blot out countervailing stories even as they are told. As evidence from the manufactured Indian famines of the 1870s and from the treatment of other colonies accumulates, British imperialism emerges as no better and in some cases even worse than the imperialism practised by other nations. Yet the myth of the civilising mission remains untroubled by the evidence.

And as if on cue, another Brit jumps in with a counter that no, Brits were quiet OK. It was Kenyans who did this to other Kenyans, while Brits watched the spectacle as horrified spectators.

To talk about British atrocities in Kenya during the Mau Mau era is nonsense
It was the Mau Mau, not colonial officers like me, who terrorised ordinary Kenyans. We were looked on as protectors

George Monbiot asserts that in Kenya's colonial era, the British detained almost the entire Kikuyu population in camps where thousands were beaten and abused (Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them, 24 April). It is a pity he did not seek out any of those who worked in Kenya in the years leading up to full independence.

I first visited east Africa in 1951, finding a carefree and happy community where nobody needed to bolt their doors or lock their windows. I travelled on foot and by train, bus, lorry and boat from Nairobi to Khartoum, spending considerable time with the Kikuyu in Kenya, the Nuer in southern Sudan and the Baggara Arabs in Kordofan and Darfur. I saw with my own eyes how a handful of colonial officers could keep the peace between bitter enemies, rivals for scarce resources.

In 1954 I returned as a British army soldier, and played a small part in ending the civil war among the Kikuyu, which is what the Mau Mau rebellion was. Those who took the various Mau Mau oaths, mostly under duress, were always a minority of the million-strong Kikuyu, themselves never more than 22% of the population.

It is significant that no other ethnic group chose to join the Mau Mau. Our primary task, as members of the security forces, was to protect the majority from terrorists. At night the Mau Mau would look for food, recruits and women to enjoy. The horrors Monbiot describes, and worse, were perpetrated not by security forces but by Mau Mau themselves on innocent citizens who resisted their demands.

Monbiot says: "The British detained not 80,000 Kikuyu, as the official histories maintain, but almost the entire population of one and a half million, in camps and fortified villages." In fact, it proved impossible to protect individual scattered homesteads, so villages were constructed where proper security could be provided. At the same time better facilities such as water supplies, health centres, sports grounds, markets and schools were developed. Monbiot is quite wrong to identify the villages, many of which continue to this day, with the work camps for ex-terrorists where they could be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.

He then claims: "Thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery. In some camps almost all the children died." This is nonsense. I and the men I served with were greeted with great friendliness by folk who appreciated the facilities provided for them. In 1956 I returned to the UK and applied for a post in the Colonial Service. At my interview with the secretary of state's appointment board, I was told in the clearest possible terms that I should measure my success by the speed with which I worked myself out of a job. We all knew, as the whole service had known for years, that independence was not a question of "whether'"but "when". Together with every other district officer I met during the next seven years, I worked my heart out to help the people – Kikuyu, Luhya, Luo and Kalenjin – prepare economically, socially and educationally for life in a world that was going to becomeincreasingly competitive.

Of course, no one will deny that there were instances of unacceptable behaviour by people in authority during colonial times, any more than there are today. But, given the fact that Kenya is five times the size of England, and Africa three times the size of Europe, Monbiot has surely lost all sense of proportion in supposing that those examples that have been verified can be extrapolated to incriminate the whole service. It is as if the scandals of President Ceausescu of Romania were representative of all European governments.

Monbiot is fully entitled to argue that the whole colonial and imperial venture was wrong in principle; but he should at least recognise that many thousands of young British men and women served in the colonial territories from a sense of mission, and were fully dedicated to the wellbeing and advancement of the people they served. As a footnote, I might add that when my wife and I returned to Africa thirty years after we had left, we travelled through seven different countries, covering three thousand miles by local transport, local busses and cars, and found that as soon as we revealed that we had worked in the colonial service, we were welcomed with open arms and shown the greatest hospitality. Partly, of course, that was because we had taken the trouble to learn to speak the lingua franca, Swahili, fluently. We also used as much as we could of whatever was the local language of the place where we were. Few of today's visitors to Africa can say the same.

The same game is played with respect to India and the genocidal atrocities that Brits inflicted on Indians are blamed on Indians! Unfortunately, many Indians too have got brainwashed and agree with the argument!

[eklavya]

What about this lot of pretty boys? In whose name were their crimes committed?

[svenkat]

who are they?

[rgsrini]

I would never absolve or forgive or forget the atrocities that the British initiated in India while under its rule but at the same time, I cannot forgive those people who enabled the British to do what they did because if you take a look at the British numbers, there was no way in hell that even with technology that they could have taken over Indian without willing local collaborators.

I can clearly understand now, how in British times, some Indians manage to blame the Indians, even when the barbaric British were doing the atrocities.

In any country, even today, the rulers with power are always a handful compared to the actual population. I don't think it is a surprise that there was only a handful controlling a huge population. The moguls were only a few too, even before the British.

[vishvak]

So the British killed off any resistance first, then appropriated folks in the Raj army; while blaming Indians for anything going wrong. By the way, who all could get credit for, say, Tatas turning Jaguar around for good. My wild guess is the very same British, again!

[panduranghari]

Another thing I have noted in documentaries made by British government through their propaganda arm - Auntie BBC -is to put lies interspersed within some facts. In this way one cannot downright claim the documentary is full of nonsense. The tactic works because the brown man looks at the approval of the white man and says we are doing well. They fail to see that this is most problems which the white man talks about are in many ways connected to their presence in India.

Look at the documentary. It starts at 3.00mins and watch until 4.50mins.

http://youtu.be/9fIuMzQwGJ8?t=3m4s

We need to have a term for this type of reporting. Just like the term 'atrocity literature' for everything on social aspects of yindoo yindia.

[brihaspati]

Well one of the interesting ways in which the history of that "atrocious" period is fudged is to somehow bring up references to Indian feudal chiefs and their retinue who supposedly were eager beaver lapdogs of the Brits, and who carried out the atrocities.

Problem is again the selective memory of the process of transition to British dominance. Record after record shows how the Brits systematically waged war, often using pre-existing intra-family feuds and contests, and sometimes outright deception or pre-emptive strikes using difference [from the Brits] in cultural and legal outlooks, and then financial measures - to destroy older feudal elements who showed signs of resistance.

Whole lineages were destroyed, replaced by distant branches on condition of support, or even displaced through raids/financial manipulations - almost always backed up by military force. Collective punishments, and blatant genocide not practised even under the Mughals, were used in such a manner - that a population not used to such tactics and not expecting it from the cultural or religious viewpoint were taken unprepared, and many regions were depopulated.

The Brits used genocide as a tactical tool to weaken pre-existing structures of resistance within the native society. Contrary to drooling symapthizers of Brits proposition - the Brit suppression of Indians often resorted to massed non-Indian troops, and in this the crucial role was played by their navy which would be used to both evacuate as well as amass concentration of forces.

The first open confrontation between the "native" component and the Brit component of uprising of 1857 took place at the Berhampore, Murshidabad cantonment [the ground still exists but I have not seen any commemorative plaque] then besides the Ganga/Bhagirathi. The Indians had to fall back because of the control of the waterways by the well-armed gunboats and Brit navy. As far as I know this initial suppression was carried out entirely by Brit troops.

So people need to research the whole host of legal cases, shenanigans, judicial murders, deceptive manipulation of tax-records, raids, murders, assassinations, that were used to create a new feudal class that would be disconnected from the "lower" populations, without the traditional hold and network grip over mobilization, and a supportive class mostly recruited from the criminal underclass of then Indian society - who were appointed as diwans or mutsuddis.

How do these criminal minuscule ruthless group represent somehow India?

[eklavya]

who are they?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 3-1941.png

[disha]

What about this lot of pretty boys? In whose name were their crimes committed?

Excellent mis-direction eklavya'ji. What are you trying to say about the "pretty boys"? That they committed crime/genocides and were thus equal partners in genocide crime?

If that is your case, than you are patently wrong. And before others think to do "equal-equal" just on the basis of a "pretty boys" picture take this information as well

The photo is from 1941.

1. Several of the princes are from Gujarat, Saurashtra. Here is the list:

Palitana, Wankaner, Porbander, Dungarpur, Morvi, Nawanagar, Jetpur

2. There are several from present day Mah, MP, Orissa and Bihar (and parts of UP).


And here is what wiki says of Chamber of Princes:

The creation of the Chamber of Princes followed the abandonment by the British of their long-established policy of isolating the Indian rulers from each other and also from the rest of the world.[2]

The Chamber first met in 8 feb 1921 and initially consisted of 120 members. Of those, 108 from the more significant states were members in their own right, while the remaining twelve seats were for the representation of a further 127 states. That left 327 minor states, which were unrepresented. Also, some of the more important rulers like the Maratha ruled states of Baroda State, Gwalior state, and Holkar State declined to join it .[3]

The Chamber of Princes usually met only once a year, with the Viceroy of India presiding, but it appointed a Standing Committee which met more often. The full Chamber elected an officer called the Chancellor, who chaired the Standing Committee.[3]

The chamber convened at Sansad Bhavan. The hall is used as parliament's library today.

I would rather say that the Indian rulers - particularly the smaller ones - of city states were enlightened enough to forge a "semi-democratic institution" to give voice to their constituencies. Particularly given their limited influence.

So just because you are in chamber of princes does not make you a pretty boy., however thanks for bringing out the fact that

Britishers did follow an active policy to keep the princely states isolated from each other and the world.

That is an excellent Bri$hit democratic tradition I say.

[SanjayC]

Man, this is sick, even by the standards of Pakis in the UK.

British man flies to the United States to impregnate girl, 13, and to have sex with her baby

A man from the United Kingdom was arrested, charged and convicted of sex crimes against a child.

Shuhel Mahboob Ali, 40, pleaded guilty to enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity.

He was sentenced to 10 years in a Florida prison for the crime. It all began when Ali spoke with a man, who he thought was the father of a 13-year-old girl.

However, the “father” turned out to be an undercover agent. Ali told the "father" that he wanted to have sex with his daughter and start a family with her so that he can play out his fantasy of having sex with his baby daughter.

Ali flew to the United States, as he believed that the girl’s father was making arrangements so that he can take the girl back to London, where he will live out his fantasy lifestyle.

During Ali’s online contact with the undercover agent he described in harrowing detail how he would sexually abuse the children.

Ali flew from London to Sanford, Florida, where he met with the agent while waiting for the 13-year-old’s father.
He was arrested by agents of the Department of Homeland Security and the local sheriff.

He was then taken into custody in northern Brevard County. Police found bondage tape, two hooded masks, condoms and cameras in his bags as well as a computer containing child *****.

Ali will be spending the next 10 years in a Florida prison. He was also sentenced to 10 years probation.

[Lalmohan]

brihaspati - i offered a fact based on my reading of historical texts. you have turned that into an opinion (supposedly mine) and extrapolated massively without any further comment from me and you go on to say that i MUST be doing x, if y has been the offered opinion.

how is that fair? forgive me, i am not an academic nor particularly intellectual, but by using academic terms and models you do not have the right to twist what i said

let me now GIVE you my opinion - i do not think that any indian should have collaborated with the british nor any other colonial overlord. but the fact remains that some did - we have to try to understand why that happened

(hint: I already do)

[brihaspati]

brihaspati - i offered a fact based on my reading of historical texts. you have turned that into an opinion (supposedly mine) and extrapolated massively without any further comment from me and you go on to say that i MUST be doing x, if y has been the offered opinion.

how is that fair? forgive me, i am not an academic nor particularly intellectual, but by using academic terms and models you do not have the right to twist what i said

let me now GIVE you my opinion - i do not think that any indian should have collaborated with the british nor any other colonial overlord. but the fact remains that some did - we have to try to understand why that happened

(hint: I already do)

Well, I disputed that it might at all be a "fact". I did request you to point to the source material based on which you concluded that "Indians" did/also-did it.

You also clearly said that these atrocities were not supervised by the brits, or these atrocities were perpetrated by the "Indians" on the Indian's own initiative of settling old scores. That IS ABSOLVING the Brits. Given these positions, it is quite fair to estimate that your conclusions are based on "facts" from the Anglophile sector or source material based on self-aggrandizing colonels or Brit army officers. You appear to be blissfully unaware of critical analysis of even these tracts as a whitewashing and often deceptive/lying narrative aimed at contrasting the two "cultures" and showing the justifiability of the supposedly loftier British culture as logic to justify colonialism.

Its a big scaling down from claiming that atrocities were "unsupervised by Brits" or if they at all took place they were on Indian initiative to settle old scores - to saying "some Indians did collaborate - and we must understand why they did it" or that "you already understand". That is still a readiness to blame the victim for their suffering - exactly what the Brits try to do, always, always and always.

If there is no narrative acknowledgment from the Indian side and only grandiose statements from supposed Brit army officers - then by current standards of historiography, they are highly suspect. I gave you one example of how British commanders actively took part in ordering/leading/ensuring/enjoying atrocities - on the infamous army order to forcefully procure Indian girls for army brothels, as enthusiastically carried out by very British, very non-Indian, very "white" and very Christianly charitable British officers. Where they fancied women of the neighbourhood, they would force the women in full public view to the army camps on the pretext of "STD" checking because some of these non-atrocious British officer/soldiers of yours - "complained" that they contracted STD from these women [who might have been completely innocent and often underage - the type apparently specifically mentioned in the army order to be procured to ensure freedom from STD]. Given that society, it is unlikely that girls would ever again be able to lead normal lives and effectively therefore "procured" for-ever for your non-atrocious Brits.

The self-righteous brit memoirs your Indian-onlee atrocities are based on - never talked about these stuff. That enough should show the basic lying, deceptive, twisted and sadistic minds of the Brits where such "memoirizing" is concerned.

And you think I am being unfair?

PS: just in case you wanted to say otherwise - the orders specifically seem to have demanded that these "procured" girls should be inaccessible to "native" soldiers. So you see - that natives were not always allowed to participate in these atrocities supposedly committed by the same Indians debarred from carrying the same atrocities out.

[brihaspati]

In the same period these very same British soldiers were carrying out exactly same atrocities on their European campaigns, recorded in details - under one of the same infamous commanders who served in India - and suddenly they were merely peaceful non-participant bystanders in India?!!!!

[brihaspati]

There are some who have claimed that they were talking "historical facts" and came up with "novels" as proof. For them, Manohar Malgaonkar's The Devil's Wind: the Nana Saheb story should do, even if that story is based on research rather than the deliberately and uniformly sanitized British novels and memoirs. For the more "scholarly", "Writing Under The Raj: Gender, Race, and Rape in the British Colonial Imagination 1830-1947" - By Nancy L. Paxton, can be a good starting point.

Both make the point that
(1) British army servants uniformly and universally censored their pervert sexual sadism role on Indian women in their narratives - and other atrocities
(2) The Brits consistently lied, kept silent, and misrepresented their own rape-atrocity activities and when impossible to completely suppress reports of - pass it on as blame on Indians
(3) there was a deliberate misrepresentation of incidents or characters to make the Brit appear noble ityadi in contrast to the Indian.

The actual records that still are retrievable even through the quintessential British habit of Goebbelsian or Nazi-anticipatory propaganda methods, seems to make us take the position that each and every British claim of them being innocent and the Indians being responsible should be suspect, and most likely a lie - with their own deed being shifted on to shoulders of Indians. This is generally consistent with the British "martial" character - atrocities and their careful covering up by the leaders/commanders while encouragings such things as part of the total war policies they always engaged in - with inevitable passing on of the blames to others/allies/natives - and is rather openly acknowledged for British troops in Europe under the very same commanders who served in India, in the same period.

People who try to make these equal equals without going through these background material - are doing something that is unforgivable. They are doing exactly what the Brits did - perpetrating a lie.

[svenkat]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Vodafone-secretly-sharing-data-with-British-intelligence-Home-ministry/articleshow/31797862.cms

Major telecom player Vodafone has been accused by the Union home ministry of secretly sharing subscriber data with a British intelligence and security organization, a charge denied by the company.

According to documents of the Internal Security Division of the home ministry, Vodafone is alleged to have given the UK-based Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) "secret unlimited access to their network of under sea cables, which carry much of world's phone calls and Internet traffic".

"GCHQ's mass tapping operations has been built up over the past five years by attaching intercept probes to the transatlantic cables where they land on British shores," the home ministry documents claimed.

"Intercept partners are paid for logistical assistance," it said.
Though the note had asked the Department of Economic Affairs not to proceed with realignment of Vodafone, which is involved in a Rs 11,200-crore tax dispute over purchase of Hutch's stake in 2007, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) went ahead and gave clearance for increasing the foreign equity in Vodafone India Limited.

The Union home ministry had alleged that Vodafone and a US-based company Verizon "are learnt to be secretly collaborating with UK's GCHQ and passing on details of their customer phone calls, email messages and other communication and are intercept partners".
When asked for comments, Vodafone said in its reaction that "no such concern has been raised with us by the Indian government. The Government of India's approval of our FDI application states that it was cleared by the FIPB and CCEA after all necessary due diligence".

The telecom operator also denied that it was disclosing "any customer data in any jurisdiction unless, like any other operator, it is legally required to do so".

In its reaction to , GCHQ said: "It is a long-standing policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters."

It said the work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework ensuring that the activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight.

"All our operational processes rigorously support this position," the spokesperson of GCHQ said.

[brihaspati]

^^^And people should believe them at their word? Given that they always deny such stuff, and if forced to acknowledge much later - would justify it as having been done in "national interests". Anything goes for the Brit regimes. It will be a dumb Indian gov which trusts in such words.

[Philip]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... super-rich
London, a city in thrall to money and greed
Inequality is booming in our capital. A debate about housing and the impact of the global super-rich is long overdue

The late novelist JG Ballard was expert at creating urban dystopias, peopled by rapacious inhabitants eaten up by boredom and greed, living in tastelessly opulent settings, diversity and ordinary life banished. That is not yet London.

However, the rising tide of predictions about the future shape of the capital points towards the nightmarish consequences of a profoundly unequal city. One that is remodelled by the excesses of foreign wealth and the domination of the financial sector with its grossly swollen salaries, depleting the capital's civic health. Already, the average citizen is priced out of London, followed by the exile of the professional middle class. This is as more money is diverted from political crises overseas, including the current stand-off in the Ukraine, into what the mayor, Boris Johnson, calls "blocks of bullion", residences in Kensington, Mayfair and Chelsea with a multi-million pound price tag.

In the past year, property prices in central London have risen 12.5%, as "investor visas" are bought for £1 million and now Ukranians and Russians seek a safe haven for their cash. In Bishop's Avenue in north London – "millionaires' row" already – 15 houses worth £350m sit derelict, yet their "value" increases by the day in this dangerously inflated property market. The knock-on effect is toxic. In 2012, three quarters of new builds in London went to foreign buyers. Some rent; some visit for only a few weeks a year. In the next four years, average house prices in the capital now at a ridiculous £441,000 could rise by 36% compared with a rise in the north of just 4.2%.

A recent report in the Financial Times suggested that even high earners in London are affected – entire boroughs such as Camden and Hammersmith are "no-go" areas for middle-class professionals. As the FT says, "Even those with a net household income of more than £58,000 – just edging into the top 5% of all earners – would be unable to afford a home in more than one in four London neighbourhoods.

Chris Hamnett, professor of geography at King's College London, claims that the capital's property is now used by the global rich as "a process of global asset diversification". Bricks and mortar in our capital have morphed into a currency. But many are locked out of these transactions.

In London, there are 800,000 on the housing waiting list; overcrowding is rife; house building is at an abysmal low. Private landlords thrive as demand outstrips supply and ordinary citizens see a huge proportion of their income go on rent if they can afford it at all. The uber-rich spent £4bn in London last year keeping their very private lives afloat – schools, health, staff, shopping. But that comes at a cost to the non-material richness of the capital too.

It is not just those on the average salary who are exiled from their own city; professionals vital to the capital are also priced out. London Labour MP Frank Dobson says consultants for London's hospitals on salaries of £75,000 plus, can't afford the cost of a two-bedroom flat, let alone a family home.

In his current series, Mind the Gap, (part two on BBC1 tomorrow), economist and journalist Evan Davis eulogises the verve of the capital that attracts the despots and crooks but also the talented and highly qualified. Davis argues that talent attracts more talent so money, companies and people are pouring into the capital like never before. But, a warning: there is also a cultural forfeit to this dedication to making of money.

London is home to two-thirds of all artists' studios. Recently a former biscuit factory in Bermondsey that was home to 400 artists was sold to convert it into 800 high-end flats. The colour in the capital that comes from the energy and creativity of artists, among others, is drained. Jonathan Harvey runs Acme Studios, a charity that helps artists to find studios. "Artists are pioneers of regeneration because they go where others don't," he says. "But they are also the victims as they get priced out."

A further major concern is about what the influx of foreign wealth is doing to the common weal and the integrity of this government. Last Monday, a Foreign Office official was pictured carrying a confidential report for David Cameron, advising how to respond to Crimea. It recommended that Britain should, "not support, for now trade sanctions," nor should it, "close London's financial centre to Russians". On Friday, Ben Judah wrote an angryarticle for the New York Times, that, judging from its response in blogs and on Twitter, hit a nerve. While the White House has imposed visa restrictions and President Obama has issued an executive order enabling further sanctions, Judah pointed out: "Britain is ready to protect the City of London's hold on dirty Russian money. And forget about Ukraine. … It has turned back to the pirate England of Sir Walter Raleigh…" Judah charged.

This is Britain's growth business today. London is desperate for change: for more affordable house building; the imposition of rent controls; the licensing of landlords; a mansion tax; increased council tax for empty properties (a 150% hike operates in Camden for those left empty for more than two years); a higher minimum wage and compulsory purchase orders, plus tougher planning regulations and restrictions on the proportion of overseas buyers per development.

Nationally, realignment is vital. More regionalism and local control of budgets and greater support for the efforts of our provincial cities to create networks should all be supported.

Currently, the physical map of London is being transformed by projects such as the Shard; the Qatari-owned 72-floor skyscraper in Southwark. The maintenance of this luxury address falls to economic refugees bussed in from over-priced bed-sits two hours away, struggling on a minimum wage.

In London, The Biography, Peter Ackroyd, writes that "Resurgam" (I will arise), was the word found upon a piece of tomb stone just when Wren began his work upon St Paul's Cathedral. He placed it at the centre of his design. London has arisen many times. Today, is it rising again but will it be as a capital city for all its citizens in synch with the rest of the UK?

Increasingly, public officials in cities such as New York, Berlin and Paris are raising concerns about housing and inequality and impact of a global super-rich. That debate has only just started in the UK.

The next mayoral elections should become the platform for a debate about how we want the city to develop for the benefit of all – not just a few – of its inhabitants. It's time for Londoners to start taking back their city.

[Lilo]

An interesting quote from Englsh fiction in a recently posted link.

Back in 1959, Allen Drury published a novel "Advise and Consent", which apparently was quite a hit in America. Some critics have called him "Allen Dreary". You can find out more about the book on Wikipedia. Here, I just want to reproduce a passage; I assume it represents some attitudes from that era, that may continue to this day.

Krishna Khaleel or K.K., is the Indian Ambassador and Lord Claude Maudulayne is the British Ambassador; and they are conversing at a party in Washington, D.C.

"Ah," Krishna Khaleel said knowingly, "I might have guessed. Our dear old Bob never rests. He has a job to do, to get this man confirmed, and he will not rest until it is accomplished. Admirable, is it not, Mr. Ambassador?"

This form of address, which always surprised Claude Maudulayne a little considering the number of times he and his Commonwealth colleague had conferred on matters of mutual interest, almost provoked him to say something which he knew would be a very serious mistake.

He almost suggested that K.K. relax; but he knew with a calm certainty that in his presence K.K. would never relax, that in the presence of the British, it would be generations before any educated Indian could really relax, that there would always be this self-conscious, faintly hostile, faintly cringing relationship, and in spite of himself he felt a mild but satisfied contempt. Yes, he thought, you're top dogs now, aren't you, but there's one thing you'll never really have no matter how desperately you want it, and you know it, and that's our respect. And because he knew that K.K. knew pretty much what he was thinking he threw his arm around the Indian Ambassador's bony shoulders with an extra cordiality and informed him jovially, "Actually, we've been settling the problems of the world, K.K., and we need your help....

Above Pisko condescending crap is common refuge for Briturds in the face of a Native aware of HIS history.
A standard reply by the Native explaining in a matter of fact nonemotional tone to the briturd descendent, of the choice exploits of his Briturd ancestors on Native ancestors and finish it with a personal belief sufficently sarcastically put - that Sons should not be faulted for fathers Sins ,especially Sadism, as the current status of Briturd Sons and Grandsons is NOT at all a legacy of their rapacious Fathers and Grandfathers executing their civilizing missions in turdworld dumps. Therefore *this* turd world Native has NO illwill at all , for the now benign descendants, themselves feeling bereft of their fathers or grandfathers legacy (of Sin).

[Prem]

Is this another one Jew-llery stolen from India?

[Abhi_G]

Lalmohan babu - let me tell an isshstory that I wrote a few times before in brf.

Big massa univ on the east coast published distorted map of desh (no northeast, no j&k) in their maggajine to announce "India did not lose much due to 2G scam" fame sibbal's vijjit. Not a pipsqueak from sibbal or deshi embassy.

Two loyal afsaars of brf shot email artillery to the magajjine editor in retaliation to the provocation. Magajjine editor turned out to be "oh yes not surprised" brit.

Enemy artillery was heavy yet our afsaars held their ground.

brit editor leaked that distorted map wajj from an Indian gentleman only.

One of the two afsaars promised to publish brittany naksha without scotland in anger.

The guns went silent there.

There was no point to check the enemy's claim. But the enemy's psyche was revealed. They have used this argument that "Indians have done it actually" to absolve and transfer their complicity in the crime and genocide. Of course, we have our share of argumentative birathers with a high sense of fairness too.

[vishvak]

Not to forget, the British along with other Europeans paddled bogus Airyan horse invasions theories all over the world.

Not that there was any connection.

But shows how moral high ground was used for hundreds of years as a mask, while moral keepers were silent about bogus theories and bogus moral high ground.

Reminds of current bruhaha about American author not able to abuse Hindus via literature after Hindus approached courts as legitimate route of law. Now it is becoming clear that, by matter of independent law, it is completely and clearly illegal to spread lies, deception, abuse, misinformation campaigns etc etc against heathens, pagans, unsaved savages, natives and so on.

[Lalmohan]

abhi_g - i am not in the least surprised at your story, i have encountered similar things personally
just because you can look at an issue from different angles DOES NOT MEAN that you are absolving any one of their accountability
why is that so hard to understand?

[Abhi_G]

^^^
Lalmohan babu...nothing to disagree. Rather soul searching is required as to why so many jagat seths amongst us.

But the introspection sometimes turns into a total blunder and that is relished by the brittannias. Know I do not need to enlighten you in any way, but here's another isshtory.

TFTA lizard from Scotland sat on a drink with yours truly and desi birather after meeting. The winds of conversation moved from economics to the omnipotent vi*gra for the west - Hindu caste system. Desi birather started proudly explaining how the Dravidian buffalo/bull of Indus valley bull seal fame was driven by hordes of Aryan horses marching down from Central Asia. That's why the shape of his skull was different from naarth India!. TFTA Lizard was relishing just like Witzel at the swift movement of the Aryan Panzer Horse when yours truly threw water on his er**tion by admonishing birather not to repeat colonial era buSSSit. Lizard could not hide stunned look behind mischievous smile. The discussion went towards independence of Scotland and how brittany has ruled and invaded Scotland, despite which they choose to lick brittany shoes. Lizard left discussion.

No need to tell you saar, the programming of our unsuspecting well meaning highly ejucated birathers is so strong that it is bhery eajjyy for britney lizards to transfer guilt to victim. This is not to say that we do not have any kursheeets condemning supreme court in londonistan.