South Asia: Creating Dilemmas of Diversity - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 170

At a swampy , unhealthy , deep-water anchorage
80 miles (129 km) up the Hooghly River, Britain' s Fort
William expanded to become Calcutta, the empire' s cap-
ital until 1931. British Bengal trade boomed in the eigh-
teenth century , and further inroads were made into the
interior. There, factory agents established contact with
the spinners and weavers, and British artisans came to
train them in the ways of British fashion. However, little
investment was made in the means of production, and
the workers remained in poverty . Farmers were forced to
grow industrial, cash crops in order to meet their tax ob-
ligations. This caused food shortages, increased indebt-
edness, added millions to the ranks of landless and
unemployed, and enriched the zamindari land owners,
tax collectors, and money lenders. Indian industry de-
clined, and India became an importer of European man-
ufactures and an exporter of raw materials such as raw
silk, cotton, indigo, sugar, and opium. The British
shipped the opium to China to satisfy their imperialist
ambitions there.
By 1750, distrust of the British was widespread, and
Calcutta had grown to 100,000 people. Even then,
British racism marred the landscape. The city was di-
vided into “Blacktown” and “Whitetown.” Attempts to
get rid of the British were immediately thwarted. With
Colonel Robert Clive' s connived victory over a vastly
larger force at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, they achieved
control over Bengal. British sea power was transformed
into British land power.
For the next hundred years, the British struggled to
expand their territorial control and suppress opposition
on the subcontinent. Repeated wars were fought with
various groups such as the Marathas and the Sikhs. In
1819, the British gained control of Rajasthan and became
the largest land power on the subcontinent. By 1846,
they had taken the Sikh capital at Lahore, the fertile
lands of the Punjab, and the exquisite mountain vale of
Kashmir. Then, in what seemed an insignificant move at
the time, the British sold Kashmir to the highest bidder,
a Hindu chieftain, Gulab Singh. By 1850, the British con-
trolled an empire extending from the Indus to Bengal and
from Kashmir to Ceylon (Figure 6-13).
Colonial transformation was unstoppable. As the
landed aristocracy saw their lands appropriated, Western
influences were instilling new ideas about development
and missionaries were challenging Hindu beliefs and
practices, especially the caste system. English re-
placed Persian as the official language of government
and education. According to historian Lord Macaulay
(1800-1859), “A single shelf of a good European library

is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.”
Macaulay' s ideas led the way in developing India. The
British were to bring up a “class of persons Indian in
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in
morals, and in intellect.” Schools and colleges were built
to do the job.
As governor-general of India, Lord Dalhousie
(1848-1856) launched an ambitious program of modern-
ization. Expanding on the previous work of British engi-
neers, he constructed the first 450 miles (724 km) of the
Ganges Canal, which today provides hydroelectric power
for a large region and irrigates two million acres of farm-
land. Under the Dalhousie administration, electric and
telegraph services were installed, an efficient postal sys-
tem developed, and the first 300 miles (483 km) of rail-
road track laid. While it is true that India ended up with
Asia' s best rail system, there were negative consequences.
On the one hand, railways permitted the relief of
famine with grain shipments, while on the other hand
they created famine in areas from which the grain was
sent. Grain shortages drove prices beyond the reach of
the impoverished masses, and millions starved. For ex-
ample, 10 million in Bengal and Bihar starved in
1769-1770. At least 23 famines took their toll between
the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The last severe
food crisis was in 1943, when 1.5 to 3 million died as a
result of grain shortages, usurious prices, profiteering,
and government negligence and incompetence.
Railroads also opened up India as a vast consumer
market. However, instead of stimulating interior devel-
opment, they favored coastal cities through new cotton
milling and shipping facilities. Local textile mills closed.
T Towns and cities bypassed by the rail line declined. By
1879, three-quarters of India' s textile mills were in and
around Bombay .
In the minds of Indians, infrastructural change did
not have the impact of social change. The British had out-
lawed the practice of sati in 1829. In 1856, another law
permitted the remarriage of widows, anathema to Hindus.
By British law , Hindu states could not be inherited by any
other than a blood heir. Any “heirless” properties reverted
to the Crown. Some states, even those loyal to the British,
were annexed under the guise of mismanagement. Such
attacks on Indian culture and Hinduism itself were cause
for alarm, and in 1857 there was a mutiny .
The army of the East India Company comprised
mainly British-trained Indian troops called sepoys . Intrigue
sparked rumors that cartridges, which had to be bitten off to
load the new Lee-Enfield rifles, were greased with pig and
cow fat. With the pig being unclean to Muslims and the cow