DHOLAVIRA-A HARAPPAN METRO

A journey to Dholavira:a Harappan metropolis

DHOLAVIRA

DHOLAVIRA

DHOLAVIRA WRITING

STREET

The road to dholavira goes through a dazzling white landscape of salty mudflats. It is close to noon in early April and the mercury is already past 100F. The desert monotones are interrupted only by the striking attire worn by the women of the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral tribes that still inhabit this land: Ahir, Rabari, Jat, Meghwal, and others. When I ask the driver of my hired car to stop for a photo, they receive me with curious stares, hoots, and giggles.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Edmund Burke
Speech in Commons on India, 1783

Despite the act if 1773, there were still concerns about the administration of India.
... Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it Is to see the grey head of an Englishman. Young men (boys almost) govern there, without society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people, than if they still resided in England; nor, indeed, any species of intercourse but that which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another; wave after wave; and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost for ever to India. With us are no retributory superstitions, by which a foundation of charity compensates, through ages, to the poor, for the rapine and injustice of a day

HISTORY RESOURCES

Robert Clive 
Speech in Commons on India,  1772

Clive's victory Plassey in 1757 enabled the East India Company established its rule over large areas of India. Clive here recounts some of the consequences in a speech to the House of Commons.
: . . Indostan was always an absolute despotic government. The inhabitants, especially of Bengal, in inferior stations, are servile, mean, submissive, and humble. In superior stations, they are luxurious, effeminate, tyrannical, treacherous, venal, cruel. The country of Bengal is called, by way of distinction, the paradise of the earth. It not only abounds with the necessaries of life to such a degree, as to furnish a great part of India with its superfluity, but it abounds in very curious and valuable manufactures, sufficient not only for its own use, but for the use of the whole globe. The silver of the west and the gold of the east have for many years been pouring into that country, and goods only have been sent out in return. This has added to the luxury and extravagance of Bengal

HISTORY RESOURCES

TEXT ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA OF THE ORIGINAL "QUIT INDIA" RESOLUTION DRAFTED BY MOHANDAS K. GANDHI AND REJECTED BY THE ALL-INDIA CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE IN FAVOR OF THE MODIFIED VERSION SUBMITTED BY PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU.

The Gandhi Draft Was Presented to the Committee on April 27, 1942

New York Times, August 5, 1942.

Whereas the British War Cabinet proposals by Sir Stafford Cripps have shown up British imperialism in its nakedness as never before, the All-India Congress Committee has come to the following conclusions:

The committee is of the opinion that Britain is incapable of defending India. It is natural that whatever she does is for her own defense. There is the eternal conflict between Indian and British interest. It follows that their notions of defense would also differ.

The British Government has no trust in India's political parties. The Indian Army has been maintained up till now mainly to hold India in subjugation. It has been completely segregated from the general population, who can in no sense regard it as their own. This policy of mistrust still continues, and is the reason why national defense is not entrusted to India's elected representatives.

Japan's quarrel is not with India. She is warring against the British Empire. India's participation in the war has not been with the consent of the representatives of the Indian people. It was purely a British act. If India were freed, her first step would probably be to negotiate with Japan.

The Congress is of the opinion that if the British withdrew from India, India would be able to defend herself in the event of the Japanese, or any aggressor, attacking India.

The committee is, therefore, of the opinion that the British should withdraw from India. The plea that they should remain in India for the protection of the Indian princes is wholly untenable. It is an additional proof of their determination to maintain their hold over India. The princes need have no fear from an unarmed India.

The question of majority and minority is the creation of the British Government, and would disappear on their withdrawal.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Mountstuart Elphinstone: 
Indian Customs and Manners, 1840

THE food of the common people, both in the country and in towns, is unleavened bread with boiled vegetables, clarified butter or oil, and spices. Smoking tobacco is almost the only luxury. Some few smoke intoxicating drugs; and the lowest castes only, and even they rarely, get drunk with spirits. Drunkenness is confined to damp countries, such as Bengal, the Concans, and some parts of the south of India. It increases in our territories where spirits are taxed; but is so little of a natural propensity that the absolute prohibition of spirits, which exists in most native states, is sufficient to keep it down. Opium, which is used to great excess in the west of Hindostan, is peculiar to the Rajputs and does not affect the lower classes.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Mohandas K. Gandhi: Indian Home Rule (1909)

The popular image of Gandhi in the West involves a saintly manner and "passive resistance." In fact he was a skillful lawyer whose techniques of nonviolent protest were anything but passive and who could be fearlessly outspoken in defense of his beloved India. In this imaginary dialogue, Gandhi is replying to the question of an interviewer (here labeled "READER") as to how he would address "extremists" seeking independence from Britain. Gandhi's replies are labeled "EDITOR."

What does Gandhi say the proper role of the British in India should be?

EDITOR:

I would say to the extremists: "I know that you want Home Rule (1) for India; it is not to be had for your asking.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Jawaharlal Nehru: 
Marxism, Capitalism and Non-Alignment

Nehru, India's first Prime Minister after independence, (1947) was the creator of such terms as "neutralism", "Third World", and "non-alignment".
Marxism, Capitalism and India's Future (1941) 
As our struggle toned down and established itself at a low level, there was little of excitement in it, except at long intervals. My thoughts traveled more to other countries, and I watched and studied, as far as I could in jail, the world situation in the grip of the great depression. I read as many books as I could find on the subject, and the more I read the more fascinated I grew

HISTORY RESOURCES

PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL'S ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OF SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS' MISSION TO INDIA

Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Official Record, March 11, 1942.
INDIA (LORD PRIVY SEAL'S MISSION)
THE PRIME MINISTER (MR. CHURCHILL):
The crisis in the affairs of India arising out of the Japanese advance has made us wish to rally all the forces of Indian life, to guard their land from the menace of the invader

HISTORY RESOURCES

 SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS STATEMENT ON INDIA

London, August 5, 1942
"The Times," London, August 6, 1942.
Many hard comments have been made on my efforts in India from the side of the Congress party, yet I feel content in the deep conviction that the offer I traveled 22,000 miles to discuss with Indian leaders was a real contribution to a solution of our differences.

HISTORY RESOURCES

MOHANDAS K. GANDHI'S SPEECH (EXCERPTS) TO THE ALL-INDIA CONGRESS

Bombay, August 7, 1942

New York Times, August 8, 1942.

There are people who have hatred in their hearts for the British. I have heard of people saying that they are disgusted with them. The common people's mind does not differentiate between a Britisher and the imperialist form of their government. To them both are the same. There are people who do not mind the advent of the Japanese. To them, perhaps, it would mean a change of masters.

But it is a dangerous thing. You must remove it from your minds. This is a crucial hour.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920): 
Address to the Indian National Congress, 1907

The Indian National Congress was created by a group of English-speaking urban intellectuals in 1885. The original "moderate" leadership was soon more "militant" group, led by Bal GangadharTilak (1856-1920), which demanded "Swaraj [self-rule] for India. What follows is an excerpt from Tilak's address to Indian National Congress in 1907 calling for boycott of British goods and resistance to British rule.Two new words have recently come into existence with regard to our politics, and they are Moderates and Extremists. These words have a specific relation to time, and they, therefore, will change with time.

HISTORY RESOURCES

tHE pERIPLUS OF THE eRYTHRAEAN sEA
Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century

1. Of the designated ports on the Erythraean Sea, and the market-towns around it, the first is the Egyptian port of Mussel Harbor. To those sailing down from that place, on the right hand, after eighteen hundred stadia, there is Berenice. The harbors of both are at the boundary of Egypt, and are bays opening from the Erythraean Sea.

2. On the right-hand coast next below Berenice is the country of the Berbers. Along the shore are the Fish-Eaters, living in scattered caves in the narrow valleys

HISTORY RESOURCES

FERDINAND MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, 1519-1522 CE

Ferdinand de Magellan was born about 1470 of noble parents, and probably spent his boyhood as a page of the Queen of Portugal. As a young man he was in the East India service, then in Morocco. After a slight from King Manuel, he enlisted under the Spanish king, and set forth his project for a trip round the world. The expedition set sail August 10, 1519. Magellan was killed in April 1521 at Zebu [in the Phillippines], but they had already reached the eastern edge of the known world, and his men completed the voyage to Spain. The voyage proved that the earth is round (although most educated people knew this already!)

WORLD HISTORY

VOYAGES OF VASCO DA GAMA: 1497-1498 CE

Vasco da Gama was born about 1460 at Sines, Portugal. Both Prince John and Prince Manuel continued the efforts of Prince Henry to find a sea route to India, and in 1497 Manuel placed Vasco da Gama, who already had some reputation as a warrior and navigator, in charge of four vessels built especially for the expedition. They set sail July 8, 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope four months later, and reached Calicut May 20, 1498. The Moors in Calicut instigated the Zamorin of Calicut against him, and he was compelled to return with the bare discovery and the few spices he had bought there at inflated prices [but still he made a 3000% profit!]. A force left by a second expedition under Cabral (who discovered Brazil by sailing too far west), left behind some men in a "factory" or trading station, but these were killed by the Moors in revenge for Cabral's attacks on Arab shipping in the Indian Ocean. Vasco da Gama was sent on a mission of vengeance in 1502, he bombarded Calicut (virtually destroying the port), and returned with great spoil. His expedition turned the commerce of Europe from the Mediterranean cities to the Atlantic Coast, and opened up the east to European enterprise

NOTES ON MODERN INDIA

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889-1964)
Speech On the Granting of Indian Independence,  August 14, 1947

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance.

QUESTION PAPER

RELIGION OF THE VEDAS

Who were the earliest civilized Inhabitants of India?
Which deities did the earlier civilized inhabitants of India worship?
Which was the important religious rite or the activity of the earlier civilized inhabitants of India?
Did the religious faith of the earlier inhabitants of India die away?

The Contents of the Rig Veda:
How many hymns are there in Rig-Veda?
Which is the oldest religious and sacred book of the world?
When was Rig-Veda composed?

The other Vedas:
What is the nature of the content of Rig-Veda?
When are the hymns of Rig-Veda used?
How many Vedas are there apart from Rig-Veda?
What is the character of the contents of the Sam Veda?
What is the character of the contents of Yajur Veda?

QUESTION

Question Bank 

JAINISM

Who was the contemporary of Vardhamana?
By what name was Vardhamana known among his followers?
What is the etymological meaning of Jain?
Who established Jainsim?
What is peculiar about the history of Jainsim in comparison to that of Buddhism?
What is the peculiarity of the history of the Jain doctrine in comparison to that of Buddhism?
Did Jainism spread over to the other countries like Buddhism?

QUESTION PAPER

QUESTION BANK

Religion in Ancient India

 BUDDHISM

What was the main colour of the robes of Buddhist monks?
What is the meaning of the word Buddha?
What is the first sermon given by Buddha after his enlightenment called?
From where do we learn about the basic teaching of Buddha?
What is the status of the authenticity of the first sermon?
What truism did Buddha stress upon?
Name the tribe, which was headed by the father of Buddha?
Name the region to which the Sakya tribe belonged?
Which regions were benefited from the teachings of original Buddha?
At what age did Buddha die?
In which probable year did Buddha die? Which was the next possible date?
Which area of the world was more influenced by the story and teaching of Buddha?
Who was Mahamaya?