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