1 00:00:11,057 --> 00:00:13,730 WOOD: There are times in the life of a civilisation 2 00:00:13,817 --> 00:00:16,968 when history seems to burst with possibilities. 3 00:00:18,537 --> 00:00:21,415 That's India in the 2 1 st century. 4 00:00:22,217 --> 00:00:24,970 This is the tale of the British occupation of India, 5 00:00:25,057 --> 00:00:29,016 the winning of freedom and the establishment of democracy, 6 00:00:29,097 --> 00:00:34,729 and with them all the possibilities of a hitherto undreamed of future. 7 00:00:36,897 --> 00:00:39,252 What do you want to be when you grow up and leave the school? 8 00:00:39,337 --> 00:00:41,532 When I grow up I will be a commercial pilot. 9 00:00:41,617 --> 00:00:42,811 Commercial pilot? 10 00:00:42,897 --> 00:00:44,808 -Doctor. -WOOD: A doctor. 11 00:00:44,897 --> 00:00:47,730 I want to be a captain in the navy. 12 00:00:47,817 --> 00:00:50,092 -A captain in the navy? -Yes. 13 00:00:50,977 --> 00:00:52,046 Archaeologist! 14 00:00:52,137 --> 00:00:53,889 -An archaeologist? -Yeah! 15 00:00:53,977 --> 00:00:55,808 -Fantastic. -I want to be a movie director. 16 00:00:55,897 --> 00:00:58,457 A movie director! Fantastic. 17 00:00:59,297 --> 00:01:02,334 The next chapter in the story of India. 18 00:01:32,177 --> 00:01:34,372 The coast of South India. 19 00:01:34,457 --> 00:01:37,255 In the 1 8th century, the British thought this 20 00:01:37,337 --> 00:01:39,646 the richest place in the world. 21 00:01:40,697 --> 00:01:42,972 And here a chain of events began 22 00:01:43,057 --> 00:01:46,766 that would lead to a small island 5,000 miles away 23 00:01:46,857 --> 00:01:49,974 coming to rule a vast empire in India, 24 00:01:50,057 --> 00:01:53,447 and in the process, giving birth to the modern world. 25 00:02:00,057 --> 00:02:04,926 The tale of India's last invader, the British, is a chain of accidents. 26 00:02:05,017 --> 00:02:06,655 As so often in history, 27 00:02:06,737 --> 00:02:10,013 events that need never have happened in the way that they did, 28 00:02:10,097 --> 00:02:15,854 except perhaps for some destiny written deep in India's own past. 29 00:02:19,017 --> 00:02:21,372 Here in Tanjore in the late 1 8th century, 30 00:02:21,457 --> 00:02:24,369 the armies of the British East India Company 31 00:02:24,457 --> 00:02:29,485 imposed their rule on a civilisation that had come down from ancient times, 32 00:02:29,577 --> 00:02:32,649 still with own distinctive vision of the world. 33 00:02:42,977 --> 00:02:46,208 At that time, while the Moghuls still ruled in the north, 34 00:02:46,297 --> 00:02:49,653 South India was divided between many princely states, 35 00:02:50,457 --> 00:02:52,607 but history was on the move. 36 00:03:05,897 --> 00:03:10,493 The 1 8th century rajas of Tanjore, men like Serfoji, 37 00:03:10,577 --> 00:03:13,171 were importing European knowledge. 38 00:03:13,257 --> 00:03:17,170 And in their library here, along with 50,000 Indian manuscripts, 39 00:03:17,257 --> 00:03:20,169 are books in English, French, Italian and Latin. 40 00:03:20,257 --> 00:03:23,613 MAN: They are both on palm leaf and paper. 25,000 in paper... 41 00:03:23,697 --> 00:03:25,688 Even without the British, 42 00:03:25,777 --> 00:03:28,450 India would still have taken the path to modernity. 43 00:03:28,537 --> 00:03:30,334 WOOD: Wow, fantastic. 44 00:03:30,417 --> 00:03:33,011 So he was interested in 45 00:03:33,097 --> 00:03:36,772 -combining Indian and European? -Yeah, yeah, yeah. 46 00:03:36,857 --> 00:03:38,336 That's fascinating. 47 00:03:38,417 --> 00:03:40,055 Samuel Johnson's dictionary. 48 00:03:40,137 --> 00:03:44,289 Samuel Johnson's dictionary. Fantastic. 49 00:03:44,377 --> 00:03:46,686 The first great dictionary of the English language, 50 00:03:46,777 --> 00:03:50,087 and here it is in the court of 1 8th century Tanjore. 51 00:03:52,217 --> 00:03:56,051 The very moment of the British taking over in India, this kind of, 52 00:03:56,137 --> 00:03:58,526 almost like a renaissance culture is taking place. 53 00:03:58,617 --> 00:04:00,767 This library, when you think about it, 54 00:04:00,857 --> 00:04:03,530 is as old as the Bodleian Library in Oxford, 55 00:04:03,617 --> 00:04:06,609 older by far than any library in the United States. 56 00:04:06,697 --> 00:04:10,053 And maybe that's the hallmark of all great civilisations, 57 00:04:10,137 --> 00:04:13,607 that they have the ability to conserve their own genius, 58 00:04:13,737 --> 00:04:17,889 but to bring in the discoveries of other civilisations 59 00:04:17,977 --> 00:04:21,652 and incorporate them, and India has always had the ability to do that, 60 00:04:21,737 --> 00:04:23,568 just as it does today. 61 00:04:26,097 --> 00:04:28,372 So these are medical textbooks from Europe? 62 00:04:28,457 --> 00:04:30,846 365 medical books, 63 00:04:30,937 --> 00:04:34,407 collected from London, printed in London and Edinburgh. 64 00:04:35,697 --> 00:04:39,770 The present raja told me more about his ancestor, Serfoji. 65 00:04:40,857 --> 00:04:43,576 He had a very deep interest in medicine also. 66 00:04:43,657 --> 00:04:47,013 You can see here... Even it's fascinating to know 67 00:04:47,097 --> 00:04:50,248 that he has imported a human skeleton from London. 68 00:04:51,337 --> 00:04:55,376 He want his doctors to be taught about the anatomy. 69 00:04:56,897 --> 00:04:59,491 He was beyond times. 70 00:04:59,577 --> 00:05:02,011 He knew what's going around the world. 71 00:05:02,097 --> 00:05:05,612 He was into... He's a polyglot and polymath. 72 00:05:05,697 --> 00:05:08,416 -So... -He spoke English, I gather? 73 00:05:08,497 --> 00:05:11,569 He spoke several languages. 74 00:05:11,657 --> 00:05:15,696 So all this time, Tanjore was under the rule of the British, is that correct? 75 00:05:15,777 --> 00:05:19,452 Yeah. Actually, what happened, he had to... 76 00:05:19,537 --> 00:05:21,687 He was forced to undergo a treaty with the British 77 00:05:21,777 --> 00:05:25,292 from 1 798 onwards, 78 00:05:25,377 --> 00:05:30,497 he was relieved of his powers from maintaining his territory. 79 00:05:32,977 --> 00:05:35,810 These events were all part of the global confrontation 80 00:05:35,897 --> 00:05:39,333 between the British and the French in the 1 8th century. 81 00:05:39,417 --> 00:05:41,806 With Mogul power shrinking in North India, 82 00:05:41,897 --> 00:05:45,173 the south became the theatre of war for the Europeans. 83 00:05:45,257 --> 00:05:48,294 The same year General Wolfe lay dying in Quebec, 84 00:05:48,377 --> 00:05:52,495 the British and the French were fighting along the Coromandel Coast, 85 00:05:52,577 --> 00:05:55,933 and the Tamils found themselves in the line of fire. 86 00:05:59,777 --> 00:06:04,567 The key to the nascent British Empire was the new fort of Madras. 87 00:06:21,497 --> 00:06:23,613 WOMAN: This was the beginning of the Empire because 88 00:06:23,737 --> 00:06:27,650 this is here where they first decided that they'll have a fort of their own. 89 00:06:27,737 --> 00:06:30,012 A place, a trading station of their own. 90 00:06:30,097 --> 00:06:33,009 When the British first came and landed only at Surat, 91 00:06:33,097 --> 00:06:34,496 and when they were not able to compete 92 00:06:34,577 --> 00:06:37,045 either with the Dutch or the Portuguese on the western coast, 93 00:06:37,137 --> 00:06:38,809 they shifted towards the east. 94 00:06:38,897 --> 00:06:41,934 They came to Pulicat, from Pulicat they shifted to Armagon. 95 00:06:42,017 --> 00:06:43,769 From Armagon they came to Madras. 96 00:06:43,857 --> 00:06:45,893 And this is where they found what they wanted. 97 00:06:45,977 --> 00:06:49,970 Right. So what were they trading first of all here in South India? 98 00:06:50,057 --> 00:06:52,525 They were trading here only muslin cloth. 99 00:06:52,617 --> 00:06:55,734 Muslin cloth? At that time this was a peaceful exchange? 100 00:06:55,817 --> 00:06:59,332 Yeah, that time it was peaceful. By about 1 650, 1 660, 101 00:06:59,417 --> 00:07:03,330 the Dutch, the Danish, the Portuguese, all of them 102 00:07:03,417 --> 00:07:07,046 become subservient to the powers of the British and the French. 103 00:07:07,137 --> 00:07:12,370 Now, these are European powers competing for empire internationally, 104 00:07:12,457 --> 00:07:15,290 but here in South India this becomes a focus for their rivalries. 105 00:07:15,377 --> 00:07:18,494 Every time there is some sort of a difference of opinion 106 00:07:18,577 --> 00:07:23,332 or altercation in Europe between the French and the English, 107 00:07:23,417 --> 00:07:28,207 what shall we say, that is very clearly reflected 108 00:07:28,297 --> 00:07:29,935 in the South India also. 109 00:07:31,417 --> 00:07:33,214 WOOD: It was a time of war 110 00:07:33,297 --> 00:07:37,370 as European armies trekked back and forth across South India. 111 00:07:37,457 --> 00:07:42,167 In the towns of the old Cholan heartland the dead lay unburied in the streets. 112 00:07:48,457 --> 00:07:53,087 The great Tamil temple enclosures were turned into forts and prison camps, 113 00:07:53,617 --> 00:07:57,576 as columns of famine-stricken refugees fled the fighting. 114 00:08:07,777 --> 00:08:11,850 When you read British accounts of these wars in the late 1 8th century, 115 00:08:11,937 --> 00:08:16,613 you get, actually, a very horrifying impression 116 00:08:16,697 --> 00:08:21,327 of armies of British and French criss-crossing the Tamil land. 117 00:08:21,897 --> 00:08:26,732 Terrible massacres are taking place of the kind that we see today 118 00:08:26,817 --> 00:08:29,729 -in Darfur or Iraq almost. -Yes, yes. 119 00:08:29,817 --> 00:08:31,933 I mean, thousands of Tamils were killed. 120 00:08:32,017 --> 00:08:34,406 It must have been a terrible time in the south. 121 00:08:34,497 --> 00:08:37,853 It must have been. The first form of uprising 122 00:08:37,937 --> 00:08:39,928 starts only in this part of the country. 123 00:08:40,017 --> 00:08:41,973 The first uprising against the British. 124 00:08:42,057 --> 00:08:44,776 Against the British. Of course, it's all local. 125 00:08:44,857 --> 00:08:47,246 It is not, you know, it's nothing organised. 126 00:08:47,337 --> 00:08:51,694 I won't call it a fight for freedom, but they are rebelling 127 00:08:51,777 --> 00:08:55,326 against certain norms which have been forced upon them. 128 00:08:57,817 --> 00:09:00,650 The British victory in South India came in 1 799 129 00:09:00,737 --> 00:09:02,728 at the Battle of Seringapatam, 130 00:09:02,817 --> 00:09:07,333 where an East India Company army overwhelmed the Muslim Sultan of Mysore. 131 00:09:12,937 --> 00:09:15,292 And back in London in the British Library, 132 00:09:15,377 --> 00:09:19,893 the archive of the East India Company reveals the secret story 133 00:09:19,977 --> 00:09:23,094 in the letters of the British commander, Richard Wellesley, 134 00:09:23,177 --> 00:09:25,407 the Governor General of India. 135 00:09:31,697 --> 00:09:33,847 Here even written in cipher. 136 00:09:43,857 --> 00:09:46,530 Here's the crucial part. 137 00:09:46,617 --> 00:09:51,975 ''Seringapatam I shall retain in full sovereignty for the company, 138 00:09:52,617 --> 00:09:56,815 ''being a tower of strength from which we may at any time 139 00:09:56,897 --> 00:10:00,287 ''strike Hindustan to its centre.'' 140 00:10:01,377 --> 00:10:04,972 And he adds, ''I shall not at present enlarge upon the advantages 141 00:10:05,057 --> 00:10:09,209 ''which are likely to be derived to the British interests from this, 142 00:10:09,737 --> 00:10:14,015 ''for they are too obvious to require any detailed explanation.'' 143 00:10:15,817 --> 00:10:20,208 But for the company, the war was not just about power but profit. 144 00:10:22,057 --> 00:10:25,936 And also in the archive here, the profit and loss, 145 00:10:26,017 --> 00:10:28,656 the balance sheets of the East India Company. 146 00:10:28,737 --> 00:10:31,456 This was what it was all about. 147 00:10:31,537 --> 00:10:35,416 The crucial turning point in the finances of the company, 148 00:10:35,497 --> 00:10:40,491 1 799, after the great battles in South India at Seringapatam. 149 00:10:41,777 --> 00:10:45,895 Company revenues, eight and a half million pounds. 150 00:10:45,977 --> 00:10:51,005 Four years later, 1 803, thirteen and a half million pounds. 151 00:10:51,617 --> 00:10:54,654 That's getting on for three quarters of a billion pounds 152 00:10:54,737 --> 00:10:56,170 in modern spending money. 153 00:10:58,417 --> 00:11:02,171 Previous invaders of India had come by land through the Khyber Pass 154 00:11:02,257 --> 00:11:06,853 but the British came by sea, establishing bases around the coast. 155 00:11:06,937 --> 00:11:10,850 And in Bengal, the British had extorted the right to raise taxes 156 00:11:10,937 --> 00:11:12,814 from the enfeebled Moghuls. 157 00:11:12,897 --> 00:11:17,607 And here in Calcutta, they began to develop a classic colonial economy. 158 00:11:20,177 --> 00:11:23,010 Sailing into Calcutta in the 1 8th century 159 00:11:23,097 --> 00:11:25,565 you were entering the hub of an operation 160 00:11:25,657 --> 00:11:29,696 which spread its power and influence across half the world. 161 00:11:30,537 --> 00:11:35,133 Opium being processed here in warehouses to be sailed off to China. 162 00:11:35,217 --> 00:11:40,496 Textiles being processed to go into northern India and across to Europe. 163 00:11:41,777 --> 00:11:43,972 A network that controlled 164 00:11:44,057 --> 00:11:48,414 hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, weavers, dyers and washers. 165 00:11:49,657 --> 00:11:53,093 The forerunner of those modern multinationals, 166 00:11:53,177 --> 00:11:57,136 who, backed by state power, make their billions 167 00:11:57,217 --> 00:12:01,574 and wield power of life and death over great swathes of the world. 168 00:12:06,577 --> 00:12:10,331 In later times, the British liked to say, disingenuously, 169 00:12:10,417 --> 00:12:14,171 that they'd gained their empire in a fit of absent-mindedness. 170 00:12:16,857 --> 00:12:18,768 But there was nothing absent-minded 171 00:12:18,857 --> 00:12:22,691 about the ruthless way they pursued the imperative of profit. 172 00:12:24,657 --> 00:12:26,375 And in the late 1 8th century, 173 00:12:26,457 --> 00:12:29,176 driven by the Industrial Revolution back in Britain, 174 00:12:29,257 --> 00:12:32,772 Bengal became a mainstay of British imperialism. 175 00:12:41,017 --> 00:12:44,407 The magnificent 1 8th century cemetery in Calcutta 176 00:12:44,497 --> 00:12:46,886 tells another side of the story. 177 00:12:46,977 --> 00:12:50,811 Many of the British here, some of them all too short-lived, 178 00:12:50,897 --> 00:12:52,649 fell in love with India. 179 00:12:52,737 --> 00:12:55,615 A third of all the British men who came to work for the company 180 00:12:55,697 --> 00:13:00,487 married Indian women and left money and property to their beloved bibis. 181 00:13:02,137 --> 00:13:03,934 Why are you going to the trouble 182 00:13:04,057 --> 00:13:07,493 of conserving something from the British past? 183 00:13:07,577 --> 00:13:12,776 Because it is our moral duty, not only just to revive its own glory, 184 00:13:12,857 --> 00:13:15,530 but to provide, too, so that people can come here, 185 00:13:15,617 --> 00:13:17,050 and have a look and enjoy. 186 00:13:20,737 --> 00:13:23,570 BANDOPADHYAY: How can you ignore it? It is a part of history. 187 00:13:23,657 --> 00:13:27,935 -WOOD: Relevant to India today? -Yeah, relevant to India, you can see. 188 00:13:29,017 --> 00:13:32,487 The British also gave us a complete map of India. 189 00:13:32,577 --> 00:13:34,249 The Britishers gave you a complete map of India? 190 00:13:34,337 --> 00:13:36,373 Map of India. United, a complete map. 191 00:13:36,457 --> 00:13:38,254 Prior to the Britishers, what happened, actually, 192 00:13:38,337 --> 00:13:43,092 India was divided into several small countries, different like that. 193 00:13:43,697 --> 00:13:45,289 -They are all united. -So, do you think 194 00:13:45,377 --> 00:13:49,006 without the British, India may never have been united as India? 195 00:13:49,097 --> 00:13:52,009 Yeah, that is true 1 00%. I fully agree with you. 196 00:13:52,097 --> 00:13:54,247 Really? 197 00:13:54,337 --> 00:13:56,089 You're making me feel better 198 00:13:56,177 --> 00:13:58,054 -about being an imperialist! -No, it's absolutely correct. 199 00:14:00,537 --> 00:14:04,166 And that map was not only physical but mental, 200 00:14:04,257 --> 00:14:06,088 an idea of India. 201 00:14:07,097 --> 00:14:11,568 For it was the British who began the recovery of the ancient Indian past. 202 00:14:13,457 --> 00:14:16,369 Orientalists like James Prinsep and William Jones 203 00:14:16,457 --> 00:14:18,573 learned India's languages. 204 00:14:18,657 --> 00:14:22,696 ''I love India more than my own country, ''said Warren Hastings. 205 00:14:23,337 --> 00:14:27,933 They founded the Asiatic Society here, conscious that India was a far older 206 00:14:28,017 --> 00:14:31,089 and richer civilisation than their own. 207 00:14:31,177 --> 00:14:35,250 And as one of them said, ''Wealth is not the only 208 00:14:35,337 --> 00:14:39,569 ''or the most valuable commodity India has to offer Britain 209 00:14:39,657 --> 00:14:41,727 ''and the world. '' 210 00:14:43,377 --> 00:14:46,414 MAN: The early orientalists who came to India, 211 00:14:46,497 --> 00:14:50,172 they wanted to know what was happening in this new place. 212 00:14:51,137 --> 00:14:55,892 William Jones, Hestrie Colebrook and a whole host of others, 213 00:14:55,977 --> 00:14:58,286 they took India seriously. 214 00:14:58,377 --> 00:15:00,686 So they went, sat with the Brahmin pundits 215 00:15:00,777 --> 00:15:03,894 and tried to understand Sanskritic texts and so on. 216 00:15:06,217 --> 00:15:09,527 PANDIAN: People are, you know, nostalgically looking back 217 00:15:09,617 --> 00:15:11,972 to a world which they have lost. 218 00:15:14,457 --> 00:15:16,687 To look for the lost world in the East. 219 00:15:16,777 --> 00:15:19,530 -And they found it in India? -They found it in India. 220 00:15:22,137 --> 00:15:24,093 WOOD: Some East India Company officers 221 00:15:24,177 --> 00:15:28,090 were accused of thinking more of Hinduism than Christianity 222 00:15:28,177 --> 00:15:30,930 and more of the Koran than the Bible. 223 00:15:31,017 --> 00:15:35,408 There's even a tomb in Park Street Cemetery covered with Hindu deities. 224 00:15:37,657 --> 00:15:40,251 It's the tomb of one of the most interesting characters 225 00:15:40,337 --> 00:15:41,895 from British India, 226 00:15:41,977 --> 00:15:44,013 Major General Charles Stuart. 227 00:15:44,097 --> 00:15:47,851 His love of things Indian earned him the nickname ''Hindoo'' Stuart. 228 00:15:48,577 --> 00:15:50,090 He was here for 50 years, 229 00:15:50,177 --> 00:15:52,737 used to go down to the Ganges to bathe every day, 230 00:15:52,817 --> 00:15:57,288 wore Indian clothes off-duty and even worshipped Hindu gods. 231 00:16:00,337 --> 00:16:04,853 Perhaps his most characteristic attempt at cross-cultural dialogue 232 00:16:04,937 --> 00:16:07,735 was to try to persuade the British ladies of Calcutta, 233 00:16:07,817 --> 00:16:11,048 the memsahibs, to throw off their whalebone corsets 234 00:16:11,137 --> 00:16:14,254 and their iron dress hoops and wear the sari. 235 00:16:15,737 --> 00:16:20,208 ''The sari, '' wrote Stuart, ''is the most alluring dress in the world 236 00:16:20,297 --> 00:16:23,812 ''and the women of Hindustan enchanting in their beauty. '' 237 00:16:27,297 --> 00:16:30,334 In his book, The Vindication of the Hindoos, 238 00:16:30,417 --> 00:16:34,092 Stuart spoke of the greatness of Indian civilisation 239 00:16:34,177 --> 00:16:37,169 and the need for the British to understand it. 240 00:16:37,257 --> 00:16:38,849 ''Hinduism, ''said Stuart, 241 00:16:38,937 --> 00:16:44,250 ''little needs the ameliorating hand of Christianity to render its votaries 242 00:16:44,337 --> 00:16:48,535 ''a correct and moral people in a civilised society. '' 243 00:16:49,697 --> 00:16:54,373 ''On the contrary, ''he said, ''the glorious scriptures of the Hindus 244 00:16:54,457 --> 00:16:58,769 ''were written when our own ancestors were savages in the forests. '' 245 00:17:01,097 --> 00:17:03,531 The British were particularly attracted 246 00:17:03,617 --> 00:17:06,927 to the mixed Hindu-Muslim culture in the Ganges Plain, 247 00:17:07,017 --> 00:17:10,168 a legacy of the days of the great Moghuls like Akbar 248 00:17:10,257 --> 00:17:13,567 who had tried to bring the two communities together. 249 00:17:15,217 --> 00:17:17,492 WOOD: Oh, wow! They're so... 250 00:17:18,897 --> 00:17:22,446 Oh, look at this. So what are these documents? 251 00:17:25,417 --> 00:17:27,373 WOOD: This is for Hanuman Ghari? 252 00:17:27,457 --> 00:17:30,529 -Yes, yes. -And this is the seal of the nawab? 253 00:17:31,737 --> 00:17:36,049 These are the documents for Muslim nawabs of Ayodhya 254 00:17:37,177 --> 00:17:40,328 giving their resources to building a Hindu temple. 255 00:17:43,177 --> 00:17:46,249 In the Middle Ages, relations between Hindus and Muslims 256 00:17:46,337 --> 00:17:48,851 had often been marred by the intolerant attitudes 257 00:17:48,937 --> 00:17:51,007 of some Muslim rulers. 258 00:17:51,097 --> 00:17:54,692 But accommodation under the later Moghuls gave birth to the most seductive 259 00:17:54,777 --> 00:17:58,372 and charismatic of all Indian civilisations 260 00:17:58,457 --> 00:18:01,255 in Lucknow under the Muslim nawabs. 261 00:18:08,497 --> 00:18:12,888 And that time is still fondly remembered in the old aristocratic houses. 262 00:18:13,897 --> 00:18:16,013 -Ah, so the family portraits. -Yes. 263 00:18:17,497 --> 00:18:20,330 So, this is magnificent. Who is this here? 264 00:18:20,417 --> 00:18:23,329 This is my great-grandfather, 265 00:18:23,417 --> 00:18:26,648 Amirudaula Raja, Sir. 266 00:18:26,737 --> 00:18:28,853 -Raja but Sir. -Sir, yes. 267 00:18:28,937 --> 00:18:31,087 -So he was knighted by... -Knighted by Queen Victoria. 268 00:18:31,177 --> 00:18:34,852 Queen Victoria! Fantastic. 269 00:18:34,937 --> 00:18:36,450 This is me. 270 00:18:37,737 --> 00:18:42,447 WOOD: With a beautiful ceremonial crown. KHAN: Rubies, emeralds, diamonds. 271 00:18:48,937 --> 00:18:53,806 People talk about the culture of Lucknow, 272 00:18:54,377 --> 00:18:56,607 especially the 1 8th-century period, don't they, 273 00:18:56,697 --> 00:19:00,292 as being an extraordinary period in Indian history. 274 00:19:00,377 --> 00:19:01,651 Why is that? 275 00:19:05,937 --> 00:19:07,928 -What does that mean? -That is... 276 00:19:12,537 --> 00:19:13,686 Right. 277 00:19:14,377 --> 00:19:18,006 So, at that time the two cultures here intermingled? 278 00:19:18,097 --> 00:19:19,166 Intermingled. 279 00:19:25,817 --> 00:19:28,809 That high culture of Urdu literature and poetry 280 00:19:28,897 --> 00:19:32,173 has left its legacy across North India and Pakistan. 281 00:19:33,377 --> 00:19:36,608 And in the food, too, which has spread across the whole world. 282 00:19:36,697 --> 00:19:39,814 ''The fast results in more eating.'' That's great. 283 00:19:40,657 --> 00:19:43,012 Verdict on the biryani then, everybody? 284 00:19:43,097 --> 00:19:45,531 He won. - We won. 285 00:19:58,777 --> 00:20:03,009 But everything would be changed by the great rebellion of 1 857. 286 00:20:04,377 --> 00:20:07,369 The signs had been there the previous 30 years. 287 00:20:07,457 --> 00:20:09,049 The British more intolerant 288 00:20:09,137 --> 00:20:13,335 under the growing influence of evangelical Christian missionaries. 289 00:20:14,617 --> 00:20:17,211 A decree replacing Persian with English 290 00:20:17,297 --> 00:20:20,414 as the language of administration and education. 291 00:20:22,577 --> 00:20:27,253 The mutiny began over the use of cow and pig fat to grease cartridges, 292 00:20:27,337 --> 00:20:30,010 deeply offensive to both Hindu and Muslim. 293 00:20:30,097 --> 00:20:34,409 It was a stupid mistake born of disrespect towards the native culture. 294 00:20:34,497 --> 00:20:38,092 But it provoked a terrifying uprising by the sepoys, 295 00:20:38,177 --> 00:20:41,010 the native troops employed by the British. 296 00:21:06,457 --> 00:21:09,733 This was the mosque from where, 297 00:21:09,817 --> 00:21:13,253 in the leadership of Maulana Fazl-e Haq Khairabadi, 298 00:21:13,337 --> 00:21:16,056 around 350 alims, 299 00:21:16,137 --> 00:21:20,653 ulemas, Islamic scholars, gave the fatwa 300 00:21:20,737 --> 00:21:25,572 of jihad against the British rulers in India. 301 00:21:26,017 --> 00:21:29,453 -Hindu and Muslim joined together. -Together. 302 00:21:30,297 --> 00:21:32,015 All communities came together 303 00:21:32,097 --> 00:21:35,772 and I think it was the golden period of India. 304 00:21:35,857 --> 00:21:40,248 All the communities, without any differences, 305 00:21:40,337 --> 00:21:42,805 they were Indians at that time. 306 00:21:43,937 --> 00:21:47,850 They were following their religions but they were fighting for one cause, 307 00:21:47,937 --> 00:21:49,655 to get the freedom of India. 308 00:21:56,137 --> 00:21:58,776 Through the sweltering summer of 1 857, 309 00:21:58,857 --> 00:22:01,576 the edifice of British power tottered 310 00:22:01,657 --> 00:22:04,649 in what the British called the Indian Mutiny. 311 00:22:04,737 --> 00:22:09,049 It was the greatest war of resistance ever fought against a colonial power 312 00:22:09,137 --> 00:22:12,129 in the whole age of European imperialism. 313 00:22:14,737 --> 00:22:17,205 And new discoveries in the archives in Delhi 314 00:22:17,297 --> 00:22:19,333 reveal the story from the rebels' side 315 00:22:19,417 --> 00:22:23,729 and their anger at the attitude of the new breed of British officials. 316 00:22:25,057 --> 00:22:28,333 They are denigrating traditional forms of performance, 317 00:22:28,417 --> 00:22:32,456 they're denigrating traditional texts, they're denigrating traditional poetry. 318 00:22:32,537 --> 00:22:35,290 So there is a hectoring, interrogating machine 319 00:22:35,377 --> 00:22:40,212 that has been set in motion 20, 25 years before the uprising happens. 320 00:22:40,297 --> 00:22:43,289 Otherwise we just can't make sense of the rage that bursts forth. 321 00:22:43,377 --> 00:22:45,174 And what's interesting about 1 857 322 00:22:45,257 --> 00:22:48,010 is that, certainly in Delhi, in the documents we've been studying here 323 00:22:48,097 --> 00:22:51,373 over the last three years, is that the expression 324 00:22:51,457 --> 00:22:54,847 of resistance in Delhi is done in religious terms. 325 00:22:54,937 --> 00:22:57,849 The British are the people who destroy all religions. 326 00:23:04,857 --> 00:23:06,495 What has happened to Aragon... 327 00:23:06,577 --> 00:23:10,013 WOOD: The rebel leaders, like the Rani of Jhansi, who died fighting 328 00:23:10,097 --> 00:23:11,815 became national heroes. 329 00:23:11,897 --> 00:23:14,365 To get at them, I have to blow up the temples. 330 00:23:14,497 --> 00:23:17,853 Then blow them up. Our country above our religion. 331 00:23:26,257 --> 00:23:30,648 There is a violence that bursts forth in a turbulent wave, 332 00:23:30,737 --> 00:23:32,773 which totally takes the English by surprise. 333 00:23:32,857 --> 00:23:35,166 -No prisoners are taken. -They are completely shocked by 334 00:23:35,257 --> 00:23:38,090 the kind of violence that is manifested by the sepoys. 335 00:23:38,177 --> 00:23:41,886 And the British respond in kind and worse. 336 00:23:41,977 --> 00:23:45,811 And they level whole cities. Delhi, which is a city of 1 00,000 people, 337 00:23:45,897 --> 00:23:51,051 which contains around 250,000 people at the time the British attack it, 338 00:23:51,137 --> 00:23:53,697 refugees and the sepoys and so on, 339 00:23:53,777 --> 00:23:57,133 is left a completely empty ruin. 340 00:23:57,217 --> 00:23:59,731 There is not a single human being left in the city 341 00:23:59,817 --> 00:24:01,648 by the time the British are finished with it. 342 00:24:07,257 --> 00:24:10,055 For the British, the most evocative place in the story 343 00:24:10,137 --> 00:24:14,574 was Lucknow, scene of the heroic defence of their residency. 344 00:24:14,657 --> 00:24:17,933 After the victory,journalists picked their way over the ruins 345 00:24:18,017 --> 00:24:21,692 using the new art of photography to record the destruction. 346 00:24:23,857 --> 00:24:27,247 Though some shots of the damage and cruelty inflicted by the British 347 00:24:27,337 --> 00:24:30,966 in their frenzy of revenge were not published at the time. 348 00:24:32,097 --> 00:24:36,454 In the immediate aftermath of the great rebellion of 1 857-8, 349 00:24:37,417 --> 00:24:40,295 European photographer, Felice Beato, 350 00:24:40,377 --> 00:24:44,416 took an amazing top shot of the whole city. 351 00:24:45,097 --> 00:24:47,736 It's just laid out here before us, 352 00:24:47,817 --> 00:24:51,776 the great Imambara with the minarets. 353 00:24:51,857 --> 00:24:54,325 In the middle of the panorama you can see 354 00:24:54,417 --> 00:24:57,648 the mosque of Aurangzeb by the river there, 355 00:24:57,737 --> 00:24:59,568 painted white now. 356 00:24:59,657 --> 00:25:01,852 A British cavalry regiment 357 00:25:02,977 --> 00:25:07,050 camped just down there in the courtyard with their tents, 358 00:25:07,137 --> 00:25:12,006 their horses grazing. And, in fact, you can just see their washing 359 00:25:12,097 --> 00:25:14,167 by the side of the road on a washing line. 360 00:25:14,257 --> 00:25:16,134 Those look like long johns to me. 361 00:25:21,897 --> 00:25:24,491 ''We have power of life and death in our hands, '' 362 00:25:24,577 --> 00:25:28,365 wrote one British officer, ''and I assure you we spare not. '' 363 00:25:30,097 --> 00:25:32,406 Writing for the New York Daily Tribune, 364 00:25:32,497 --> 00:25:35,648 Karl Marx railed against the failure of the British press 365 00:25:35,737 --> 00:25:37,887 to cover British atrocities. 366 00:25:37,977 --> 00:25:40,093 ''The cruelty of the sepoys, ''he said, 367 00:25:40,177 --> 00:25:44,011 ''is only the reflex of England's own conduct in India. 368 00:25:44,577 --> 00:25:48,047 ''The European troops have become fiends. '' 369 00:25:51,137 --> 00:25:53,287 DALRYMPLE: In real history, things do not have sharp endings. 370 00:25:53,377 --> 00:25:55,493 Normally periods flood into each other. 371 00:25:55,577 --> 00:25:59,695 But 1 857 is a very clear open-and-shut case. 372 00:25:59,777 --> 00:26:04,248 1 857 the East India Company ends, the Moghuls end. 373 00:26:04,377 --> 00:26:07,414 The two principle forces that have guided Indian history 374 00:26:07,497 --> 00:26:10,807 for the past 300 years come to an abrupt end. 375 00:26:10,897 --> 00:26:12,967 And immediately, you get the British Government 376 00:26:13,057 --> 00:26:15,366 imposing direct rule from London. 377 00:26:15,457 --> 00:26:17,812 Very soon after this, Disraeli goes to Queen Victoria and says, 378 00:26:17,897 --> 00:26:19,694 ''Will you be Empress of India?'' 379 00:26:42,577 --> 00:26:47,048 This is the Grand Trunk Road coming northwards from Kanpur. 380 00:26:47,137 --> 00:26:49,856 We're looking for one of the most extraordinary stories 381 00:26:49,937 --> 00:26:52,007 in the aftermath of 1 857. 382 00:26:55,617 --> 00:26:58,211 And the person who knows more about it than anyone alive 383 00:26:58,297 --> 00:27:02,131 is an Indian scholar who comes from a village just up the road. 384 00:27:02,217 --> 00:27:06,210 We've arranged to meet at a place where there's a brick kiln and a temple, 385 00:27:06,297 --> 00:27:08,811 and he'll be wearing a red Himalayan shawl. 386 00:27:16,057 --> 00:27:18,446 Brick kilns coming up over there. 387 00:27:31,497 --> 00:27:34,773 WOOD: A red Himalayan hat. I didn't hear him right. 388 00:27:39,617 --> 00:27:41,369 Welcome. Nice to meet you. 389 00:27:42,217 --> 00:27:44,890 WOOD: Very nice to meet you. 390 00:27:45,857 --> 00:27:49,691 This is Jeremy and Callum. So we've made it, fantastic. 391 00:27:49,777 --> 00:27:52,928 Now, look, I will have to take you to Bareh. 392 00:27:53,017 --> 00:27:55,406 The Raja is insistent. 393 00:27:55,497 --> 00:27:58,136 You can't have a picture with only the collaborators. 394 00:27:59,337 --> 00:28:03,171 You must have a real, real rebel. Thank you very much. 395 00:28:03,257 --> 00:28:07,535 People still think about it as collaborators, do they? 396 00:28:07,617 --> 00:28:08,686 I am not, you know. 397 00:28:08,777 --> 00:28:11,769 -One hundred and fifty years? -I don't feel guilty about it. 398 00:28:11,857 --> 00:28:14,087 -Come. -Okay. 399 00:28:15,297 --> 00:28:19,415 Don't get run over. We haven't done the interview yet! 400 00:28:19,497 --> 00:28:22,773 Sriram is the historian of the Indian National Congress, 401 00:28:22,857 --> 00:28:26,691 the freedom movement that arose out of the struggles of 1 857. 402 00:28:28,697 --> 00:28:30,733 That's the ancestral house. 403 00:28:30,817 --> 00:28:32,136 -Your house? -Yes. 404 00:28:32,217 --> 00:28:33,650 Oh, wow. 405 00:28:34,737 --> 00:28:38,446 But like everyone in India, he has his own stake in the story. 406 00:28:38,537 --> 00:28:43,213 His ancestors sided with the British, believing in their order, their future. 407 00:28:44,657 --> 00:28:47,171 This is gonna... Unstoppable, isn't he? 408 00:28:53,657 --> 00:28:55,249 -WOOD: This is the fort? -Yes. 409 00:28:55,337 --> 00:28:58,249 -So this fort was your ancestors' fort? -Yes. 410 00:28:58,337 --> 00:29:00,487 So are you officially still a raja? 411 00:29:00,577 --> 00:29:02,807 Oh, no. Rajas over now. 412 00:29:02,897 --> 00:29:04,933 Rajas are over? 413 00:29:06,737 --> 00:29:09,297 An hour or so out into the countryside, 414 00:29:09,377 --> 00:29:11,174 we reached Bareh. 415 00:29:11,257 --> 00:29:16,456 The descendants of the collaborator and the resister and the oppressor. 416 00:29:18,457 --> 00:29:20,925 Wow, that's impressive, isn't it? 417 00:29:21,617 --> 00:29:22,811 What was this here? 418 00:29:22,897 --> 00:29:26,651 -The ladies' apartment. -The ladies' apartment? 419 00:29:26,737 --> 00:29:28,489 Fantastic, isn't it? 420 00:29:35,217 --> 00:29:38,209 And this is what they were fighting for. 421 00:29:38,777 --> 00:29:44,329 That's India which you can call eternal, the unchanging. 422 00:30:05,177 --> 00:30:07,054 So what happened here in 1 857? 423 00:30:10,457 --> 00:30:12,209 You were the rebels? 424 00:30:12,697 --> 00:30:15,086 -First War of Independence... -Yes. 425 00:30:15,177 --> 00:30:16,656 ...they call it now, don't they? 426 00:30:18,897 --> 00:30:20,694 -These were the local rebel commanders? -Yes. 427 00:30:22,217 --> 00:30:24,173 -Oh, of Jhansi? -Yes, yes. 428 00:30:24,257 --> 00:30:28,773 She was the heroine, the Joan of Arc of the resistance. 429 00:30:30,097 --> 00:30:31,166 Yeah? 430 00:30:33,497 --> 00:30:35,294 Nana's coming! Nana's coming! 431 00:30:35,377 --> 00:30:37,845 It was Nana who attacked Lucknow. 432 00:30:40,777 --> 00:30:43,894 So these were the greatest of the rebel leaders. 433 00:30:44,337 --> 00:30:47,693 So your family were committed to fighting against the British? 434 00:30:47,777 --> 00:30:49,210 -Yes. -Yeah. 435 00:30:49,297 --> 00:30:51,208 And what happened here? 436 00:31:06,817 --> 00:31:08,569 And here in Bareh, 437 00:31:08,657 --> 00:31:11,649 in the baking summer heat of the Jumna plain, 438 00:31:11,737 --> 00:31:15,571 a long way into my journey in search of the story of India, 439 00:31:15,657 --> 00:31:19,366 I felt enveloped by the greatness of Indian history, 440 00:31:20,937 --> 00:31:24,213 by those terrible events 1 50 years ago 441 00:31:24,297 --> 00:31:27,175 that seemed to have only happened yesterday. 442 00:31:42,697 --> 00:31:45,211 The two of you represent two 443 00:31:45,297 --> 00:31:47,936 -different Indian views... -Two different aspects of... 444 00:31:48,017 --> 00:31:50,815 ...of all these great events, these great events. 445 00:31:50,897 --> 00:31:52,376 I am not ashamed of the fact 446 00:31:52,457 --> 00:31:55,415 that my ancestors cooperated with the British. 447 00:31:55,497 --> 00:31:59,172 Situated as they were and being educated, 448 00:31:59,257 --> 00:32:01,771 they knew the might and the resources of the British. 449 00:32:01,857 --> 00:32:03,973 WOOD: Your view is different. 450 00:32:15,497 --> 00:32:18,728 It was a matter of honour. We have nothing to lose, we fight. 451 00:32:26,017 --> 00:32:28,087 WOOD: Your father was a rebel with Gandhi? 452 00:32:29,417 --> 00:32:31,408 -WOOD: He joined Gandhi. -Yes. 453 00:32:34,137 --> 00:32:35,286 Right, right. 454 00:32:35,377 --> 00:32:37,811 So the freedom struggle's rooted in your family? 455 00:32:44,497 --> 00:32:48,285 And to see how the freedom struggle came out of the mutiny, 456 00:32:48,377 --> 00:32:52,165 you need first to come back to the district capital, Etawah. 457 00:32:53,777 --> 00:32:56,245 Because here lived one of the key figures 458 00:32:56,337 --> 00:32:58,293 in the beginning of the freedom movement. 459 00:32:58,377 --> 00:33:01,733 And believe it or not, he was a British civil servant. 460 00:33:02,737 --> 00:33:04,568 He built this school. 461 00:33:07,377 --> 00:33:10,414 AO Hume fought here against the rebels 462 00:33:10,497 --> 00:33:14,126 but then began to speak out for Indian self-determination. 463 00:33:16,977 --> 00:33:20,606 He believed in the power of imperialism to do good, 464 00:33:20,697 --> 00:33:22,289 I suppose you could put it that way? 465 00:33:22,377 --> 00:33:24,413 He was rather a kind of an, 466 00:33:24,497 --> 00:33:27,295 what should I say, a cultural imperialist. 467 00:33:28,857 --> 00:33:31,212 Hume helped start the independence movement 468 00:33:31,297 --> 00:33:33,527 by bringing together the best young Indians 469 00:33:33,617 --> 00:33:36,415 to form the Indian National Congress. 470 00:33:36,497 --> 00:33:38,294 That's him in the middle. 471 00:33:38,377 --> 00:33:41,096 His is one of the great untold Indian stories. 472 00:33:41,177 --> 00:33:45,295 In fact, Sriram thinks that Hume is almost as important as Gandhi. 473 00:33:46,817 --> 00:33:51,732 It was Hume's personality, his organising skill 474 00:33:51,817 --> 00:33:54,411 and his devotion to the cause of India. 475 00:33:56,937 --> 00:34:00,407 It was their duty as trustees of the Indian Empire 476 00:34:00,497 --> 00:34:02,852 to prepare the people of this country 477 00:34:02,937 --> 00:34:06,168 to take the destiny of their country in their own hands. 478 00:34:06,257 --> 00:34:09,488 So that's what Hume thought the British should work towards? 479 00:34:09,577 --> 00:34:11,488 This is what the British should work towards. 480 00:34:11,577 --> 00:34:15,013 And when they are ready for self-government, 481 00:34:15,097 --> 00:34:19,170 to hand over their trust to them and to retire from this country, 482 00:34:19,257 --> 00:34:22,727 because if they retire after doing this much, 483 00:34:22,817 --> 00:34:24,375 they would have done two things. 484 00:34:24,457 --> 00:34:27,608 First, you have trained a people in self-government, 485 00:34:27,697 --> 00:34:32,532 and second, to have ensured that their own commerce 486 00:34:32,617 --> 00:34:34,847 and culture would continue. 487 00:34:37,417 --> 00:34:41,490 The first meeting of the Congress, Bombay, 1 885. 488 00:34:41,577 --> 00:34:45,695 In the centre, the only white man, Hume, the rebel in the Raj. 489 00:34:46,617 --> 00:34:49,211 The Indian people now had a voice. 490 00:34:53,337 --> 00:34:56,568 In the 1 880s, they also gained a free press 491 00:34:56,657 --> 00:34:59,217 when the British lifted their restrictions 492 00:34:59,297 --> 00:35:02,175 and a flood of hundreds of papers hit the stands, 493 00:35:02,257 --> 00:35:05,932 mainly vernacular ones which the British couldn't control. 494 00:35:08,537 --> 00:35:12,769 The British period would be brief, a blip in the story of India. 495 00:35:12,857 --> 00:35:18,056 But the Raj would see the birth of the idea of India as one nation, 496 00:35:18,617 --> 00:35:24,214 unified as much by the idea as by the railways, maps and communications. 497 00:35:26,017 --> 00:35:27,450 Right, so we're going to the offices 498 00:35:27,537 --> 00:35:30,688 of one of the oldest Indian newspapers, The Pioneer, 499 00:35:30,777 --> 00:35:33,814 started in Allahabad more than 1 40 years ago. 500 00:35:35,937 --> 00:35:38,497 The writer Rudyard Kipling, who was born in India, 501 00:35:38,577 --> 00:35:42,411 wrote forThe Pioneer, which then opposed the freedom movement. 502 00:35:42,497 --> 00:35:44,647 ...Peshawar. They had their own printing press? 503 00:35:44,737 --> 00:35:49,049 MAN: Yeah, it was that linographic and that metapress we had in those days. 504 00:35:51,097 --> 00:35:53,292 So an international perspective here. 505 00:35:53,377 --> 00:35:55,527 The Kabul Conference, 506 00:35:55,617 --> 00:35:59,166 the British bothered about what the Russians are doing in their backyard. 507 00:35:59,257 --> 00:36:01,691 The British Raj was one of the most ingenious 508 00:36:01,777 --> 00:36:04,132 and adaptive Empires in history. 509 00:36:04,217 --> 00:36:08,927 An immense patchwork embracing nearly a quarter of the people of the planet 510 00:36:09,017 --> 00:36:12,293 with 675 princely states, 511 00:36:12,377 --> 00:36:15,414 two them the size of large European countries. 512 00:36:15,497 --> 00:36:17,727 An arrangement so extraordinary 513 00:36:17,817 --> 00:36:21,776 that it's scarcely believable that it existed on the ground. 514 00:36:21,857 --> 00:36:23,256 But it did. 515 00:36:23,337 --> 00:36:25,692 Oh, fantastic. Hello. 516 00:36:25,777 --> 00:36:29,053 And this is the archive of British India. 517 00:36:29,137 --> 00:36:32,015 MAN: Yeah. This building was constructed by the British people. 518 00:36:32,097 --> 00:36:33,576 WOOD: Amazing. 519 00:36:35,137 --> 00:36:37,935 So it contains all the government records? 520 00:36:38,017 --> 00:36:40,975 -Yes, this is all government records. -Just look at this! 521 00:36:41,057 --> 00:36:43,855 But imperialism is never benign. 522 00:36:43,937 --> 00:36:47,930 MAN: We have 30 kilometres of records. 523 00:36:48,017 --> 00:36:50,167 -Thirty kilometres? -Yes, here in this building. 524 00:36:50,257 --> 00:36:52,976 And in addition to this building, then in the next building we have 525 00:36:53,057 --> 00:36:55,366 another 40 kilometres of records. 526 00:36:55,457 --> 00:36:57,413 WOOD: So 70 kilometres of documents. MAN: Yes? 527 00:36:57,497 --> 00:36:59,931 -In total we have 70 kilometres. -My goodness me. 528 00:37:00,017 --> 00:37:02,929 This is the social history of India, isn't it? 529 00:37:04,737 --> 00:37:08,093 WOOD: For such forms of knowledge are never neutral. 530 00:37:10,417 --> 00:37:12,726 WOMAN: By the middle of the 1 9th century, 531 00:37:12,817 --> 00:37:15,809 the nature of colonialism in India is changing. 532 00:37:16,217 --> 00:37:18,253 From a relatively benign, 533 00:37:18,337 --> 00:37:21,215 what we call orientalist phase of colonialism, 534 00:37:21,297 --> 00:37:23,527 this is now an arrogant Britain, 535 00:37:23,617 --> 00:37:27,292 the first country of the Industrial Revolution ruling the world. 536 00:37:27,377 --> 00:37:31,450 And then from the 1 850s, the competition worldwide for colonies. 537 00:37:31,537 --> 00:37:34,415 Other countries are coming up and competing for colonies. 538 00:37:34,497 --> 00:37:38,456 So, therefore, there's a great need to have a very systematic 539 00:37:40,217 --> 00:37:43,334 ordering of people's lives. 540 00:37:43,417 --> 00:37:45,772 The information and everything related to them. 541 00:37:45,857 --> 00:37:50,487 And how did they set about it in terms of defining the people of India? 542 00:37:50,577 --> 00:37:53,296 Well, apart from just enumerating the population, 543 00:37:53,377 --> 00:37:56,210 I think the crucial issue is how you enumerate, 544 00:37:56,297 --> 00:37:58,015 what are the categories you employ? 545 00:37:58,097 --> 00:38:00,406 And I think it's extremely important to remember 546 00:38:00,497 --> 00:38:05,696 that right from the beginning, religion was the one dominant category 547 00:38:05,777 --> 00:38:08,450 which entered all other categories. 548 00:38:08,537 --> 00:38:14,214 This is the report which is preparing for the first census of 1 881 , 549 00:38:14,297 --> 00:38:17,812 and the first item in this is about religion. 550 00:38:17,897 --> 00:38:22,448 And once you begin counting people according to their religious origin, 551 00:38:22,537 --> 00:38:24,732 then when politics comes in, 552 00:38:24,817 --> 00:38:27,775 religion then becomes a religious community. 553 00:38:27,857 --> 00:38:31,566 At the turn of the century, for example, in 1 909, 554 00:38:32,337 --> 00:38:34,567 there was a big debate 555 00:38:34,657 --> 00:38:37,649 that started that Hindus were actually going to disappear 556 00:38:37,737 --> 00:38:41,286 because, in fact, one of the census commissioners of Bengal made a statement 557 00:38:41,377 --> 00:38:44,050 that if the Muslims continue to grow at this rate, 558 00:38:44,137 --> 00:38:45,456 Hindus will disappear. 559 00:38:45,537 --> 00:38:49,007 And then some Hindus took it up and said, ''Hindu's a dying race.'' 560 00:38:49,097 --> 00:38:52,806 Similarly, the Muslims. When they took their first delegation, 561 00:38:52,897 --> 00:38:55,457 out of which the Muslim League was formed, 562 00:38:55,537 --> 00:38:57,493 and they went to see the Viceroy, they said, 563 00:38:57,577 --> 00:39:01,809 ''We number so much, we are outnumbered by the Hindus. 564 00:39:01,897 --> 00:39:03,853 ''If you are going to have a representative system 565 00:39:03,937 --> 00:39:07,816 ''which is based on majorities principle of election, 566 00:39:07,897 --> 00:39:11,367 ''we are never going to be there.'' Because ''we'' now means Muslims. 567 00:39:11,457 --> 00:39:13,448 The implication of that seems to be 568 00:39:13,537 --> 00:39:17,371 that by defining an Indian people in this way, 569 00:39:17,457 --> 00:39:19,812 the British set a path 570 00:39:19,897 --> 00:39:24,493 for the way that Indians would construe their path to independence. 571 00:39:24,577 --> 00:39:27,410 Absolutely right. And we are still living with that legacy, 572 00:39:27,497 --> 00:39:30,614 we're struggling with it, we fall victim to it, 573 00:39:30,697 --> 00:39:33,894 we resist it, but it is still with us. 574 00:39:37,097 --> 00:39:40,089 WOOD: Subjects of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, 575 00:39:40,177 --> 00:39:43,965 the Indian people were drawn into Britain's world conflicts. 576 00:39:46,417 --> 00:39:50,012 In the First World War, Indians fought for the King Emperor 577 00:39:50,097 --> 00:39:53,487 in the trenches of Flanders and the deserts of Iraq. 578 00:40:01,537 --> 00:40:04,370 But when the war was over, the freedom movement, 579 00:40:04,457 --> 00:40:07,290 led by the Congress Party and the Muslim League, 580 00:40:07,377 --> 00:40:11,495 who now represented a Muslim electorate, were expecting a payoff. 581 00:40:17,297 --> 00:40:19,527 More than two million Indians had fought in the war 582 00:40:19,617 --> 00:40:23,087 on behalf of the British, thousands had been killed. 583 00:40:23,577 --> 00:40:26,774 But still there was a loyalty to Britain, 584 00:40:26,857 --> 00:40:29,417 despite a strong home-rule movement. 585 00:40:29,497 --> 00:40:31,692 But the British rewarded that loyalty 586 00:40:31,777 --> 00:40:36,214 by imposing the wartime sedition laws in peacetime. 587 00:40:36,577 --> 00:40:40,650 No trial, no lawyer, no appeal. 588 00:40:43,097 --> 00:40:44,974 Only months after the end of the war, 589 00:40:45,057 --> 00:40:48,015 a peaceful demonstration took place in the Punjab 590 00:40:48,097 --> 00:40:50,975 in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. 591 00:40:53,897 --> 00:40:57,446 The callous ineptitude of the British General Dyer 592 00:40:57,537 --> 00:41:02,565 would make Amritsar a notorious name in the history of Britain and India. 593 00:41:04,777 --> 00:41:06,415 OFFICER: Take aim! 594 00:41:09,697 --> 00:41:11,449 -Fire! -Fire! 595 00:41:14,937 --> 00:41:16,495 Take your time! 596 00:41:19,097 --> 00:41:21,691 They come here from this passage, 597 00:41:21,777 --> 00:41:24,052 this was the only entry or exit. 598 00:41:24,137 --> 00:41:27,288 They put the guns here, open fire on the public. 599 00:41:27,937 --> 00:41:29,973 -WOOD: So there was no warning? -No warning. 600 00:41:32,377 --> 00:41:35,653 -How big was the crowd? -About 20,000 people had gathered there. 601 00:41:35,737 --> 00:41:37,136 Twenty thousand! 602 00:41:45,457 --> 00:41:49,655 At least 400 people were killed that day and 1,500 injured. 603 00:41:57,577 --> 00:41:59,727 Did you have family members present that day? 604 00:41:59,817 --> 00:42:04,095 My grandfather, Dr SC Mukherjee, he was present on that happening, 605 00:42:04,177 --> 00:42:05,451 but luckily escaped. 606 00:42:05,537 --> 00:42:08,176 And since then we are looking after this here. 607 00:42:11,577 --> 00:42:14,649 On such moments, history can turn. 608 00:42:14,737 --> 00:42:17,410 The Amritsar massacre gave an irresistible impetuous 609 00:42:17,497 --> 00:42:19,488 to the freedom movement. 610 00:42:20,217 --> 00:42:24,005 The main players were all British-educated lawyers. 611 00:42:24,097 --> 00:42:26,327 The canny Mohandas KGandhi, 612 00:42:26,977 --> 00:42:30,094 the brilliant Mohammed Jinnah of the Muslim League 613 00:42:30,177 --> 00:42:33,852 and Jawaharlal Nehru, the austere star of Congress. 614 00:42:34,337 --> 00:42:38,649 Together, they were to plan one of history's greatest revolutions, 615 00:42:38,737 --> 00:42:42,696 driven by the ancient Indian idea of non-violence. 616 00:42:46,537 --> 00:42:51,691 They were great times and rare times and unique times, 617 00:42:52,177 --> 00:42:54,293 I always think. 618 00:42:54,377 --> 00:42:59,212 And I'm glad that I lived almost through all these times. 619 00:43:00,777 --> 00:43:04,816 Aged 95, PD Tandon has died since we met. 620 00:43:05,177 --> 00:43:09,773 He was an old Nehru family friend, a freedom fighter in the 1 930s and '40s. 621 00:43:10,457 --> 00:43:14,496 So you had a sense of being present when history was being made. 622 00:43:25,897 --> 00:43:28,775 For 1 4 months? When was this? 623 00:43:29,777 --> 00:43:31,495 1 942? 624 00:43:31,577 --> 00:43:33,693 You knew Nehru from the early days. 625 00:43:33,817 --> 00:43:38,493 Was it apparent even then that he was a man marked by destiny? 626 00:44:04,497 --> 00:44:07,933 -Very confident and sure of himself. -Yes, that is right. 627 00:44:08,057 --> 00:44:10,287 You must have got to know Gandhi well, also. 628 00:44:10,377 --> 00:44:12,527 Oh, yes, I knew him, too. 629 00:44:12,617 --> 00:44:15,006 What kind of impression did he make on you? 630 00:44:15,097 --> 00:44:19,215 Many people speak of his magic spell on people. 631 00:44:19,297 --> 00:44:21,492 Tell us what you thought. 632 00:44:41,417 --> 00:44:45,456 Today the Anand Bhavan, the Nehru family house in Allahabad, 633 00:44:45,537 --> 00:44:48,529 is a shrine to India's struggle for freedom. 634 00:44:54,137 --> 00:44:57,049 They're worshipping Gandhi, they're worshipping Nehru. 635 00:44:57,137 --> 00:45:00,652 Nehru, they were the greatest, greatest people of our country. 636 00:45:00,737 --> 00:45:02,967 WOOD: So Gandhiji is not forgotten? 637 00:45:03,057 --> 00:45:05,207 Never! Never! 638 00:45:06,817 --> 00:45:10,048 WOMAN: People do not realise 639 00:45:10,137 --> 00:45:13,288 how difficult it was to get freedom. 640 00:45:13,377 --> 00:45:16,767 Those who were not born, those who have not seen, 641 00:45:16,857 --> 00:45:19,451 don't know what was freedom struggle. 642 00:45:20,057 --> 00:45:24,289 British rule, that it was a very disciplined rule, 643 00:45:24,377 --> 00:45:27,847 they accept this thing. But, you know, 644 00:45:29,217 --> 00:45:31,447 bondage, nobody likes. 645 00:45:31,537 --> 00:45:33,653 Everybody likes to be free. 646 00:45:38,817 --> 00:45:40,853 Nehru and Gandhi and their colleagues were engaged 647 00:45:40,937 --> 00:45:44,646 in the greatest liberation struggle that had ever taken place in history. 648 00:45:44,737 --> 00:45:48,047 The question for them was which way would India go? 649 00:45:48,137 --> 00:45:51,846 What India did they imagine? What was India? 650 00:45:53,417 --> 00:45:58,093 If the path forward was going to be democracy, then how was that 651 00:45:58,177 --> 00:46:01,886 to be squared with the inequities of the caste system? 652 00:46:01,977 --> 00:46:05,128 With the oppressions of the hereditary landlords 653 00:46:05,217 --> 00:46:07,492 in the feudal cow belt? 654 00:46:07,577 --> 00:46:09,647 With the inequality of women? 655 00:46:09,737 --> 00:46:11,967 And how would a single, united India 656 00:46:12,057 --> 00:46:14,855 encompass all its diverse religious traditions 657 00:46:14,937 --> 00:46:17,815 whose voices were becoming more and more insistent? 658 00:46:18,817 --> 00:46:22,253 By 1 940,Jinnah had come to believe that Hindu and Muslim 659 00:46:22,337 --> 00:46:25,568 were two separate nations that cannot live together. 660 00:46:25,657 --> 00:46:27,807 And talk began of partition. 661 00:46:28,737 --> 00:46:32,173 The British attitude towards the partition of India 662 00:46:32,257 --> 00:46:33,895 was slightly ambivalent. 663 00:46:35,057 --> 00:46:38,652 On the one hand, they had created this unity 664 00:46:38,737 --> 00:46:40,534 where there was none. 665 00:46:40,617 --> 00:46:45,054 They gloried in the fact that they had created a united India. 666 00:46:47,817 --> 00:46:51,048 And they also knew that if India became divided, 667 00:46:51,137 --> 00:46:54,971 all sorts of defence problems would arise. 668 00:46:55,617 --> 00:46:57,448 And they were also very conscious 669 00:46:57,537 --> 00:47:01,052 of the great divide between the Hindus and the Muslims. 670 00:47:02,697 --> 00:47:06,485 WOOD: Here in the Viceroys lodge in Simla in 1 946, 671 00:47:06,577 --> 00:47:09,853 the British tried too late to broker a loose federation 672 00:47:09,937 --> 00:47:12,656 comprising groups of Hindu and Muslim states 673 00:47:12,737 --> 00:47:14,614 under a central government. 674 00:47:14,697 --> 00:47:18,406 But the coalition collapsed in mistrust from both sides 675 00:47:18,497 --> 00:47:23,332 and Jinnah finally pushed for a separate state for Muslims, Pakistan. 676 00:47:24,097 --> 00:47:26,930 Jinnah had moved towards the idea of Pakistan. 677 00:47:27,017 --> 00:47:30,293 What he used to say, ''After we have divided, 678 00:47:30,377 --> 00:47:34,052 ''then we can come together, then we can cooperate.'' 679 00:47:34,137 --> 00:47:38,130 This is what Mohandas said, ''This is divorce before marriage.'' 680 00:47:45,617 --> 00:47:48,495 So finally in the summer of 1 94 7, 681 00:47:48,577 --> 00:47:51,728 the British washed their hands of the problem. 682 00:47:51,817 --> 00:47:55,093 And with great pride, and yet profound disappointment, 683 00:47:55,177 --> 00:47:57,645 Nehru accepted India's destiny. 684 00:48:00,057 --> 00:48:04,733 NEHRU: Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, 685 00:48:06,177 --> 00:48:11,410 and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, 686 00:48:12,217 --> 00:48:17,610 not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. 687 00:48:19,617 --> 00:48:24,008 At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, 688 00:48:24,857 --> 00:48:27,530 India will awake to life and freedom. 689 00:48:29,817 --> 00:48:34,447 WOOD: But a partitioned India, with Muslim Pakistan itself divided 690 00:48:34,537 --> 00:48:37,449 by 2,000 miles from east to west. 691 00:48:39,537 --> 00:48:43,416 On the two sides of India, in the Punjab and Bengal, 692 00:48:43,497 --> 00:48:45,533 the dividing line between Muslim and Hindu 693 00:48:45,617 --> 00:48:49,690 had been drawn up by a British civil servant in six weeks 694 00:48:49,777 --> 00:48:53,053 using information gathered from the censuses. 695 00:48:53,137 --> 00:48:55,935 The line ran through fields and communities, 696 00:48:56,017 --> 00:48:59,566 across railways, roads and irrigation schemes. 697 00:48:59,657 --> 00:49:03,730 It went through villages, and even through individual houses, 698 00:49:03,817 --> 00:49:07,605 and it cut through the deepest layers of the history of the subcontinent. 699 00:49:07,697 --> 00:49:11,485 Hello. Very nice to meet you. I am Michael. 700 00:49:12,617 --> 00:49:14,130 So how old is Mr Swaran? 701 00:49:18,737 --> 00:49:20,568 -Eighty-two. -Eighty-two! 702 00:49:20,657 --> 00:49:22,215 You are in fine form. 703 00:49:23,857 --> 00:49:27,293 To make matters worse, the British kept the line secret 704 00:49:27,377 --> 00:49:30,449 till after independence on the 1 5th of August, 705 00:49:30,537 --> 00:49:33,813 and they were culpably negligent in failing to provide troops 706 00:49:33,897 --> 00:49:37,526 to protect the people in the ethnic cleansing that followed 707 00:49:37,617 --> 00:49:40,973 when Hindu, Sikh and Muslim began to kill each other. 708 00:49:41,697 --> 00:49:44,530 And the village was just over the border in what is now Pakistan, 709 00:49:44,617 --> 00:49:46,289 -is that right? -In Pakistan. 710 00:49:46,377 --> 00:49:47,526 Yeah, yeah. 711 00:49:49,977 --> 00:49:51,888 -Sikhs. -Sikhs, yes. 712 00:50:48,897 --> 00:50:53,049 WOOD: Seventeen members of your family? Yeah, yeah. 713 00:50:57,857 --> 00:51:02,169 In the summer of 1 94 7, that story was repeated across the Punjab 714 00:51:02,257 --> 00:51:05,647 as great floods of people fled in fear. 715 00:51:05,737 --> 00:51:11,095 Hindus and Sikhs eastwards into India, Muslims westwards into the new Pakistan. 716 00:51:11,737 --> 00:51:15,889 Fourteen million people, the largest migration in history, 717 00:51:16,617 --> 00:51:18,653 and up to a million died. 718 00:51:19,737 --> 00:51:23,332 We console ourselves by talking of common human feeling, 719 00:51:24,097 --> 00:51:27,806 but there are times in history when there is no such thing. 720 00:51:33,857 --> 00:51:36,371 But could the partition have been avoided? 721 00:51:36,457 --> 00:51:40,006 What if the Congress and the Muslim League had made concessions 722 00:51:40,097 --> 00:51:42,372 and accepted the federation? 723 00:51:42,457 --> 00:51:45,255 Why did the British have to rush independence? 724 00:51:45,337 --> 00:51:49,216 Could the slaughter have been avoided if they'd provided a few battalions 725 00:51:49,297 --> 00:51:51,288 to protect the refugees? 726 00:51:52,177 --> 00:51:56,807 And will India and Pakistan come back together again as Jinnah hoped? 727 00:52:06,857 --> 00:52:12,375 A few miles inside the Pakistani border we found Swaran Singh's old village 728 00:52:12,457 --> 00:52:14,527 still with its Hindu name. 729 00:52:16,297 --> 00:52:21,496 This was the place he left as a boy in terror in 1 94 7 730 00:52:21,577 --> 00:52:24,216 after the murder of 1 7 of his family. 731 00:52:29,497 --> 00:52:32,295 Yeah, okay. So we are in the right place. 732 00:52:33,577 --> 00:52:37,252 And the old people here, Muslims, had the same story. 733 00:52:37,337 --> 00:52:40,135 Uprooted, fleeing for their lives from India. 734 00:52:40,217 --> 00:52:44,005 But here at the end they told a tale with a glimmer of hope. 735 00:53:16,737 --> 00:53:20,047 Were there cases where friends helped friends? 736 00:53:54,537 --> 00:53:56,448 TRANSLATOR: They still get letters. 737 00:53:56,537 --> 00:53:59,370 No! Wow, what an amazing story. 738 00:54:04,777 --> 00:54:07,007 History sometimes happens in a way 739 00:54:07,097 --> 00:54:09,770 which is not willed by the main participants. 740 00:54:09,857 --> 00:54:13,770 Nehru and Gandhi saw themselves as the great idealists, 741 00:54:13,857 --> 00:54:18,294 but in the end, failed to grasp the biggest prize. 742 00:54:18,737 --> 00:54:22,491 Jinnah was a convinced secular nationalist, 743 00:54:22,577 --> 00:54:27,048 who only at the very end took an independent Pakistan. 744 00:54:27,897 --> 00:54:32,254 And as for the British, they were tried and found wanting. 745 00:54:40,457 --> 00:54:45,008 So that's how India and Pakistan got freedom 60 years ago. 746 00:54:45,657 --> 00:54:48,046 It's not been plain sailing since. 747 00:54:48,137 --> 00:54:50,810 There's been three wars, nuclear bombs, 748 00:54:50,897 --> 00:54:53,536 they're still at loggerheads over Kashmir. 749 00:54:53,617 --> 00:54:56,450 In 1 9 7 1, East Pakistan, with India's help, 750 00:54:56,537 --> 00:54:59,370 broke away and became Bangladesh. 751 00:54:59,457 --> 00:55:03,291 And India and Pakistan have not yet become the friends 752 00:55:03,377 --> 00:55:05,937 after the divorce that Jinnah hoped. 753 00:55:07,177 --> 00:55:12,774 But when the dust settles on 1 94 7, that surely will come. 754 00:55:17,577 --> 00:55:21,775 And as for India, the tale of the last 60 years 755 00:55:21,857 --> 00:55:24,769 is above all the triumph of democracy. 756 00:55:28,337 --> 00:55:30,214 To manage the art of building democratic 757 00:55:30,297 --> 00:55:34,893 and stable political institutions over six decades in a country which 758 00:55:34,977 --> 00:55:39,209 in the first 20 years after independence was predicted to disintegrate. 759 00:55:39,297 --> 00:55:41,857 And it's begun freeing the creative energies of its people 760 00:55:41,937 --> 00:55:44,656 which had been stifled by certain political and economic choices 761 00:55:44,737 --> 00:55:46,329 made after 1 94 7. 762 00:55:49,857 --> 00:55:52,291 We've seen a transformation of national level politics 763 00:55:52,377 --> 00:55:54,766 where we've gone from a dominant one-party state 764 00:55:54,857 --> 00:55:56,210 to coalition governments. 765 00:55:56,297 --> 00:55:59,130 We've seen a transformation in the economy. 766 00:56:00,297 --> 00:56:05,246 WOOD: And its economy is making India a global giant in the new century. 767 00:56:05,337 --> 00:56:09,489 Soon to become the world's biggest population, by the 2030s, 768 00:56:09,577 --> 00:56:14,412 it's predicted that India's GDP will overtake the United States 769 00:56:14,497 --> 00:56:18,490 and India will resume the position it has had for much of history. 770 00:56:18,577 --> 00:56:22,616 The world's biggest democracy is looking once more to the future. 771 00:56:26,257 --> 00:56:29,852 THAROOR: Indians are filled with a sense of the possible. 772 00:56:31,577 --> 00:56:35,490 There is a tremendous degree of optimism about the future, 773 00:56:35,577 --> 00:56:40,776 which I think is all the more interesting for coming from a people 774 00:56:40,857 --> 00:56:43,325 who, in so many other ways, are anchored in the past. 775 00:57:04,777 --> 00:57:07,337 We've come on a journey of thousands of years 776 00:57:07,417 --> 00:57:09,135 and thousand of miles. 777 00:57:09,217 --> 00:57:13,608 A tale that began with the first migration of human beings out of Africa 778 00:57:13,697 --> 00:57:17,087 and ends at this point with India as a global power. 779 00:57:19,617 --> 00:57:24,452 Great civilisations over time develop responses, habits, 780 00:57:24,537 --> 00:57:26,129 cultural immune systems 781 00:57:26,217 --> 00:57:30,051 that enable them to absorb the shocks and wounds of history 782 00:57:30,137 --> 00:57:33,209 and also to use the gifts of history. 783 00:57:33,937 --> 00:57:37,088 Those are the habits of successful civilisations. 784 00:57:37,777 --> 00:57:41,975 And India has always done that, always renewing its gene pool, 785 00:57:42,057 --> 00:57:44,048 always being receptive to new ideas 786 00:57:44,137 --> 00:57:47,686 and yet tenaciously holding on to that essential vision, 787 00:57:47,777 --> 00:57:50,735 that way of seeing the world which is Indian. 788 00:57:53,737 --> 00:57:57,127 ''At the dawn of history, '' Nehru said 60 years ago, 789 00:57:57,217 --> 00:58:01,927 ''India started on her unending quest and trackless centuries 790 00:58:02,017 --> 00:58:05,851 ''are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success 791 00:58:05,937 --> 00:58:07,893 ''and her failures. 792 00:58:07,977 --> 00:58:12,493 ''Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest 793 00:58:12,577 --> 00:58:16,172 ''or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. 794 00:58:16,977 --> 00:58:20,333 ''And today India discovers herself again. 795 00:58:20,857 --> 00:58:26,568 ''India, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new. ''