There can scarcely be any doubt that the change in Sir Syed Ahmad’s attitude was partly due to the British policy of “Divide and Rule”, now applied against the Hindus. This policy found a great exponent in Mr. Beck, the Principal of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh from 1883 to 1899. Throughout this long period Mr Beck worked with unremitting zeal and industry in order to wean Sir Syed Ahmad from the nationalist movement, and to induce the Muslims to keep aloof from the Hindus, and place themselves under the protecting wings of the British Government. But it is not necessary to suppose that Beck’s efforts, though highly successful, were solely responsible for Sir Syed Ahmad’s opposition to the Congress. It is quite likely that he had a sincere conviction that English education was the crying need of the community and it would be unwise to divert its energy to politics. It is also possible that he detected in the Congress demand for popular government something highly injurious to the Muslim cause. After all, the Muslims formed but one-fourth of the population of India, and Sir Syed Ahmad publicly expressed his fears that under a democratic system of government, which formed the ideal of the Congress leaders, “the larger community would fully override the interests of the smaller community”. This sentiment has been shared by the Muslim leaders ever since, and has largely shaped their views and actions. Sir Syed Ahmad died in 1898, and Mr. Beck in 1899, but their policy survived and formed the background of Muslim politics in subsequent years. Though even then, as later, some eminent Muslim leaders occasionally took more catholic views, adopted a nationalist policy, and even became ardent champions of the Congress, they could not carry the whole community with them, and in some notable cases they ultimately fell into line with the old policy. The dread of majority rule, first publicly expressed by Sir Syed, and widely spread by the propaganda of Beck and his successors, inspired, in the successive stages of evolution in Muslim politics, the demands for nomination, for a separate electorate with weightage, and lastly for Pakistan, as will be related in a subsequent chapter.
Trade and Industry
Trade
It has been already noted how the foreign trade of India passed into the hands of European nations, notably the English. Although the trading monopoly of the East India Company was abolished in 1813, and gradually all the European nations were placed on an equal footing in respect of trade in India, the British nation virtually possessed the monopoly of Indian trade until the closing years of the nineteenth century. This was due partly to the undoubted maritime supremacy of the British and partly to their political domination in India, while other historical causes operated in the same direction. Only during the last part of the nineteenth century did Germany and Japan begin to encroach upon the close preserve of British trade in India.
The volume of overseas trade began to increase enormously with the opening of the Suez Canal. In 1855-1860 the average annual value of Indian trade was about fifty-two lakhs of rupees. During the five years beginning with 1869, when the Suez Canal was opened, the average annual value of exports and imports amounted to nearly ninety crores of rupees. The average in 1900 exceeded two hundred crores, while in 1928-1929 it exceeded six hundred crores.
The nature of exports and imports also changed. Instead of the finished products of industry, India now exported jute, wheat, cotton, cotton, oilseeds, tea, etc., whereas she imported the goods of European manufacture to which reference will be made later.
The large volume of foreign trade presupposes a corresponding extension of inland trade. This was facilitated by the era of peace introduced by British rule, the gradual abolition of the vexatious inland transit duties and the development of the means of transport and communication.
The transit duties were gradually abolished in the provinces between 1836 and 1844, and by 1848, inter-provincial trade was rendered free from them.
The development of communications by means of railways, steamships, canals, telegraphs, and cables, which revolutionised Indian trade, mostly took place after 1858. Up to the Revolt railways were practically unknown in India, except for a few miles around Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. But the disasters of the Revolt opened the eyes of the Government to the value of rapid means of communication. By 1871 a general system of railways was completed connecting the different provinces, and the hinterland of each province with its ports. The construction of telegraphs was begun in 1851 and a really effective postal system, with cheap postage rates, was introduced in 1854. The first steamships plied on the Ganges only a few years before the Revolt. As regards the development of roads and canals, no appreciable work was done till the Public Works Department was organised in 1854-1855 by Lord Dalhousie. Lastly, it was in 1865 that the first telegraphic connection was established between India and Europe.
Industry
In a previous chapter we have traced the decline and decay of Indian trade and industry. The advent of new and cheap machine-made goods from the West gradually changed men’s tastes and habits. The old Indian products were almost completely ousted to make room for foreign imports, and a list of imports into India during the latter part of the nineteenth century is an interesting study both from the economic and social points of view. It consisted of articles of luxury such as silks and woollens, leather and leather goods, cabinet-ware and furniture, clocks and watches, earthenware and porcelain, glass and glassware, paper, pasteboard, stationery, toys and requisites for games, scents, cigarettes, carts and carriages, and more recently bicycles, motor-cycles and motor-cars. To this must be added articles which have almost become a necessity in every household, such as matches, sewing machines, umbrellas, soap, cheap glass and chinaware, pens and nibs, aluminium and enamelled ironware, torches and kerosene oil. Neither list is exhaustive. But the imported articles indicate the growth of new habits and tastes, which have proved destructive to Indian industries, such as the manufacture of fine wool, silk and cotton goods, bell-metal ware, etc., which might otherwise have flourished even now.
Thus slowly but steadily the Indian markets were inundated with foreign manufactured goods and the old home-industry of India came to occupy almost a negligible place in the Indian economy.
Gradually India rose from the stupor in which she was cast by this sudden blow from the west. It was impossible that a highly civilised and intellectual race like the Indians should acquiesce for long in playing the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water in the industrial world. Slowly industries began to be organised on modern lines, and the effect was appreciably marked on the exports and imports of India during the seventies of the last century. Thus, the proportion of manufactured exports to total exports of India rose from 8 per cent in 1879 to 16 per cent in 1892, and to 22 per cent in 1907-1908; while the proportion of manufactured imports to total imports fell from 65 per cent in 1879 to 57 per cent in 1892 and to 53 per cent in 1907.
Among the more important organised industries in India, on a large scale, may be mentioned cotton, jute, iron and steel, paper, tanning and leather. But up to the end of the nineteenth century they made very small advance, compared with the total volume of trade in these commodities. Still it was a good beginning and had immense possibilities. It is also to be noted that these big industries were not always managed by Indians, some of them being owned by Europeans.
The nature and extent of this new industrial awakening in India is well illustrated by the history of cotton mills. Apart from isolated instances, such as a mill erected in Calcutta in 1818, the industry was at first centered in Bombay where the first mill was started in I 854. After 1877 several cotton mills were started in cotton-producing areas like Nagpur, Ahmadabad, Sholapur, and some other places. The Swadeshi movement in Bengal in 1905 gave a fillip to this industry, and since then large numbers of mills have been started, including several in Bengal.
But this nascent industry, like others, had to make its way against enormous odds. It had to fight for a place in the market securely held by the West and had to compete against the long and mature experience and unlimited capital of Western manufacturers. In this unequal contest it could not hope for any support from the Government. Rather, as events showed, it had at first to face its direct hostility. Lancashire manufacturers grew restive at the success of Indian mills, and owing to their pressure the Government of India excluded the manufactured English cotton goods from the usual import duty which acted as a protection to Indian industry. When on, account of financial difficulties, the import duty had to be reimposed, the Lancashire interests had to be placated by the imposition of a countervailing excise duty on cotton manufacturers in Bombay. To the utter misfortune of India, her industry fell an equal victim to the protectionist policy of England in the eighteenth century and the free-trade policy of the nineteenth century, both the opposing principles operating favourably to British and unfavorably to Indian industry. These difficulties partially explain the every show growth of Indian industry.
