THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
September 10, 2019
The Wisdom Fund

The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

by William Dalrymple

On 28 August 1608, Captain William Hawkins . . . became the first commander of an EIC [East India Company] vessel to set foot on Indian soil.

India then had a population of 150 million - about a fifth of the world's total - and was producing about a quarter of global manufacturing: indeed in many ways it was the world's industrial powerhouse and the world's leader in manufactured textiles. [p. 14 -- Mughal authorities allowed the English East India Company to establish a small trading settlement at Surat] . . .

Tipu went out of his way to woo and protect the Hindus of his own dominions. From the beginnings of his reign he had loaded the temples of his realm with presents, honours and land. . . . But it was the great temple of Sringeri that always received his most generous patronage, . . . Tipu put on record his horror at damage done to the temple by a Maratha raiding party during a Maratha invasion of Mysore (pp. 319-320 ) . . .

The Company's conquest of India almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history. (p. 394)

The Anarchy: A New Book by William Dalrymple, Asia Society, October 4, 2019



William Dalrymple has written several books on India, has lived in India on and off since 1989, and spends most of the year at his Mehrauli farmhouse in the outskirts of Delhi. He has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Hemingway, the Kapuscinski and the Wolfson Prizes.

[we accept all religions as true--Swami Vivekananda, "Addresses at The Parliament of Religions," wikisource.org, 1893]

"Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram" -- different version played repeatedly following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948

"'The greatest and noblest ruler India has known . . . indeed one of the great kings of the world' . . . tolerance to men of other religions were as important to Ashoka as to Mahatma Gandhi," John Keay, " India Discovered, First published in Great Britain in 1981, p63, MORE

Enver Masud, "Religion Newswriters Association Bashes Islam," The Wisdom Fund, December 6, 1999

[The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted. The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and 7 million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi--Arundhati Roy, "The monster in the mirror," theguardian.com, December 13, 2008]

HINDUTVA IS NOT HINDUISM

The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, . . . as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus"

Visweswaran, Kamala, Michael Witzel, Nandini Manjrenkar, Dipta Bhog, and Uma Chakravarti, "The Hindutva view of history: rewriting textbooks in India and the United States," Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 10(1):101-112.

India's BJP is determined to complete what the British began:
Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule)

The 'idea of India' was essentially a European, not a local invention, as the name itself makes clear. No such term, or equivalent, as India existed in any indigenous language. . . . as late as the 16th century, Europeans could define Indians simply as 'all natives of an unknown country', and so call the inhabitants of the Americas.--Perry Anderson, "The Indian Ideology," Verso (November 5, 2013)

"India Has Become a Dystopia of Extremes, Now Entering Its Most Sinister Period Since Independence," The Wisdom Fund, January 3, 2014

Ram Puniyani, "Why Did Muslim Rulers Destroy Hindu Temples? Facts and Myths," YouTube, June 18, 2014

[Through most of the 20th century, Hindu nationalism was not a mainstream view. Especially after a Hindu nationalist assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, . . . For most of its past, India was neither Hindu nor a nation, . . .

Hindu kings had begun the Indian tradition of desecrating one another's temples by the seventh century, long before the dawn of Indo-Muslim rule. . . .

For a century, Hindus had constituted roughly 20 per cent of all Mughal nobles. In the second half of his reign, Aurangzeb enlarged by 50 per cent the proportion of Hindus in the Mughal nobility, hardly a course of action that indicated he was bent on destroying Hindus or Hinduism.--Audrey Truschke, "A much-maligned Mughal," aeon.co, April 7, 2015]

[The Cambridge historian Angus Maddison writes in his book, Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-economic History, that while India had the largest economy till 1000 AD (with a GDP share of 28.9 per cent in 1000AD) there was no economic growth. It was during the 1000 AD-1500 AD that India began to see a economic growth with its highest (20.9 per cent GDP growth rate) being under the Mughals. In the 18th century, India had overtaken China as the largest economy in the world.--Rana Safvi, "No, Mughals didn't loot India. They made us rich," dailyo.in, September 16, 2017]


"The changing share of world GDP 1600-1870" (in million 1990 international $), Angus Maddison, The World Economy, Paris: OECD, 2001, p. 261, Table B-18

"Gandhi's warnings are as relevant as ever," economist.com, March 13, 2019

Romila Thapar, "They Peddle Myths and Call It History: India's governing party rewrites the country's history to justify its Hindu nationalist ideology," nytimes.com, May 17, 2019

"Article 370: India Strips Disputed Kashmir of Special Status," BBC.com, August 5, 2019

[The Company makes its first territorial seizure with the support of the Jagath Seths [the country's wealthiest bankers]. It was they who asked the British to overthrow Siraj-ud-Daulah of Bengal and they offered Clive £2 million to do this. This was the moment the Company realised it could defeat the vast Mughal armies with a very small amount of its newly-trained sepoys. And particularly from the 1780s onwards, the Marwari and Jain bankers of Bengal, and later the Hindu bankers of Benares and Patna, consistently backed the Company against other Indian forces. . . .

If only the Triple Alliance created by Nana Phadnavis between Hyderabad, the Marathas and Tipu Sultan had held together. Had these three pushed at the same time, there was absolutely no question that the Company would have been defeated. . . . The Triple Alliance broke down and the next [one] was with the British against Tipu. The Marathas collaborated with the Company, idiotically from an Indian perspective, to destroy Tipu.--Mukund Padmanabhan, "William Dalrymple on 'The Anarchy' and the cunning of the East India Company," thehindu.com, October 3, 2019]

[But the essential truth is that the people of India started to think themselves to be "Hindus" slowly over several centuries, after 12th century. . . . And the Imperial British added "ism" to Hindu in the early 19th century in order to execute its divide and rule strategy. . . .

The three words - Hindu, Hindustan and Hinduism - were coined and popularised by Muslims and Christians - whom the Hindutva ideology identifies as "invaders". . . .

Many of the Turks and Afghans who are now seen as "invaders into India" came from regions which were once part of the ancient empires of India.--Devdan Chaudhuri, "How did Hindus become Hindu and why Hindutva is not Hinduism," dailyo.in, October 17, 2017]

[My generation grew up in an India where our sense of nationhood lay in the slogan, 'unity in diversity.' We were brought up to take pluralism for granted, and to reject the communalism that had partitioned the nation when the British left. In rejecting the case for Pakistan, Indian nationalism also rejected the very idea that religion should be a determinant of nationhood.--Sashi Tharoor, "Why I Am A Hindu," The Wisdom Fund, October 10, 2019]

Sushil Aaron, "The Nehru That India Cannot Forget," thewire.in, November 14, 2019

Arundhati Roy, "India: Intimations of an Ending," thenation.com, November 23, 2019

'Israel Model' Explained In 10 Points, The Wire, November 30, 2019

Rana Safvi, "Persian Ramayanas," ranasafvi.com, September 1, 2019

Dexter Filkins, "Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi's India: The Prime Minister's Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies," newyorker, December 2, 2019

Saikat Datta, "India govt pushes religion-based citizenship law," asiatimes.com, December 9, 2019

NDTV Speaks To India's Top Legal Experts About The Citizenship Bill, December 9, 2019

"Citizenship Act protests: Three dead and thousands held in India," bbc.com, December 19, 2019

Aparna Priyadarshi, "Bigotry unifies Hindutva and white supremacy," asiatimes.com, December 20, 2019

Maria Abi-Habib and Sameer Yasir, "As Modi Pushes Hindu Agenda, a Secular India Fights Back," nytimes.com, December 20, 2019

EDITORIAL: "India marks a new low for democracy," The Washington Post, December 20, 2019

VIDEO: Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minster Yogi Adityanath said that he will take badla or revenge on protesters--"Muzaffarnagar: Yogi Adityanath's 'Revenge'?," ndtv.com, December 24, 2019

Sidharth Bhatia, "An Indian Kristallnacht in the Making," thewire.in, December 24, 2019

Reality of NRC and NPR Explained by Dhruv Rathee, YouTube.com, December 26, 2019

Swara Bhasker's Quick NRC-CAA Guide: The Protests and the Act, Explained, thewire.in, December 26, 2019

[The protests have already won. They have succeeded in rendering a national NRC highly improbable.--Harsh Mander, "CAA protests mark collective rejection of toxic politics and policies that dominate public life," indianexpress.com, December 25, 2019]

Suraj Girijashanker, "The World is Already Recognising Refugees from the 'Hindu Rashtra'," thewire.in, January 7, 2020

Shivam Vij, "Hindutva seeks to reshape society on its own terms, but economic growth needs freedom," theprint.in, January 13, 2020

"Stagflation Knocking At The Door": Bengal Finance Minister, NDTV, January 17, 2020

[The anti-CAA protests began in the state of Assam, where the BJP had supported the implementation of a National Registry of Citizens under orders from the Supreme Court in 2015. The NRC, which grew out of a decadeslong ethno-linguistic dispute between Indigenous Assamese people and Muslim and Hindu immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, was billed as a way to identify unauthorized immigrants, forcing residents of Assam to establish their Indian lineage or be stripped of their citizenship. But the BJP turned the registry into a predominantly anti-Muslim exercise: Ultimately, a major portion of the 2 million residents of Assam who were excluded from the list were Muslim.--Soumya Shankar, "INDIA'S CITIZENSHIP LAW, IN TANDEM WITH NATIONAL REGISTRY, COULD MAKE BJP'S DISCRIMINATORY TARGETING OF MUSLIMS EASIER," theintercept.com, January 30, 2020]

[In a stump speech in 2014, Modi told an audience in Assam that while Hindu migrants would be accommodated, other "infiltrators" would be sent back to Bangladesh. In April 2019, Amit Shah, now Modi's home minister, said that Bangladeshi immigrants were "eating the grain that should go to the poor". They were "termites", Shah added. The BJP would pick them up, one by one, and "throw them into the Bay of Bengal".--Samanth Subramanian, "How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart," theguardian.com, February 20, 2020]

Karan Deep Singh and Suhasini Raj, "'Muslims Are Foreigners': Inside India's Campaign to Decide Who Is a Citizen," nytimes.com, April 4, 2020

VIDEO: "India: When Hindu nationalism meets Covid-19," TRT World, April 11, 2020

[The Bhagavad Gita enumerated the traits of the righteous . . .

The traits of the righteous were, "Fearless and pure in heart; steadfast in the exercise of wisdom; restrained and open-handed; none-hurting, truthful, from anger free; compassionate to all existent beings; free from nagging greed; gentle, modest, never fickle; ardent, patient, enduring, pure, not treacherous nor arrogant." . . .

The National Flag is a tricolour of saffron, white and green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue, at its centre. . . .

"Bhagwa or the saffron colour denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work. The white in the centre is light, the path of truth to guide our conduct. The green shows our relation to (the) soil, our relation to the plant life here, on which all other life depends. The Ashoka Chakra in the centre of the white is the wheel of the law of dharma. Truth or satya, dharma or virtue ought to be the controlling principle of those who work under this flag." . . .

Hindutva ideologues were inspired simultaneously by the nationalist, racial, supremacist and cultural values of both Nazism and Zionism.--Devdan Chaudhuri, "About Values: Why Hinduism-loving citizens tolerate the unrighteous or the devilish?," thepunchmagazine.com, April 18, 2020]

Siddharth Varadarajan, "Demolition Men Do Not Build Nations, They Destroy Them," The Wire, August 7, 2020

Stuti Mishra, "Indian jewellery brand forced to pull advert showing mixed Hindu-Muslim couple after right-wing trolling," independent.co.uk, October 13, 2020

Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra Are Only About Persecution of India's Muslims, Modi Encourages All of This, The Wire, December 30, 2020

Here Is Why India Hates China and Initiated The Border Fight, February 23, 2021

Shashi Tharoor vs Ram Madhav Face Off Over Idea Of New India, Free Speech, Dissent, India Today Conclave, March 14, 2021

Hindutva History and Other Modern Problems with the Indian Past, Audrey Truschke, Brown University, March 18, 2021

Rutgers Faculty Extends 'Unreserved Support' to Professor Audrey Truschke, The Wire, March 18, 2021

Jonathan Evans and Neha Sahgal, "Key findings about religion in India," pewresearch.org, June 29, 2021

Pavan Varma, BJP-RSS have Talibanized Hinduism, Eroded India's Pluralism, Harmony and Rule of Law, The Wire, August 18, 2021

The Hindu Extremists at War With Interfaith Love, VICE News, October 21, 2021

How Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan led India's first united front against the East India Company, History of Islam, March 18, 2022

Prophet Muhammad Row: Presenting Bhartiya Fringe Party Feat. Nupur Sharma, PM Modi, Amit Shah & Yogi, The Wire, June 15, 2022

BJP Continues to Fool India on the CAA, The Wire, June 30, 2022

"Azad Remained Steadfast Against Partition: On the 75th anniversary of India's independence, imagine if Gandhi, Nehru, Patel . . . had not agreed to partition India, where would India be today?," The Wisdom Fund, August 15, 2022

Can India be the Next China? Not With Modi's Present Policies Which Are Obstacles, The Wire, December 14, 2022

Narendra Modi BBC Documentary: The Modi Question, archive.org, January 18, 2023

Romila Thapar: Why Indian History Cannot be Reduced to 'Hindu vs Muslim', The Wire, January 19, 2023

[The results of these textbooks in Pakistan, says Hoodbhoy, have been catastrophic.-- Seema Chishti, "Rewriting India's History Through School Textbooks," newlinesmag.com, March 9, 2023]

Karan Thapar Live: Why is the Modi Government And the BJP So Obsessed With Rahul Gandhi? March 31, 2023

John Brittas' Fiery Speech in Parliament, "Our Ram is Gandhi's Ram, Your Ram is Nathuram," The Wire, February 6, 2024

Shashi Tharoor and Kapil Sibal on the Toxic Cocktail of Politics and Religion That's Poisoning India, The Wire, March 14, 2024

Dividing Indians will not make India stronger. That's how a few Brits were able to rule millions of Indians. India, once among the richest countries in the world, became one of the poorest.

back button