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1:04 Foreigners have been coming to India for centuries
just as they come today, attracted by its many features. (/1:10)
1:16 However, one wave of foreigners which swept
into India was different. And its impact continues to be felt until now. (/1:24)
1:39 Just about 500 years ago, Europeans set out
to explore the sea-routes to the fabulous east, home of exotic and immensely valuable
spices. (/1:48)
1:57 The spices had been produced in plenty in
the Orient and traded for centuries, carried by Arab and Jew traders through West Asia
to the insatiable European market. (/2:08)
2:14 The European merchants had to rely upon middlemen
for the supply of these highly profitable commodities. (/2:20)
2:23 The demand for spices was so intense that
even the frenzied activity in today's spice exchange in Cochin is only a pale imitation
of the European urge to control the trade in spices and other exotic goods available
in the East. (/2:38)
2:41 Many wars have been fought for this pepper.
The 15th century A.D and 16th century A.D. pepper was even considered as a legal tender
just like one of these foreign currencies that you now use. (/2:55)
2:57 In the last decade of the 15th century, Europeans
launched expeditions to discover new trade routes to break the middle-eastern monopoly
over this vital trade. (/3:08)
3:12 Christopher Columbus sailed Westwards and
in 1492, he found himself in the land later to be called America. (/3:20)
3:26 Columbus went to his death bed convinced that
he had discovered a new route to the Indies. (/3:31)
3:39 6 years later, the Portuguese sailor Vasco-da-Gama
rouded the Cape of Good Hope, sailed the Indian ocean and reached Kerala. He too, was looking
for spices. (/3:55)
4:05 For the Western Europeans, Indian spices in
general and pepper in particular was very important. The reason was that the European
grasslands would go under the snow in winter. As a result, cattle had nothing to feed on
and therefore, cattle had to be slaughtered. Now, in order to preserve the meat through
winter, addition of pepper was very significant. (/4:26)
4:30 Valuable as spices were, they were not the
only commodity which had attracted the Europeans to India. (/4:35)
4:37 They had heard enough tales about the fabulous
wealth of India. (/4:40)
4:42 The magic of its famous textiles cast a spell
far beyond the shores of the sub-continent. (/4:48)
4:56 The chroniclers of Alexander had refered to
India as the blessed land where wool grew on trees.(/5:02)
5:04 They were of-course refering to cotton. (/5:06)
5:16 It was even more antastic that a humble worm
should contribute towards producing a fabric fit for kings. (/5:22)
5:32 The silk industry may have originated outside
India, but Indian craftsmen and weavers gave it a distinctive sheen which attracted traders
from far and wide. (/5:42)
5:54 Therefore, through the centuries, the silk
and cotton weaving industries became arguably the most important sector for the development
of non-Agricultural production and an entire culture grew around these. And even as these
attracted the Western traders, the technologies they brought in also had an impact on the
processes of production. (/6:14)
6:20 But the attention of the west was not confined
to spices and silk. There were many other useful products to be taken from India and
much to be gained through commerce. (/6:31)
6:33 In between the 15th and the 17th centuries,
you have a tremendous expansion of trade-sea-borne trade in small ships. You get markets developing
on a regional level, macro-regional level, and in this the great force that develops
is that of Europe. (/6:59)
7:02 Fairly soon, the traders from different parts
of Europe had set up warehouses which were called factories in many places in India.
(/7:09)
7:14 Among such buildings, built by the europeans
is one standing structure. (/7:18)
7:20 The main bloc of the Patna college was built
by the Dutch East India Company which traded in many commodities, the most important of
which was salt-petre, an ingredient of gun-powder. (/7:33)
7:38 Only much later, well after Indo-Dutch commerce
had been overtaken by the British did this building become a seat of learning. (/7:46)
7:48 Some feel that it retains its explosive content
even today. (/7:51)
7:57 There were many more reasons for the Europeans
to come here. These became clear soon after the Portuguese had landed on the West Coast.
This gate at old Goa commemorates the landing by the Portuguese who soon established a colony
there. (/8:12)
8:15 The Portuguese came to India in 1498. By 1510,
they were in a strong enough position to be able to build churches like this. (/8:24)
8:31 Now one of the reasons why they had come to
India with such zeal was because of the Spanish inquisition which was going on Europe in that
time. The inquisition made them to seek to convert the Indian population, particularly
in Goa. They tried all kinds of methods-blandishments, torture. In fact it was said that the Portuguese
came to India with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. However, large scale
conversions became possible only when they passed a very interesting law. And the law
was that property could only be inherited in the legitimate line of children. 'Legitimacy'
, however, was defined as the product of marriages which had been conducted in churches. Now
the propertied classes of Goa, particularly the Saraswat Brahmins, found a very interesting
method of coping with this law. Often, one brother would convert to Catholicism and get
married in the Church. Thereby, property would remain in the family while the rest of the
family remained Hindu. (/9:31)
9:38 Caste adapted itself to the new forces. But
technology and the economy changed even more dramatically. Barely years after their incursion
into the Indian ocean, the Europeans in general and the Portuguese in particular had established
their hegemony over the sea-lanes. (/9:56)
10:00 The superior sea-faring technology of the
Europeans helped them in subjugating the Arabs and dominating the trade routes to India.
The dominance of the Europeans over the Arabian sea was such that they issued passes to all
sea-farers, and even the mighty emperor Akbar had to obtain a Carta (that's a bill of passage)
from the Portuguese when he wanted to send a ship across the ocean. (/10:26)
10:28 This lack of free access to the ocean and
the resulting inability of the Indians to develop a navy was to prove costly. (/10:36)
10:38 Meanwhile, India had to confront the European
presence in different ways. (/10:43)
10:46 Although the Portuguese carried out conquests
of parts of India in the name of Christianity, the fact is that the church had come to India
much earlier. (/10:54)
11:00 Saint Thomas, the apostle, had brought Christianity
to India a few years after the crucifixon of Jesus. This memorial in Kerala is witness
to that visit. (/11:10)
11:20 There is an amazing story about Vasco-da-Gama's
visit to Kerala centuries later. (/11:25) 11:26
He is said to have bowed before a statue of Kali, the mother goddess, thinking it was
an image of Mother Mary. (/11:33)
11:38 However, fairly soon afterwards, the Portuguese
started building large Churches and cathedrals. Their early years in India coincided with
the Inquisition in Europe, a period of religious fanaticism. (/11:51)
11:57 It's difficult to visualize those turbulent
times today, at the serene setting of the Bom Jesus Cathedral in Goa. (/12:04)
12:07 The Portuguese turned more joyous later on
and is still evident in many ways in Goa. (/12:12)
13:12 And yet, there are also other reminders of
the period when the West met the East. The Padre-ki-Haveli in Patna is one such site.
Located near the Ollandaz Tola ("Hollanders' settlement"), it is one of the many monuments
of the early contacts between the Europe and India. (/13:31)
13:34 That encounter was not easy. (/13:36)
13:43 India took its toll on the Europeans and the
many graves in sad cemeteries in different parts of the country are a reminder that life
for the Europeans in India could be short, if not nasty and brutish as well. (/13:55)
14:11 They made little attempt to adapt to the climate
and they and their families were easy prey for disease and death in various guises. (/14:19)
14:43 Indeed among many bones languishing in neglect
are those of Job Charnock, the English trader who is celebrated as the founder of Calcutta.
Charnock's grave is from a period when the Europeans in India were mere traders. (/14:58)
15:06 The French too had a major station not far
from Calcutta at ChandanNagore on the Hoogly river. (/15:12)
15:14 It's a sleepy little town today with a river-front
where its youth while away their time seemingly oblivious of their French connection. (/15:23)
15:28 The legacy of France is largely confined to
the museum, located at the house where General Duple once lived as governor of the French
possessions in India. (/15:38)
16:22 The French influence is more obvious in Pondichery,
another colonial enclave at the Southern end of the Indian subcontinent. (/16:30)
16:44 Official buildings, street signs and even
the typical French keppie which is part of the uniform of its policemen recall the French
presence. (/16:54)
17:12 A much more substantial example of the French
connection is the institute of the Far East, where European scholars and Indian Pundits
work together to reconstruct elements of India's past. (/17:25)
17:29 A less benign Western presence in India was
that of the British who also came as merchants but succeeded in establishing their empire.
(/17:39)
17:43 Other Euopean powers too tried to conquer
India. But the Portuguese or French ended up with small enclaves. The British were much
more successful. (/17:53)
17:59 British merchants, keen to get rich quick,
pressured their Government for permission to trade directly with India. On the last
day of December in the year 1600, Queen Elizabeth-I granted them a charter. (/18:13)
18:15 Thus the famous East India Company was formed,
to grow later into a paramount power, in the Indian subcontinent. (/18:21)
18:28 12 years later, in 1612, the English defeated
the Portuguese in a battle off the Gujarat coast. (/18:35)
18:41 The growing strength of the company persuaded
the Mughal emperor Jahangir to allow it to build a warehouse at Surat. (/18:48)
18:57 Called a Factory, this warehouse was established
close to the Surat Fort. (/19:01)
19:03 The fort continues to play a role in the life
of the town. There days, it's a police station. The historic East India company factory has
all but disappeared. However, Surat is still a thriving commercial center with International
connections. (/19:20)
19:25 The now deserted European cemetary is a reminder
of how far these connections go back. (/19:31)
19:36 In 1640, the East India Company representative
obtained a strip of a land from a local hindu raja in Madras. And the fortified factory
of Saint George was built there. (/19:46)
19:53 Fort Saint George today contains many offices,
including that of the Archaeological Survey of India which stores precious fragments of
the past. Among them, remains of the Roman trading post at nearby Arikamedu. (/20:07)
20:10 When the Romans came to Arikamedu to trade,
the balance of trade was very much in favor of India. So much so that there was a massive
drain of Gold from Rome to India. And Pliny the elder for example, complained bitterly
about the extravagant habits of the Romans. Much later, when Robert clive came to India,
first as a clerk of the East India Company and later as the Governor in Madras, in which
capacity he lived in this building, the balance of trade was still favorable for India. But
shortly after that, when the East India Company consolidated its position, the balance of
trade changed and India started being drained of its wealth. (/20:47)
20:49 The sprawling city of Madras which is now
called Chennai grew as a commercial and administrative center from that beginning. (/20:56)
21:04 In 1661, the Portuguese princess Catherine
of Braganza, brought the island of Bombay as part of her dowry when she married Charles-II
of England. (/20:14)
21:17 By 1668, King Charles had rented Bombay, the
finest port on the West Coast of India to the East India Company. (/21:24)
21:34 It's almost impossible to imagine in the bustling
urban agglomeration which is today's Bombay or Mumbai, that the island was given by the
king to the company for princely sum of 10 pounds! (/21:45)
21:48 Bombay, which started as a tiny fishing enclave
has changed much. But not so much as to exclude the fisher-folk who still live off the sea.
(/21:57)
22:02 The rush of the metropolis does not prevent
them from whiling away time, waiting to catch the tide which comes in the affairs of all
the fishermen, and leads on to fortune. (/22:13)
22:31 However, more than Madras or Mumbai, (Chennai
or Bombay), it was Calcutta which became the focal point of the British presence in India.
(/22:39)
22:41 And Calcutta continues to court some of the
pomp and circumstance of the empire. (/22:47)
23:06 Meanwhile, as the Europeans were making themselves
at home in India, the Indians themselves were making the consolidation of European power
easier. (/23:15)
23:17 The fabulous Vijayanagar kingdom which the
Portuguese described with wonder was reduced to a rubble by the combined might of its neighbors.
(/23:25)
23:30 Even as the British were positioning themselves
to conquer India, the Mughals seemed to be quite unaware of the threat. In fact, they
were pre-occupied with rebeling against each other and fighting each other. The most famous
rebellion was that of Jahangir who rebeled against Akbar. Later, when Jahangir himself
became emperor, he befriended an Englishman called William Hawkins. Jahangir was impressed
by Hawkins's ability to speak in Turkish. But he was also greatly impressed by the man's
ability and capacity to drink. He made him a boon companion, a noble of the court. All
this was happening when Hawkins was writing to the English East India company saying that
his closeness to the emperor would help the company in its plans and also of course help
Hawkins feather his own nest. (/24:14)
24:18 At a more mundane level too, Indian society
and Indian economy could not change fast enough to resist the European onslaught. India benefited
from the new crops which the Europeans brought from South America and elsewhere. (/24:31)
24:35 It's difficult to imagine a time without chillies,
tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, guavas and maize. But all of these were introduced into India
only after the Europeans had discovered what they called the New World. (/24:49)
24:53 However, while Indians absorbed these new
crops, there was no qualitative change in their manner of living and thinking. (/25:00)
25:05 In most cases, production continued through
age-old tenchiques and even the textiles, for which there was a large market at home
and abroad continued to be produced more or less as they had been for centuries. (/25:17)
25:22 In fact, with the increasing imports of machine
made textiles from England, the Indian handloom industry languished and there was even a de-industrialization
of the country. (/25:33)
25:51 What was worse even at the height of prosperity,
public works received little or no attention. (/25:56)
26:02 when this did happen once in a while, as in
the construction of tanks in Gujarat, much of the wealth was wasted and frozen in ornamentation.
(/26:10)
26:15 Even as the Europeans were making themselves
at home, the Indians were wasting their energy in all kinds of ways. (/26:21)
26:23 The door had been left for the West to walk
in and dominate the East. (/26:28)
26:33 The Europeans had a much greater degree of
ferocity, a far greater degree of brutality, the capacity to ruthlessly kill those whom
they fought and the capacity to organize business as well as commerce in such a way that they
could keep their profits going bu they could also keep the goose that laid the Golden eggs,
alive. (/26:58)
27:00 There were of-course some Indians like Tipu
Sultan who had the foresight to see the inevitable conflict between the Europeans and the Indians.
(/27:09)
27:11 But the likes of Tipu Sultan were few and
they perhaps came too late. (/27:16)
27:18 Hegel had once said that events and personalities
come twice in history. Marx added that Hegel should have realized that events and personalities
do indeed come twice in history, but the first time they occur as tragedy, the second time
as farce. If Marx had been the cases of KrishnaDevaraya and Tipu Sultan, he might have come to the
conclusion that events and personalities come twice in history - the first time as tragedy
and the second time as even more profound tragedy. The case of KrishnaDevaraya illustrates
part of this. He set up a very large and powerful empire. But that empire ultimately could not
withstand the onslaught of its neighbors. The very nature of Feudalism on which the
Vijayanagar empire was built ate into its vitals. Apart from that, the neighboring kings
were constantly competing with Vijayanagar and attacking it. And finally, the internecine
fights which went on between the Shaivites and the Vaishnavs also destroyed the empire
from within. Tipu Sultan, a few centuries later, built a much more modern empire. He
was a member of the Jacobian club, he planted a tree called liberty, he gave to his citizens
a very model code of laws. Nevertheless, faced with the fact that the Nizam entered into
an unholy alliance with the British, Tipu was defeated. He was himself killed and his
empire, the big kingdom that he had built was thoroughly destroyed. (/28:50)
28:52 Even the valor of tiger Tipu who fell fighting
the British, could not prevent history from taking its own ironic turn. (/29:02)