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People often remember their history lessons
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as full of dates and battles,
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kings and queens, facts and figures.
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The story of the past is open to interpretation and much of British
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history is a carefully edited and even deceitful version of events.
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You might think that history is just a record of what happened.
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Actually, it's not like that at all.
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As soon as you do a little digging you discover that it's more like a
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tapestry of different stories woven together by whoever was in power
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at the time.
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In this series,
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I'm going to debunk some of the biggest fibs in British history.
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In the 15th century,
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the story of the Wars of the Roses was invented by the Tudors
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to justify their power,
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and then immortalised by the greatest storyteller of them all,
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William Shakespeare.
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Now is the winter of our discontent.
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In the 17th century,
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politicians and artists helped turn a foreign invasion
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into the triumphal tale of Britain's Glorious Revolution.
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Hello. Hoo-hoo!
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And in this programme,
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I'll discover how in the 19th century a British government coup
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in India created the British Raj and was heralded by the Victorians
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as the civilising triumph of the Empire.
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In 1877,
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Queen Victoria got a promotion when she was made Empress of India.
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She was now up there with emperors like Alexander the Great
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or the Caesars, the most powerful potentates in history.
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But Victoria's promotion wasn't just an expression of Britain's
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military might. With Victoria as its motherly figurehead,
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Britain was cooking up a new imperial vision.
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Tyranny and exploitation were things of the past.
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This would now be a caring empire,
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driven by core Victorian values of honour, respect and justice,
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or so the story goes.
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With history the line between fact and fiction often gets blurred.
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20 years after Victoria became Empress of India,
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Britain staged an incredible spectacle.
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On the 22nd of June 1897, the nation celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.
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Victoria was now the longest-serving monarch in British history.
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300,000 people had lined the streets to watch the Queen making
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her procession from Buckingham Palace all the way
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up here to St Paul's Cathedral.
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Every minute of the day was very tightly timetabled.
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You could read in the newspapers exactly where she was supposed to be
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and when. She was supposed to get here at midday.
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Now, all these people had turned out because this was a rare chance
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to see the little old lady who'd led the nation
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for 60 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
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But, perhaps even more importantly,
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this was a chance to celebrate the best thing that had ever happened
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to Britain - its Empire.
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Since Victoria's reign began in 1837,
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the British Empire had grown to become the largest and most powerful
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empire in the world.
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In 1897, Victoria ruled over 370 million subjects across the globe.
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And the jewel in the Empire's crown was India.
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Now, obviously, India brought prestige and
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wealth to the British Empire
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but it did something else very important as well.
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It gave the British the opportunity to show other nations
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how imperialism should be done.
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Victoria's jubilee was a great excuse
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for a national slap on the back to celebrate Britain's imperial ideals
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of fair play, justice and honour.
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Little mention that the British were invaders in foreign lands,
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that India had been won by fighting bloody battles
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against Indian resistance.
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This history of Victoria's reign was published in jubilee year 1897
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and the writer brings the story of Empire right up into the present.
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He claims that all the Indian people in London for the jubilee
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celebrations were delighted to be here and what's more,
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they represented other happy Indians back at home.
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"One felt," he writes,
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"that each of them represented thousands more who were ready in the
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"hour of peril to draw the sword for the motherland and its Queen."
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He says that the Jubilee marks the high point of the imperial idea.
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Now, you might be thinking, "What a lot of nonsense."
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But this vision of India as the jewel in the crown
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of a benevolent empire was fervently believed by most Victorians.
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It had been carefully crafted since 1858 when the government had taken
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formal control of India.
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Queen Victoria herself had issued
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the new regime's imperial mission statement.
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"We British will now wholeheartedly respect our Indian subjects.
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"India will share all the benefits
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"that have made our tiny island nation great."
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A history of aggressive conquest and exploitation was being moulded
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into an uplifting story to justify the Empire.
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It began here in Kolkata, where the British had made their Indian base
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in the late 18th century.
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Looking at a map of India, you might think that Kolkata,
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or Calcutta as it used to be known,
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is a bit of a funny place to choose for an imperial capital.
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It isn't bang in the middle like the really ancient city of Delhi -
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that was a much better place for dominating the subcontinent.
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But when the British first set up shop in the 18th century,
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they weren't intending to dominate the subcontinent at all.
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They'd come here to get rich through trade and, for that,
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Calcutta suited them perfectly.
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Calcutta's Hooghly River flows out into the Bay of Bengal and into
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convenient sea routes to take goods back to Britain.
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But the first Britons to exploit India's riches here weren't members
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of the establishment - they were buccaneering,
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money-making entrepreneurs.
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They where employees of a vast multinational corporation,
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the British East India Company.
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The East India Company merchants first came to India in 1615
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during the reign of Elizabeth I.
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Haggling with the local elite,
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these wheeler-dealers gained a foothold in Calcutta
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and began to dominate trade in the region.
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This private company had no imperial ambitions and certainly
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no civilising mission.
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For them, India was simply a cash cow to be plundered.
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Relying on trade deals with the local rulers,
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the company men now set about exploiting all the riches that India
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had to offer - from silks to cotton to tea to spices.
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This band of merchant adventurers stopped at nothing in their pursuit
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of wealth.
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Playing by their own rules, they reneged on trade deals,
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they refused to pay tribute to local rulers,
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and, when they didn't get their way, resorted to violence.
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With their sharp trading practices,
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today these men seem little more than pirates.
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But the company didn't describe themselves as a bunch
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of bloodthirsty and avaricious merchants.
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No, these men were British and honourable to the core.
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The company's official title made this explicit.
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They called themselves the Honourable East India Company.
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And they went to great lengths to engineer a facade
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of British respectability.
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And they built monuments like this -
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an almost exact replica of the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields
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in Trafalgar Square.
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In fact, St John's Church also housed the East India Company's
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first council chambers where these Anglo-Indian merchants could discuss
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their real interests - making money.
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And they were quite successful.
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By the late 18th-century they were like independent rulers
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of large parts of India,
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with their own private army of Indian foot soldiers or sepoys.
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As the company grew in power,
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it still had its pretensions to that word, "honourable".
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But a rather different insight can be found inside St John's -
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a picture by Johann Zoffany, the company's go-to portrait painter.
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- So, Jayanta, we're standing in a Christian church.
- Yes.
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We're looking at a painting of the Last Supper.
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That's not such a surprising thing to find.
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No, it's not, except that Jesus and all the others present here
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are actually members of the fashionable Anglo-Indian society
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in Calcutta in the late 18th century.
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So real people sat to have their pictures painted?
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Yes, Jesus in the middle is a Greek bishop named Father Parthenio.
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To his left,
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the lady figure is actually the police sergeant of Calcutta
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in the late 18th century, named WC Blacquiere,
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who was a transvestite and who was very famous for stalking
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and rounding up criminals while dressed as a woman.
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Hang on, you can't just say that.
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Are you saying that St John is a transvestite policeman?
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Here it is, that's Zoffany's funny take on this.
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Slightly subversive.
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OK, and who else?
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This bearded guy sitting on the right foreground with this dagger
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showing up on his waist, he's a Judas here,
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he's actually an auctioneer named William Tulloh.
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He looks pretty unhappy.
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He looks pretty pissed, playing Judas here.
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All the others, they're all company men, powerful and influential.
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Isn't this bordering on sacrilege though?
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You've got to be pretty arrogant to depict yourself as an apostle?
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I guess you can say that but that arrogance comes from
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the actual power wielded by these people because they're not only
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making money doing commerce but they are also ruling the roost
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in politics and administration.
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They called themselves the Honourable East India Company.
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- Yes.
- They weren't honourable from our point of view today at all.
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How do you explain that?
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Well, it's part of this self image which the British created for
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themselves in order to feel good about their enterprise,
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which was really about commerce and moneymaking.
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And they were actually portrayed by fairly influential intellectuals
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at that time as honourable, like David Hume,
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whose volumes on the history of England portrays these people
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as very honourable, holding up the British values.
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Hume actually says somewhere in those volumes that the reason
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why they could transform themselves so quickly from a trading enterprise
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into such a powerful political entity
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was the strength of their character.
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Endorsed by the likes of David Hume,
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the company men ruled India with little accountability.
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And the British government was happy as long as the money kept rolling in
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because the British East India Company profits enriched
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the British economy by £67 billion a year in today's money.
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But not everyone was impressed.
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In 1756, the local ruler of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah,
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led an uprising against the East India Company.
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He captured Calcutta and locked a group of company men
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in a tiny prison called the Black Hole.
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Many died of suffocation.
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The British government would join the company to take terrible revenge
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but only after presenting this event as a savage assault on Britain.
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The Black Hole of Calcutta was about to enter the history books.
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To the memory of the 123 persons who perished
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in the Black Hole prison.
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Now, British people will have heard of the Black Hole of Calcutta,
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but what really was it?
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Now, the only account of a survivor, or first-hand account of that
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is from a British general called John Holwell who was in that room.
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What sort of detail does he give us in his account?
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John Holwell is fairly graphic in his details.
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I have an extract here from the Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.
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This is Holwell's quote.
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"The first effect of their confinement was a continued sweat,
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"which soon produced intolerable thirst,
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"succeeded by excruciating pains in the chest
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"with difficulty of breathing, little short of suffocation."
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So this is a very graphic, horrific, dark story that he's telling.
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True, this is very horrific.
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But what we know is that, at that time,
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it suited the British narrative,
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so they could not just come about and slaughter the natives,
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but their retribution, as ruthless and brutal as it was,
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had to be justified by some pre-existing
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Indian savagery or barbarism.
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It was more than two centuries later in the 1960s that Indian historians
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began to question Holwell's account for the first time.
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And the first one who did that very significantly was a historian named
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RC Majumdar who wrote a book in 1962 where he raised two questions.
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One is that if it was so dark and so cramped in that little black hole,
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then how could Holwell write such a graphic description with such
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excruciating and horrific details.
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The other question was that if the room was so small then there was
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no way you could cram together 146 people in there.
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Even if Holwell were true about people dying of suffocation,
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it couldn't have been more than 60 or 70 people, not more.
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We don't know. Majumdar was a nationalist historian,
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so his account was also very subjective.
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Was he trying to make the British look really bad?
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- Like liars?
- Yes. Yes.
- Massagers of the truth?
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But we don't know the real truth that happened.
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At the time, the facts, what really happened in the Black Hole,
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didn't matter to the company or the British Government.
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They simply wanted to regain control,
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so a horror story was very useful in whipping up
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public support back home.
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And when the East India Company under General Robert Clive
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took their revenge, Clive's troops were reinforced by the might
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of the British Army at Government expense.
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Clive was victorious - he was given a peerage
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and immortalised in the colonial narrative.
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He was now Clive of India.
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00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:48,880
But British faith in the East India Company had been shaken.
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The problem was that the company had stopped making a profit.
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Re-establishing control of Calcutta
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and Clive's other military manoeuvrings
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00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:02,040
had cost an awful lot of money.
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00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:06,960
The company had had to borrow money from the Government, a lot of it.
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People at home were beginning to ask, was it worth it?
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00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:32,840
The company's honourable status was in doubt.
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While it was being bankrolled millions by the Government,
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company men like Clive were getting rich
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and throwing their money around.
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For many they were no longer seen as the best of British but more like
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oriental tyrants - corrupt and abusing their power.
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00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:57,320
Clive had amassed a personal fortune of £4 million in today's money.
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This immediately made him one of the richest men in the country.
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But he wasn't alone - there were other ex-East India Company men
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00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:09,080
coming back to Britain with these huge piles of cash
273
00:17:09,080 --> 00:17:13,880
and they were ready to splash it about on buying property and power.
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00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:21,360
This is Sezincote in Gloucestershire,
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00:17:21,360 --> 00:17:26,680
purchased in 1795 by a company man, Colonel John Cockerell.
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00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:30,400
After his death it was then embellished with this extravagant
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00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:36,080
Indian facade by his brothers, also company men, Charles and Samuel.
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The Cockerell family created a fantasy mini version of India
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00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:43,680
here in the middle of the Cotswolds.
280
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:48,720
From the inside the house seems like a fairly standard Palladian villa.
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00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:53,920
But on the outside it's been given this fantastical Mughal coating.
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00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:56,240
There are Muslim architectural features,
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00:17:56,240 --> 00:18:00,480
like the green dome on the top and the minarets,
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00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:04,000
and these very distinctive deeply overhanging eaves.
285
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:08,360
But then again there are also Hindu features in the architecture such as
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00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:12,080
the octagonal columns each side of the door and, at the top
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00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:15,600
of the columns, a little decoration of a lotus flower.
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00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:17,240
But then again on top of that,
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00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:21,960
there are the architectural jokes in the corners above the arch up there.
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Well, we've got some Union Jacks.
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00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:32,520
With its mashed up Muslim and Hindu features,
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00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:35,360
a visitor from Georgian India would have thought there was something
293
00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:37,240
a bit odd about this place.
294
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:40,480
But imagine what the Gloucestershire neighbours must have thought.
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00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:44,320
To them, it must have looked totally alien.
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00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:47,920
Like many company men, the Cockerells had come back
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00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:51,600
with delusions of grandeur to match their wallets.
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00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:53,680
But to the old establishment,
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00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:57,000
these men were now seen as corrupt upstarts with ideas
300
00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:59,080
above their station.
301
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,480
And in the popular press they were satirised by cartoonists
302
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:06,520
like James Gillray and labelled as nabobs,
303
00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:10,640
a perversion of the title nawab, an Indian ruler.
304
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:14,840
Andrea, what was the problem with these East India men
305
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,680
coming back to Britain? Why were they so disliked?
306
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:19,760
Well, part of it was a little bit of wealth envy.
307
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:21,840
They were coming back with massive fortunes,
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00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:26,040
buying their way into local society, throwing their money around,
309
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:28,000
but it went a lot deeper than that.
310
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:30,840
The main concern, really, was how they had got their money.
311
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:33,120
So if we look at this cartoon, for example,
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00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:37,600
it shows a sort of typical nabob being carried through a sea
313
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:40,800
of dead Indian bodies, clutching onto his moneybags.
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00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,080
He's got £4 million in each hand.
315
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:45,360
He is weighed down by his riches.
316
00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:48,040
- Yes, absolutely.
- And although he's got dying,
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00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:49,840
drowning Indian people in the water,
318
00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:52,480
he's really bothered about not getting his slippers wet, isn't he?
319
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:56,800
This was the concern that these nabobs were coming back
320
00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:59,600
having spent their time in India simply concerned with profit,
321
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:03,880
so they're concerned that this money must be being acquired through sharp
322
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:08,000
trading practices, through corruption, blackmail, speculation,
323
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,760
profiteering, all of these kinds of dark arts that are seen to be closer
324
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:13,400
to robbery than to fair trade.
325
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,320
How did the political establishment fight back against this?
326
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,000
Well, the main way they fought back was by impeaching
327
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,400
the Governor-General, Warren Hastings.
328
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:26,400
We can see here, this is a very famous political cartoon of the time
329
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:29,520
which shows the political adversaries Edmund Burke
330
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:30,840
and Charles James Fox
331
00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:33,640
uniting to try and take down Warren Hastings.
332
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:34,920
This is Warren Hastings,
333
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:41,200
a western ruler of Bengal wearing Indian turban, clothing.
334
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:43,160
He's got his little slippers on again,
335
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:47,040
and he is riding upon a strange creature.
336
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:49,320
I believe it's a camel.
337
00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:50,960
Doesn't look much like a camel.
338
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:52,720
A slightly stylised camel.
339
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:54,080
He is representing the
340
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:56,520
East India Company at this point, is he?
341
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:58,120
Yes, effectively.
342
00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:01,800
The bigger concerns here are not so much about Hastings as a person
343
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:04,200
but about what the East India Company is doing,
344
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,520
how governance is being carried out in India. But of course all of that
345
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:09,520
is a little bit dry for capturing
346
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,000
public opinion and public enthusiasm.
347
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,360
And Burke realises that to have this debate he needs to go for a target
348
00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:19,200
and that target is Warren Hastings.
349
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:20,640
By company standards,
350
00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,240
Hastings wasn't the shadiest character by any means,
351
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:28,760
but he was high profile, the perfect scapegoat for the Government.
352
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:33,920
He was charged with tyranny, robbery, corruption and blackmail.
353
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:36,400
The trial dragged on for seven years.
354
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,240
In the end it was impossible to make all the charges stick
355
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:42,440
to one individual. Hastings was acquitted.
356
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:44,760
But the show trial had worked.
357
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:47,480
The East India Company had been discredited.
358
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:54,280
The government was waking up to the dire situation in India.
359
00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,720
In future, company men would be kept in check.
360
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:03,200
In 1784, the Government passed an act.
361
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:06,320
It's full title makes it pretty clear what it was all about.
362
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,160
It was an act for the better regulation of the affairs
363
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,280
of the East India Company.
364
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,560
The cosy relationship between the company
365
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:20,080
and the British establishment was on the turn.
366
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:25,040
The merry band of merchants were now depicted as rather too merry.
367
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:29,400
Drunkards who'd succumbed to the vices of the Orient and grown
368
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:32,760
too close to the locals and their culture.
369
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,800
Take, for example, the rather fabulously-named
370
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,360
James Achilles Kirkpatrick.
371
00:22:38,360 --> 00:22:41,680
This is his memorial in St John's Church.
372
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:46,640
He was a Lieutenant Colonel for the company and he had a Muslim wife
373
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:48,400
and Muslim children.
374
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:53,000
There was a boy, Ghulam Ali, and a girl, Noor-un-Nissa.
375
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,000
He was obviously perfectly happy with the situation.
376
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,000
But not everybody was.
377
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,280
Shortly before Kirkpatrick's death,
378
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,520
his children came to live in England.
379
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,240
And there they were given new names for their new life.
380
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,400
Here's the record of their baptism.
381
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,760
Ghulam Ali became William George
382
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:16,320
and Noor-un-Nissa became Catherine Aurora.
383
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,800
Must have been confusing for the poor kids.
384
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:24,000
As the enforced conversion of his children from Islam to Christianity
385
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,560
reveals, some company men like Kirkpatrick
386
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:31,120
had more enlightened views about race and religion than
387
00:23:31,120 --> 00:23:35,240
the British establishment. At the end of the 18th century,
388
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:39,560
the Government began to think that the company was growing degenerate,
389
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:43,480
corrupted by the influence of native religions.
390
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:46,680
The most dangerous of all - Hinduism.
391
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:53,360
Hindus made up 90% of the 250 million-strong Indian population.
392
00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:57,800
The British called the country India but its ancient native name
393
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,120
was Hindustan.
394
00:24:00,120 --> 00:24:01,840
Land of the Hindus.
395
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,360
Ever since the British had arrived in India they'd struggled
396
00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:13,840
to understand Hinduism with its, to them, exotic gods and goddesses,
397
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,120
more than a million of them, and its confusing caste system.
398
00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:22,280
But at least the earlier visitors in the 18th century had had a go
399
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:27,440
at appreciating it. For example, the Scottish historian William Robertson
400
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:32,560
thought that Hinduism expressed the sophistication of Indian culture.
401
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,960
He wrote that the Indian people had made more progress towards
402
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:38,360
civilisation than any other people.
403
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:45,160
Robertson's opinions reflected a certain 18th-century view
404
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:50,280
of India's culture as exotic, fascinating, even praiseworthy.
405
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:56,760
By the 19th century, though, many British people reviled Hinduism.
406
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,440
The ancient custom of sati, for example,
407
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:04,200
of burning a man's widow after his death seemed shocking.
408
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:08,160
It had been East India Company policy not to rock the boat,
409
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,160
not to interfere with native beliefs.
410
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:16,000
But now the British establishment was taking a very different view.
411
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:20,240
Historians were now totally disrespectful of Indian culture.
412
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,280
In fact, they were horrified by it.
413
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:27,680
For example, James Mill wrote a wildly successful history of India
414
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,600
and he doesn't have a good word to say about Hindus.
415
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:36,320
He thinks they're full of antisocial passions and malignity,
416
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:38,840
but at the same time, they're cowards.
417
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:43,600
"This people run from danger with more trepidation and eagerness
418
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:48,360
"than has been ever witnessed in any other part of the globe."
419
00:25:48,360 --> 00:25:52,120
The funny thing was that James Mill had never been to India.
420
00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:54,360
He probably hadn't even met a Hindu.
421
00:25:54,360 --> 00:25:59,360
And then we have the evangelical historian Charles Grant.
422
00:25:59,360 --> 00:26:03,280
He too thinks that the natives are extremely depraved
423
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:05,320
but Mr Grant has a solution.
424
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:09,160
He thinks it's the introduction of our light and knowledge
425
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:10,680
among that benighted people,
426
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:15,280
especially the pure, salutary, wise principles of our religion.
427
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:22,600
Grant's history became a Bible for missionaries and James Mill's,
428
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:24,840
well, that became the standard textbook
429
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,920
for any young company official going out to India.
430
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,960
In fact, Mill was even employed back in Britain to oversee the education
431
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:33,320
of new recruits.
432
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:40,200
The anti-Hindu propaganda in these history books helped justify
433
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,520
the Government's assault on the East India Company.
434
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,560
It opened the way for more direct meddling in the affairs of India.
435
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:52,240
The British Government claims that they were protecting company men
436
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:55,120
from further pollution by immoral practices.
437
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:00,160
And in 1811, when the Government gave missionaries the licence
438
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:01,400
to preach in India,
439
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,320
they thought the natives would be grateful for their conversion
440
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:05,480
to Christianity.
441
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,760
But in 1857 that comforting fiction went up in flames.
442
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:14,520
In March of that year,
443
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:19,320
resistance to the British erupted amongst the Indian soldiers.
444
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:21,000
Over the next 15 months,
445
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,960
bitter fighting broke out with heavy military and civilian casualties
446
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,000
on both sides. India became a bloodbath.
447
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,280
The East India Company's hold on the country was falling apart.
448
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:39,240
This is the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle.
449
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,960
It was a state-of-the-art weapon.
450
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:46,000
It had performed very well for the British Army in the Crimean War,
451
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:50,400
so when the East India Company's army needed new guns in 1856,
452
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,480
this is the model they chose.
453
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,560
Unfortunately, they were shooting themselves in the foot.
454
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:00,640
The problem was the cartridges.
455
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,200
They were lubricated with tallow,
456
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,160
that's animal fat, either pork or beef.
457
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,240
To load the gun you have to bite the end off the cartridge like this.
458
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:15,560
And out comes the powder.
459
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,920
Now, that's not very nice for anybody to have to do
460
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,760
and the majority of the soldiers in the East India Company army
461
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:24,840
were either Hindus or Muslims.
462
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:30,680
To them it was sacrilegious because for Hindus the cow is a holy animal
463
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:32,960
and Muslims are forbidden to eat pork.
464
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:38,040
As wave after wave of rebellion spread across the subcontinent,
465
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:42,440
the cartridges became a rallying point for Indian resistance to the
466
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,400
British and their disregard for Indian religions and culture.
467
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,040
For the Indian soldiers,
468
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:55,000
this business of the cartridges was important because it was tangible,
469
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,920
it focused their grievances.
470
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,640
For the British though, it was used to bolster the fiction
471
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,240
that this was a purely military matter.
472
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:09,280
It wasn't part of wider discontent, this was simply an Indian mutiny.
473
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,400
By describing the uprising as a mutiny, a military matter,
474
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,040
the British were trying to control the story.
475
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,440
Like the Black Hole incident 100 years before,
476
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:30,360
the situation seemed to call for swift, sharp retribution.
477
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,640
If this was painted as soldiers disobeying orders,
478
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,440
or a military mutiny, then a brutal response was justified.
479
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:50,080
This is Barrackpore, just outside modern Kolkata
480
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:54,280
In Hindi, Barrackpore means the City of Barracks
481
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:59,160
and in 1857 this was the site of an East India Company army base.
482
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,400
The Indian uprising began here,
483
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,400
as did the British decision to call it a mutiny.
484
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,320
I'm going to see the statue of an Indian soldier who is said to have
485
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,840
started the rebellion, Mangal Pandey.
486
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,200
It was 29th of March 1857.
487
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,760
He came out of his barracks with his red coat, the hat,
488
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:30,600
but significantly not the pantaloon but the traditional Indian dhoti.
489
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,720
So the top half was British and the bottom half was Indian?
490
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:35,680
That might be indicative of something, you know.
491
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,360
- Something is going on.
- That I'm going to revolt against the British.
492
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:43,040
- And what happened?
- Then one of the British officers came forward
493
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,720
but Mangal Pandey shot him but he missed.
494
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:53,800
A second British officer came and he ordered sepoys to come out to help
495
00:30:53,800 --> 00:31:00,280
them but most of the Indian sepoys, they didn't come out to help him.
496
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,120
Nobody came, the other sepoys didn't come.
497
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,880
No, they didn't come. Then the third officer,
498
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:07,480
who was the commanding officer,
499
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:13,080
he came and he called the sepoys to come out or he will shoot them.
500
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:17,520
Then the sepoys came but when Mangal Pandey saw that
501
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,720
then he shot himself.
502
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:25,600
He was injured seriously and he was arrested and after that
503
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,400
he was hanged under this banyan tree.
504
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:32,000
It sounds to me like this really was, technically, a mutiny.
505
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:33,880
He broke the rules of being a soldier.
506
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,120
Yeah, in the British eyes of course he did,
507
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,680
but from the Indian point of view this was a just thing,
508
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,760
it is the result of the colonial exploitation
509
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,760
of India by the British.
510
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,600
And when did Indian historians themselves start to come out
511
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:50,520
with their own version of what happened?
512
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:56,320
It was a person called VD Savarkar who wrote a book
513
00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:00,480
in the early 20th century and the name of the book is
514
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,040
First War of Independence.
515
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,160
Now here also it was not Indian mutiny or Indian revolt -
516
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,120
Indian war of independence.
517
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:13,000
Still now, in school books and textbooks in the colleges,
518
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,880
Mangal Pandey is regarded as the first martyr
519
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,440
of the Indian independence movement.
520
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,680
Do you think that this whole event, call it a mutiny, a war,
521
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,360
whatever you like, it's a really fascinating case study
522
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,800
- for historians, isn't it?
- Sure, it is. It is.
523
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,880
You have to see the whole thing in the perspective of the time.
524
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,920
Visiting Barrackpore today with the crumbling ruins of the military
525
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,560
barracks around the cherished memorial to Mangal Pandey,
526
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,960
history is on the side of the sepoys.
527
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:49,080
But in 1857 it was a very different story.
528
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:53,840
Back then, today's heroic freedom fighter was portrayed by the British
529
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,880
establishment as a drug-crazed villain disobeying orders,
530
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,000
the ringleader of a mutiny.
531
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,280
As the resistance quickly spread across the country,
532
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,840
"Remember Mangal Pandey," became the Indian resistance cry.
533
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,840
And for the British, Pandey became a byword for mutineer.
534
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,320
The killing on both sides was ferocious.
535
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,640
For the British, the crisis point came in June 1857 when Indian rebels
536
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,920
at Cawnpore killed over 200 British women and children.
537
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,760
They then dumped their bodies in a well.
538
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:39,040
Once again the British began whipping up a frenzy for vengeance.
539
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:43,560
The scene at the Cawnpore slaughter was deliberately left untouched
540
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,680
to provoke the bloodlust of the relief forces.
541
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,800
For instance, we have this shoe that survives and it was found
542
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:54,840
near the well at Cawnpore.
543
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:59,480
So the story goes that this little shoe fell off the foot of a dead
544
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,640
little boy as his body was being thrown down the well for disposal.
545
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,960
- That's right.
- Do you see this as a sort of prop for telling
546
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,880
a particular story about what happened on that day then?
547
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,560
I'd certainly think so. I think if this was a soldier's boot
548
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,960
it wouldn't have had the same impact. It's a child's shoe.
549
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,280
It's a really powerful thing to see, isn't it?
550
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:23,480
It's emotive, it's telling you they're not just attacking our men,
551
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:25,320
they're attacking our women and our children.
552
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,800
It goes further with another object that is linked to the same incident.
553
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,360
A lock of hair that is in our collection.
554
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:36,200
Have a quick read of the caption.
555
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,640
The little note says, "Hair of the murdered women and children,
556
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:41,360
"over 200 of them."
557
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,400
But another account tells us of the Highlanders that arrived at the well
558
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:50,040
of Cawnpore and vowed to themselves that for every strand of hair
559
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,640
that we find, a mutineer shall die.
560
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,880
- Oh, my goodness.
- The message was revenge.
561
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,480
Justification for revenge.
562
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:02,080
The message was received loud and clear and the British retribution
563
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:06,800
was merciless. To show people at home that vengeance had been done,
564
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,640
it was then graphically recorded.
565
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,840
This watercolour is a depiction of mutineers being blown away.
566
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,760
They're tied to the mouths of cannons and then blown to pieces.
567
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,400
So the cannonball is about to come out through the middle of him?
568
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,720
Quite gruesome. You see typically reports saying the head goes up,
569
00:35:25,720 --> 00:35:28,000
the arms go to the side and the legs fall.
570
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,760
Why were they killed in such an inhumane manner?
571
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:36,200
It was something used by the Mughals in the 1600s which was really aimed
572
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:40,240
at punishing Hindu people so that they wouldn't have a body in their
573
00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:44,600
afterlife and therefore couldn't go through the reincarnation cycle
574
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:46,160
that they believed in.
575
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:50,080
So the scattering of the physical remains of the person,
576
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,440
this ensured a kind of double death in this life and for all
577
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,560
- future lives to come.
- Certainly so.
578
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,480
That's one of the reasons why this is probably painted and it was a way
579
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,040
of stamping authority and showing victory.
580
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:08,160
By the time the British finally crushed the rebellion in July 1859,
581
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,920
conservative estimates say that 11,000 British
582
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,440
and over 100,000 Indians had died.
583
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,120
The British were victorious but India was in turmoil.
584
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:22,240
Since the unrest had started,
585
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:25,720
the Government had begun to realise that India couldn't be held
586
00:36:25,720 --> 00:36:27,680
by brute force alone.
587
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,920
Britain needed to start winning over Indian hearts and minds.
588
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,480
The Government decided to begin a new chapter
589
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,800
for British rule in India.
590
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,440
In 1858, the East India Company were told...
591
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,760
MUSIC: Dance Of The Knights by Sergei Prokofiev
592
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,320
You're fired.
593
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,080
Now when the Government had intervened previously
594
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,320
in the business of the East India Company,
595
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,080
it had been with the aim of moderating its affairs,
596
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,840
sometimes there'd been a bit of a slap on the wrist but this time it
597
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:03,880
was different. This was a full-on, asset-stripping annihilation
598
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,560
of the East India Company.
599
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,960
It was immediately stripped of all power.
600
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,600
The company's top dog, the Governor-General,
601
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:15,760
was evicted from his palatial residence and sent home
602
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,720
to be replaced by a new Government representative, the Viceroy.
603
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:24,440
The new age of the Raj was dawning.
604
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:28,120
The Government now had to prove that the regime in India really had
605
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:34,000
changed and was already weaving an imperial narrative to do just that.
606
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,440
To avoid accusations of corruption or self-interest,
607
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,760
power wasn't transferred directly to Parliament.
608
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:47,560
Instead, it was vested in the person of Queen Victoria herself.
609
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,640
Victoria eagerly got in on the act.
610
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,920
She made a public proclamation to the world that the new regime
611
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,280
had swept away all the bad practices of the old East India Company.
612
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:06,600
"We will respect the rights, dignity and honour of the native princes.
613
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,440
"Everyone of any religious faith shall alike enjoy
614
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,280
"the equal and impartial protection of law.
615
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,240
"We will respect land inherited from ancestors.
616
00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:23,160
"Our earnest desire is to stimulate the peaceful industry of India,
617
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:25,840
"to promote public works and improvements.
618
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,800
"Their prosperity will be our strength."
619
00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:35,000
Victoria's proclamation was a masterstroke.
620
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,400
It transformed a government coup into a moral mission
621
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:40,480
to improve the lives of all Indians.
622
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,440
The new declaration distanced the British establishment from any
623
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:53,400
involvement in the East India Company's atrocities.
624
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:58,320
Britain's image as a plundering nation was now being repackaged
625
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,280
for both Indian audiences and those back home.
626
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:04,800
In this 18th-century image,
627
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,520
Britannia is taking things from the Empire.
628
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,760
She's saying, "Mmm, jewels. I want them."
629
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:14,680
And even her lion is looking greedily at the ropes of pearls.
630
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:16,640
But in the 19th-century image,
631
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,880
the relationship is the other way around.
632
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,040
In this picture, Victoria is giving something
633
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,760
to her grateful imperial subject.
634
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:29,040
Look, this lucky fellow is about to get a present and this,
635
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,120
as the title of the painting puts it,
636
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:35,000
is the secret of England's greatness.
637
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,480
Britain's new imperial mission statement was clear.
638
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,640
The Empire would take responsibility for the welfare
639
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,880
of its Indian subjects. They would no longer be subjugated
640
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,320
and exploited, but respected and rewarded.
641
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:50,840
That would smooth things over.
642
00:39:52,240 --> 00:39:56,280
In 1861, a new knightly order was created -
643
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,520
the Order of the Star of India.
644
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,760
When the Indian princes were made Knights Commander of this order,
645
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:04,520
they were supposed to feel like
646
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:06,960
they'd joined the British establishment -
647
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,280
a bit like school prefects getting given a badge.
648
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:14,600
But they were also given at this point a medal showing the head
649
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,680
of Queen Victoria. Now, hang on.
650
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:21,000
Human representations can be offensive to Muslims,
651
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:22,920
as many of the princes were.
652
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:26,640
Once again, the British were merrily misunderstanding
653
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:28,800
their Indian subjects.
654
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,200
In reality, the replacement of East India Company rule
655
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:35,920
with a British Raj offered only a veneer of change.
656
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,880
Beneath the surface, the British Government
657
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:41,760
was continuing to exploit India's riches.
658
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,760
But this message, that the Empire was now all about civilisation,
659
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:47,120
was very powerful.
660
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:54,160
And in 1868, this imperial manifesto gained another powerful champion -
661
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,360
the new Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.
662
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,920
He coined the phrase, "The jewel in the crown,"
663
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,880
to emphasise his view of India's importance for the Empire.
664
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,520
Disraeli was highly ambitious.
665
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:13,000
Partly for himself, yes, but also for Britain and for the Empire.
666
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,160
He thought that Britain shouldn't just maintain its Empire,
667
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:17,800
it should expand.
668
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,080
And that for this purpose, a figurehead like an empress
669
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:23,000
would be awfully useful.
670
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:28,320
In 1876, Disraeli engineered the Royal Titles Act,
671
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,400
giving his imperial jewel some extra sparkle.
672
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,240
Queen Victoria would become the Empress of India.
673
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,120
This was a very clever move on Disraeli's part.
674
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:47,480
Ever since Albert had died in 1861, Victoria had been in mourning.
675
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:51,440
She had rather withdrawn from the world and her people thought
676
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,200
that she had forgotten about them,
677
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,680
almost that she had been shirking her responsibilities.
678
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,760
But now she was back in the limelight.
679
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:06,440
The imperial narrative now had a powerful yet maternal leading lady.
680
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,280
Disraeli enjoyed his own promotion too,
681
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:13,080
as the delighted Victoria made him an earl.
682
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:17,320
But Victoria's elevation didn't have unanimous approval.
683
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:22,200
Many thought the title of empress stank of autocratic rule.
684
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,240
It was against the principles of constitutional monarchy.
685
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,600
And besides, what would the Indian population think?
686
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:36,360
Disraeli and his supporters needed to spin a story to prove that
687
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:40,400
Victoria's promotion was best for Britain, best for India,
688
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:42,920
best for the Empire.
689
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,560
What was needed was a party, and that's exactly what they got.
690
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:53,440
Lord Lytton, who was Queen Victoria's newly-promoted
691
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,200
representative in India, expressed the opinion that Indians
692
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,680
would go mad for a bit of bunting.
693
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,200
There were immense cultural differences,
694
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:09,560
but both Indians and the British revelled in pageantry and spectacle.
695
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:14,200
Celebrations were to be held across India and there would be one
696
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:16,840
show-stopping event.
697
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:21,120
It was decided that the celebrations weren't to be in Calcutta, but here,
698
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,840
in Delhi. Because this wasn't just a party,
699
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,520
this was a cleverly crafted statement of propaganda.
700
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,120
The choice of Delhi was highly symbolic.
701
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,000
For centuries, Delhi had been the capital of the great ruling
702
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:39,360
Indian dynasty, the Mughals.
703
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,960
It was still full of magnificent buildings signifying their power.
704
00:43:46,720 --> 00:43:50,760
By situating themselves amidst all this grandeur,
705
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:54,360
the British were claiming that they were the natural successors
706
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:55,720
to a mighty empire.
707
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,840
Delhi had also played a central role in the so-called mutiny.
708
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:09,280
The rebels had made their stand alongside the last Mughal emperor,
709
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,480
here in his Red Fort.
710
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:18,800
By holding the celebrations in Delhi,
711
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:23,400
the British were reminding the Indians of their dominance.
712
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,520
The British couldn't deny that they were foreign interlopers,
713
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:29,360
but they now hammered home the message that they were a benign
714
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,800
force for good.
715
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,880
To appeal to the Indians, the entire event took the form of a durbar,
716
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:40,840
a tradition where Mughal emperors held court with their subjects.
717
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:45,440
These formal ceremonies were accompanied by lavish festivities
718
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:47,800
with vibrant musical processions
719
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:52,440
leading to the final audience with the emperor at his fort.
720
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:57,560
In 1877, the British created their own durbar spectacular
721
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:02,800
with an extraordinary mishmash of Indian and British pageantry.
722
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,760
When the durbar of 1877 happens,
723
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,240
the idea of a durbar is retained but it is given a spin.
724
00:45:10,240 --> 00:45:14,840
I'm saying that the durbar of 1877 reminds me a little
725
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:18,680
of the chicken tikka masala, which incidentally I ate
726
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,160
- for the first time when I went to England.
- Really?
727
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,680
It is not something that featured in Indian menus
728
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:29,040
until quite recently. So the idea of chicken tikka masala is an invention
729
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:33,440
based on three staples taken from an Indian diet
730
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:38,280
but turned and transformed into a completely unrecognisable dish.
731
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,440
How did the British go about reinventing this tradition?
732
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:46,520
For example, the shehnai players that would have traditionally
733
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,080
accompanied a royal procession in Mughal India were replaced
734
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,000
by a fanfare of Wagner
735
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:57,240
and I would imagine that the 88,000 people who had gathered to watch
736
00:45:57,240 --> 00:46:01,400
the spectacle and the 63 maharajas who had come from different parts
737
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,560
of the country to be a part of the durbar
738
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:05,720
had possibly never heard Wagner play.
739
00:46:05,720 --> 00:46:07,800
Lots of things were invented.
740
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,560
For example, look at these.
741
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:13,600
Many of the rulers did not really have their own heraldry,
742
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,040
their own insignia.
743
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,520
This is completely a figment of somebody's imagination.
744
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:23,880
So this is a brand-new coat of arms, invented for the ruler of Hyderabad?
745
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,240
- Completely.
- He's lucky, he's got a lovely little tiger.
746
00:46:27,240 --> 00:46:30,760
He does indeed. These seem to me very Anglo-Saxon images.
747
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,080
Because the tradition of heraldry, that is a western European thing.
748
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:35,640
What have the other ones got, then?
749
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,240
This is Jodhpur.
750
00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:40,640
He has been given some pigeons.
751
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:42,320
These are falcons.
752
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:44,360
Falcons, yes.
753
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,040
And what looks like a tiger but I am not sure what that is.
754
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,040
This is again an invented tradition.
755
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,680
These are things that were invented for the occasion.
756
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,880
In 1877, with Wagner trumpeting out over the spectacle,
757
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:03,080
the durbar was a resounding success story.
758
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:07,920
It was spun so cleverly that few commented on its vast costs
759
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,680
at a time when famine was ravaging India.
760
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,160
The money could have been spent on saving the five and a half million
761
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,480
Indians who died from starvation.
762
00:47:19,720 --> 00:47:23,760
But, no, this was the climax to the positive story that the Raj
763
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,840
was a wonderful new age of Empire.
764
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,080
At the finale, a proclamation was read out.
765
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,040
It was from the Queen.
766
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:38,760
"We trust," it began...
767
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,520
She is using the royal we.
768
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,040
"..that the present occasion may tend to unite in bonds
769
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:48,040
"of close affection, ourselves and our subjects.
770
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:49,920
"That from the highest to the humblest,
771
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:54,600
"all may feel that under our rule the great principles of liberty,
772
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:58,480
"equity and justice are secured to them.
773
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,760
"This is the object of our Empire."
774
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:10,640
Every action was now heralded as part of the civilising narrative.
775
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:13,960
Train stations and railways would modernise this ancient,
776
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,240
disconnected territory as never before.
777
00:48:17,240 --> 00:48:22,160
And new educational institutions would offer every Indian subject
778
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,760
the chance to improve his or her lot.
779
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:36,160
Educating the natives was a key part of the mission of Empire,
780
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,040
at least according to Thomas Babington Macaulay,
781
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:41,400
politician and historian.
782
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:46,400
Macaulay thought Indian schoolboys ought to study British history
783
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:50,920
because that would show them how a society could and should develop.
784
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:55,280
Britain showcased the triumphant march of progress.
785
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:01,680
Macaulay first expressed his educational policies in the 1830s.
786
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,320
He thought that with a good dose of education,
787
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,760
Indians could not only better themselves,
788
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:08,880
but help the British run the country.
789
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:14,320
Of course, they'd have to get the right sort of education -
790
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,400
not Indian, but British.
791
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:23,840
Macaulay thought that there was less valuable historical information
792
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,840
to be collected from all the books ever written in Sanskrit
793
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:32,080
than you would find in an English prep school textbook.
794
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:36,240
Macaulay believed that a native could only be called learned
795
00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:40,240
or honourable if he had learnt his Milton, his Locke,
796
00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:41,960
and his Isaac Newton.
797
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:46,800
Giving Indians British educational opportunities became
798
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,840
a key enterprise under crown rule.
799
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,720
It was central to the repackaging of the Empire.
800
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:55,480
But for the people of India,
801
00:49:55,480 --> 00:50:00,400
the new educational policy exposed the civilising claims of the British
802
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:01,720
to be something of a sham.
803
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:06,200
The Indians, the educated Indians,
804
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:12,120
they had started realising that they had been sort of tricked
805
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:17,680
by the British imperialists because while the Queen,
806
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:21,200
the proclamation of the Queen, had spoken of equality,
807
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,960
there remained a lot of discrimination between the British
808
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:29,320
and the Indians, insofar as jobs were concerned.
809
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,440
What sort of jobs where these educated Indians hoping to get?
810
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:36,760
They wanted to hold important posts in the civil services.
811
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,040
Moreover, they wanted to hold important positions
812
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:42,520
in the realm of law.
813
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:44,680
But here there was a bar.
814
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:50,600
Indian judges, they were never allowed to try a European offender.
815
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:55,600
The European offender was exclusively tried by a British judge
816
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:57,120
or a European judge.
817
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:00,720
So we have the rhetoric of Empire - very clear.
818
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:02,560
But the reality is quite different.
819
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:04,000
It was definitely different.
820
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:08,680
There was a glass ceiling and beyond that limit the Indians
821
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,520
could not cross over.
822
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,800
In 1883, there was a move to smooth over the cracks.
823
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:18,280
CP Ilbert, a member of the Calcutta Law Council,
824
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:22,560
put forward a motion to give Indian judges the right to try
825
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:27,400
British individuals. But that didn't go down very well either.
826
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:32,600
It disturbed the Anglo-Indian community because they shuddered
827
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:37,880
at the very thought of their trial under an Indian, a brown judge.
828
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:43,520
So there was a white mutiny against the Ilbert bill
829
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,960
and ultimately the bill was defeated.
830
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,280
Would you say that the Ilbert bill then was the last straw
831
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,000
for educated Indians? They got fed up with the Empire.
832
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:55,360
Yes. That was the last straw on the camel's back.
833
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,480
For many newly educated Indians,
834
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:02,480
the rejection of the Ilbert bill was evidence that Victoria's
835
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,240
proclamation was little more than a pack of lies.
836
00:52:06,240 --> 00:52:10,040
The imperial mission was having a rough ride in India.
837
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,440
But one person remained true to the new story
838
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:15,440
of a benign British Empire.
839
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,600
Yes, the Empress of India was very partial to a chicken tikka.
840
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,160
Victoria may never have visited the jewel in her crown,
841
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:43,200
but she did create a tiny slice of India on the Isle of Wight.
842
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:45,960
At her holiday home at Osborne House,
843
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,840
she created a special Indian room, the Durbar Room.
844
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,560
It was put together by Indian craftsmen under the supervision
845
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,600
of Rudyard Kipling's grandfather.
846
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,880
Victoria couldn't go to her durbar, but with her new room,
847
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,320
the durbar had come to her.
848
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,920
And she was far better informed about India than most
849
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:07,400
of her British subjects.
850
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:10,440
In the late 19th-century,
851
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:14,440
most Britons had never met anybody from the subcontinent.
852
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:18,040
But a growing number of Indians were now making Britain their home.
853
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:20,360
In 1889,
854
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:24,480
Britain's first purpose-built mosque was constructed to cater for this
855
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,560
growing Indian population in Woking.
856
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:32,720
And it is here that I am meeting Shrabani Basu, who has researched
857
00:53:32,720 --> 00:53:37,120
the life of a man who fired up Victoria's passion for India -
858
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:38,560
Abdul Karim.
859
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:44,080
Here we have got Abdul Karim looking terribly grand.
860
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:46,440
What are all these medals that he is wearing here?
861
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,840
Well, she gave him land and titles. He had every title.
862
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,120
Just stopped short of a knighthood, actually.
863
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:55,480
He is quite the aristocrat in his sort of study.
864
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:59,040
At ease, looking extremely distinguished, if I might say.
865
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,200
And there is a photo of Queen Victoria there.
866
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:03,600
And a photo of the Queen on the table there.
867
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:07,760
Is he just a sort of token gesture to bolster the idea that she is this
868
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,240
benign Empress of India?
869
00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:11,880
It started like that.
870
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,880
He was sent to her as a jubilee present, as a servant,
871
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:19,200
to stand behind her at table, just look grand and wait on her.
872
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:21,120
But this relationship developed.
873
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:25,600
Within a year, he has become her private teacher, her munshi.
874
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:29,720
For 13 years, he taught her Urdu, and by the end of her life,
875
00:54:29,720 --> 00:54:31,600
she could read and write Urdu.
876
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:32,800
She loved showing off.
877
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:37,200
She would invite royalty from India and say a few lines in Urdu.
878
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:39,560
Is this her own private journal?
879
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,200
This is actually her last entry in her journal.
880
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,640
It is quite moving because it is written two months before her death.
881
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:49,160
November 7th, 1900, Windsor Castle.
882
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:51,120
And she writes about the weather,
883
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:52,840
that she has just got back from Balmoral.
884
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,720
They weren't exactly talking about high politics.
885
00:54:55,720 --> 00:54:57,720
Sounds more domestic.
886
00:54:57,720 --> 00:54:59,960
It is. The journals show a domestic side,
887
00:54:59,960 --> 00:55:04,120
but we know that she took a keen interest in Indian politics
888
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:06,920
and this is coming from Abdul because of the letters she writes
889
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,720
to the Viceroy in which she asks detailed questions about riots,
890
00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:15,120
tension between Hindus and Muslims, and she even offers some solutions.
891
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:18,760
She says, "The Hindus have so many festivals. Why can't they just
892
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:22,200
"postpone one of their festivals so they don't clash during Muharram?"
893
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:25,160
And the poor Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, he writes back,
894
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,840
"Postponing a Hindu festival would be like changing
895
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,120
"the day for Christmas."
896
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,680
So she is a little bit naive, but she is trying very hard.
897
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:37,360
Victoria was taking her symbolic empress role rather too literally.
898
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:40,440
And the British establishment were not amused.
899
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:46,000
The doctor, he actually writes that this is all munshi-mania
900
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,040
and it reaches the stage where they actually want to label
901
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:53,640
the Queen insane and they say, "If you do not stop now
902
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:57,120
"because of the munshi, we will say you are insane."
903
00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:00,400
And she gives them an earful.
904
00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:04,600
Victoria's munshi-mania reached its peak in 1897,
905
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,000
the year of her Diamond Jubilee.
906
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:11,600
On the day of the celebrations, Abdul Karim was her honoured guest.
907
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:16,240
For his dismayed detractors, this was the year of the munshi.
908
00:56:16,240 --> 00:56:19,320
But things would very shortly change.
909
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:26,480
In 1901, Victoria, Empress of India, died, after 63 years on the throne
910
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:28,400
at the age of 81.
911
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:30,680
While the nation mourned her passing,
912
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,800
in recognition that she had nurtured the Empire towards unprecedented
913
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,160
greatness, her beloved Abdul Karim was finally put in his place
914
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:40,760
by the establishment -
915
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:44,640
sent back to India, stripped of his honours and gifts.
916
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:52,280
As Britain entered the 20th century, the Empire was strong.
917
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:55,600
But the imperial narrative was wearing thin.
918
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,680
Indian resistance to British power was growing,
919
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:01,080
and even some Britons began to question
920
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:02,800
the recent history of the Raj.
921
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:08,000
One historian, who'd formerly been an ardent imperialist,
922
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:09,320
had this to say.
923
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:14,600
He said that the Empire treated its subject races with a curious mixture
924
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:16,600
of good and evil.
925
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:23,880
The stories of the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Indian mutiny
926
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:25,880
were being rewritten.
927
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,480
The villains of the Raj were turning into heroes
928
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,800
of a growing nationalist movement.
929
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,560
When the British gave up control of the Indian subcontinent
930
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:41,880
on August 15th, 1947, Britain lost 80% of its subjects -
931
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,960
nearly 390 million people.
932
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:48,600
It's jewel in the crown had gone forever,
933
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,560
and as the new Indian flag was raised at the Red Fort in Delhi,
934
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:56,280
India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru,
935
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:58,880
spoke of India's tryst with destiny.
936
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:02,960
"History begins anew for us.
937
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:07,760
"The history which we shall live and act and others will write about."
938
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:14,120
A richly embroidered chapter in British history was at an end.
939
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:18,160
In this series,
940
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:22,120
I've tried to tell you how stories from history change according
941
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:23,720
to who is telling them.
942
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:27,200
But don't think that I've given you the definitive version,
943
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:31,040
because I promise you that in years to come, a different historian
944
00:58:31,040 --> 00:59:06,000
will be telling you a different tale.
114016
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