0:00:10 > 0:00:16There are times in the life of a civilisation when history seems to burst with possibilities.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21That's India in the 21st century.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25This is the tale of the British occupation of India, the winning of freedom,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28and the establishment of democracy.
0:00:28 > 0:00:34And with them all the possibilities of a hitherto undreamed of future.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39What do you want to be when you grow up and leave the school?
0:00:39 > 0:00:42When I grow up I want to be a commercial pilot.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46- A commercial pilot!- Doctor.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48- A doctor. - I want to be a captain in the Navy.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51- A captain in the Navy. - Archaeologist.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54An archaeologist!
0:00:54 > 0:00:55I want to be a movie director.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57A movie director! Fantastic.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02The next chapter in the Story Of India.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33The coast of South India.
0:01:33 > 0:01:40In the 18th century, the British thought this the richest place in the world.
0:01:40 > 0:01:47And here a chain of events began that would lead to a small island 5,000 miles away coming to rule
0:01:47 > 0:01:53a vast empire in India and in the process, giving birth to the modern world.
0:02:00 > 0:02:05The tale of India's last invader, the British, is a chain of accidents.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07As so often in history, events that need never
0:02:07 > 0:02:17have happened in the way they did, except perhaps for some destiny written deep in India's own past.
0:02:18 > 0:02:25Here in Tanjore in the late 18th century, the armies of the British East India Company imposed their
0:02:25 > 0:02:29rule on a civilisation that had come down from ancient times,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32still with its own distinctive vision of the world.
0:02:42 > 0:02:48At that time, while the Moguls still ruled in the north, South India was divided between
0:02:48 > 0:02:53many princely states, but history was on the move.
0:03:06 > 0:03:13The 18th century Rajas of Tanjore, men like Sarfoji, were importing European knowledge, and in their
0:03:13 > 0:03:19library here along with 50,000 Indian manuscripts are books in English, French, Italian and Latin.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23They are both on palm leaf and paper. There are 25,000 in paper...
0:03:23 > 0:03:28Even without the British, India would have still taken the path to modernity.
0:03:28 > 0:03:37Wow, isn't that fantastic? So he was interested in combining Indian and European? That's fascinating.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Samuel Johnson's dictionary.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Samuel Johnson's dictionary.
0:03:42 > 0:03:43Fantastic.
0:03:43 > 0:03:50The first great dictionary of the English language, and here it is in the court of 18th century Tanjore.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55The very moment of the British taking over
0:03:55 > 0:03:58in India this kind of, almost like a renaissance culture is taking place.
0:03:58 > 0:04:04This library, when you think about it, is as old as the Bodleian library in Oxford, older by far than
0:04:04 > 0:04:08any library in the United States, and maybe that's the hallmark
0:04:08 > 0:04:14of all great civilisations, that they have the ability to conserve their own genius, but
0:04:14 > 0:04:18to bring in the discoveries of other civilisations and incorporate them.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23And India has always had the ability to do that, just as it does today.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28So these are medical textbooks from Europe?
0:04:28 > 0:04:35365 medical books collected from London, printed in London and Edinburgh.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39The present Raja told me more about his ancestor, Sarfoji.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43He had a very deep interest in medicine also.
0:04:43 > 0:04:50You can see, even it's fascinating to know that he has imported a human skeleton from London.
0:04:50 > 0:04:56He wants his doctors to be taught about the anatomy.
0:04:56 > 0:05:02He was beyond times. He knew what's going around the world.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05He was a polyglot and polymath.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08He spoke English, I gather?
0:05:08 > 0:05:11He spoke several languages.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15So all this time Tanjore was under the rule of the British, is that correct?
0:05:15 > 0:05:23Yeah. Actually, what happened, he had to, he was forced to undergo a treaty with the British, and from
0:05:23 > 0:05:301798 onwards, so he was relieved of his powers from maintaining his territory.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35These events were all part of the global confrontation
0:05:35 > 0:05:39between the British and the French in the 18th century.
0:05:39 > 0:05:45With Mogul power shrinking in North India, the south became the theatre of war for Europeans.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49The same year General Wolfe lay dying in Quebec, the British and the French were
0:05:49 > 0:05:56fighting along Coromandel coast, and the Tamils found themselves in the line of fire.
0:05:59 > 0:06:04The key to the nascent British Empire was the new fort of Madras.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25This was the beginning of the Empire because this is here where they first decided that they'll have
0:06:25 > 0:06:30a fort of their own - a place, a trading station of their own.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33When the British first came and landed only at Surat, and when they were not able
0:06:33 > 0:06:38to compete either with the Dutch or the Portuguese on the Western coast, they shifted towards the east.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41They came to Pulicat, from Pulicat they shifted to Armagon,
0:06:41 > 0:06:45from Armagon they came to Madras. And this is where they found what they wanted.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50Right. So what were they trading first of all here in South India?
0:06:50 > 0:06:52They were trading here only muslin cloth.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Muslin cloth. At that time this was a peaceful exchange?
0:06:55 > 0:07:02Yeah, that time it was peaceful. By about 1650, 1660, the Dutch, the Danish, the Portuguese,
0:07:02 > 0:07:06all of them you know, sort of become subservient to the powers of the British and the French.
0:07:06 > 0:07:12Now these are European powers competing for empire internationally,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15but here in South India this becomes a focus for their rivalries.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18Every time there is some sort of a difference of opinion or altercation
0:07:18 > 0:07:23in Europe between the French and the English, that,
0:07:23 > 0:07:29what shall we say, that is very clearly reflected in South India also.
0:07:31 > 0:07:37It was a time of war as European armies trekked back and forth across South India.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42In the towns of the old Cholan heartland, the dead lay unburied in the streets.
0:07:47 > 0:07:53The great Tamil temple enclosures were turned into forts and prison camps
0:07:53 > 0:07:57as columns of famine-stricken refugees fled the fighting.
0:08:07 > 0:08:13When you read British accounts of these wars in the late 18th century, you get, actually,
0:08:13 > 0:08:21a very horrifying impression of armies of British and French criss-crossing the Tamil land.
0:08:21 > 0:08:28Terrible massacres are taking place of the kind that we see today in, you know, Darfur or Iraq almost.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31I mean, thousands of Tamils were killed.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34- It must have been a terrible time in the south.- It must have been.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39The first form of uprising starts only in this part of the country.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42- The first uprising against the British.- Against the British.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Of course, it's all local.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47It is not, you know, it's nothing organised.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51I wouldn't call it a fight for freedom but I am just, they are
0:08:51 > 0:08:57rebelling against certain norms which have been forced upon them.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01The British victory in South India came in 1799 at the Battle
0:09:01 > 0:09:07of Seringapatam where an East India Company army overwhelmed the Muslim Sultan of Mysore.
0:09:12 > 0:09:19And back in London in the British Library, the archive of the East India Company reveals the secret
0:09:19 > 0:09:24story in the letters of the British commander Richard Wellesley, the Governor General of India.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Here even written in cipher.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Here's the crucial part.
0:09:46 > 0:09:52"Seringapatam, I shall retain in full sovereignty for the company,
0:09:52 > 0:10:01"being a tower of strength from which we may at any time strike Hindustan to its centre."
0:10:01 > 0:10:06And he adds, "I shall not at present enlarge upon the advantages which are likely to be derived
0:10:06 > 0:10:14"to the British interests from this, for they are too obvious to require any detailed explanation."
0:10:14 > 0:10:20But for the company, the war was not just about power but profit.
0:10:21 > 0:10:28And also in the archive here, the profit and loss - the balance sheets of the East India Company.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30This was what it was all about.
0:10:30 > 0:10:35The crucial turning point in the finances of the company,
0:10:35 > 0:10:411799 after the great battles in South India at Seringapatam.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45Company revenues - £8.5 million.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51Four years later, 1803 - £13.5 million.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56That's getting on for three quarters of a billion pounds in modern spending money.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01Previous invaders of India had come by land through the Khyber Pass,
0:11:01 > 0:11:06but the British came by sea, establishing bases around the coast.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10And in Bengal, the British had extorted the right to raise
0:11:10 > 0:11:19taxes from the enfeebled Moguls, and here in Calcutta they began to develop a classic colonial economy.
0:11:19 > 0:11:24Sailing into Calcutta in the 18th century you were entering the hub
0:11:24 > 0:11:29of an operation which spread its power and influence across half the world.
0:11:29 > 0:11:34Opium being processed here in warehouses to be sailed off to China,
0:11:34 > 0:11:41textiles being processed to go into Northern India and across to Europe.
0:11:41 > 0:11:49A network that controlled hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, weavers, dyers and washers.
0:11:49 > 0:11:57The forerunner of those modern, multinationals who, backed by state power, make their billions
0:11:57 > 0:12:01and wield power of life and death over great swathes of the world.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09In later times, the British liked to say disingenuously
0:12:09 > 0:12:15that they gained their empire in a fit of absent-mindedness.
0:12:15 > 0:12:23But there was nothing absent-minded about the ruthless way they pursued the imperative of profit.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27And in the late 18th century, driven by the Industrial Revolution
0:12:27 > 0:12:32back in Britain, Bengal became a mainstay of British imperialism.
0:12:40 > 0:12:46The magnificent 18th century cemetery in Calcutta tells another side of the story.
0:12:46 > 0:12:52Many of the British here, some of them all too short-lived, fell in love with India.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55A third of all British men who came to work for the company
0:12:55 > 0:13:01married Indian women and left money and property to their beloved bibis.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06Why are you going to the trouble of conserving something from the British past?
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Because it is our moral duty, not only for just to revive
0:13:10 > 0:13:17its own glory but to provide, so that people can come here and have a look and enjoy.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22How can you ignore it?
0:13:22 > 0:13:24- It's a part of history. - Relevant to India today?
0:13:24 > 0:13:26Yeah, relevant to India, you can see.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32The British also gave us a complete map of India.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34The British gave you a complete map of India?
0:13:34 > 0:13:36A complete map of India.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40What happened, actually, India was divided into several
0:13:40 > 0:13:44small countries, different like that. They are all united.
0:13:44 > 0:13:49So do you think that without the British, India may never have been united as India?
0:13:49 > 0:13:53Yeah, that is true 100%, I fully agree with you.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56You're making me feel better about being an imperialist!
0:13:56 > 0:13:58It's absolutely correct.
0:14:00 > 0:14:06And that map was not only physical but mental - an idea of India.
0:14:06 > 0:14:11For it was the British who began the recovery of the ancient Indian past.
0:14:13 > 0:14:18Orientalists like James Prinsep and William Jones learned India's languages.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22"I love India more than my own country," said Warren Hastings.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26They founded the Asiatic Society here, conscious that
0:14:26 > 0:14:30India was a far older and richer civilisation than their own.
0:14:30 > 0:14:36And as one of them said, "Wealth is not the only or the most valuable commodity
0:14:36 > 0:14:39"India has to offer Britain and the world."
0:14:42 > 0:14:45The earliest orientalists who came to India,
0:14:45 > 0:14:50they wanted to know what was happening in these new places.
0:14:50 > 0:14:57William Jones, Hestrie Colebrook and a whole host of others, they took India seriously.
0:14:57 > 0:15:03So they went, sat with the Brahmin pundits and tried to understand Sanskritic texts and so on.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09People have, you know, nostalgically looking back
0:15:09 > 0:15:11to a world which they have lost.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17- To look for the lost world in the east.- And they found it in India?
0:15:17 > 0:15:19They found it in India.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25Some East India Company officers were accused of thinking more
0:15:25 > 0:15:30of Hinduism than Christianity and more of the Koran than the Bible.
0:15:30 > 0:15:37There's even a tomb in Park Street Cemetery covered with Hindu deities.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41The tomb of one of the most interesting characters from British India -
0:15:41 > 0:15:43Major General Charles Stuart.
0:15:43 > 0:15:48His love of things Indian earned him the nickname Hindoo Stuart.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50He was here for 50 years.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52Used to go down to the Ganges to bathe every day,
0:15:52 > 0:15:58wore Indian clothes off duty, and even worshipped Hindu gods.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04Perhaps his most characteristic attempt at cross-cultural dialogue
0:16:04 > 0:16:11was to try to persuade the British ladies of Calcutta, the memsahibs, to throw off their whalebone corsets
0:16:11 > 0:16:13and their iron dress hoops and wear the sari.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20"The sari," wrote Stuart, "is the most alluring dress in the world
0:16:20 > 0:16:23"and the women of Hindustan enchanting in their beauty."
0:16:27 > 0:16:33In his book, The Vindication Of The Hindoos, Stuart spoke of the greatness of Indian civilisation
0:16:33 > 0:16:36and the need for the British to understand it.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41"Hinduism," said Stuart, "little needs the ameliorating hand of Christianity
0:16:41 > 0:16:48"to render its votaries a correct and moral people in a civilised society.
0:16:48 > 0:16:53"On the contrary," he said, "the glorious scriptures of the Hindus
0:16:53 > 0:16:59"were written when our own ancestors were savages in the forests."
0:17:00 > 0:17:06The British were particularly attracted to the mixed Hindu-Muslim culture in the Ganges plain,
0:17:06 > 0:17:13a legacy of the days of the great the Moguls like Akbar, who had tried to bring the communities together.
0:17:15 > 0:17:22Ah, wow. So what are these documents?
0:17:25 > 0:17:27This is for harimangari?
0:17:27 > 0:17:31And this is the seal of the nawab?
0:17:31 > 0:17:36These are the documents for Muslim Nawabs of Ayodhya,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40giving their resources to build a Hindu temple.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48In the Middle Ages, relations between Hindus and Muslims had often been marred by the intolerant
0:17:48 > 0:17:54attitudes of some Muslim rulers, but accommodation under the later Moguls gave birth to the most
0:17:54 > 0:18:01seductive and charismatic of all Indian civilisations in Lucknow under the Muslim Nawabs.
0:18:07 > 0:18:13And that time is still fondly remembered in the old aristocratic houses.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15Ah, so family portraits.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19This is magnificent. Who is this here?
0:18:19 > 0:18:22This is my great grandfather,
0:18:22 > 0:18:27- Amiltolla Raja, Sir.- Raja, but Sir.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30So he was knighted by...?
0:18:30 > 0:18:32- By Queen Victoria. - By Queen Victoria!
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Fantastic.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37This is me.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39With a beautiful ceremonial crown.
0:18:39 > 0:18:41Rubies, emeralds, diamonds.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53People talk about the culture of Lucknow in the...
0:18:53 > 0:19:00especially the 18th century period, don't they, as an extraordinary period in Indian history.
0:19:00 > 0:19:01Why is that?
0:19:05 > 0:19:08What does that mean?
0:19:12 > 0:19:17Right. So at that time the two cultures here intermingled?
0:19:17 > 0:19:19Intermingled.
0:19:25 > 0:19:33That high culture of Urdu literature and poetry has left its legacy across North India and Pakistan.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36And in the food too, which has spread across the whole world.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40The fast results in more eating, that's great.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43Verdict on the biryani then, everybody?
0:19:43 > 0:19:45- We won.- We won.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02But everything would be changed by the great rebellion of 1857.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05The signs had been there the previous 30 years.
0:20:05 > 0:20:13The British more intolerant under the growing influence of evangelical Christian missionaries.
0:20:13 > 0:20:20A decree replacing Persian with English as the language of administration and education.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27The mutiny began over the use of cow and pig fat to grease cartridges,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29deeply offensive to both Hindu and Muslim.
0:20:29 > 0:20:35It was a stupid mistake born of disrespect towards the native culture but it provoked a terrifying
0:20:35 > 0:20:40uprising by the sepoys, the native troops employed by the British.
0:21:05 > 0:21:13This was the mosque from where, in the leadership of Molanah Fasli Herabadi,
0:21:13 > 0:21:18around 350 Alims, Islamic scholars,
0:21:18 > 0:21:25gave the fatwa of jihad against the British rulers in India.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29- Hindu and Muslim joined together.- Together.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35All communities came together and I think it was the golden period of India.
0:21:35 > 0:21:43All the communities, without any differences, they were Indians at that time.
0:21:43 > 0:21:49They were following their religions but they were fighting for one cause - to get the freedom of India.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00Through the sweltering summer of 1857, the edifice of British power
0:22:00 > 0:22:04tottered in what the British called the Indian Mutiny.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07It was the greatest war of resistance ever fought against
0:22:07 > 0:22:11a colonial power in the whole age of European imperialism.
0:22:13 > 0:22:19And new discoveries in the archives in Delhi reveal the story from the rebels' side
0:22:19 > 0:22:23and their anger at the attitude of the new breed of British officials.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27They are denigrating traditional forms of performance,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30denigrating traditional texts,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32denigrating traditional poetry.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35So there is a hectoring, interrogating machine that has been
0:22:35 > 0:22:40set in motion 20, 25 years before the uprising happens.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Otherwise we just can't make sense of the rage that bursts forth.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48And what's interesting about 1857 is that, certainly in Delhi in the documents we've documents studying
0:22:48 > 0:22:54here over the last three years, is that the expression of resistance in Delhi is done in religious terms.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57The British are the people who destroy all religions.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06What has happened...?
0:23:06 > 0:23:11Rebel leaders like the Rani of Jhansi who died fighting became national heroes.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14To get at them I have to blow up the temple!
0:23:14 > 0:23:15Then blow them up!
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Our country above our religion!
0:23:25 > 0:23:29There is a violence that bursts forth, you know,
0:23:29 > 0:23:33- in a turbulent wave, which totally takes the English by surprise. - No prisoners are taken.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37They are completely shocked by the kind of violence that is manifested by the sepoys.
0:23:37 > 0:23:43And the British respond in kind, and worse, and they level whole cities.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46Delhi, which is a city of 100,000 people and which contains
0:23:46 > 0:23:54around 250,000 people at the time the British attack it, refugees and the sepoys and so on, is left
0:23:54 > 0:23:57a completely empty ruin.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01There is not a single human being left in the city by the time the British are finished with it.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10For the British, the most evocative place in the story was Lucknow,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13scene of the heroic defence of their residency.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17After the victory, journalists picked their way over the ruins
0:24:17 > 0:24:22using the new art of photography to record the destruction.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27Though some shots of the damage and cruelty inflicted by the British
0:24:27 > 0:24:31in their frenzy of revenge were not published at the time.
0:24:31 > 0:24:37In the immediate aftermath of the great rebellion of 1857-8,
0:24:37 > 0:24:44a European photographer, Felix Beato, took an amazing top shot of the whole city.
0:24:44 > 0:24:51It's just laid out here before us, the great Imambara with the minarets,
0:24:51 > 0:24:57in the middle of the panorama you can see the mosque of Aurangzeb by the river there,
0:24:57 > 0:24:59painted white now.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02A British cavalry regiment
0:25:02 > 0:25:07camped just down there in the courtyard with their tents,
0:25:07 > 0:25:14their horses grazing and in fact you can just see their washing by the side of the road on a washing line.
0:25:14 > 0:25:15Those look like long johns to me.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26"We have power of life and death in our hands," wrote one British officer,
0:25:26 > 0:25:28"and I assure you we spare not."
0:25:30 > 0:25:33Writing for the New York Daily Tribune, Karl Marx railed against
0:25:33 > 0:25:37the failure of the British press to cover British atrocities.
0:25:37 > 0:25:44"The cruelty of the sepoys," he said, "is only the reflex of England's own conduct in India.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48"The European troops have become fiends."
0:25:50 > 0:25:55In real history things do not have sharp endings. Normally, periods flood into each other.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57But 1857 is a very clear
0:25:57 > 0:25:59open and shut case.
0:25:59 > 0:26:041857, the East India Company ends, the Moguls end.
0:26:04 > 0:26:10The two principle forces that have guided Indian history for the past 300 years come to an abrupt end.
0:26:10 > 0:26:15And immediately you get the British Government imposing direct rule from London.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18Very soon after Disraeli asks Queen Victoria to be Empress of India.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46This is the grand trunk road coming northwards from Kanpur.
0:26:46 > 0:26:51We're looking for one of the most extraordinary stories in the aftermath of 1857.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58And the person who knows more about it than anyone alive is an Indian
0:26:58 > 0:27:01scholar who comes form a village just up the road.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06We've arranged to meet at a place where there's a brick kiln and a temple.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08And he'll be wearing a red Himalayan shawl.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17Brick kilns coming up over there.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33A red Himalayan hat!
0:27:33 > 0:27:35I didn't hear him right.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Very nice to meet you.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47This is Jeremy and Callum.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49So we've made it. Fantastic.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Now, look, I will have to take you to Bareh.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55The Raja is insistent.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58You can't have a picture with only the collaborators.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02You must have a real, real rebel.
0:28:02 > 0:28:03Thank you very much.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07People still think about it as collaborators, do they?
0:28:07 > 0:28:09- I am not, you know?- 150 years...
0:28:09 > 0:28:11I don't feel guilty about it.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Don't get run over.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19We've haven't done the interview yet!
0:28:19 > 0:28:22Sriram is the historian of the Indian National Congress,
0:28:22 > 0:28:28the freedom movement that arose out of the struggles of 1857.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30That's the ancestral house.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33- Your house?- Yes.
0:28:33 > 0:28:34Wow.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37But like everyone in India, he has his own stake in the story.
0:28:37 > 0:28:43His ancestors sided with the British, believing in their order, their future.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47Unstoppable, isn't he?
0:28:53 > 0:28:55This is the fort.
0:28:55 > 0:28:57- So this fort was your ancestors' fort?- Yes.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00So are you officially still a Raja?
0:29:00 > 0:29:02Oh, no.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06- Rajas over now.- Rajas are over?
0:29:06 > 0:29:11An hour or so out into the countryside we reached Bareh -
0:29:11 > 0:29:16the descendants of the collaborator and the resister and the oppressor.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19Wow, that's impressive, isn't it?
0:29:21 > 0:29:23What was this here?
0:29:23 > 0:29:25- The ladies' apartment. - The ladies' apartment!
0:29:27 > 0:29:28Fantastic, isn't it?
0:29:35 > 0:29:38And this is what they were fighting for.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43That's India, which you can call the eternal,
0:29:43 > 0:29:45the unchanging.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06So what happened here in 1857?
0:30:10 > 0:30:11You were the rebels.
0:30:12 > 0:30:16First the War of Independence, they call it now, don't they?
0:30:18 > 0:30:20The local rebel commanders?
0:30:22 > 0:30:24- Oh, of Jhansi?- Yes.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28She was the heroine, the Joan of Arc of the resistance.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37Nana's coming! Nana's coming! It was Nana who attacked Lucknow.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44So these were the greatest of the rebel leaders.
0:30:44 > 0:30:49- So your family were committed to fighting against the British?- Yes.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51And what happened here?
0:31:06 > 0:31:13And here in Bareh, in the baking summer heat of the Jumna plain, a long way into my journey in search
0:31:13 > 0:31:20of the story of India, I felt enveloped by the greatness of Indian history.
0:31:20 > 0:31:26By those terrible events 150 years ago that seemed to have only happened yesterday.
0:31:42 > 0:31:50The two of you maybe represent two different Indian views of all these great events, these great events.
0:31:50 > 0:31:56I am not ashamed of the fact that my ancestors co-operated with the British.
0:31:56 > 0:32:01Situated as they were, and being educated, they knew the might and the resources of the British.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04Your view is different?
0:32:15 > 0:32:18It was a matter of honour, we have nothing to lose, we fight.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28Your father was a rebel with Gandhi?
0:32:29 > 0:32:31He joined Gandhi.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38So the freedom struggle rooted in your family?
0:32:44 > 0:32:48And to see how the freedom struggle came out of the mutiny,
0:32:48 > 0:32:51you need first to come back to the district capital - Etawah.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58Because here lived one of the key figures in the beginning of the freedom movement.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02And believe it or not he was a British civil servant.
0:33:02 > 0:33:04He built this school.
0:33:07 > 0:33:14AO Hume fought here against the rebels, but then began to speak out for Indian self-determination.
0:33:16 > 0:33:21He believed in the power of imperialism to do good, I suppose you could put it that way.
0:33:21 > 0:33:26He was rather a kind of, what should I say, a cultural imperialist.
0:33:29 > 0:33:31Hume helped start the independence movement by bringing together
0:33:31 > 0:33:36the best young Indians to form the Indian National Congress.
0:33:36 > 0:33:37That's him in the middle.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40His is one of the great untold Indian stories,
0:33:40 > 0:33:46in fact, Sriram thinks that Hume is almost as important as Gandhi.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48It was Hume's personality,
0:33:48 > 0:33:54his organising skill and his devotion to the cause of India.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01It was their duty as trustees of the Indian Empire to prepare the people
0:34:01 > 0:34:06of this country to take the destiny of their country in their own hands.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09So that's what Hume thought the British should work towards.
0:34:09 > 0:34:11This is what the British should work towards.
0:34:11 > 0:34:19And when they are ready for serfdom, hand over their trust to them and to retire from this country because if
0:34:19 > 0:34:26they retire after doing this much, they will have done two things - first, you have trained a people
0:34:26 > 0:34:34in self-government and second, to have ensured that their own commerce and culture would continue.
0:34:36 > 0:34:41The first meeting of the Congress - Bombay, 1885.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46In the centre, the only white man - Hume, the rebel in the Raj.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49The Indian people now had a voice.
0:34:52 > 0:35:00In the 1880s they also gained a free press when the British lifted their restrictions and a flood of hundreds
0:35:00 > 0:35:05of papers hit the stands, mainly vernacular ones which the British couldn't control.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12The British period would be brief - a blip in the story of India.
0:35:12 > 0:35:18But the Raj would see the birth of the idea of India as one nation.
0:35:18 > 0:35:24Unified as much by the idea as by the railways, maps and communications.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30Great, so we're going to the offices of one of the oldest Indian newspapers, the Pioneer.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33It started in Allahabad more than 140 years ago.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38The writer Rudyard Kipling, who was born in India, wrote for the
0:35:38 > 0:35:41Pioneer, which then opposed the freedom movement.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44Peshawar. They had their own printing press?
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Yeah, it was that linographic and that metapress we had in those days.
0:35:50 > 0:35:55So an international perspective here - the Kabul conference.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58The British bothered about what the Russians are doing.
0:35:58 > 0:36:04The British Raj was one of the most ingenious and adaptive empires in history.
0:36:04 > 0:36:12An immense patchwork embracing nearly a quarter of the people of the planet with 675 princely states,
0:36:12 > 0:36:15two them the size of large European countries.
0:36:15 > 0:36:21An arrangement so extraordinary that's it's scarcely believable that it existed on the ground.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23But it did.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29And this is the archive of British India.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31This building was constructed by the British before.
0:36:31 > 0:36:32Amazing.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38- So it contains all the government records?- Yes, this is all...
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Just look at this!
0:36:40 > 0:36:43But imperialism is never benign.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46We have 30km of shelf space.
0:36:46 > 0:36:48- 30km?- Yes, here in this building.
0:36:48 > 0:36:54And in addition to this building, in the next building we have another 40km of shelf space.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57So 70km of documents.
0:36:57 > 0:36:59In total we have 70km.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02This is the social history of India, isn't it?
0:37:04 > 0:37:07For such forms of knowledge are never neutral.
0:37:09 > 0:37:15By the middle of the 19th century the nature of colonialism in India is changing from
0:37:15 > 0:37:20a relatively benign, what we call orientalist phase of colonialism,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23this is now an arrogant Britain,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27the first country of the industrial revolution ruling the world.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31And then from the 1850s the competition world-wide for colonies,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34other countries are coming up and competing for colonies.
0:37:34 > 0:37:39So therefore there's a great need to have a very systematic ordering
0:37:39 > 0:37:45of peoples' lives, the information and everything relating to them.
0:37:45 > 0:37:50And how did they set about defining the people of India?
0:37:50 > 0:37:53Well, apart from just enumerating the population,
0:37:53 > 0:37:57I think the crucial issue is how you enumerate, what are the categories you employ?
0:37:57 > 0:38:01And I think it's extremely important to remember that
0:38:01 > 0:38:08right from the beginning religion was THE one dominant category which entered all other categories.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11This is the report which is preparing
0:38:11 > 0:38:13for the first census of 1881
0:38:13 > 0:38:17and the first item in this is about religion.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22And once you begin counting people according to their religious origin,
0:38:22 > 0:38:27then when politics comes in, religion then becomes a religious community.
0:38:27 > 0:38:34At the turn of the century, for example, in 1909 there was a big debate which started that Hindus
0:38:34 > 0:38:39were actually going to disappear because, in fact, one of the census commissioners
0:38:39 > 0:38:45of Bengal made a statement that if the Muslims continue to grow at this rate, Hindus will disappear.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48And then some Hindus took it up and said, Hindu's a dying race.
0:38:48 > 0:38:55Similarly, the Muslims. When they took their first delegation, out of which the Muslim League was formed,
0:38:55 > 0:39:01and the went to see the Viceroy, they said, we number so much, we are outnumbered by the Hindus.
0:39:01 > 0:39:06If you are going to have a representative system which is based on majorities,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09principle of election, we are never going to be there because "we"
0:39:09 > 0:39:11now means Muslims.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16The implication of that seems to be that by defining an Indian people in
0:39:16 > 0:39:24this way, the British set a path for the way that Indians would construe their path to independence.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27Absolutely right. And we are still living with that
0:39:27 > 0:39:33legacy, we're struggling with it, we fall victim to it, we resist it, but it is still with us.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41Subjects of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, the Indian people were drawn
0:39:41 > 0:39:44into Britain's world conflicts.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50In the First World War, Indians fought for the King Emperor
0:39:50 > 0:39:53in the trenches of Flanders and the deserts of Iraq.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05But when the war was over, the freedom movement, led by the Congress Party
0:40:05 > 0:40:11and the Muslim League, who now represented a Muslim electorate, were expecting a pay-off.
0:40:17 > 0:40:23Of more than 2 million Indians who fought in the war on behalf of the British, thousands had been killed,
0:40:23 > 0:40:29but still there was a loyalty to Britain, despite strong home rule movement.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32But the British rewarded that loyalty by imposing
0:40:32 > 0:40:36the wartime sedition laws in peacetime -
0:40:36 > 0:40:39no trial, no lawyer, no appeal.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46Only months after the end of the war, a peaceful demonstration
0:40:46 > 0:40:52took place in the Punjab, in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57The callous ineptitude of the British General Dyer
0:40:57 > 0:41:02would make Amritsar a notorious name in the history of Britain and India.
0:41:09 > 0:41:10Fire!
0:41:14 > 0:41:16Take your time!
0:41:18 > 0:41:23They come here from this passage, this was the only entry or exit.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26They put the guns here, open fire on the public.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29- So there was no warning?- No warning.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33How big was the crowd?
0:41:33 > 0:41:36- About 20,000 people had gathered there.- 20,000!
0:41:45 > 0:41:49At least 400 people were killed that day and 1,500 injured.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59Did you have family members present that day?
0:41:59 > 0:42:05My grandfather, Dr SC Mukherjee, he was present on that happening but luckily escaped.
0:42:05 > 0:42:07Since then we are looking after this place.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14On such moments, history can turn.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19The Amritsar massacre gave an irresistible impetuous to the freedom movement.
0:42:19 > 0:42:26The main players were all British-educated lawyers - the canny Mohandas K Gandhi,
0:42:26 > 0:42:33the brilliant Mohammed Jinnah of the Muslim League, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the austere star of Congress.
0:42:33 > 0:42:38Together, they were to plan one of history's greatest revolutions.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42Driven by the ancient Indian idea of non-violence.
0:42:44 > 0:42:52They were great times and rare times and unique times,
0:42:52 > 0:42:54I always think.
0:42:54 > 0:42:59And I'm glad that I lived almost through all these times.
0:43:00 > 0:43:05Aged 95, PD Tandon has died since we met.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09He was an old Nehru family friend, a freedom fighter in the 1930s and '40s.
0:43:09 > 0:43:14So you had a sense of being present when history was being made?
0:43:25 > 0:43:26For 14 months?
0:43:27 > 0:43:30When was this?
0:43:30 > 0:43:311942?
0:43:31 > 0:43:34You knew Nehru from the early days.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38Was it apparent even then that he was a man marked by destiny?
0:44:04 > 0:44:07- Very confident and sure of himself. - Yes, that is right.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10You must have got to know Gandhi well also.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12Oh, yes, I knew him too.
0:44:12 > 0:44:14What kind of impression did he make on you?
0:44:14 > 0:44:20Many people speak of his magic spell on people. Tell us what you thought.
0:44:40 > 0:44:45Today, the Anand Bhavan, the Nehru family house in Allahabad,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48is a shrine to India's struggle for freedom.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56They're worshipping Gandhi, they're worshipping Nehru.
0:44:56 > 0:44:59Nehru, they were the greatest, greatest people of our country.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02So Gandhiji is not forgotten.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05- Never!- Never!- Never!
0:45:06 > 0:45:13People do not realise how difficult it was to get freedom.
0:45:13 > 0:45:19Those who were not born, those who have not seen, don't know what was freedom struggle.
0:45:19 > 0:45:26British rule, that it was a very disciplined rule, they accept this thing.
0:45:26 > 0:45:31But, you know, bondage, nobody likes.
0:45:31 > 0:45:33Everybody likes to be free.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41Nehru, Gandhi and their colleagues were engaged in the greatest
0:45:41 > 0:45:44liberation struggle that had ever taken place in history.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46The question for them was which way would India go?
0:45:46 > 0:45:50What India did they imagine?
0:45:50 > 0:45:53What was India?
0:45:53 > 0:45:56If the path forward was going to be democracy, then
0:45:56 > 0:46:01how was that to be squared with the inequities of the caste system?
0:46:01 > 0:46:07With the oppressions of the hereditary landlords in the feudal cow belt?
0:46:07 > 0:46:09With the inequality of women?
0:46:09 > 0:46:14And how would a single, united India encompass all its diverse religious
0:46:14 > 0:46:18traditions whose voices were becoming more and more insistent?
0:46:18 > 0:46:20By 1940, Jinnah had came to believe that
0:46:20 > 0:46:25Hindu and Muslim were two separate nations that cannot live together.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28And talk began of partition.
0:46:28 > 0:46:34The British attitude towards the partition of India was slightly ambivalent.
0:46:34 > 0:46:38On the one hand they had created this unity
0:46:38 > 0:46:40where there was none.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44They gloried in the fact that they had created a united India.
0:46:47 > 0:46:51And they also knew that if India became divided,
0:46:51 > 0:46:55all sorts of defence problems would arise.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59And they were also very conscious of the great divide between the Hindus and the Muslims.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06Here in the Viceroy's lodge in Simla in 1946,
0:47:06 > 0:47:10the British tried too late to broker a loose federation comprising groups
0:47:10 > 0:47:15of Hindu and Muslim states under a central government, but the coalition collapsed
0:47:15 > 0:47:23in mistrust from both sides and Jinnah finally pushed for a separate state for Muslims - Pakistan.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26Jinnah had moved towards the idea of Pakistan.
0:47:26 > 0:47:32What he used to say - after we have divided, then we can come together,
0:47:32 > 0:47:34then we can cooperate.
0:47:34 > 0:47:35This is what Molanadas said.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38This is divorce before marriage.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49So finally in the summer of 1947, the British washed their hands
0:47:49 > 0:47:52of the problem and with great pride
0:47:52 > 0:47:57and yet profound disappointment, Nehru accepted India's destiny.
0:47:59 > 0:48:05Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny,
0:48:05 > 0:48:10and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge,
0:48:10 > 0:48:17not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
0:48:19 > 0:48:24At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps,
0:48:24 > 0:48:27India will awake to life and freedom.
0:48:29 > 0:48:37But a partitioned India, with Muslim Pakistan itself divided by 2,000 miles east to west.
0:48:39 > 0:48:45On the two sides of India, in the Punjab and Bengal, the dividing line between Muslim and Hindu had been
0:48:45 > 0:48:52drawn up by a British civil servant in six weeks using information gathered from the censuses.
0:48:52 > 0:48:59The line ran through fields and communities, across railways, roads and irrigation schemes.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04It went through villages, and even through individual houses,
0:49:04 > 0:49:07and it cut through deepest layers of history of subcontinent.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10Oh, hello. Very nice to meet you.
0:49:10 > 0:49:12I am Michael.
0:49:12 > 0:49:13So how old is Mr Swaran?
0:49:13 > 0:49:16HE TRANSLATES
0:49:18 > 0:49:20- 82.- 82!
0:49:20 > 0:49:22You are in fine form!
0:49:22 > 0:49:30To make matters worse the British kept the line secret till after independence on the 15 August,
0:49:30 > 0:49:34and they were culpably negligent in failing to provide troops to protect
0:49:34 > 0:49:41the people in the ethnic cleansing that followed when Hindu, Sikh and Muslim began to kill each other.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45And the village was just over the border in what is now Pakistan, is that right?
0:50:48 > 0:50:5117 members of your family.
0:50:57 > 0:51:05In the summer of 1947 that story was repeated across the Punjab as great floods of people fled in fear.
0:51:05 > 0:51:11Hindus and Sikhs eastwards into India, Muslims west into the new Pakistan.
0:51:11 > 0:51:1614 million people - the largest migration in history,
0:51:16 > 0:51:19and up to a million died.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24We console ourselves by talking of common human feeling,
0:51:24 > 0:51:28but there are times in history when there is no such thing.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35But could the partition have been avoided?
0:51:35 > 0:51:42What if the Congress and the Muslim League had made concessions and accepted the federation?
0:51:42 > 0:51:45Why did the British have to rush independence?
0:51:45 > 0:51:51Could the slaughter have been avoided if they'd provided a few battalions to protect the refugees?
0:51:51 > 0:51:57And will India and Pakistan come back together again as Jinnah hoped?
0:52:06 > 0:52:08A few miles inside the Pakistani border
0:52:08 > 0:52:14we found Swaran Singh's old village still with its Hindu name.
0:52:16 > 0:52:24This was the place he left as a boy in terror in 1947, after the murder of 17 of his family.
0:52:26 > 0:52:32Yeah, OK, so we are in the right place.
0:52:32 > 0:52:39And the old people here, Muslims, had the same story - uprooted, fleeing for their lives from India.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43but here at the end they told a tale with a glimmer of hope.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19Were there cases where friends helped friends?
0:53:55 > 0:53:59- They still get letters. - No! Wow, what an amazing story.
0:54:04 > 0:54:09History sometimes happens in a way which is not willed by the main participants.
0:54:09 > 0:54:15Nehru and Gandhi saw themselves as the great idealists, but in the end
0:54:15 > 0:54:18failed to grasp the biggest prize.
0:54:18 > 0:54:24Jinnah was a convinced secular nationalist who only at the very end
0:54:24 > 0:54:27took an independent Pakistan.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29And as for the British,
0:54:29 > 0:54:32they were tried and found wanting.
0:54:39 > 0:54:45So that's how India and Pakistan got freedom 60 years ago.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48It's not been plain sailing since.
0:54:48 > 0:54:52There's been three wars, nuclear bombs, they're still at loggerheads over Kashmir.
0:54:52 > 0:54:59In 1971, East Pakistan, with India's help, broke away and became Bangladesh.
0:54:59 > 0:55:06And India and Pakistan have not yet become the friends after the divorce that Jinnah hoped.
0:55:06 > 0:55:12But when the dust settles on 1947 that surely will come.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19And as for India,
0:55:19 > 0:55:24the tale of the last 60 years is above all the triumph of democracy.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33To manage the art of building democratic and stable political institutions over six decades
0:55:33 > 0:55:38in a country which in the first 20 years was predicted to disintegrate.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42And it's begun freeing the creative energies of its people which had been
0:55:42 > 0:55:46stifled by certain political and economic choices made after 1947.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51We've seen a transformation of national level politics where
0:55:51 > 0:55:56we've gone a dominant one-party state to coalition governments.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59We've seen a transformation in the economy.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04And its economy is making India a global giant in the new century.
0:56:04 > 0:56:10Soon to become the world's biggest population, by the 2030s it's predicted India's GDP
0:56:10 > 0:56:18will overtake the United States and India will resume the position it has had for much of history.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22The world's biggest democracy is looking once more to the future.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29Indians are filled with a sense of the possible.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35There is a tremendous degree of optimism about the future,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39which I think is all the more interesting for
0:56:39 > 0:56:43coming from a people who in so many other ways are anchored in the past.
0:57:04 > 0:57:09We've come on a journey of thousands of years and thousands of miles.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12A tale that began with the first migration of human beings out
0:57:12 > 0:57:17of Africa and ends at this point with India as a global power.
0:57:19 > 0:57:26Great civilisations over time develop responses, habits, cultural immune systems
0:57:26 > 0:57:32that enable them to absorb the shocks and wounds of history and also to use the gifts of history.
0:57:32 > 0:57:37Those are the habits of successful civilisations.
0:57:37 > 0:57:39And India has always done that,
0:57:39 > 0:57:44always renewing its gene pool, always being receptive to new ideas
0:57:44 > 0:57:50and yet tenaciously holding on to that essential vision, that way of seeing the world which is Indian.
0:57:53 > 0:57:59"At the dawn of history," Nehru said 60 years ago, "India started on her unending quest
0:57:59 > 0:58:07"and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures."
0:58:07 > 0:58:11Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight
0:58:11 > 0:58:16of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21And today India discovers herself again.
0:58:21 > 0:58:27India, the ancient, the eternal and the ever new.
0:58:43 > 0:58:46Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2007
0:58:46 > 0:58:49E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk