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March 8 - April 13, 2023
National borders across the continent are still marked by the arbitrary straight lines drawn on a map by various European powers to mark out their acquisitions. These boundaries made no geographical or cultural sense on the ground, but this would not have bothered European colonizers who had convinced themselves that Africans had no history or culture.
conquered territory can be termed as Terra Nullius or Nobody’s Land, and the rights of the indigenous people can be denied.
In 1885, the Italians simply seized the port of Massawa on the Red Sea and turned Ethiopia into a landlocked country. Emperor Menelik protested against this but found no support from major world powers. Soon he was forced to sign a treaty that ceded Eritrea to Italy in return for recognizing his sovereignty over the highlands of the interior.
Thus, Ethiopia would be the only African country to successfully defend itself against the colonial onslaught.
Ethiopia
When the twentieth century dawned, almost all of the shores of the Indian Ocean were already under European control. The British controlled the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, Australia and large sections of the east African coast. The French had established themselves in Indo-China (what is now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). Even a latecomer like Germany had managed to find a territory to colonize in East Africa and in the north-eastern quarter of New Guinea. This probably left the Dutch feeling inadequate.
Colonization of Indian ocean
What the Dutch had just witnessed was the Balinese Hindu rite of ‘Puputan’ or the Last Stand (the
There is a memorial on the spot to commemorate it. I stood there for a long time trying to imagine the mental state of those who had preferred to die rather than live under foreign domination.
The Dutch commanders, however, were not too impressed by what they had just witnessed. They only waited to allow the soldiers to collect all the jewellery and loot the palace before setting it on fire.
The Dutch today take great pride in their liberal traditions but the history of their occupation of Indonesia tells a different story.
Every European power have skeletons in their closet
Within a few years, the barbarity of the First World War would take away even the pretence of moral and civilizational superiority.
Even the smallest independent enclave, such as Bali, had been brutally crushed.
One of the fascinating episodes relates to the German light cruiser Emden that single-handedly paralysed Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean for several months.
India in WWI. Emden
On 22 September, the Emden unexpectedly appeared off the coast of Madras and proceeded to bombard the port. The raid lasted for barely half an hour but the 125-odd shells set ablaze oil containers and threw the city into chaos.
Emden 's attack on Chennai - WW I
As we have seen, Indian soldiers were the foundation on which the British empire was built,
Foundation of British empire : Indian soldiers .. Gandhi facilitating recruiting even for combative roles
Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers and auxiliaries would participate in the war and around 74,000 would lose their lives. It was Indian soldiers who stopped the German advance at Ypres. Thousands would die in the trenches of Europe and at Gallipoli. Sadly, their contribution is barely remembered and recognized today even in India.4 Even less remembered are the battles they fought in the Indian Ocean rim.
India in WW I
Although Townshend would be treated quite well in captivity, many of his men would die from disease and ill-treatment.
The role of the revolutionaries is usually left out or mentioned as a footnote.
Sorry tale of non recognition of Indian revolutionaries
Punjab and Bengal
This was not done directly by the British warden but through his Pathan subordinates, particularly a certain Khoyedad Khan. These petty officers further recruited enforcers from among the criminals in the prison in order to maintain their writ. The idea was to systematically break the will of the revolutionaries.
Sarvarkar
Why did Gandhi have to make such a fuss over a single incident of violence, they argued, when he had been recruiting soldiers for the British just a couple of years earlier?
Contradictory
some 2.5 million Indians would participate in the Allied war effort. However, having learned from the experience of the previous war, Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress decided not to cooperate with the colonial government and launched the non-violent Quit India movement.
WW II
S.R. Nathan, a future President of Singapore, would witness many of these events as a boy.17
Meticulous research by writer Madhusree Mukerjee shows how Churchill was fully aware of the dire situation but seems to have deliberately delayed and diverted supplies as part of a scorched earth strategy against the advancing Japanese.19 He is reported to have remarked that Indians were a ‘beastly people with a beastly religion’ and that the famine was caused by Bengalis who ‘bred like rabbits’.
from an Indian perspective, there was little to morally distinguish the Allies from the Axis.
The sailors stopped obeying their officers and took control of a number of ships and shore establishments. Remember that the sailors were not novices; this was just a few months after the war and the British were dealing with battle-hardened veterans. Soon they had taken over the wireless communications sets on their ships and were coordinating their actions. As the news spread across the city, students, industrial workers and others went on strike and marched in support of the mutineers.
Unfortunately for the mutineers, they received no support from the Indian political leadership of the time. Both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League asked them to surrender.21
Lacking political leadership, the sailors eventually surrendered. Despite various assurances, large numbers of sailors would be court-martialled and dismissed (note that none of the dismissed would be reinstated by the governments of Pakistan and India after Independence).
British colonial administration must have realized that they were rapidly losing control over their Indian soldiers.
quite telling that the role of the revolutionaries in India’s freedom struggle is barely presented as a footnote in official Indian histories.
Indian National Congress would ensure that story would be told in a way that focused exclusively on its own role.
This is not to suggest that Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress did not play an important role but merely to point out that India’s freedom struggle was made up of many streams.
Amidst the chaos, a daredevil pilot from Odisha called Biju Patnaik flew secret missions into Java and rescued two key Indonesian rebel leaders from being captured (he would later go on to become the chief minister of Odisha).25
Biju Patnaik
is remarkable that the first foreign policy action taken by newly independent India was to support Indonesia’s freedom movement.
Sukarno named his daughter Megawati, meaning ‘Goddess of the Clouds’ in Sanskrit, in honour of Biju Patnaik’s heroics in the sky.
The episode can be said to mark the end of Britain’s reign as a world power.27
Egyptian invasion officially ended British/ European status as world power
In East Pakistan, the West Pakistani army perpetrated a genocide that killed as many as three million Bengalis and pushed ten million as refugees into India.
For instance, there were over a million Indians in Burma and they accounted for more than half the population of Rangoon in the 1930s. After the military coup in 1962, their businesses were forcibly nationalized and large numbers were expelled. The Indians in Uganda were similarly given ninety days to pack up and leave by Idi Amin in 1972. They were allowed to take only 55 pounds with them. Some went back to India but many went to the United Kingdom where they would rebuild their lives.29
Indians in Burma and Uganda
The small port of Dubai, once known for the pearl trade, did not itself have much oil. Nonetheless, it positioned itself as the key commercial hub in the region and evolved over the next few decades into the glitzy city we see today.
oil-driven success of the Gulf states, nevertheless, the most remarkable economic transformation in the Indian Ocean rim was arguably achieved by a tiny, crowded island with so few natural resources that it even had to import water: Singapore.
The white population was split between those who favoured the changes and those who clung on to hopes of some form of return to segregation.
South Africa situation of 90s more like the time around end of US civil war
Not surprisingly, all other groups resented them. In fact, virtually every group suspected that the Indians were funding its rivals!
It is Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary achievement that he was able to somehow reconcile the country’s many internal contradictions and carry people along with him. Equally commendable is the fact that, unlike many leaders of newly freed countries, he did not yield to the temptation of holding on to power till his death or starting a dynasty. He became President in 1994 and stepped down in 1999 after just one term. Modern historians tend to be dismissive of the ‘Great Man Theory’ of history but Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew are proof that individuals do matter. It is noteworthy that, despite being
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One man army, secret of success etc
peculiar socio-economic hierarchy on the city where one’s position in the pecking order determined the distance one lived from Nariman Point (only Bollywood was exempt from this as it had its own cluster in Bandra–Juhu).
Given the spiralling real estate prices, a poor migrant had little choice other than to live in a slum but even a white-collar newcomer, with a well-paying job, would have to either rent a room as a ‘paying guest’ or opt for a far-off northern suburb like Borivali or Kandivali.
Been there, done that. Lived in chawls
Since jobs were concentrated in the southern tip, the office day began with a long journey in a tightly packed train followed by a hop by ‘share-taxi’ to one’s office; in the evening one did the same thing in reverse. This rough commute still defines the experience of many but taught me one of the crucial lessons in life:
old elite gave way to a confident new middle class; the South Bombay accent simply counted for less. Thus, Bombay became Mumbai.
For example, if we tried today to reconstruct the history of the British Raj in India based solely on genetic data, we would find plenty of evidence of Gujarati and Punjabi genes in Britain but very little British DNA in India. A lazy researcher would then jump to the conclusion that it was India that colonized Britain!
Valid point
However, the failed state of Somalia and renewed hostilities in Yemen remind us how fragile this peace can be.
Pakistan and Afghanistan too
Perhaps this explains why we have seen so many female leaders in countries ranging from the Philippines to the Indian subcontinent:
Matrilineal lineage
almost complete absence of female leaders in the western Indian Ocean rim from the Persian Gulf, down to the Swahili coast to southern Africa.
