Source # 1 - Graph comparing the GDP per capita of people in England (UK) to India. GDP stands for "Gross Domestic Product" and is a measure of total output of an economy. GDP per capita divides that output by the population of a country and is an indication of the economic well-being of a population.
Source # 2 - British Postcard showing "Christmas in India" (1881)
Source # 3 - Map of showing the expansion of British control in India
Source # 4 - Video of British East India Company rules India - click here
Source # 5 - Video of British Women view India - click here
Source # 6 - Video of British Missionaries in India - click here
Source # 7 - Graphs showing British cloth exports to India and Indian cloth exports to Britain.
Biography - Azimullah Khan Yusufzai
Azimullah Khan Yusufzai was born to a poor family in India around 1830. When he was seven, he and his mother found shelter at a Christian mission during a famine. Azimullah was educated at the mission school, where he learned English and French, but he refused to convert to Christianity because he was a Muslim. After he left the mission school, he went to work as a secretary to several British military officers.
Azimullah became the secretary and adviser to Nana Sihib, an Indian noble who family had surrendered its territory to the British East India Company in return for an annual payment. At the time Azimullah went to work for Nana Sihib, he was involved in a dispute with the British East India Company because the Company had decided to stop making the annual payment to his family. In 1853, Nana Sihib sent Azimullah to England to appeal directly to the officers of the British East India Company to start making the payments again.
Azimullah’s trip to England had deep and lasting impact on him. He saw the dirty and polluted industrial cities full of poor British workers. He realized that, in contrast to the British who lived in India in large houses with servants, most people in Britain did not live much better than people in India. While he was in England he met John Stuart Mill, the famous British thinker, who was an official in the British East India Company. Azimullah was upset and offended when the Company refused to change its decision about paying Nana Sihib. On his return to India, Azimullah traveled to see the fighting in the Crimean War between England and Russia. In Crimea he saw the sick British soldiers suffering under poor leadership. While he failed in the purpose of his trip to England, he returned India realizing that the British had no special ability that the Indians lacked and that it was possible to militarily defeat the British.
When he returned to India, Azimullah encouraged Nana Sihib to turn against the British. He also began to produce anti-British writings with a printing press he had brought back from Europe and distributed these. In 1857, when the Sepoy soldiers (Indian soldiers working for British East India Company) rebelled against the British, Azimullah convinced Nana Sihib to support the rebellion. Nana Sihib became a leader in the rebellion – including ordering the massacre of British women and children when the British surrendered at Cawnpore. While it is unknown what happened to Azimullah after the British crushed the rebellion, he most likely died of a fever in 1859 on the run from the British in the north of India.
Source # 8 - Video of Azimullah Khan Yusufzai's trip to England - click here
Source # 9 - Map of Regions in India affected by the Sepoy Mutiny
Source # 10 - Graphic explaining the loading process of the Enfield Rifle
Source # 11 - Video of Sepoy Mutiny - click here
Source # 12 - Chart showing the number of famines and deaths in Indian history.
Source # 13 - British picture of famine relief during the Famine of 1877.
Source # 14 - British cartoon of famine relief
Source # 15 - Graph showing British food exports from India during the period of the 1876 - 78 Famine.
Source # 16 - Graph showing British food exports during the two famines between 1896 to 1902.
Biography - Surendranath Banerjee
Surendranath Banerjee was born to a wealthy and noble family in India in 1848. His father was a doctor and made sure that Banerjee received a liberal education. After graduating from university, Banerjee traveled to England to take the Indian Civil Service Exam. This exam was given once a year in England and it was necessary to pass the exam to get an administrative position in the British colonial government in India. The British set up the exam in England to make it very difficult for any Indian person to take and pass the exam. Banerjee was the first Indian to pass the exam in 1869. The British government still made it hard to him to get a post and only in 1871 was Banerjee given the position as an assistant to a judge. However, Banerjee was soon fired from his job because of British racism toward Indians.
In 1875, Banerjee became a professor of English in India and began to organize the Indian National Association, the first political organizations for Indians. He traveled across India giving speeches attacking the British for their racial discrimination against Indians. This made him very popular across India. Four years later he founded a newspaper to support his political movement. Using his organization as a base, in 1885 he participated in the founding of the Indian National Congress and became its president in 1895. Banerjee believed that it was important for Indian leaders to work slowly and with the British to win political power for the Indians. He expressed his idea in his book “A Nation in the Making” where he said he admired the way the British government worked, argued for personal freedom and said the goal should be for Indians to become a self-governing part of the British Empire.
As the leader of the Indian National Congress, Banerjee argued that they should work with the British and was against Indian leaders who wanted to have revolution against the British to win independence from Britain. For example, he was critical of Mahatma Gandhi. However, in the early twentieth century, British rule became more unpopular with the Indian population and Banerjee, with his moderate views, lost the support of many in India. In 1921, Banerjee was knighted for his support for the British Empire. In the last years of his life, he was the prime minister of a self-governing region in northeast India.
Source # 17 - In 1884, a British official working for the British Viceroy wrote, “In this there is nothing offensive or disparaging to the natives of India. It simply means that we are foreigners and that not only in our own interest but because it is our highest duty towards India itself, we intend to maintain our dominion. We cannot foresee the time in which the cessation of our rule would not be the signal for universal anarchy and ruin, and it is clear that the only hope for India is the long continuance of the benevolent but strong government of Englishmen.”
