Article: The official account and the headline number are published at the same time
Short videos made after the article was condensed: watermelon, douyin and Bilibili released
In January 2019, I created my public account, and in more than two years, I have been working tirelessly, writing fourteen original articles a week at most, and now the update frequency is a long article a week, never interrupted, and has written more than 3 million words, mainly in the fields of current affairs and politics, international relations, history, culture, religion, philosophy, finance, macroeconomics and real estate. I have published a long article here, and the follow-up chapter can go to my public account for a sneak peek, and the search can be chaotic.
I have posted more than eighty articles so far, you can click on this summary post "Direct links to all the articles I have published on the headline number so far" to choose what you want to see more conveniently.
The previous four articles are as follows, you can click the title to jump to the main text:
A Brief History of India I
A Brief History of India II
A Brief History of India III
A Brief History of India IV
At the beginning of the 16th century, northern India, then ruled largely by Muslim rulers, was once again conquered by the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. The resulting Mughal Empire did not wipe out the local societies it ruled. Instead, it balances and appeases them through new administrative practices. A pluralistic and inclusive ruling elite has led to more systematic, centralized, and unified rule. Eschewing tribal ties and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar rule, they unified their distant kingdoms through loyalty that pledged allegiance to an almost divine emperor through a Persianized culture. The economic policies of the Mughal states, which derived most of their income from agriculture and required taxes to be paid in well-regulated silver dollars, led farmers and artisans to enter larger markets.
For much of the 17th century, the relative peace maintained by the Mughal Empire was a factor in India's economic expansion, leading to greater funding for painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture. Newly formed social groups in northern and western India, such as the Maratha, Rajpus and Sikhs, gained military and ruling ambitions during Mughal rule, and through cooperation they gained recognition and military experience. At the same time, commercial expansion spawned new commercial and political elites along The Southern and Eastern Coasts of India. With the collapse of the empire, many of these elites began their own careers.
The Mughal Empire officially collapsed in 1858, and the Mughal kings were only puppets of the colonists, who arrived more than two hundred years after the empire officially collapsed. Only later there was no need for a puppet king of the Mughal Empire, and Queen Victoria of England called herself The Queen of India, and from then on there was no need for an Indian king, and the British directly sent a governor.
The first European country to establish a foothold in India was Portugal, whose colonies were outside the map of the Mughal Empire in India in the first half of the 18th century. The Dutch then stepped in and defeated the Portuguese. Aurangzeb ignored the dangers of European colonizers at the height of his empire, and his sons were already weakened by the decline of the empire when they were forced to confront the Europeans.
And from the time of the establishment of a famous company, it is clear who the winner of the final Indian colonization was, although France once had a large colony in India (pictured above), that is, the British East India Company or the "British East India Company" (pictured below), the British defeated Portugal, the Netherlands and France, became the final victor, and incorporated India into their colonial territory. The Dutch also established the Dutch East India Company, but in the end they were still less powerful than the British.
On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted the company a royal license granting it the privilege of trading in India. As soon as this permit was issued, the East India Company began to trade in India, driving out other competing colonists, and eventually India became a British colony.
In 1634, Emperor Jahangir of the Mughal Dynasty extended his warm hospitality to English merchants to what is now Bengal, and in 1717 completely exempted them from customs duties for trade. At that time, the company's main business was cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpeter and tea.
The Dutch were aggressive competitors who expelled the Portuguese in 1640-1641, expanding their monopoly on the spice trade in the Strait of Malacca. As Portuguese and Spanish influence in the region waned, the Dutch and British entered a period of fierce competition, leading to an Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th and 18th centuries.
For the first 20 years of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was the richest commercial enterprise in the world, with 50,000 employees and a private fleet of 200 ships worldwide. It specializes in the spice trade and gives shareholders an annual dividend of 40%.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the British East India Company competed fiercely with the Dutch and French for spices in the Spice Islands. Spices such as pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon could only be found on these islands, bringing up to 400% profits on a single voyage.
Tensions between the Dutch and British East Indies trading companies were so great that friction escalated into four Anglo-Dutch wars between them: 1652–1654, 1665–1667, 1672–1674 and 1780–1784. Dutch companies insisted that profits must support the costs of the war, and that the land seized after the victory of the war could generate more profits.
In the first century of operation, the East India Company focused on trade rather than building empires in India. In the 18th century, with the decline of the Mughal Empire, the East India Company fought against the French east India Company (The French Independent Company of the Orient) in the Karnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s, and the company's interests shifted from trade to territory.
In the battles of Prassé and Bouchard, the British defeated the Bangladeshi forces, giving the company the right to earn revenue in Bengal and Bihar and becoming india's main military and political power.
In the decades that followed, it gradually expanded the territorial scope of its control, directly or indirectly through local puppet rulers (the kings of the Mughal Empire) under the threat of force of the army, and most of it consisted of indigenous Sepoi peoples.
By 1803, at the height of Indian rule, the British East India Company had a private army of about 260,000 men – twice the size of the British army, with Revenues from India at £13464561 (equivalent to £225.3 million in 2018) and £14017473 (equivalent to £234.5 million in 2018).
Many historians believe that the British East India Company was the beginning of the Indian colonial period. At this point, as its economic power was severely weakened by the British Parliament and effectively became an offshoot of the British government, the company began to more consciously enter non-economic areas such as education, social reform and culture.
The company eventually ruled large areas of India with its private army, exercising military power and seizing administrative functions. The rule of the British East India Company actually began in 1757 and lasted until 1858. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Indian Government Act of 1858 was signed, leading the British Crown to take direct control of the Indian subcontinent in the form of a new form of British rule.
Despite frequent government interventions, the company's financial problems have recurred. In 1874, the company was dissolved as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act, passed a year earlier, because the Then Government of India Act had rendered the East India Company weak and obsolete. The official government agencies of British India assumed the governmental functions of the East India Company and absorbed its navy and army in 1858.
Historians believe that modern India began between 1848 and 1885. In 1848 Lord Dalhousie was appointed Governor-General of the East India Company, which laid the foundation for the changes necessary for a modern state. These include the consolidation and division of sovereignty, the supervision of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes – including railways, canals and telegraphs – were introduced to India shortly after their introduction to Europe.
During this period, however, dissatisfaction with the company also grew, triggering the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Influenced by a variety of grievances and views, including intrusive British social reforms, harsh land taxes, and hasty treatment of some wealthy landlords and princes, the rebellion shook many parts of northern and central India and shook the foundations of British Corporate governance in the East India.
The Improving the Administration of India Act, passed in 1858, abolished the East India Company and the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs took over all its powers; and established the Indian government headed by the Viceroy of India. The British also formally ended the meaningless Mughal dynasty and exiled Bahadur Shah II to Burma. Since then, India has entered an era of direct rule by the British government.
Although the rebellion was suppressed in 1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct administration of India by the British government. Declaring a unified state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landlord gentlemen as feudal safeguards against future unrest. Over the next few decades, public life gradually emerged throughout India, culminating in the formation of the Indian National Convention in 1885 with the establishment of the Indian Congress, at which point the Mughal Empire was truly extinct.
In 1899, Lord G.N. Curzon became Governor-General of England and India. He divided Bangladesh into two provinces, East Bengal (including Assam) and West Bengal, using divide-and-rule tactics to provoke religious antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. It's really a bad taste, why do the British always think that the colonies they manage, racial antagonism will be beneficial to them? As a result, facts have proved many times that the deeper the religious contradictions, the more restless the region. Where there is no peace, how can he be his official!
In fact, the fundamental reason is that in the colonial era, the British people sent by the British royal family to be governors everywhere are aristocratic classes, even in the British mainland, they will ignore the civilian class, and when they go to the colonies, they will rarely care about the local people's livelihood. The Viceroy of India was in the most control of famine, because if the famine was severe, it would directly affect the labour force, affect the final output of various crops, and thus affect the economic gains.
The awakening of the nation takes time and process, and in 1906 the All India Muslim League was in the hands of the Indian governor sent by the British to provoke contradictions between Hinduism and Islam, and in the process of ethnic and religious oppression, people are more likely to get together. The British only thought that the Indian people themselves would be united and their rule would be stable, but they thought that this would lay the mass foundation for the future national independence movement in India.
In 1909, the British passed the Molay-Minto Reform Act, which provided for separate elections for Muslims and Hindus in legislative re-elections, after which sectarian politics became the system and the Indian national movement split.
At that time, Britain was called the "Empire of the Sun Never Setting", because they had many colonies around the world, and the sun had set on one side of their rule, and the sun had risen on the other side of their colonies. However, the rise and fall of dynasties is a natural law, and it is impossible to prosper forever. The outbreak of the First and Second World Wars pushed Britain's national fortunes downhill.
The First World War had a major impact on the development of Hindu nationalism. On April 13, 1919, the Amritsar Massacre of Indians by the British Army took place.
The Massacre of Amritsar, also known as the Zarenwala Massacre, was a massacre of the British-commanded troops who opened fire on the Indian people on April 13, 1919, in the Zarenwala Garden in the northern Indian city of Amritsar. The incident killed hundreds and injured thousands. The Figure for the British side is 379 deaths and 1100 injuries, while the Indian Parliament says about 1000 people died and 1500 were injured.
The Amritsar massacre became one of the direct causes of Gandhi's nationwide non-violent non-cooperation movement in 1920-1922 and India's eventual independence.
These facts led Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who had become the main figure in the Congress Party, to change his attitude toward the British government and reorganize the Congress Party in 1920. The Congress Party led the anti-British struggle several times between the two world wars, guided by the non-violent non-cooperation advocated by Gandhi.
During World War II, the Indian national movement continued to develop. Gandhi's meeting with Jinnah (pictured below) in 1944 ended in failure, and Indian Muslims were already widely supportive of an independent Islamic state.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was also officially known in Pakistan as the "Great Leader" (25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948), leader of the Pakistani Founding Movement, founder of the State of Pakistan, political activist, and first president (1947–1948). Former Chairman of the Muslim League of India for the Partition of India and Pakistan. In recognition of Jinnah's monumental contribution to the creation of an independent state in Pakistan, the people of Pakistan honor him as the "Father of the Nation of Pakistan".
After the end of World War II, Britain's power declined sharply, and its colonial rule in India was no longer sustainable. The Royal Indian Navy Uprising of 1946 took place. In 1947, the British proposed the Mountbatten Plan.
This scheme is known as the "Partition of India and Pakistan" scheme (pictured above), also known as the India Independence Act. It was named after Louis Mountbatten, the last British governor-general in India, in June 1947. After the Second World War, British imperialism, under the strong pressure of the Indian national liberation movement, proposed a "divide and rule" plan. In 1947, the British Governor-General of India, L. Mountbatten (1900-1979), proposed the British transfer of power and the partition of India and Pakistan.
The partition of India and Pakistan is mainly due to the breakdown between the Indian Congress Party and the Muslim League, the leaders of the Congress Party are Gandhi and Nehru (pictured below), the leader of the Muslim League is Jinnah, the former is Hinduism, the latter is Islam, and the contradiction between the two religions is a problem left over from thousands of years of history. When Britain is strong, it can still be suppressed, and after the end of World War II, Britain itself has suffered a great loss of national strength, and there is no time to take care of him. Since the two religions are making such a big fuss, they will separate their families. This led to Hindustan, which is dominated by Hinduism, and Pakistan, which is dominated by Islam, and the contradiction between India and Pakistan is still a problem.
Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 6 July 1946, Mumbai
12.5 million people were displaced and between the two countries and casualties were estimated to be in the hundreds to 1 million (most estimates that the number of people who crossed the Indo-Pakistani border in 1947 ranged from about 10 to 12 million). Each Turkish state may, at its own discretion, join India or Pakistan or opt for independence.
The partition clause addressed neither the independence of Bangladesh nor the partition of Ceylon and Burma under British India.
Burma became independent on 4 January 1948, Ceylon on 4 February 1948, and Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan after the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. Nepal and Bhutan were once British protectorates, but they never belonged to British India and were not affected by the partition treaties, because the partition clause at that time only dealt with the division of modern India and Pakistan.
This is the consequence of the British patting their butts and leaving, the separation of the family is not clear, after making it unclear, some little brothers are not convinced, can only continue to make trouble, make a fuss and then separate the family, and a few independently go out to establish a country. However, originally Hinduism and Islam lived in this land, and after the separation of the family, the people of the two religions began a great migration (pictured below), Hinduism within Pakistan fled to India, and Islam in India migrated to Pakistan, all fearing that they would be hurt by religious disputes and their lives.
In this way, India became independent on August 14, 1947, and Pakistan declared independence on August 15. Jinnah became the governor of Pakistan, and Jawaharlal Nehru became prime minister of the newly independent India. However, the process of achieving independence, as well as the history of the two countries after independence, has not been smooth. Many religious immigrants face difficulties in integrating into local societies after coming to India or Pakistan. Clashes and ethnic cleansing between religious believers still occur.
Mutual distrust between Hindus and Muslims can be described as a backlash of Gandhi advocating integration between the two. In particular, Hindu nationalists such as the National Volunteers believe gandhi is too conservating to Islamists and Pakistan. On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi by fanatical Hindu nationalists. Gandhi, who advocated non-violence, failed to stop the chain of violence, and he himself died in violence. Gandhi gave future generations the title of "Generation Mahatma".
On 15 August 1947, the British handed over power in India to the Indian Congress Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, respectively. British colonial rule in India ended. Britain's economic interests in India were largely unaffected, and the provisions of the Indian Independence Act created a number of disputes between India and Pakistan, the most serious of which was the Kashmir issue, which laid the groundwork for a long-term conflict between India and Pakistan.
Crucial to India's self-image as an independent nation was the Constitution completed in 1950, which established a secular democratic republic. It remains a democracy with civil liberties, an active Supreme Court and a largely independent press.
Economic liberalization, which began in the 1990s, created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and strengthened its geopolitical influence. Indian cinema, music and spiritual education are playing an increasingly important role in global culture. However, India is also affected by rural and urban poverty; religious and caste violence; a Naxalite rebellion instigated by Maoists; and separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and northeastern India. There are also unresolved territorial disputes with my country and Pakistan. The India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation culminated in 1998. Despite India's recent economic success, the base of vulnerable populations is such a large one that it remains an unattainable goal.
May the world be better! Less suffering! Guotai Min'an!