To any schoolboy the Indian subcontinent
appeared to form a natural unity. But, even under
the glittering panoply of the viceroy, that unity
was never really achieved. India remained a patch-
work; some regions came under direct British rule
while more than 360 princely states, a few – such
as Hyderabad – large and others small, were
allowed a substantial measure of internal self-
government. The princes occupied a special place.
When aristocracy still mattered, the Indian
maharajas – displaying their wealth ostentatiously
and sending their sons to Eton and Harrow –
became part of the British upper crust, or almost.
So did the opposition to the Raj. The best-known
Indian nationalists, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, were members of the English Bar. There
was not only opposition to British rule but also
Anglo-Indian cooperation. In the lower branches
of administration, Indians and Anglo-Indians
were providing efficient and loyal service. The
best example of Indian unity was the Indian army.
Racist yet loyal, it was for long exclusively offi-
cered by the British; not until the 1930s were
Indians given commissions. Moreover, it incor-
porated all the divisive religious cultures of the
Indian subcontinent: Nepalese Gurkhas, Sikhs,
Muslims and Hindus were all imbued with a fierce
loyalty to their regiments and to the Crown.
What would happen to the patchwork of
British India once the unifying Crown and the
institutions that supported it disappeared with
independence? That was the crucial question
facing the British and the Indians in the 1940s.
Gandhi’s vision was of an India where all its inhab-
itants would be brothers. It seemed only natural
that British India should be replaced by the one
Commonwealth of India. But during the century
of British rule the deep divisions grew deeper.
Only by force and bloodshed was it possible to
create two states in 1947, and nationalism con-
tinued to threaten the cohesion of these two suc-
cessor nations, India and Pakistan. In 1971, the
eastern region of Pakistan fought for and gained
independence as Bangladesh; now the subconti-
nent had divided into three political units.
Religion has been a prime cause of division.
Hinduism is the religion of the majority of
Indians, but there are many different kinds.
Hinduism professes, but does not always practise,
broad tolerance, and it can embrace many differ-
ent religious practices; Hindus are opposed to the
assertions of exclusive truth made by many other
religions. But it is precisely these all-embracing
Hindu claims that are seen as a threat to those
religions that base their faith on providing a
specific path to salvation. Muslims are the largest
of these minorities, numbering 120 million, a
quarter of all the Indian population in 1947 of
some 480 million. The next largest minority were
12 million Christians. The Christians of Kerala in
southern India are poor and have supported the
Communist Party. The principal challenges to
Indian unity in the 1990s, however, came fromChapter 34
INDIA
FROM THE RAJ TO INDEPENDENCE, 1947