The History of India Since 1900 Essay
In the beginning of 1900, India was ruled by British Empire and it attained
independent in 1947. In most parts of the 19th century, India was under the
rule of British. India was taken as the core of the British Empire and Queen
Victoria was created as Empress of India. The main British military was
deployed in India and this made Indian citizens to have no powers in local and
central government and they had less authority in policy and decision-making.
Indian National Conference (INC) was established in 1884 by some of the
learned Indians and they intended to obtain greater authority in the way India
was ruled (Blackwell 56). In return to this progress, there was establishment of
the Morley-Minto reforms in 1909 and Morley was then the Secretary of State
for India.
Das (6) contended that in 1850, Indian population was merely 500 million
heads. By 1900, there was increase in population to around 1.5 billion heads
and was increasing very fast, to around 3.2 billion in the year 1965. The
population was increasing within a shorter time and this rapid population
increase was mostly due to a reducing death rate, which was faster than birth
rate and especially a raise in average people age.
In 2000, the number of people in India was reported to have reached around
six billion people. However, the growth in population began to reduce after
1965 due to reducing birth rates (Hiralal 28). This paper would discuss the
transformations in India since 1900 including the British Empire, economy and
population change in India
British Empire in India
After 1919, nationalism in India strengthened and this was because of the
following reasons (Blunt 431):
1. Several learned people in India were not really pleased with the MorleyMinto reforms. British still ruled India and they did not reduce their
powers or raise the Indians authority in the government. The INC aimed
for more powers in their country.
2. Woodrow Wilson had inspired the minds of several Indian nationals with
his consideration of national independence; i.e. citizens of a country to
have powers to rule themselves.
The entire idea of national independence destabilized the crucial concept of
the British Empire where the British ruled this empire or individuals chosen by
the British to perform the same. For national independence to function
completely, India was supposed to be ruled by the Indian nationals residing
there. In the beginning of 1919, there was implementation of the Government
of India Act and this helped in introduction of national parliament
(Chandrasekhar 169).
Around five million of the richest and influential Indian nationals were offered
the right to vote which was a very minimal ratio of the sum population. Central
government, ministry of education, and some civil positions were governed by
Indian citizens. However, the British managed the entire central authority and
British retained the core positions, such as tax and law and order posts, in the
provincial government.
Lord Birkenhead, 1924 to 1928, was fully opposing the concept of selfgovernance and this made very hard for Indians to obtain self-governance
(Chandrasekhar 169). Three influential men, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma
Gandhi, and Muhammed Jinnah, created a major impact on the Indian
government where they fought for self-rule. Gandhi influenced most of his
supporters to employ non-violent demonstration.
They used sit-down strikes, declined to work, declined to pay for government
taxes, and so forth. Most of the Indians desired to use more extreme means
and in the section of 1919 Government of India Act declared that a body
would be formed after ten years to examine if India should have the desired
self-governance (Blunt 432). The commission initially met in 1928 which was
called the Simon Commission.
There were implementation of the Government of India Act in 1935 and that
time the British had founded national Government and development were
created over India just since Stanley Baldwin, who was the Tory leader and
head of labor, Ramsey-MacDonald, decided on a mutual way of action and
Winston Churchill was resentfully in contrary to this (Hiralal 28). This Act
brought in elected Indian leaders to have powers in most sections apart from
foreign affairs and defense.
It also introduced the 11 provincial assemblies which were intended to have
valuable full powers over local government. Indians citizens were not pleased
with this since the Act did not facilitate authority status and British authority
was permitted to manage their own defense and foreign affairs. Also some off
the princes were governing some parts of India still declined to associate with
the provincial assemblies hence the second section of the Act was
insignificant (Blackwell 56).
The key failure of the Act was that it disregarded the religious opposition
between the Hindus and Muslims. Almost 60% of the Indian nationals were
Hindus and this made Muslims to fear that they will not be treated equally in a
self-governing and democratic India. There were provincial elections in 1937
and Hindus won eight out of 11 provinces (Levie 96).
The Muslim League under Jinnah insisted for their province to be named
Pakistan. These competitions between the Muslims and Hindus had greater
impact on the Indian progress. World War Two put on hold the Indian matter –
although momentarily. The Indians presented significant military assistance in
the struggle against Japan in particular in the movement in Burma. The British
assured power positions for Indians once the battle had finished.
The religious enmity within India was intensifying and this created any
possible solution extremely hard. Efforts to put together a cooperate
constitution which satisfied both religious opponents were unsuccessful. The
British intention was to permit the provincial authority broad powers at the
same time as central government would simply have the partial rules
(Robertaon 218).
The Labor government placed its belief in the expectation that many Muslims
resided in one or two provinces and that the authority in the two provinces
should consider this in policy making. If this arrangement functions, the
demand for a separate province for Muslim would not be necessary.
Nehru was requested to create a temporary government by the GovernorGeneral of India and the Governor General expected that the information of
this government could be reformed afterward; however he expected that the
formation of full government led by Indian citizens would satisfy most of the
people.
There were inclusion of two Muslims in Nehru cabinet but it was not efficient in
preventing violence. Jinnah was persuaded that Nehru might not be relied on
and he requested all the Muslims to pursue a direct action to attain a self-rule
Muslim nation. Violence started and more that 6000 people died in Calcutta
and there were civil war in India (Levie 97).
In the beginning of 1947, Atlee stated that British would go back to Britain
before mid 1948 and another viceroy, Mountbatten, was chosen and he stated
that peace might be simply be attained if partition was implemented. The
Hindu Assembly had the same opinion with him.
Mountbatten became persuaded that whichever holdup might raise violence
and he announced that the British would leave the country in August 1947. In
August 1947, there was signing of the Indian Independence Act and this
helped in dividing the Muslim major regions from India to form the self-rule
nation of Pakistan. However, the Act was very hard to implement (Levie 96).
Indian Transformations
Indian is famous in architecture and they have the great architects which have
inspired most of the countries and societies. This architect has originated from
ancient society and it continues to the modern structures. Indian architecture
includes broad series of geographically and traditionally broadens systems
and was changed by the history of the state of India.
These transformations have led to series of architecture inventions which,
even though it is hard to recognize a particular representative approach,
nevertheless maintains a particular sum of permanence across history. The
multiplicity of Indian society is symbolized in its architecture. It is a mixture of
prehistoric and diverse local traditions, with construction forms, kinds, and
technologies from Western and some parts of Asia along with Europe.
The Indian transformations as from independence appear to be in flagrant
opposition with conventional Western theories of economic growth. The
concept of Arthur Lewis on the transition from a 6% to a 12% saving
investment rate being the necessity of the growth of economy and the two-gap
method has satisfied huge inflows of international legislative or private
investment (Das 5).
Examination on the economy in 1900 to 1975 reported that a huge growth rate
in companies is to be established merely when its conditions of trade relative
to agriculture are not extremely below their long-term standard level.
Conclusion
Most of the people found themselves on the worst part of frontiers particularly
in the combined provinces of Bengal and Punjab. Many people migrated to
new frontiers where the Muslims moved to newly established Pakistan and the
Hindus migrated to India. However, some regions where the groups met
experienced violence.
In Punjab, around 300,000 people were killed in religious violence. Violence
reduced in the end of 1947 but in the beginning of 1948, there was
assassination of Gandhi by a Hindu. This intensified the hatred between the
Hindu and Muslim and created a huge instability in both states.
The real wages in the sector of agriculture have risen since 1900, while in
major companies these may have risen by minimal margin in many years after
independence. There is considerable increase in public fixed investments
since 1950s, however once suitable modifications are created this intention is
observed to be not relatively applicable (Das 5).
Their style of architect includes post-modern, modern, western classical and
Islamic. This architecture styles have been changing since 1900s and some of
the ancient styles have been maintained in India. Various transformations
have been seen in India since independence and even the population is more
rapidly increasing the current population of 6 million.
Works Cited
Blackwell, F. India:a global studies handbook. Santa Barbara: CA: ABC-CLIO,
Inc., 2004. Print.
Reason: This book has a lot of information about India and it explains many
things that I need to understand and then use it in my paper.
Blunt, Alison. “Imperial Geographies of Home: British Domesticity in India,
1886-1925.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New
Series 24.4 (1999): 421-440. Print.
Reason: An important time in the Indian history, when England took over India
and how these events affected the Indian history.
Chandrasekhar, S. “Population Pressure in India.” Pacific Affairs 16.2 (1943):
168-184. Print.
Reason: This article was written in the middle of the last century, and I need to
use some statistic in my paper.
Das, Gurcharan. “The India Model.” Foreign Affairs 85.4 (2006): 2-16. Print.
Reason: This article focuses on the economy in India and I need to write
about the Indian economy.
Hiralal, Kalpana. “Indian Family Businesses in Natal, 1870–
1950.” Natalia 38.4 (2008): 27-37. Print.
The introduction of ‘passenger Indians’ in the region of Natal from the 1870s
indicated a fresh age in colonial history. This is extensively e4xplained in this
book where he described the foundations of the Indian commercial status in
the imperial era.
Levie, Howard S. “The Indo-Pakistani Agreement of August 28, 1973.” The
American Journal of International Law 68.1 (1974): 95-97. Print.
Reason: I need to write about the conflict between India and Pakistan during
last century.
Robertaon, S. “Politics and Religion in India: An Analysis.” Asia Journal of
Theology 23.2 (October 2009): 217-243. Web.