East and West

Dr. Man Mohan Singh's acceptance speech at Oxford University is historically accurate, academically authentic, and elegant to the occasion. Rule of law and ideology of equal rights and civil justice are English contribution to global world order. Administration, medical health services, scientific research and technical application are evidently English contributions to traditional societies. The English Raj caused triple revolutions: 1) transformation of the ancient stratified and fossilized society to modernity; 2) cultivation of science and technology and 3) campaign for political independence.

In modern terms, politico-geographical entity “India” is the welcome contribution of the Raj. In pre-British India, there existed no maps describing our national and/or state borders. No geographical mapping of the region had taken place. In fact, the science of mapping of mountains, rivers, and forest was not available in India. The details of our rivers, length and height of the highest peak in the world Gauri-Shankar (Everest), and measuring and counting of peaks of the Himalayas were undertaken by the British who established The Survey of India (1767), the Zoological Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, Aarchaeological Survey of India (1861), and the Indian Meteorological Department (1875). The Raj established schools and universities.

Indian cultural heritage received protection, preservation, and research under the Raj. In the year 1783, Sir William Jones (1746-94), under the governor-generalship of Warren Hastings, came to Calcutta as a judge of the Supreme Court. A linguistic genius Jones had already learnt major European languages as well as Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He studied Sanskrit and propounded the theory that the Indo-European languages were derived from a common ancestor, which was not Hebrew but Sanskrit. In 1789 Jones translated Kalidasa’s Shakuntala, which went into five English editions in less than twenty years. In 1792 he translated Gita Govinda (songs in praise of Krishna) into English, and in 1794, under the title The Institutes of Hindoo Law (manusmriti) was rendered into English.

Sanskrit studies is perhaps, the most important contribution of English to India. In the 19th century, Sanskrit chairs were established at Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, and at several other universities of Europe and America. The first Sanskrit English Dictionary was published in 1819 by Professor H. H. Wilson, Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford. His successor, Sir Monier Monier-Williams undertook voyages to India to study Sanskrit at “my own expense… on three several occasions ( 1875-76, 1876-77, 1883-4)” .

In India, he met to his “ surprise with learned and thoughtful natives – not only in the cities and towns, but even in remote villages – able and willing to converse with me in Sanskrit, as well as in their own vernaculars, and to explain difficult points in their languages, literatures, religions, and philosophies. “ He spent twenty five years in preparing A Sanskrit-English Dictionary enlisting 200,000 Sanskrit words, Etymologically and Philologically arranged with special reference to “Cognate Indo-European Languages ( Oxford University Press 1899). In the Introduction of the Sanskrit Dictionary, Sir Monier observed:

“The Hindus are perhaps the only nation, except the Greeks, who have investigated, independently and in a truly scientific manner, the general laws which govern the evolution of languages… The Dictionary exhibits by a lucid etymological arrangement, the structure of a language (Sanskrit) which is not only the elder sister of Greek, but the best guide to the structure of Greek, as well as of every other member of the Aryan or Indo-European family – a language, in short, which is the very key-stone of the science of comparative philology.“

Max Mueller (1823-1900), well over 20 years, again at Oxford University, studied the ancient Vedic literature and Philosophy. He published the first printed edition of the Rig Veda. Professor Mueller delivered lectures to the English civil servants entitled: "What India can teach us (west)". Professor A.L. Basham – an authority on Indian civilization and history- wrote a monumental volume entitled: “The Wonder That Was India”, (1954) at the University of London where he taught Ancient Indian History. Discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, and of Ajanta and Elora, is evidently credited to the English scholars. Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and Indus (Sindhu) river basin civilization of the pre-Vedic age, was discovered by English explorers as described by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the Indus Civilization and Sir John Marshall, in the Cambridge History of India (1922).

Inspired by the English intellectuals of the 19th century, Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883) led Social and cultural reform movement in India. He founded a radical Hindu Protestant movement, Arya Samaj (1875), and constituted Ten Commandments (Ten Rules) for a modern Hindu society. For the first time in India, Swami defied the caste system, condemned the Sati, sanctioned the widow marriage, and preached equality of men and women. Arya Samaj established educational institutions for girls.

In 1850s, the British forces invaded a small princely state of Jhansi in Central India, the battle cry of the brave Queen of Jhansi (Jhansi-ki-Rani) was: “I shall not surrender my Jhansi” (main apani Jhansi nahin doongi). And the Mughal Emperior Bahadurshah, deposed by the British in 1857-58, was defending his “Delhi Saltanat”. Interesting to note that in “the first war of Independence (1857)” as we like to call it, no Indian ruler and /or soldier had fought for Independence of “India”. It was Mahatma Gandhi, who after his studies in England launched the Indian national movement: “ Quit India.”

Words like political Independence and Freedom we learned from John Stuart Mill (1806-73) the author of “Liberty”. Mill expounded the idea of individual’s right to freedom from the state. Being an Englishman, he had supported the American Revolution against the Empire. Edmund Burke (1729-97) had charged Warren Hastings (1732-1818), the first Governor General of India (1774-1784) for his crimes and misdeeds against the Indian people. An Englishwoman Ms. Annie Besant was interned in India campaigning for our Independence.

Messiah of socio-economic revolution Karl Marx (1818-1883), exiled from Germany, took shelter in England - the only European country that allowed him to write freely and criticize its own politico-economic system. His monumental work Das Kapital was written in the British Museum library. Karl Marx is buried in Archway cemetery near London.


Historically, we Indians welcomed the new social and political ideas of the 19th century. Nay, Indo-British experience of renaissance of modernity had added a unique chapter in History of Human Civilization. Together we have evolved a new way of resolving socio-political conflicts. The Gandhian Weapon of Unarmed Revolution through “Non-cooperation” and “Satyagraha” is a mix of Indo-British dialectics that has powerful synergistic effects in the post-modern politics.

Theoretical historian Professor Jan Romein of University of Amsterdam in “The Asian Century: A History of Modern Nationalism in Asia” rightly observed that men make their own history:

But even if they know their (selfish) aims, the final outcome is hidden from them. The historian, therefore, can do no more than establish that the mutual hostility was necessary so that the possibility of co-operation could be recognized. Only in anticipation of a better future can one put up with a tragic past. Only when it is demonstrated that the unity of the world is the final achievement of the actual world conflict …only then will one be able on both sides to forget and, what is infinitely more important, to forgive. (University of California Press, 1965,p.13).