Topic: Policy of Divide and Rule — Muslim Communalism.

Question : Critically examine the British Policy of ‘Divide and Rule’?

Answer:

The Congress movement began to appear to the British authorities, in the opening years of the twentieth century, a challenge to their rule, and they began to think of weakening it before it sent out of control They thought of putting up a strong counterpoise to check the progress of the national organisation. Weaning away the Muslims from the mainstream of nationalism was considered a convenient device. Mountstuart Elphinstone advised the British Government thus: “Divide et Impera (divide and rule) was the old Roman motto and it should be ours”. The authorities took up the cue and utilized it to their full advantage. They had already divided the country into princely India and British India. The Uprising of 1857 made the British realize that they had gone too far in the policy of direct rule and annexations.

After 1858, the princes had begun increasingly to pose into the fold of the Government, and they identified their existence with the continuance of the British rule. After the formation of the Congress and its increasing strength and popularity, the foreign masters decided to weaken the nationlist movement. Here, the division was sought to be brought about between the Muslims and the Hindus. The authorities in London decided to utilize the racial, religious, .and economic differences of the two communities to their own advantage.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Muslims, under the leadership of Sir Sayed, were stirring with thoughts of national unification and emancipation. This added to the anxiety of the British bureaucracy. An alliance of the Hindus and Muslims, it was felt, would be too formidable for their dominance and this alliance was due, the British realized, to their own policy of rendering the Muslims too weak for independent rebellion. The days of Hindu Anglo alliance, it was thought, were gone and the days of Anglo-Muslim alliance should begin. The necessity of such a reversal of policy was brought home to the British, particularly, by the publication of Sir William Hunter’s book, ‘Indian Musulmans’, as early as 1871. He pointed out how the Musulmans, especially in Bengal, had been suppressed under the British Government; how they had been deprived of power and position, how they had been impoverished; and how they were denied facilities of education and economic betterment. Hunter urged that the chronic sense of wrong which had grown in the hearts of the Muslims under the British rule must be removed. The Muslims if contented and satisfied, he noted, would become the greatest bulwark of British power in India.

Hunger’s urgings became the precursor of change of attitude towards the Muslim community. The Mohammedan Anglo-oriental College at Aligarh was patronized, and it became the agency for fermenting communal passion and schism. An Englishman, Beck, who became its Principal in 1883, carried forward the policy of befriending the Muslims almost with a missionary zeal. He impressed upon Sir Sayed that the educational uplift of the Muslims had not reached a stage when they could be trusted to confine themselves to constitutional agitation, and that if they were roused they might once again express their discontent in the way they did in 1857. Sir Sayed was convinced that the participation of the Muslims in the political agitation would be to their detriment. He was made to believe that the Anglo-Muslim alliance was more to the advantage of the Muslim community than cooperation with the Hindus in the national movement.

The love of the community prevailed over the love of motherland, and Sir Sayed adopted an openly hostile attitude towards the Congress movement. Aligarh College became, the centre of Muslim Powers and the English principals there, allegedly, poisoned the minds of young Muslims, creating a schism between them and the national organisation. One year after the establishment of Congress, the Muslims were led to organize themselves into a separate organizational, called the Mohammedan Educational Congress (MEC) that latter came to be known as the Muslim Educational Conference. The Muslims began to secede from the Congress. Although a few enlightened and open-minded Muslims, such as Abdul Rasul in Bengal Comurduddin Tyabji and Badruddin Tyabji in Bombay never served from their allegiance to the national cause, the bulk of the Muslim community were led astray. The MEC held its session at almost the same place and time as the Congress and diverted the attention of the Muslim masses. Of the seventy-two delegates who came to the first session of the Congress, only to were Muslims; at the second session, there were only 33 Muslims out of 440. When in 1890, the Muslim fraction increased to 156’ out of 702, Sir Sayed began to feel that their betterment lay in separation from, and not in unison with, the Congress.

Go Back To Main Page