KARACHI, March 30: Throughout history, countries rich in resources have attracted predators. Just as it was cotton that brought Britain to the subcontinent in the past it is the petroleum resources of Iraq that have taken the allied forces to the country.
This was the thrust of Aitzaz Ahsan’s talk, titled “Britain and Indus in the 19th century,” which he delivered on Saturday evening at the Mohatta Palace Museum as part of a twin lecture in the series “Manasarowar to Monora 1830-1930”.
A member of the National Assembly and author of The Indus saga and the making of Pakistan, Mr Ahsan made it clear at the outset that in his submissions the term “Indus” referred to the region comprising the entire Indus valley, including the five Punjab rivers encompassing all of today’s Pakistan, while references to the river were as “the Indus”.
He said: “The establishment of spinning mills from 1790 onwards, and of weaving mills after 1815, had required relatively small initial capital. But the Lancashire textile mills were in need of cheap raw cotton. American independence had deprived the British industry of its resources of cheap cotton harvested in the southern states of the US, with the low-cost labour of the African slave.”
Mr Ahsan said that by 1818 the British had become conscious of the greater profits that Indus could yield. He quoted Nathan Crow pointing to Sindh’s vulnerability thus: “There is no zeal but for the propagation of the faith; no spirit but in celebrating Eed; no liberality but in feeding lazy Seyuds; and no taste but in ornamenting old tombs.”
He noted that with the consolidation of the Empire, and with the maturing of the Industrial Revolution, the expropriation of the raw produce of the subcontinent still remained a most profitable activity.
Wondering whether Indus and India had benefited by the provision of British infrastructure — the roads, railways, barrages and canals — more than they had been robbed by imperial subjugation, Mr Ahsan observed that Indus and India had paid back many times over for the railways and the canals.
Quoting from Stanley Wolpert’s book New history of India, he said: “The revenue surplus derived from the conquest and pacification of the Punjab was so substantial that, even from its first year, the total cost of the two army corps needed to control the turbulent region, in addition of all expenses of civil government, could be paid from it, and still leave a permanent surplus of fifty lacs (five million rupees) per annum. In addition, British irrigation technology was applied to the Punjab’s fertile soil and soon augmented the region’s yield so greatly that the directors of Leadenhall Street assured Dalhousie of the warmest support.”
He said: “Despite overtly altruistic claims, the invading imperialist discharged the ‘White Man’s burden’ thus in Indus in the 19th century as he seems poised to do with greater appetite and accomplishment, on the Euphrates at the advent of the 21st.”
In his talk “Images: Manasarowar to Manora 1830-1930”, F.S. Aijazuddin said that over the centuries, the Indus had irrigated us, nourished us, on occasions inundated us, but it had never forsaken us. “Of all the natural elements with which our daily lives have been associated, it has remained the most constant. Light is too ephemeral; Fire is too temperamental; Air too intangible; Earth grovels at our feet. Water is in every sense our lifeblood.”
As he showed interesting slides — from Ptolemaic map 1846, and Gulabi Bagh entrance to Anarkali’s tomb and cricket at Kohat — Mr Aijazuddin, author of many books on history and the fine arts, said: “It is not accidental that the Indus should have occupied such a prominent place in the geography of the subcontinent. “In this earliest map of the area (Ptolemaic map 1846) you can distinguish it as a sinuous blue line flowing from the brown baguette-like Himalayas to the blue of the Arabian Sea, in fact from Manasarowar to Manora. Looking at this map I am reminded of the remark made by one of the lunar astronauts from the surface of the moon, the only man-made object he could distinguish was the Great Wall of China.”
The director of the Mohatta Palace Museum, Nasreen Askari, helped the audience put interesting questions to the scholars. The director of the British Council presented the vote of thanks.
