Itihaas Gawaah Hai

Often tagged as a 'mutiny,' the 1857 uprising was a full-fledged war joined by soldiers, old rulers, farmers, handicrafts, and skilled workers and was widespread across the country, as recent research reveals. This episode focuses on why it is tagged wrongly as a mutiny and the reasons for calling the first Indian war of independence.

In this episode, I discuss the key farmer and tribal revolts and their nature, and their contribution to the rise of Indian nationalism. In addition, I also share examples of revolts led by the displaced landowner groups or rulers who the British government didn't back. 

In this episode, I discuss the rise of Indian Nationalism in response to colonialism. I discuss the key difference between European Nationalism and Indian Nationalism. How these differences make us unique and more complex as a nation and therefore how even after 75 years we are still evolving India's idea of Nationalism.

In this episode, I discuss the strategic and economic importance of India as a colony in the British empire. It resulted in an excessive wealth drain and handicapped the growth of Indian industries. 

In this episode, I discuss how the British crown adopted the approach of placating the farmers in response to the revolt of 1857. This phase also focuses on forming commissions, committees, and changes in the previous land revenue act in response to frequent famines and farmer revolts across different regions of India. Most of these changes were lip service and did not do enough to solve farmer di...

In this episode, I share how the 1857 great revolt and the pressure of opening India as a market for British Capital brought about changes in the political strategy. The idea was to establish indirect control while unifying all the territories through administrative changes. 

This episode focuses on the development of Railways by East India Company to support the idea of integrating India's market. We will focus on how the development of Railways led to deindustrialization and ultimately accelerated the drain of wealth. We will also focus on the reason behind the Education Policy under which English education was introduced and its long-term impacts. 

This episode focuses on the structural changes brought by East India Company in the Indian economy and farming economy to support the industries and growing towns in the mother nation, Britain. These changes led to numerous famines and left generations of people with scars of poverty. It also led to rural poverty and severely stunted the growth of industries in India in later years. 

This episode explores the aggressive stance that New Imperialism and Utilitarianism took as the result of changing conditions in Europe. British now wanted to make India ready to sell finished goods instead of just selling goods at a profit. Therefore efforts were made to make India's law, justice, police, and civil services more attuned to European standards. This resulted in comprehensive c...

The British East India Company alters its policy in India to accommodate changes due to the end of monopoly and the rise of the Industrial class in Britain. India now needs to become the exporter of unfinished goods to Britain and the importer of finished goods. 

This episode emphasizes the social and cultural policy and rounds off the discussion of the previous two episodes on the administrative, political, legal, and penal codes set up by the British East India Company, keeping in focus the commercial goals of the first colonization phase. 

This episode explores the reforms made by Cornwallis during his tenure to Land Revenue and general administrative structures. It also goes deeper into the additional reforms made by Cornwallis to the legal system initiated by Warren Hastings. Finally, we take a look at the approach to set-up 'rule-of-law' to help trade and business as well as setting of Civil Services in India. 

This episode focuses on the policy aspect of the British East India Company, which was centered around extracting maximum revenue from the colonies to pay for the exported goods from India. Instead of looking at each in isolation, it is important to look at them together and in the larger context of East India Company's expansion in India.

This episode rounds off the discussion on the final Anglo-Maratha and Anglo-Mysore Wars and finishes the first phase of British colonization of India. This was the commercial phase under which East India Company's policies were centered on furthering the company's interest in India. We leave the discussion at 1805. 

This episode discusses when the British East India Company turns its attention to Mysore and Marathas due to the lure of cotton, resham, spice, and opium trade with China. 

This episode discusses the two key battles and their nature that established the British's dominance over the prosperous Diwani of Bengal and Awadh and the approach of the British after the Battle of Buxar in 1764.

This episode explores why the British East India Company and not the French were able to lay claims to India. It also examines views that the British East India Company was needed to modernize India after the decline of the Mughal Empire.

This episode talks about the arrival of various trading companies in India. It tracks the events that led to these companies developing political aspirations of colonizing this part of the world.

This episode looks at the hot mess that was created as the result of the Cold War that spanned 40 years. Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, and Ukraine are just a few conflicts that had their roots in Cold War diplomacy. 

This episode focuses on the period between 1917-1947, a tumultuous time in Europe and the world, which saw the rise of Stalin's Russian communism and the Nazi party in Germany, along with the economic depression of 1929. 

The series aims to build a perspective on the current Russia-Ukraine crisis. This episode builds background and covers about 600-700 years from 13th-century Russian principalities to Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin in 1917, right in the middle of World War I. 

This episode concludes the podcast series on the French Revolution, focusing on the widespread and far reaching impact of the revolution within and outside France.

This episode tracks the period of the French Revolution from 1795 - 1816, covering the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and the details of the Coalition War, including the Peninsular War and the invasion of Russia. 

This episode explores the precipitation of the French Revolution in 1789 and the six years of the revolution which were full of civil unrest, barbaric activities, confusion, and yet progress towards freedom from absolute monarchy. 

The episode focuses on events from 1648 to 1774, which ultimately precipitated into French Revolution. We discuss the absolute monarchy under Louis XIV and XV and the role of the French Englightenment that led to the revolution.