7 - Two Global Indian Events

Summary

I discuss two episodes in India’s history that attracted significant attention worldwide. The first is the Great Revolt of 1857. I show possible links to contemporaneous events such as the European revolutions of 1848–9 and the Tai-ping rebellion in China to be largely speculative. Repercussions in the Islamic world are attested, but would need further research. The impact of the Revolt on the British Empire is well documented, although its consequences are uncertain, and was greatest at the level of representations as it inspired ‘sepoy ballads’ in Irish Fenian circles and a flurry of popular novels in different languages. The Partition of British India in 1947 attracted less attention worldwide at the time, but it became a staple of later analyses of partition by political scientists as a way of solving problems of territoriality and ethnicity. I explore the links of India’s Partition to the earlier Partition of Ireland and the contemporaneous Partition of Palestine through a survey of the literature, and end with an interrogation of the possible influence of India’s Partition on later episodes of decolonisation in the British Empire.