Describe the policy of divided and rule as
Describe the policy of divide and rule as applied by Germans
Answers
The divide and rule policy was a strategy used by the British to weaken the Indian powers by creating a gulf between the different communities in India. When the different groups of populace fought each other and weakened themselves they could easily be taken over by the British.
The best example is the partition of Bengal, 1905.
Bengal(the state comprised parts of modern Bihar, West Bengal, Bangladesh and north east India) was a strong state where nationalism was becoming stronger. lord Curzon devised a plan to spread hatred among Hindus and Muslims by dividing the state in two halves- a Western part that was a Hindu majority and an Eastern half which would be a Muslim majority. The reason given by them was better administrative feasibility. It was however, clear that this wasn't the real reason because it would be better to divide the state on linguistic lines- into three states- Bihar, Bengal and northeast.
The impact- before the partition a Bengali Muslim and Bengali Hindu were closer than a Bengali Muslim and Bihari Muslim. After the partition and it's following tensions, there was a lot of hatred created between Bengali Muslims and Hindus. Thus they successively ruined the Bengali unity, strength and the growing nationalism that was threatening the British.
This was the strategy they used in a lot of situations whenever they sensed a growing wave a nationalism that would lead to a freedom movement.
Other examples- Muslims were promoted to a lot of higher ranks in the British army but the Hindus(especially Brahmins) were never given promotion being a certain post,
They taught two versions of history- one which blamed the Muslim sultans for the downfall of India due to their cruelty and the other which portrayed Hindus as weak,
Urdu was made the court language in the state of United Province(former Uttar Pradesh) even though Hindi was the most spoken language in the region. All these successfully worked to create hatred among Hindus and Muslims and weakened Indian strength.