South Asian History
The Amritsar Massacre: Another Step Toward Indian Independence
World War I brought India one step closer to demanding its independence from Great Britain. Indian regiments sailed overseas and fought alongside their Canadian and Australian counterparts. (If you visit the memorial gateway at Ypres, you will see how many of them died in defense of the empire.) Indian nationalists loyally supported the British…
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The Swadeshi Movement: The First Step Toward Indian Independence
Beginning in the 1830s, the British East India Company provided Western education to a small number of Indian elites: it was cheaper and more effective than recruiting the entire work force of the empire back home in Britain. In addition to training clerks of all kinds, the East Indian Company created as a by-product what…
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Shin-Kickers From History: Gandhi’s March to the Sea
The American Revolution had the Boston Tea Party; the Indian independence movement had Gandhi’s salt march. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British government in India had a heavily taxed monopoly on the production and sale of salt. It was illegal for anyone to make or sell salt. If a peasant who lived…
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