The Cambridge History of India

The Cambridge History of India was a major work of historical scholarship published in five volumes between 1922 and 1937 by Cambridge University Press. Some volumes were also part of The Cambridge History of the British Empire. Production of the work was slowed by the First World War and the ill health of contributors, and Volume II had to be abandoned.

Quotes

Volume III

• He burned six mounds (1 mound is 37 kilos) of sacred threads worn by Hindus after massacring them (Hasan, Tarikh-i-Kashmir). He killed the Hindus who put a tilak-mark on their forehead ( Hasan, Tarikh-i-Kashmir). He burnt many of the books of the Hindus. Srivara wrote: "Sikander burnt all books the same wise as fire burns hay". Srivara also recorded: "All the scintillating works faced destruction in the same manner that lotus flowers face with the onset of frosty winter." (Srivara, Zaina Rajtarangini). Sikandar drowned many Hindus in the Dal Lake (Jonraj, Kings of Kashmir). According to some sources only eleven families of Brahmins were left in Kashmir due to Sikandar's policies.
  • Cambridge History of India, III, p.281

• The number slain in the battle and the pursuit was computed at 100,000, and the spoil, which included large numbers of captives consigned to slavery, enriched the whole of the Muslim armies, for the troops were permitted to retain the whole of the plunder except the elephants. The victors destroyed Vijayanagar, which they occupied for six months, plundered the country,..
  • also in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India.

• “Between 1387 and 1395 the Deccan was visited by a severe famine, and Muhammad’s53 measures for the relief of his subjects displayed a combination of administrative ability, enlightened compassion, and religious bigotry. A thousand bullocks belonging to the transport establishment maintained for the court were placed at the disposal of. those in charge of relief measures, and travelled incessantly to and fro between his dominions and Gujarat and Malwa, which had escaped the visitation bringing thence grain which was sold at low rates in the Deccan, but to Muslims only.”
  • Cambridge History of India., III, p.385. also in K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims who are they, 1990.

• The Hindus now had reason to repent their breach of the humane treaty between Muhammad I and Bukka I for never, in the course of a long series of wars, did cither army display such ferocity as did Ahmad's troops in this campaign. His temper, not naturally cruel, had |been goaded by the spectacle of the atrocities committed by the Hindus after the disastrous campaign of Pangul, and he glutted his revenge. Avoiding Vijayanagar, the siege of which had been discovered to be an unprofitable adventure, he marched through the kingdom, slaughtering men and enslaving women and children. An account of the butchery was kept, and whenever the tale of victims reached 20,000 the invader halted for three days, and celebratpd the achievement with banquets and the beating of the great drums. Throughout his progress he destroyed temples and slaugh- tered cows, he sent three great brazen idols to Gulbarga to be dishonoured, and omitted nothing that could wound the natural affections, the patriotism, or the religious sentiments of the Hindus.
  • also in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India.

Volume IV

• Forcible opposition to temple destruction was offered only in Rajputana, Malwa, Bundelkhand and Khandesh, which were remote from the centre of the imperial authority, and even there only when the emperor was not present. But we read of reprisals in the second half of the reign by certain Rajput and Maratha chiefs, who de- molished converted mosques in retaliation or stopped the chanting of the call to prayer in their locality. In some places the jizya collector was expelled after plucking his beard out.
  The first extensive outbreak of Hindu reaction against this policy of persecution took place among the sturdy Jat peasantry of the Muttra district, where the local commandant ‘Abdun-Nabl was a bigoted oppressor. In 1669 the Jats rose under a leader named Gokla of Tilpat, Mlled ‘Abdun-Nabi,
  • also in Lal, K. S. (1995). Growth of scheduled tribes and castes in medieval India. 80-91

• Surrender availed nothing. The unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched grain and a drink of water, and beheaded. Every Afghan tent had heads piled before its doors. The plunder of the camp was prodigious, and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves.
  • after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761),. H. G. Rawlinson in Cambridge History of India., also in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

About

• In general, the historical writings of Englishmen from about the last quarter of the 19th century were, more or less, tinged by the spirit of imperialism which they inherited as a legacy from the British rule in India during the preceding century. The most typical example of such a historical work is furnished by V. A. Smith’s Oxford History of India (1919) on a smaller scale, and The Cambridge History of India, Vols. V(1929) and V1I(1932), on a more comprehensive scale. One may be pardoned for gathering the impression from these books, that they were pro- ducts of men who honestly believed in the doctrine-—‘my country, right or wrong,’—and used the medium of history to defend British imperialism which had by that time come in for a good deal of criticism both in India and abroad. The Cambridge History of India, Vols. V-VI, the last great historical work on modern India written by British historians, looks at India purely from the standpoint of British officials and statesmen. Its attention was mainly directed to, and its interest was primarily concerned with, the British dominion and British administration. While minute details are given on these points, the story of Indians, as such, is almost completely ignored. One may go through the two ponderous volumes without gaining any idea of the great cultural renaissance in India in the 19th century which transformed her from the Medieval to the Modern Age. While reference is made in detail to official transactions or administrative machinery, there is hardly any reference. except by way of casual mention as a part of administrative history, to the great social and religious reforms, literary revival, and political aspirations, which so strongly marked the 19th century. One comes across enthusiastic references to British Governors-General, Governors and even lesser officials, but looks in vain for the names and careers of men like Rammohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Ramkrishna Paramahamsa, Keshab Chandra Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Surendra Nath Banerji, M. G. Ranade, Dadabhai Naoroji. Pherozeshah Mehta, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and a host of others, who will be remembered as makers of Modern India, long after the names of officials, with whose careers the two volumes of Cambridge History abound, have been completely forgotten. (xxiii-xxv)
  • Volume 9: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part 1 [1818-1905]

• But the errors of Cambridge History are not of omission only. The errors of commission are equally, if not more. grave and serious. Differing in spirit even from the old English historians of British India, it has put forth only the official or imperial view of British transactions in India, without any attempt to discuss the dissentient views, It suppresses truth in many cases where the preservation of good name for the British rulers requires it; worse still, it repeats the official calumny against Indian rulers concocted by the British Government of the day in order to justify their unjust action against them, though a little inquiry would have sufficed to demonstrate the totally unreliable character of the evidence on which the statements of the Government of India were based. Typical instances of the former ate supplied by the accounts given of the annexation of Burma, Awadh, Nagpur, Jhansi, Sindh and the Panjab, as well as dealings of Ellenborough with Sindhia. As regards the latter, it is only necessary to refer to the grounds on which the rulers of Mysore, Coorg, Cachar, and Satara were dethroned, and an armed expedition was sent against Manipur and its Commander-in-chief, Tikendrajit, was hanged. (xxiii-xxv)
  • Volume 9: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part 1 [1818-1905]