British Raj Quotes
In one of his reports, the term was used and appears to be the earliest use of the phrase that can be found. Dee was perhaps the original Agent 007—see {614640}.
The chance was the fact that war—the War of 1812—had been declared between Britain and America. Tecumseh allied himself with General Isaac Brock, the British Commander of the Western Forces. Tecumseh himself was put in charge of all Indian forces and given the rank of a British Brigadier General. However, Brock was killed shortly thereafter, and his replacement, General Procter, was not as skilled at working with Indian Allies and the British-Indian alliance was defeated bringing to an end the notion of “one great Indian nation.”
As early as 1933, 14 years before Indian independence, there was a movement for a separate Muslim nation within India. Ironically, Hindu India was never a nation in any sense of the word, but was a series of independent principalities much like Italy before its unification. However, with the Muslim conquest of the various Indian states, there was a central authority, ruler, and nation for the first time. Later the Muslims had to argue that India was not a country when it was they who had made it such. When the Muslim Emperors were in power, they argued that India was one country under their authority. But when they lost power, the Muslims argued the other side of the issue.
In 1942 it was clear that India would be given its independence soon. There were a number of sticky problems in doing so. One was the fact that when the British came to India, all the states were ruled by Maharajas (Princes, Kings, etc.). The British signed treaties with almost all of them guaranteeing to protect and preserve their local powers in exchange for acceding to British Rule of the national government. But when it came time for independence, democracy was the mode—even in England. The Maharajas insisted that the British leave them with their control of their states as they had agreed, as opposed to creating democratic government at the state level. In the final analysis, the Maharajas lost all their governmental functions and privileges but were able to retain much of their wealth.
