The Sun Never Set on the British Empire... until it did. Dr Samuel Hume explores the history of Indian Independence with captivating narrative and joined by expert guests. If you love learning about the past, and discovering why the world is the way it is, then listen to Winds of Change.
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With the end of the First World War, India has been promised reform and some form of self government. As the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms are drafted, hardliners within the Government of India write their own law: the Rowlatt Act. Protests erupt across India, mostly peaceful but some violent, and in the Punjab city of Amritsar the British panic. Echoes of the 1857 Mutiny loom large in Anglo-Indian minds, and Brigadier General Reginald Dyer arrives in the city to crush this "rebellion" at Jallianwa...
The British Empire goes to war, and India is taken along with it. Hundreds of thousands of Indians are part of the war effort all over the world, and Indian nationalists and British liberals hope this display of loyalty will be rewarded. Indian revolutionaries are not prepared to wait for freedom to come to India, and plot a 2nd Indian Mutiny. The Imperial War Cabinet and the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms offer some concessions, but the Rowlatt Commission is hard at work. Thank you to my guest hist...
Indian Nationalists split into Moderates and Radicals, as British Viceroys dodge bombs. Subscribe to the mailing list at LangnessMedia.com Thank you to my guest historians: Mark Condos, Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at King's College London, and author of The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, 1849-1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) Vineet Thakur, Assistant Professor at Universiteit Leiden, and author of V.S. Srinivasa Sas...
Subscribe to the mailing list at LangnessMedia.com Thank you to my guest historians: Mark Condos, Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at King's College London, and author of The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, 1849-1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) Janam Mukherjee, Associate Professor of History at Toronto Metropolitan University, and author of Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire (Hurst, 2015) Tanroop Sandhu, Ph...
British retaliation for the massacres and mutinies of 1857 is immediate and brutal. Mass executions of Indian prisoners and civilians follow the armies of reconquest, with only minimal interest in whether any of them were guilty. The leaders of the rebellion - Nana Sahib, the Rani of Jhansi, Tatya Tope, and the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah - are defeated, driven into exile, or killed in battle. But the East India Company does not survive either. The government of Queen Victoria dissolves its Indian...
The Indian Mutiny. The War of Indian Independence. The Indian Uprising. Three names for a conflict which begins in Meerut in May 1857, and ends eighteen months later. After months of growing tension betweent the Indian sepoys and their European officers, full of miscommunication, assumptions, and mutual suspicion, the sepoys mutiny at Meerut, killing their officers and marching on Delhi. Subscribe to the mailing list at LangnessMedia.com Thank you to my guest historians: Christina Welsch, Assist...
After the death of Aurangzeb, the United East India Company benefitted from the political chaos of 18th century India. Allying with, fighting against, and eventually dominating the Nawabs of Bengal and Arcot, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy, and the Sultans of Mysore. At the Battles of Plassey and Buxar, Company generals like Sir Robert Clive asserted British authority over massive territories, and the Carnatic Wars hobbled their European rivals. The upheaval and pr...
This episode delves into the origins and evolution of the English East India Company, beginning with early attempts at diplomacy in the Mughal court and its first profitable voyages. It examines the company's fierce rivalries with the Dutch, leading to a shift in focus towards India, and its subsequent development of fortified settlements like Madras and Calcutta. The narrative also explores the company's internal challenges, its disastrous war with the Mughal Empire, and the political machinations in England that ultimately led to the formation of the powerful United East India Company.
From the East India Company to the "Mutiny" of 1857, through the World Wars, to Independence and Partition, Winds of Change will cover the whole history of the Indian freedom struggle. With the help of expert historians, we will learn how the British Empire in India rose and fell. We will cover the lives of major figures in this cause, such as Nehru, Jinnah, Ambedkar and, of course, Gandhi, and the rainbow of political, religious, and ethnic agendas which fall under the umbrella of "Indian Indep...
Nov 11, 2024•3 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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