Divide and Rule

Determined to avoid a united mass action challenging their authority, the British rulers in India decided to practice a naked policy of divide and rule, by putting princes against states’ people, region against region, province against province, caste against caste and Hindus against Muslims.

After an immediate spell of repression against Muslims, following the 1857 revolt, the authorities decided, after 1870, to use the middle and upper educated classes among Muslims against the rising tide of nationalism, using conflicts over scarce resources in education, administrative jobs and later political spoils (which were inherent in the very logic of colonial underdevelopment) as a tool to create a split along religious lines among educated Indians.