First, it is difficult for foreign invaders to integrate into India. Before the arrival of Europeans, India had been invaded by foreigners many times, but all of them came through the mountains in the northwest. By the15th century, the whole of India was like a jigsaw puzzle composed of different beliefs, cultures and politics, because no non-Indian could convert to Hinduism.
Unlike China, India could not absorb these invaders. The invaders have been in a state of semi-assimilation. They have their own social customs and often keep their own languages (at present, the main languages recognized by the Indian government are 13, and more than 300 languages are often used). Unless they convert to smaller religious factions such as Buddhism or Jainism, they all maintain their original religious beliefs. It's not that they don't want to adapt to Hinduism, but that Hinduism finds it difficult to accept them. This is still the case after the Portuguese, Mughal and British entered India one after another.
This is very different from what happened to American Indians. The Spanish invasion almost changed the traditional structure of the whole Latin American society, while in India, the Portuguese, Muga and British only added three independent small puzzles to the original big puzzle in India. The invasion of Islamic forces eventually led to the unfortunate division of India in 1947, and Islamists established an independent Pakistani state. After the Portuguese and British intermarried with Indians, another Eurasian ethnic group believed in Christianity was created in India.
2. Monogamy was enforced in1510. Before the Mughals established their luxurious Islamic empire in 16, the Portuguese occupied Goya on the west coast of India and established a small kingdom dominated by trade, but it was not entirely supported by force, but by the friendship of Christ and the increasing number of Eurasian hybrids.
The action of converting to Christianity was slow at first, but by 1542, the Jesuits arrived, and the action of asking local people to convert began to expand and became tough. Temples were destroyed, priests were exiled and religious books were burned. Indians, Muslims and Jews living in Portuguese occupied areas for a long time were forced to convert to Christianity because they lost all the props of their original religious ceremonies.
It is forbidden for non-Christians to hold public wedding ceremonies, and it is also forbidden for traditional India? Widow martyrdom? Compulsory monogamy, men with more than one wife can only keep the first wife, and all others are divorced and repatriated; If you have no wife but concubines, you must formally marry one of them and dismiss the others. Because the Holy See prohibits missionaries from forcing others to convert, missionaries often use circuitous methods to force non-believers to practice Christian morality. 1560 was established in Goya? Religious investigation? The need for conversion is even more urgent. As a result, as an English historian said, in Goya, the tragic scene of widow martyrdom disappeared and was replaced by the scene of Jews being burned alive. ?
3. Eurasian, but the hybrids of Portuguese men and Indian women are different from those of Spanish women and Indian women. When the Portuguese occupied Goya, there were 1 ten thousand Indians there. 654.38+06 century, although 2400 Europeans set sail from Portugal for India every year, on average, less than half of them arrived alive. Moreover, the Portuguese did not slaughter a large number of Indians in the local area, and Indians also had high resistance to European diseases. Therefore, the proportion of Eurasian children has always been small. To make matters worse, Eurasian children are discriminated against by Portugal and India, and their hatred for Portugal exceeds their loyalty. Some people crossed the border and entered the wider world of British India, while others returned to the mainstream of India.
By 1956, among Goya's population of more than 500,000, there were only 1000 recorded descendants of Portuguese-Indian mixed blood. Generally speaking, Portugal's operation in India only adds a side dish to the big platter of Indian culture. In blood, these people mainly belong to India, but in living habits and language, they belong to Portugal, and in morality and belief, they belong to Roman Catholicism.
The expansion of British power in India began at 1757 and ended at 1947 (India's independence). She not only created more Eurasian hybrids, but also these hybrids became stronger and changed the face of India to some extent.
Fourth,? Widow martyrdom? At first, Britain hoped to avoid destroying the traditional way of life in India, but they found that some manifestations of Hinduism were unbearable. As early as 1795, Britain legislated against female infanticide and classified it as murder. However, this custom is hard to get rid of. A family usually kills a baby girl immediately after giving birth, even if the father is away, because everyone thinks it is the natural wish of the father. By 1870, the British government has legislated for birth registration to protect the welfare of newborn girls, but the effect is quite limited.
Widow martyrdom? This is another difficult problem. Long before Britain intervened in Indian affairs, the Islamic Empire established by Mughals legislated against it, because neither Islam nor Christianity allowed such behavior. However, this custom is still true, especially in Khrushchev's populous provinces.
1780, Prince Malva died and 64 wives and concubines were martyred. The British know that the widow's martyrdom has religious significance, so they handle this issue cautiously. Usually, only one official is sent to supervise the ceremony, and it is confirmed that all widows who died in martyrdom are voluntary, 16 years old and not pregnant. However, this indirect recognition has brought unfortunate consequences. For example, in 1785, the number of officially reported dead widows in Bangladesh was 378, and by 18 18, it had increased to 839. 1829, the British government officially declared that it was illegal for widows to die with an iron fist, and any act of assisting widows to die was regarded as homicide, but this custom still existed in relatively remote areas. 1932, The London Times also reported that the British police rescued a widow who tried to die. As a result, three people were killed during the rescue.
Laws can only be effective if people are aware of them and can enforce them. The British government wants to abolish polygamy in India. In fact, this situation is not frequent, and the result is futile. It was not until several years after India's independence (1955) that the Indian government explicitly declared polygamy a crime. And 1856? Indian Widows Remarriage Act? It is also in name only. Although it is expressly stipulated that widows can remarry, the people are unaware of it and still dare not do things that are strongly opposed by tradition. The same is true of female education. By 1939, only about 3 million girls were attending school, accounting for only about 2% of the female population.
5. The influence of European culture on India Regardless of the actual effect of these laws, it has had an unprecedented impact on some unshakable parts of Hindu teachings. British law does not directly attack Brahmin philosophy, but attacks the family life norms derived from it. What has been taken for granted for thousands of years has become under a decree. Wrong? 、? Guilty? Although people are unwilling to abide by these laws, Hinduism, as the cornerstone of society, is not as strong as before under the impact of 200 years of British rule.
In the first 70 years of British rule in India, few British women came to India, and then gradually increased, and British-Indian hybrids also increased with British rule.
One of the biggest differences between English-Indian hybrids and Portuguese-Indian hybrids is that in Goya occupied by Portugal, Indians have no caste system, and Portuguese-Indian hybrids can easily integrate into their matriarchal society. However, in most areas under British rule, there is an obvious caste system, and British-Indian hybrids have become people outside the caste system? No classes? A group of people, they can't return to pure Indian society. Fortunately, the British take care of these plants themselves? Different fruits? Let them hold lower-level positions in technical, administrative, police, road construction and other departments.
Spanish actions in South America, Portuguese actions in Asia and British actions in India are basically temporary. They plunder, fight, rule and trade, and then, based on their self-righteous morality and humanitarianism, they want to forcibly change the deep-rooted local traditions. However, they do not colonize and have no plans to live permanently. They are consciously foreigners in foreign countries, and they will be disgusted or intimidated by the local climate and people, but they know that they will leave this place and return to the motherland sooner or later. However, the situation of Europeans in North America, British in Australia and Dutch in South Africa is completely different. They took their families to those places with one-way tickets, hoping to build their own homes there, reproduce their descendants and continue the European way of life, religious beliefs and values. This mentality and demand will inevitably lead to more intense friction with local aborigines.