British rule deliberately fanned caste and communal divisions in India

Evidence

As Hardy put it, “In thinking about Muslims after 1857, the socalled Wahhabis were for the British the great unthinkable that was always thought.” British belief in Indian-based Wahhabis originated in the 1820s, as Saiyid Ahmad Barelwi and his followers moved to the northwest territories to launch a jihad against the Sikhs who ruled there. Their Tariqah-i Muhammadi may have shared a notion of jihad with Arabia’s Wahhabis, but its efforts at reform drew much more from Sufi traditions. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: British administrators imposed Manusmriti as India’s legal code.; Gandhi’s Ahmedabad labour union institutionalised caste divisions in its very structure; British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 76 (+9 more)

Related

• British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy (similarity 0.84)
• The British Raj deliberately stoked caste and communal divides to legitimize rule (similarity 0.82)
• British divide-and-rule policies deliberately inflamed caste and communal divisions (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy #expands (0.55) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76
• Gandhi’s Ahmedabad labour union institutionalised caste divisions in its very structure #exemplifies (0.50)
• Britons defined their own superiority as the middle ground between Hindu and Muslim extremes #expands (0.40)