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[Indicus]

The Indian presidential election, 1982 was a momentous election. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1976, in a period in which she temporarily established what can only be called a dictatorship, Sanjay Gandhi, her son, succeeded her. He ruled India with an iron fist. In 1977, he amended the Indian constitution to make it semi-presidential, with himself as President; in the 1977 presidential election, the first presidential election to be popularly held, he was the one and only candidate due to the continued imprisonment of political opponents, which meant that despite his unpopularity he was able to win the election. In the five years of his presidency, he declared President's Rule in every non-Congress government in India, and despite the resultant protests his rule continued. Corruption increased to never before seen extremes. Most controversially, he spearheaded a campaign of forced sterilization, primarily vasectomy. In many cases, botched sterilizations resulted in deaths, and in others children were even sterilized. It is estimated that twenty million people were sterilized during Sanjay's reign of terror.

Come the 1982 election, Sanjay was massively unpopular. In 1981, a protest in Amritsar led to the killing of one thousand people by the Indian military under Sanjay's orders; when word got out, it was much compared to the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre by the British Raj. This "Second Jallianwala Bagh" initiated a series of protests across India against "Sanjay the Britisher", which ended in violence in many cases. Though Sanjay desired to delay the 1982 election, many of his sycophantic advisors told him that the people of India still loved him and an election would reveal this, putting an end to the protests of a "small minority".

It was in this authoritarian atmosphere that the 1982 election occurred. Though most expected Sanjay to be the sole candidate, Nehru's sister and Sanjay's great aunt Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and a person known for opposing Indira's authoritarianism, signed up as a candidate with the election commission. While the Election Commissioner was appointed by Sanjay, he accepted Vijaya's candidacy despite this. Today, he claims he did so to save Indian democracy, but others point to other things. A few days after accepting Vijaya as a candidate, he placed fifty crores into his bank account; this, many believe, was a bribe paid by Vijaya and others in return for accepting her candidacy.

But nevertheless, Vijaya was a candidate, and though Sanjay had her arrested and imprisoned immediately upon learning of her candidacy, he could not remove her from the ballot. He was nevertheless told by his advisors that Vijaya was a non-entity, and that he was popular. And so the 1982 election went on.



The results surprised almost everyone. Vijaya swept every state and union territory in India, and she won 73.4% of the vote. Sure, the Indian people didn't know a thing about her, but they were willing to vote for anyone not named Sanjay Gandhi. Sanjay, astonished, was forced to step down after such a landslide, and so with that Vijaya took her oath.

Immediately, she freed political prisoners, nullified Emergency decrees, dissolved Parliament, and held a general election.

 

[Indicus]

The Indian general election of 1982 was held after the removal of Sanjay Gandhi in the 1982 presidential election. After Vijaya became president, she put an end to the Emergency, freed political prisoners, and held a general election. She appointed Morarji Desai, an old and experienced opposition leader, to serve as caretaker PM until the next election. The campaign proved to be an exhausting one for all involved. Immediately Sanjay led his party furiously, deriding Vijaya as a weak, insolent leader who desired to restore feudalism as well as a variety of other things.

The freed opposition quickly unified as the Indian Democratic Revolutionary Party (IDRP), which sought to restore Indian democracy and remove Sanjay's constitutional amendments. Polls suggested it had a considerable lead even beforehand. But its lead intensified further when Jagjivan Ram, a cabinet minister who had been in every Congress government since the days of Nehru, left the Congress party and formed his own Indian National Congress (Democratic). He took with him most of the Scheduled Caste MPs who had previously supported the Congress party, as well as most of the state organizations in Jammu & Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh. Furthermore, he challenged Sanjay's claim to the Congress name, forcing his faction to adopt the name Indian National Congress (Sanjay). Jagjivan aligned his party with the IDRP, and he cited constant wiretapping as the reason he did not speak up against Sanjay; this was accepted by most members of the IDRP. He organized ticket arrangements with the IDRP to ensure there would be no vote cancellation. Furthermore, the Communist Party aligned with the IDRP, as did the Marxists.

Furthermore, Sanjay proved to be an abysmal campaigner, giving horrendous, clearly scripted speeches where his mother would have electrified crowds. The victims of his forced sterilization campaign heckled him at every point on the campaign trail, people regularly chanted "Sanjay go home" at him, and he faced three assassination attempts; his attempts to garner the sympathy vote likewise failed.

As the election played out, it became increasingly clear that Sanjay was about to be defeated. But the scale of his defeat is one which none could have predicted.

The Sanjay Congress was reduced to twenty-seven seats, and these seats were won due to a few factors - vote splitting between anti-Sanjay candidates and, in Tamil Nadu, fearmongering over the Democrats reimposing Hindi. Sanjay was defeated even in his own constituency. It was, in short, a massively humiliating electoral result. In contrast, the Democratic alliance won, in total, 467 seats - enough to reshape India as they seemed fit. It was the sort of electoral result that would have left even Nehru and Indira agape at shock if they had won by such a margin. Furthermore, seat arrangements meant that the aligned Marxists won 35 seats - more than, incidentally, the Sanjay Congress.

At a meeting of the newly elected Democratic allied MPs, its members voted for Jagjivan Ram to be prime minister over anyone else, even passing by IDRP figures like Charan Singh and Morarji Desai. And so, it was he who became the first true non-Congress figure to become PM. It was he who was to lead India after its so-called "second independence"; it was he who was to return India to normalcy and democracy.

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I calculated this using OTL's 1977 returns. Here are my calculations for seat totals for everyone including minor parties. Note that both the BLD and the NCO are both part of the IDRP above.

 

[Indicus]

Born into a Mangalorean Catholic family, George Fernandes was originally in training to be a Catholic priest. However, he left after he felt frustrated at its classism, as well as a certain loss of faith. Moving to Bombay in 1949, he met socialist leaders there and increasingly became a trade union leader from the 1950s onwards. Through this, in 1961, he became a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. But the moment he was thrust into the national spotlight was in 1967, when he ran for the Lok Sabha in the Bombay South constituency for the Samyutka Socialist Party against the seasoned and popular Congress politician S. K. Patil. The result was a victory for Fernandes. This gave him widespread national attention, and he became the General Secretary of the SSP.

But it was in 1974 that he truly became a force to be reckoned with, when he called for a general strike for the All India Railway Men's Federation, bring India's vast railway network to a sudden halt. Violence associated with it made Prime Minister Indira Gandhi paranoid that he was attempting to assassinate her, and this strike was one of the forces that convinced her to suspend democracy and declare the Indian Emergency. When opposition leaders were being arrested on the night of June 25-26 1975, Fernandes was able to get word of this beforehand and escape the authorities seconds before they could arrest him. In hiding, he engaged in a campaign of bombing railways, procuring dynamite for this purpose. Disguised as a Sikh, he fled across multiple states, ultimately to Saint Paul's Cathedral in Calcutta. However, a police officer was immediately suspicious of this Sikh working in a church, and had him arrested after determining he was Fernandes. Despite open discussion among Indira's government on murdering Fernandes extrajudicially, when the arrest of Fernandes was leaked and world leaders brought attention to this, it became impossible. Instead, he was simply imprisoned and put on trial for his role in allegedly attempting to murder members of the government.

As 1976 continued, Indira was assassinated and her son Sanjay took power. Immediately, he looked at Fernandes as a suspect in that murder and established a lengthy chargesheet. Few lawyers were willing to even touch this case; the only person was a young Sushma Swaraj. She was able to convince the Supreme Court that he had nothing to do with the assassination of Indira. But then Sanjay was quick to bring up a great deal of other charges, namely that Fernandes wanted to murder others and that the bombs were targeted at people. This Fernandes denied, insistent that his bombs only had the goal of property damage in the name of protest. Sushma Swaraj was able to bring about summary dismissals of all of these charges. But slowly, Sanjay enlargened his power. He converted India to a semi-presidential system with himself as president. He intimidated the Supreme Court with his increased powers, successfully getting them to finally rule Fernandes guilty of attempted murder of cabinet ministers, with clearly falsified proof as evidence, with the punishment being death by hanging. And so it was that Fernandes was executed.

Though Sanjay tried to keep word of it under wraps, it was revealed regardless that Fernandes had been executed with dubious evidence. His name quickly became legendary, associated with martyrs of the independence movement. The image of him standing defiant even in death row was popularized and illegally published. It must come to no surprise that upon the end of the Sanjay regime in 1982, the Jagjivan Ram government was quick to give him the Padma Vibhushan, despite some in the Democratic government finding it uncomfortable to give a man associated with violence such a prestigious award. Today, he remains a legendary figure. If Jayaprakash Narayan was the Gandhi of India's "second independence", George Fernandes was its Bhagat Singh - a socialist executed under dubious circumstances who, while deeply beloved for his martyrdom, nevertheless creates a level of discomfort for his willingness to use physical force.

 

[Indicus]

Jagjivan Ram’s ascension to the post of Prime Minister represented a hallmark in Indian history. Not only was he the first non-Congress PM, not only was he the last surviving minister from Nehru’s first cabinet, but he was a Dalit. He was a member of the untouchable caste. This shaped his life in many ways. When he was in school, he smashed every pitcher of water set up exclusively for the Dalits, and through this he was able to force the school authorities to accept Dalit use of the main pitchers. He was a proud follower of the Bhakti Hindu saint Ravidas, with a firm belief that all humans were equal before God. This belief was reflected in his Independence Day addresses, where he proclaimed that all people were equal regardless of caste, creed, or any other factor. And one belief he held was that reservations could be used to uplift the lower castes.

And so, after the revolutionary 1982 election ended the Sanjay Raj, and after he became prime minister, he immediately set up a commission led by R. R. Bhole to look into reservations for lower-castes - this gave it the informal name of Bhole Commission. Even as Jagjivan Ram abolished Sanjay’s amendment, even as he broke up the nationalized press, even as he gave some reparation to victims of Sanjay’s campaigns of forced sterilization, the Commission continued. The report was completed in 1984, and it incorporated reservations not only for Dalits, but also for Other Backwards Classes, who were to be divided into Intermediate and Depressed Backwards Classes and given reservations accordingly [1]. The wealthy were to be excluded from reservations, to prevent their monopolization by the upper-classes. In total, a 49.6% quota was established, though a majority of the Indian population was eligible for them. A month or so after it was submitted, despite advisors telling him that doing so would destroy his electoral career and bring new divides to the forefront, Jagjivan Ram announced the implementation of the Bhole Commission Report.

The result was protest across North India. From schools across North India, upper-caste students went to the streets, chanting “Bhole nahi” (“Say No”), “Jagjivan hatao” (“Remove Jagjivan”), and “Tanashahi nahi chalegi” (“Tyranny will not do”). At least Sanjay, they said, didn’t destroy their spirit. And indeed, they asserted, if casteism still existed, then why was a Dalit the Prime Minister? These protestors were joined by government workers, mothers, and many others, all against the implementation of reservations.

It was in Delhi University that an enduring symbol of the Bhole Commission protests was created. One student, Jitendra Chadha, wished to send a message to Jagjivan Ram in the strongest way possible. He doused himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire. Although he ultimately survived, he sustained third-degree burns and was hospitalized for weeks. This sadly inspired many more, by other students. At its peak, three students across North India immolated themselves every day. Among them was one twelve-year-old. One woman from Punjab even willed her eye to Jagjivan Ram, so he could see the effects of his decision.

Immediately, Jagjivan Ram went on air. With his usual dignity, he proclaimed that he understood the pain of the students, that he understood that they felt they have no future. He heard what they were saying loud and clear. He stated they should stop killing themselves, that they had long, prosperous lives ahead of them, that there was no reason they should kill themselves. He stated that he would implement further economic reform, to make a better job market for all. Yet, he refused to budge on reservations. With the boldness which he displayed as Defence Minister in 1971, he reasserted that that casteism was a five thousand year old evil that had to be eradicated. He was firm in his belief that only reservations could break the casteism he fought against over the course of his whole life.

Nevertheless, this display of sympathy and pledge for further economic reform slowed down the self-immolations. Jagjivan Ram ordered health care workers to encircle universities in case anyone would need immediate treatment, and he ordered the police not to attack protests except as a last resort. But by the time they came to an end, 212 people immolated themselves, and 97 of them died. The images of people burning themselves were displayed in newspapers, on television, and were seared in the minds of millions.

There were and are also many supporters of the Bhole Commission report, who view it as an assault on the privileges of the upper castes. Some Dalits, who viewed Jagjivan Ram as a sellout, as nothing more than the stooge of upper-castes, suddenly found much to admire, and other Dalits who already admired him loved him even more. Here was the Prime Minister risking his career, his legacy, and his life fighting for the emancipation of the lower-castes. This event is still considered the greatest blow against casteism since the great Gandhi’s 1931 fast unto death. And as many noted even at the time, the majority of Indians who were formerly excluded from jobs and university places were eligible for the new reservations. New opportunities were created, and many took and continue to take full use of them.

This massive division even extended to his own cabinet. The Hindu nationalists Vajpayee and Advani left the IDRP to form the Bharatiya Loktantrik Party citing “anti-Brahmin prejudice”, while the farmer leader Charan Singh too left to re-create his Lok Dal over the exclusion of Jats in the reservation scheme. Despite retaining a majority, Jagjivan Ram believed it needed to be asserted with an election, to crush the splitters. And so, he called one. Though he and the IDRP won, his majority was slimmed substantially.

Jagjivan Ram’s premiership ultimately survived the discord of the Bhole Commission protests, however weakened it was. Yet, it dashed the hopes of many. There were many who believed that he would restore normalcy after the horrors of the Sanjay Raj, that he would be a second Nehru. But this event showed that normalcy would never be achieved. India would never be the same again.




[1] IOTL, the brief Janata Party government established the Mandal Commission in 1979 to look into reservations for lower-castes. The eventual report was similar to TTL’s Bhole Commission, but it did not include any division between Depressed and Intermediate Backwards Classes - this division was recommended by L. R. Naik, its only Dalit member, but wasn’t in the final report. Though the report was completed in 1980, neither Indira nor Rajiv wanted to open the can of worms that implementation would bring. Instead, after the Congress party was defeated in 1989 and after V. P. Singh came to power, it was implemented in 1990. The result was giant waves of protests including self-immolation, which ultimately brought down his government. However, despite this, the implementation of the findings of the Mandal Commission have forever altered Indian politics, bringing caste divides to the forefront.

 

[Indicus]

The grand defeats of the Indian National Congress in 1982 brought Sanjay Gandhi’s brutal dictatorship to an end. Jagjivan Ram became Prime Minister, the first Dalit to attain that office. With the massive majority of the Indian Democratic Revolutionary Party (IDRP), he had the Forty-Third Amendment passed, which reverted India to a parliamentary system while reversing the centralizations of power done by Indira and Sanjay. The constitution was purified. With the Forty-Fourth Amendment, emergencies were made much harder to proclaim, and the basic structure doctrine was made explicit. Sanjay Gandhi was tried and imprisoned on charges of theft from the treasury. Jagjivan Ram’s government broke up the press, consolidated into a single government-operated newspaper by Sanjay Gandhi, into multiple competing papers, while those papers which did go underground were now fully legal. He dedicated memorials to the victims of the various massacres, including the infamous 1981 Amritsar Massacre, the so-called “Second Jallianwala Bagh”. For the victims of Sanjay Gandhi’s campaigns of mass sterilization, the government declared subsidies and some reparations. As India entered 1984, it seemed everything was getting better. The future seemed bright.

In 1984 this all changed. Jagjivan Ram had previously established a commission, the Bhole Commission, to look into establishing caste-based reservations in government jobs and university spaces, and it was in 1984 that the report of the Commission was completed. It suggested, in total, a 49.7% quota divided between Scheduled Castes, Depressed Backwards Classes, and Intermediate Backwards Classes, though a majority of the Indian people were eligible for these new reservations. Despite his advisors telling him that implementation would amount to political suicide, Jagjivan Ram believed that he had to implement caste-based reservations to break the power of the upper-castes. And so, he announced the full implementation of the findings of the Bhole Commission.

The result was a wave of self-immolations by upper-caste students. For a time, three students immolated themselves every day. But nevertheless Jagjivan Ram stood firm. Though he offered his sympathies to the students, he refused to budge on caste-based reservations. And this caused the collapse of his cabinet, as the Hindu nationalists Vajpayee and Advani left and so did the farmer leader Charan Singh, over the issue of reservations. Having lost much of his cabinet, having a dramatically weaker position, despite retaining a substantial majority, Jagjivan Ram announced an election. And so it was in 1984 that the nation went to the polls.

Jagjivan Ram’s IDRP had an enormously weakened position, as upper caste voters wouldn’t dare countenance him, and various regional leaders refused to support him owing to a desire not to see their own popularity harmed. His previous press conferences had been lightweight affairs, due to the press being grateful for his actions ensuring freedom of speech; now this ceased to be the case as journalists routinely gave him tough questions, ones he often had difficulty answering. Many quarters of Indian society openly cursed his name for the establishment of caste-based reservations, either for diminishing the privileges of upper-caste Indians, or for not including certain groups - Jats, or Khatris. In particular, victims of Sanjay’s campaign of mass sterilization desired inclusion in the reservation scheme, citing that in many parts of India, they were considered all but untouchables. It seemed Jagjivan Ram was heading for defeat.

Amidst this came the Sanjay Congress. Though it was enormously weakened by the great split of 1982 and the subsequent defeat, it still existed, and it had been bolstered by its victory in the 1983 Awadh elections, caused almost entirely due to the popularity of the incumbent Chief Minister V. P. Singh. Effectively hollowed out of most of his membership, what remained was little more than a Sanjay Gandhi personality cult. With Sanjay in jail for theft from the treasury, members attempted to hold protests, but none of these protests proved to be anything of significance. In the absence of Sanjay, his wife Maneka Gandhi became its leader. As she had no political experience whatsoever and indeed had served as a model before marrying Sanjay, most thought she would bring the rump of the Sanjay Congress to its final collapse. But she was intent to make sure this wouldn’t happen.

During the Bhole Commission protests, Maneka was there to console the mothers of immolated children. She was there to denounce the Bhole Commission report as divisive. And indeed, this was much commented by the media, that she was willing to attack Jagjivan Ram so decisively. By the time elections were announced, Maneka had partially built up a new public image.

With the elections, Maneka faced the same accusations that Sanjay had faced in 1982, that there had been campaigns of mass sterilization, that the soul of Indian democracy had nearly been killed. She faced hecklers deriding her and her husband, chanting slogans such as Indiri Bachao (“Save Your Penis”), and Sanjay continued to be compared to the dictator of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq. But these issues she sought to tackle. The Sanjay Congress did not run candidates in much of the nation, with the hopes instead of centralizing their efforts to those constituencies that Maneka felt could be won. She stated that, yes, there had been severe atrocities during Sanjay’s tenure as President, that there was no apology possible for the horrors of mass sterilization...and that if Sanjay had known, he would have stopped them. She alleged that it had been a secret cabal of advisors, bureaucrats, and lower-level administrators that had committed the atrocities, and that now this cabal had latched onto the current government - the clear implication was that there was a plot to continue mass sterilization that was wholly unconnected to Sanjay. Despite being widely mocked in the press as reminiscent of the old medieval adage of “the king’s evil advisors”, it was nevertheless a defence that did partially succeed.

Most of all, she attacked Jagjivan Ram. She alleged that he was conspiring to divide Brahmins and Dalits from one another for his own electoral gain. She increasingly relied on Hindu nationalism despite being a Sikh, stating that Brahmins and Dalits should unite in their common faith - that common faith was, of course, Hinduism. It was explicit enough that Hindu nationalists would know to vote for her, but implicit enough that she could deny being a Hindu nationalist. The Hindu nationalist and Maratha regionalist Shiv Sena, led by Bal Thackeray, supported the Sanjay Congress during the Emergency, and Maneka ensured they would continue to offer such support. The fact that she was a young woman, and an ex-model at that, meant that few politicians took her seriously enough to take the time to attack her and her campaign.

But all the while, Jagjivan Ram laid out his own campaign across the nation. He gave speeches where he adeptly walked the line between defending his own policies and conveying his sympathies to the students who immolated themselves. He extolled the achievements of his tenure as PM, namely restoring democracy and purifying the constitution. He often faced heckling by people who accused him of not caring about upper-caste people, of only caring about revenge. But this he denied. He stated that lower-caste people had jobs, and that they needed reservations in order to get any measure of help from the state. And he stated that he would make it easier for upper-caste people to get jobs as well through comprehensive economic reform, to create a booming economy for all. He made these speeches all across the nation, and they were widely covered in the media. It seemed he was making up for his diminished popularity.

At the same time, Charan Singh led his new party, the Lok Dal, in opposition to Jagjivan Ram and his government. He derided him as anti-farmer and brought the powerful vote of the Jat ethnic group against him. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Loktantrik Party (BLP) likewise attacked Jagjivan Ram, alleging that he was animated by anti-Brahmin sentiments as well as a desire to divide Hindus. Both of these parties harshly attacked Jagjivan Ram while totally ignoring Maneka Gandhi.

But at the same time, Jagjivan Ram went hard against these two parties. He alleged that Charan Singh was an unscrupulous and power-hungry man, an old man in a hurry, who reduced his base to a mere vote-bank. At the same time, he alleged that the Hindu nationalism pushed by the BLP was false. Jagjivan Ram was a follower of the Bhakti Hindu saint Ravidas, and he stated that the Ravidassia school of thought, with its belief in the equality of Hindu and Muslim alike, of low-caste and upper-caste alike, all before a God which could be worshipped by all, was the truest form of Hinduism in contrast to the Hindutva pushed by the BLP. While Jagjivan Ram had pushed this belief even before the election, and the Ravidassia movement had already been spreading across Dalit communities throughout India, it had now been effectively weaponized. It was an effective attack, one which put the BLP on the defensive.

It was a few weeks before the election that a game-changing party shift emerged. Subramanian Swamy, who during the Emergency organized opposition to the regime among the diaspora and famously snuck his way into Parliament in 1976 to denounce the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi to denounce her for killing democracy before escaping, had in 1983 been dismissed from the administration for anti-Muslim sentiments, though he alleged it was really because Jagjivan Ram and Vajpayee had conspired to sideline him. He initially refused to support any party in the 1984 election. But Maneka had been in contact with him, and successfully brought him into the Sanjay Congress a few weeks before the election. And so it was that one of the most famous opponents of Sanjay Gandhi was now brought into Sanjay’s party. It was a game-changing event, one which added much credibility to the Sanjay Congress.

A mere three weeks before the election, another game-changing event shook Indian political society. Jagjivan Ram’s son, Suresh Kumar, was caught in flagrante delicto with a college student, and pictures were published in a newspaper run by the Sanjay Congress. A married man well over the age of forty having an affair with an eighteen-year-old woman rocked the nation. If Jagjivan Ram couldn’t teach his own son that extramarital affairs in general, and with a woman who was barely an adult in particular, was wrong, opponents said, what right did he have to lead the nation? But Jagjivan Ram was quick on the scene. He made his son apologize on television, then disowned him, and derided the Sanjay Congress for sleazy tactics worthy of Richard Nixon. He attempted to shift the debate back to policies, but was only partially successful.

Come the election, polls and other electoral studies showed massively conflicting results. They showed everything from a majority for the Lok Dal to a parliament divided between four or more parties. But almost everyone was sure that Jagjivan Ram and his IDRP would be destroyed totally and utterly, that it would cease to exist.

They were wrong. The IDRP led by Jagjivan Ram retained a majority, even if a small one. Jagjivan Ram’s campaign had proved more successful than anyone expected, even with all the snags it hit, turning a surefire defeat into a victory. But perhaps the greatest shock came in the other results. The Lok Dal and, in particular the Bharatiya Loktantrik Party, utterly failed to win many seats at all. But perhaps the biggest shock was the electoral performance of the Sanjay Congress. Under the effective leadership of the canny Maneka Gandhi, it rose from 17 seats to 117 seats. It was now to be India’s Official Opposition. It shocked everyone, even Maneka herself. Many were unnerved, worried that this sudden surge could be used by the Sanjay Congress to take power democratically and restore Sanjay’s horrific dictatorship. A happy Maneka announced the Sanjay Congress had every intention of taking back power. Furthermore, she tried to take a step towards gaining further legitimacy

In 1982, the courts ruled that Sanjay’s faction of the Congress party had to refer to itself as the Indian National Congress (Sanjay); with the other faction integrated into the IDRP and the Sanjay Congress having become the opposition by 1984, Maneka requested the courts to see if it could be recognized as the official successor of the Congress party. But this Jagjivan Ram could not allow. He could not allow the venerable Congress party of the past to be associated with the Sanjay Congress, and so he requested 120 MPs from his own party to officially “separate” from the IDRP to create the Indian National Congress (Democratic), and it was only this kept the Sanjay Congress from being recognized as the official Congress party.

Nevertheless, Jagjivan Ram declared the victory of the IDRP. He once again enumerated his party’s policies, and he declared he would make India a better nation for all Indians regardless of race, caste, or creed. But people were worried. Worried about the policies that would be pushed by the IDRP. Worried about the revival of the Sanjay Congress. Worried that Jagjivan Ram would fail.

And so, as India entered 1985, it entered a period of uncertainty.

 

[Indicus]

After the Popular Revolution, in which the British government was unseated by a rebellious mob and King Frederick fled the British Isles for Hanover, a provisional Convention Parliament was convened by Whig Members of Parliament, with an expanded form of the existing elected system. The Convention Parliament turned out to be a massively chaotic affair. Though it initially had a Radical majority, the Radicals proved to be a motley mess of people following virtually every ideology imaginable only united in the belief of some level of electoral reform. It took the radical-leaning Mountain Whigs to temporarily unify the Whigs with some number of Radicals to create a majority. Ultimately, by sidestepping the issue of the monarch by electing a provisional "Chief Magistrate" to exercise the duties of the Crown, they proved able to pass two acts of legislation - a Charter of Liberty and Security, and a Frame of Government. The Charter reiterated many traditional freedoms and also expanded various rights - freedom of speech and the press, for instance, was now codified and expanded, while religious liberty was now theoretically expanded to all people regardless of religion and civil disabilities were abolished.

The Charter proved a massively contentious issue at first. Tories attacking the new regime, as well as some opposition radicals, called it the "Little Charter", in contrast to the Magna Carta, and they called it inspired by the "Jacobin" Declaration of Rights of Man. In contrast, Charter supporters stated that it was merely a consolidation and expansion of the traditional rights of freeborn Englishmen. It would take the end of the post-revolutionary tumult for the Charter to become one of the most well-respected laws in British history.

Spoiler

Charter of Liberty and Security of Freeborn Subjects​

Intituled, an Act Declaring the Civil and Religious Liberty of Freeborn Subjects of the Crown, and to secure and render more effectual certain acts of the reign of King Alfred, and of the fifteenth year of the reign of King John, and of the first year of the reign of King Edward the First, and of the fourth year of the reign of King Charles the First, and of the fifteenth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, and of the first year of the reign of King William the Third, and to prohibit their encroachment and extirpation.


WHEREAS civil and religious liberty, security, and preservation of property is necessary for the prosperity of the governed;

And WHEREAS governments which ignored the liberty of freeborn subjects did extirpate the life, liberty, and property of their subjects, terrorize the people, and form tyrannies of the sword;

And WHEREAS the liberty of freeborn subjects ought to be made secure to prohibit their encroachment and extirpation;

And WHEREAS by the dooms made in the reign of King Alfred and the witan of all the realm, the man in every hundred shall find twelve jury;

And WHEREAS by an act made in the fifteenth year of the reign of King John intituled 'The Great Charter of the Liberties of England,' it is declared and enacted the rights and liberties of all the Freemen of our Realm;

And WHEREAS by Cap. V of the acts made in the first year of the reign of King Edward the First in the first Parliament general after his coronation, no man shall disturb any to make free election;

And WHEREAS by an act made in the fourth year of King Charles the First intituled “The Petition Exhibited to His Majesty by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled concerning divers Rights and Liberties of the Subjects , with the King's Majesty's royal answer thereunto in full Parliament” sundry unlawful acts were condemned and divers rights and liberties were upheld, according to the laws and statutes of the realm;

And WHEREAS by an act made in the fifteenth year of King Charles the Second intituled “An Act for the better securing the Liberty of the Subject, and for Prevention of Imprisonment beyond the Seas” the security of the person from arbitrary government was assured, except in cases of emergency declared by Parliament;

And WHEREAS by an act made in the first year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary intituled “An Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and settling the Succession of the Crown”, subjects were vindicated and assured their rights and liberties;

And WHEREAS by an act made in the first year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary intituled “An Act for Exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws”, the restraints of the governors on the ability of a person to instruct his fellow persons on religious duties were removed;

And WHEREAS the expiration of an act made in the fourteenth year of the reign of King Charles the Second intituled “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses” did confirm the ancient right of the liberty of the press;

And WHEREAS divers Rights and Liberties are granted by the Forces of the Common Law and Custom of Time Immemorial;

And WHEREAS the civil and religious Liberty of freeborn Subjects ought to be consolidated into a single Charter and be rendered more effectual and secured against encroachment and extirpation;

Be it therefore enacted, by the Parliament of the British Isles upon the twenty-fourth day of January in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred twenty-nine, by and with the advice and consent of the Crown and Lords and Commons, that as follows:

Definition of Scope​

Definition of Citizenship

All persons born in the British Isles and her overseas colonies and holdings; by which is meant Great Britain, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Mann, Scilly, and any other place under the authority of the Crown, or any Titles dependent therein, and such Colonies or Provinces or Establishments organized by Act of Parliament, or otherwise within the dominion of the laws of this country; or their children, or naturalised by Act of Parliament, are Freeborn Subjects, and they shall all have full ownership of the liberty thereof, as this Act may expound, provided always, that such persons that are attainted, or convicted for High Treason, or in the service of a current Enemy, may have such status revoked by Act of Parliament.

Full definition of scope

All persons anywhere in the jurisdiction of the British Isles and her overseas colonies and holdings, or within such areas, garrisons, or places which are under the control of the Army or Navy, or within the jurisdiction of an agent of the Crown or a Court of Judicature, or under the rule or suzerainty of a Corporation under a Charter authorized by the Crown or Parliament, shall likewise enjoy the benefits of the Liberty of the British Subject, as this Charter may expound.

Right to Life, Liberty, and Property​

General Right

All persons have the right to life, liberty and property, and no person shall be deprived of either but by the due process of law and the judgement of his peers.

Habeas Corpus

All persons shall be allowed the right to Habeas Corpus as declared by Acts of Parliament unless duly convicted for High Treason, and this right shall not be suspended except by Act of Parliament in such time as there is actual invasion or rebellion on the soil of the British Isles, and no such suspension shall have continuance for more than one year.

Right to Work only with Consent

By no one shall service in any shape be exacted of any person, without giving him in writing a sufficient acknowledgment thereof, and the consent of the person to the statement so contained, except for punishment for crime whereof the party has been duly convicted, or desertion from the Army or Navy under such terms as Parliament may provide.

Right against Unreasonable Searches

All persons have the right to be secure from all unreasonable Searches, in their Person, House, Paper, and Possessions; and all Warrants shall therefore be supported by Oath or Affirmation, and shall have cause or foundation, accompanied by a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest or seizure, and shall be only issued by a Judge in cases and formalities prescribed by the law.

Right to Bear Arms

All subjects of the British Isles have the right to use, carry, practice, and train in the use of arms as allowed by law for their individual and mutual security, so that the public peace may not be disturbed.

Right against Forced Quartering

No person shall be required, without their consent, to receive soldiers in their houses, except in times of rebellion or invasion by order of a civil magistrate, in a manner prescribed by Parliament.

Rights of the Accused​

Access to Justice

To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.

Innocent until proven guilty

Every person is by the law deemed innocent until convicted by the judgement of his peers and the law of the land.

Double Jeopardy

No person shall be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb.

Right against Self-Incrimination

No court of law shall punish, or cause to be punished, any person or persons for refusing to answer questions against themselves in criminal cases.

Right to Counsel

All persons accused of a crime shall have the right to assistance of counsel for their defence, and all indictments shall be presented to the accused.

Right against Retroactive Punishment

No person shall be convicted for any offense except for violation of a law passed before the offense was committed.

Right to Grand Juries in Crimes

No person shall be held to bail before the indictment of a Grand Jury except in impeachments, or cases arising in land and naval forces, or in times of public danger.

Rights of the Imprisoned​

Right to fair Punishment

No person shall be required excessive bail, nor be imposed excessive fines, nor be inflicted cruel and unusual punishments.

Investigation of Mistreatment

All courts of law, and all magistrates, shall investigate gaols in their jurisdiction for mistreatment, and their findings shall be published in a freely distributed register.

Right to Trial by Jury​

General Right

All Persons shall have the right to a Jury of twelve persons in his vicinage, duly Impaneled and Returned, for all cases, whether they be civil, criminal, or capital, save for impeachment, and juries are judges of law as well as fact, and no judge may rule contrary to their verdict.

Prohibition on packing of juries

The packing of juries, whereby, standing bodies of jurymen are corrupted such that they manifest obsequiousness, is hereby abolished in all trials.

Composition of Lists

Qualified Lists, of all subjects whose habitation is in the jurisdiction of the court, are composed and framed by the local magistrate, and without those persons disqualified by the law, or by connexion to the Parties of the Trial, or excluded by peremptory challenge, the sheriff or depute serving therein, selects veniremen by lot.

Petty Juries

Petty Juries are selected by lot from a list of veniremen, and are summoned to a court of law by the local magistrate.

Juror unanimity

In all cases only unanimity returns a guilty verdict.

Secrecy of Jury Conferences

Juries meet secretly in conference without the presence of any person not a juryman, and during such conference the judge and jury shall suffer none to speak to them, neither shall judge or official of the court speak to them themselves.

Length of Jury Conferences

A jury shall be locked in a conference, and shall be kept there until returning a verdict, unless the court has ordered the jury conference adjourned.

Jury refreshments

In order to prevent intemperance or causeless debate, jurymen are to be kept without meat, drink, fire, or candle, except in such amounts as set by law, until they reach a verdict.

Criminality of Interference in a Jury

The interference of a judge, magistrate, or any other functionary, or any other person, in the matters of a jury by punishment, or intimidation, or otherwise, is an offence.

Consecutive Restriction

Jurymen shall serve for no more than four consecutive juries.

Renumeration

To insure a fair compensation for time spent, jurymen shall be paid an appropriate renumeration, consisting of demurrage-money the same to all and journey-money proportioned to the distance between the place of trial and each juryman’s place of residence.

Grand Juries

Grand Juries are selected by the local magistrate from the Qualified Lists of the jurisdiction, and are summoned to a court of law by the local magistrate to find evidence for a case and accuse a person of a crime.

Juries of Inquest

In cases where a person is found dead and the manner of death is unknown, the Coroner shall convene a Jury in for the purposes of Inquest.

Rights of Property​

General Right

All persons have a sacred and inviolable right to their property, and no person shall have his property alienated for public use without just compensation established by Act of Parliament.

Sanctity of the Home

Every person’s house is a castle and fortress to defend against injury and violence, to ensure the security and safety of himself and resident inmates; and at no time shall an agent of the Crown, or an officer of the judiciary, or any other functionary, break or forcibly enter into a dwelling-house, except with a legal warrant issued by a judge as part of a criminal process.

Sanctity of Corporate Property

All corporate property vested in trust for public and general uses, and all possessions and which cannot be inherited, nor descend by right to specific successors, nor be alienated by deed or will, shall be regulated, controlled, and appropriated solely by Act of Parliament.

Illegality of violence to property

All injury and violence to property, for any cause whatsoever, is illegal and repugnant to the constitution.

Rights of Parliament​

Holding of Parliament

For redress of all Grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of Laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.

Summoning of Parliaments

When a Proclamation of the Crown calls a meeting of Parliament, nothing should prevent or obstruct their meeting, and any returning-officer, bailiff, sheriff, magistrate so guilty shall be punished by the law of the land.

Self-regulation

Parliament shall regulate its own Debates and Proceedings without any interference whatsoever.

Freedom of Speech in Parliament

The making and maintenance of laws, and redress of mischiefs, and grievances which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in parliament, and in the handling and proceeding of those businesses, every Member of the Parliament has, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same

Non-prosecution nor questioning of MPs

The freedom of speech and debates and proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament.

Right to investigate

Parliament has the right to inquire in all matters of the Realm, to order the production of Documents, and to summon Witnesses to be examined under Oath.

Arrests of Members of Parliament

Only the House of Commons has the right to arrest a Member.

Freedom from molestation by executive and judiciary

Every member of Parliament has freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation other than, by the censure of the house of Parliament itself, for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters, touching the parliament or parliament business.

Parliamentary Immunity

No Member of Parliament shall be required to attend before a Court or Tribunal, and no Member of Parliament shall be imprisoned or restrained without sentence or order of the House from which are member thereof, unless it be for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.

Freedom of access

Parliament shall have freedom of access to the Crown whenever occasion shall require.

Favourable construction

The most favourable construction shall be placed upon the deliberations of Parliament.

Expulsion of Members of Parliament

Only the House of Commons has the right to expel its Membership.

Contempt of Parliament

Only Parliament has the right to rule members or strangers in contempt and punish contemptuous persons as it sees fit for the duration of the session.

Powers of Taxation

No tax shall be imposed, unless by the general council of the kingdom.

Raising a Standing Army

The raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom, unless with the consent of Parliament, is against law.

Religious Liberty​

Freedom of Worship

All persons are free to worship God in the manner most agreeable to their own conscience, and no person shall be troubled, molested, or discountenanced in any way for or in respect of his or her religious profession or sentiments, nor in the free practice of religion, provided always, that he or she does not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in his or her religious worship.

Abolition of blasphemy

The trial of an indictment or information for the avowing and publishing of blasphemous and impious opinions contrary to the doctrines and principles of a religious order is hereby illegal.

Non-discrimination in Government

No person shall be prohibited for their religious sentiments, or required to swear or solemnly affirm a condemnation thereof, or be induced to follow the doctrine, discipline, or practice of a religious order to serve in Parliament, or as an agent of the Crown, or as an officer of the judiciary, or as any other functionary, or at any place, trust, or employment relating to the government of the realm or any city, county, borough, or cinque port.

Liberty of Speech and Conscience​

General Right

The liberty of speech is among the great bulwarks of free government, and can never be restrained except by despotic governments; therefore, any person may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects.

Prohibition of violation of free speech right

No court of law, no magistrate, shall punish, or endeavour to contribute to the punishing of, any person for having given utterance, or giving expression, or transferring, or the seizing, detaining destruction or damaging of any paper or other substance, of any discourse.

Exceptions for Libel

Provided always, that for any great injury done to the reputation of any person by false imputations, every person concerned in the doing of such injury is responsible to the purpose of reparation at the suit and for the benefit of any injured, through the civil law of libel; and that, for anything which being so expressed, has for its object the exciting persons to the commission of an offence and has actually caused such an offence, any person shall be responsible as above, according to the nature of such offence.

Abolition of criminal, seditious, and blasphemous libel

The trial of an indictment or information for the making or publishing any libel, and all cases for the making or publishing of libel where an issue or issues are joined between the defendant or defendants and the Crown, or the Great Men of the Realm, or religious Orders, are hereby abolished; and for all cases for the making or publishing of libel, the jury sworn to try the issue may give a general verdict upon the whole matter put in issue upon such case; and shall not be required or directed, by the Court or Judge before whom such case shall be tried, to find the person or persons so sued merely on the proof by such person or persons of the evidence charged to be a libel, and of the sense ascribed to the same in such cases.

Security of Private Writings

No person shall have the security of his private writings infringed, except for the purposes, and on the occasions, and in the manner, determined and declared by the law.

Keeping writings from Owners

No writing shall, against the will, known or reasonably presumable of the owner, be carried or kept out of his custody or power, or be seized, destroyed, damaged, or inspected, by or by order of any person in authority: unless it be in pursuance of the order of a Magistrate in the manner prescribed by the law of the land.

Damages to writings

In case of such oppressive seizure, destruction, damnification, or inspection, any person concerned in the infliction of the injury shall be responsible to the purpose of pecuniary compensation, with or without ulterior punishment, as the case may require.

Right of Assembly​

General Right

All persons have the right to assemble, except in cases endangering the public peace.

Prohibition of obstruction

No persons shall be obstructed by force, intimidation, or deceit, from meeting in any number, in any place in which they have individually any right to station themselves, particularly while in the act of making communication of such their observations, and the opinions and wishes suggested by them.

Cases for Dissolution

Provided always that if for the prevention of evil to person or property, in cases of unlawful, riotous, and tumultuous assembly, it shall be thought good by the magistrate, for limited time, by proclamation in exact form set by law in such manner as may be heard by the whole crowd, to prevent or inhibit persons at large from making assembly in numbers greater than are capable of hearing from beginning to end, the discourse of the same speaker at the same time.

Investigations

All deaths and serious injuries from the dispersal of an assembly shall be investigated by courts of law for unlawful action, and their findings shall be published in a freely distributed Register.

Right to Censure the Government​

General Right

All persons have the right to censure their Governors, to judge their Actions, and their judgements and grievances may be peaceably expressed as they see fit.

Right to examine governmental proceedings

All persons have the right to examine the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament and of the Courts, without restrictions except in cases of emergency mandating secrecy, and Parliament and the Courts shall allow free admittance of the Public to their Sessions with limits set by Law, and the Register of the Realm shall be published in a Gazette freely distributed to all Towns and Counties in the British Isles.

List of the Imprisoned

The names of all persons deprived of liberty by imprisonment shall be posted on the door of the court-house in which they were so sentenced, and on the door of the gaol in which they are detained, and in a freely distributed register.

Liberty of the Press

All persons are at liberty to distribute their judgements on the actions of the government freely through the press, without the imposition of licensing, or duties, or acts otherwise with the effect of National Gagging.

Abolition of taxes on knowledge

For the progress of science or art, of social improvement, and of knowledge, all taxes and duties on the manufacture of paper, and on pamphlets, or papers, parts, or numbers, are hereby abolished; and no stamp shall be imposed on the publication of the same.

Right to Petition

All persons have the right to petition the Crown or a Member of a House of Parliament for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of Election​

General Freedom

Elections ought to be free, without the interference of all undue influences from power, bribery, tumult, or other improper conduct, and no person by force of arms, malice, menacing, or otherwise, shall disturb any elector in their exercise of suffrage, and all hindrance is repugnant to the constitution.

Investigations of Fraud

All elections shall be investigated for fraud and corruption, and if undue influences are proven, the persons responsible shall be charged for their offence against the law and constitution.



ASSENTED by his Lordship Henry Vassal-Fox, Baron Holland, the Lawful Lord Chief Magistrate of the British Isles and its Establishments, Factories, and Colonies

SEALED by his Excellency Samuel Romilly, Keeper of the Great Seal of the British Isles.

Sources:

• Magna Carta
• Statute of Westminster 1275
• Petition of Right
• Protestation of 1621
• Agreement of the People
• Habeas Corpus Act 1679
• Bill of Rights 1689
• Virginia Declaration of Rights
• Constitution of Massachusetts 1780
• American Constitution
• American Bill of Rights
• OTL’s Catholic Emancipation Act
• Jeremy Bentham’s Securities against Misrule
• Fox's Libel Act

Substantive edits:

July 30, 2020: Changed the language of the Habeas Corpus part to reflect the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act.
August 20, 2020: Added an entire Habeas Corpus section with the language of the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act, as it was sufficiently beloved that I think it would mandate inclusion as such.
August 21, 2020: Removed the Habeas Corpus section and replaced it with a reference to the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act, because it is pretty absurd to include the entire Habeas Corpus Act in this act.
September 20, 2020: Removed the presumption of innocence article, as that would be anachronistic, and edited the right against self-incrimination.
October 9, 2020: Removed the article on amercement as that is long obsolete, as well as the definition of treason as that would likely not be an issue to be resolved.
October 23, 2020: Added some stuff about the security of private writings.
October 27, 2020: Added some stuff about the rights of Parliament, as the people writing this charter are Whigs obsessed with maintaining the power of Parliament.
January 16, 2021: Added some stuff about juries and included more of the traditional rights of parliament as enumerated in the Speaker's declaration.
June 27, 2021: Changed the language around the right to work with only consent, libel, and riot act to make it more period-appropriate.
June 29, 2021: Changed section on self-incrimination to resemble Agreement of the People, and added precise prohibitions on government acts (from Securities against Misrule). Also adjusted line about oaths to include some stuff on solemn affirmations, to account for Quaker sensibilities.
December 28, 2021: Added section abolishing seditious libel.
December 29, 2021: Added section on taxes on knowledge.
March 11, 2022: Added stuff from Protestation of 1621
September 8, 2022: Made abolition of blasphemy more explicit
September 13, 2022: Replaced Milton quote as provision on free speech and replaced it with Fox quote, as it makes more sense in this context.
November 27, 2022: Added explicit authorization of jury nullification (in the words of John Lilburne), as 19th century British liberals were obsessed with the power of the jury (incl. nullification)
September 5, 2023: Replaced free speech provision with wording inspired by Virginia Declaration of Rights
March 24, 2024: Edited jury section so that they have authority over all trials except impeachment, and added definition of citizenship with special grant that citizens have the liberty of the citizen, and made Liberty and Security singular because that was the style of the 19th century
April 1, 2024: Added more to right to bear arms (because people at the time were big on it) and added something about innocent till proven guilty (which is a concept that people were talking about)
April 2, 2024: Added section on rights to property, which would likely be emphasized in a "reluctant revolutionary" context.
April 5, 2024: Added section defining the citizen and the scope of the Charter, and also weakening libel even further (as many at this time regarded the entire concept of libel as a Stuart invention).
April 21, 2024: Added reference to King Alfred, in honor of "Anglo-Saxon liberties"

 

[Indicus]

Citizen Foster; or, the Political Intruder is William Johnson’s first novel. It was published in serial form from 1839 to 1841, and was published as a full novel in 1841.

The novel centres around a landowner turned newspaper magnate Charles Foster, and his life from the late eighteenth century to his death in 1835. His newspapers adopt a dramatic number of ideologies dependent on what is popular, from Radicalism to Toryism, each time fetching him vast amounts of wealth and fame, all the while pandering to the bigotries of the unlearned. It follows the dramatic turns of his life, from experiencing the French Revolution to the British Popular Revolution, and each time shows his ability to ingratiate himself with whatever positions would give him the most popularity.

Citizen Foster is noted for its cynical portrayal of the press at a time when such portrayals were uncommon. It was, and still is, viewed as an attack on newspaper magnate William Cobbett (1763-1835), who adopted a similarly variable number of ideologies. Notably, Johnson was unsuccessfully sued for libel in 1840 by Cobbett’s nephew J. A. Cobbett, which gave his series incredible amounts of attention.

Initially it was viewed as a barely concealed political screed against Cobbett and other Tory Radicals. In the volatile post-Popular Revolution climate the novel caused violence, but by the 1850s, this controversy faded away. By the late nineteenth century, it became considered a literary classic, which it remains to this day.

Citizen Foster has been adapted into a variety of different mediums and has been translated into thirty different languages.

Plot

Charles Foster inherits his farm from his father upon his death. After his farm proves increasingly unprofitable, he enlists in the British Army where he learns the techniques of corruption from “the most perfidious of officers” before publishing their misdeeds and adopting radical political views to get money and fame.

When instead he faces wide condemnation from British political class, he flees to France during the French Revolution, and after he found the political situation too messy, he chooses to move to the United States. Here, he immediately abandons his radical politics in favour of more controversial defences of the Federalists and even loyalists to get attention.

When his defences of British actions become famous in Britain and increasingly unpopular in the United States, he moves back before setting up a newspaper funded by the government. Initially the newspaper is pro-government, but then it progressively turns against it as Foster realizes the public mood of discontent with the government. For the next quarter century, he unscrupulously aligns himself with radicalism, as it gives him the most attention and fame. By making his newspaper as cheap as possible, he is able to turn himself into the leader of the radical faction, with his influence even extending into Parliament itself. All the while he continues to pander to other bigotries such as defending the slave trade and attacking Jews, tainting the otherwise pure radical faction with bigotry, but his paper’s influence means the radical faction cannot disavow it.

As the 1820s sees war between Britain and France and turmoil at home, Foster continues his assault on the government, becoming even more popular. When he, along with a variety of other radical figures, gets arrested without legal recourse, it further inflames the British political environment. Foster is able to get himself a fancy prison, far fancier than those of other radicals, all the while claiming to be a living martyr. The suppression of the British government ultimately causes the Popular Revolution in 1827. Foster is freed from his gilded prison and gets elected to the Convention Parliament.

In his role as a member of the Convention Parliament, Foster proves unable to do a thing except acerbically attack his opponents, adding to the uncivility of the era. When the final constitution is unveiled, he criticizes it for granting religious liberty to non-Christians and for being “unmanly” despite it fulfilling much of what he previously fought for. His stance turns much of the British public against the Convention. After it gets passed into law without his help, and after the Radicals and Whigs become unpopular, his newspaper turns against the cause of reform, and Foster leads a number of Radicals into aligning with Tories despite them being the very antithesis of everything he fought for as a Radical. His newspaper’s virulent hatred of the British government directly causes a mob of Orangemen to burn down Parliament, resulting in the loss of a historical wonder. He finally dies in 1835 in his vast mansion, with wealth gained through the most unscrupulous means possible. He is finally given a vast burial into a fancy marble tomb, where he is applauded for his “principles” and “selflessness”.

Reception

Citizen Foster was, upon its first chapters being published, immediately viewed as a political screed against William Cobbett, with the parallels being obvious. As such, it was defended by Radical and Moderate papers while being attacked by Tory ones. Its publishing in Cobbett’s hometown of Farnham caused effigies of Johnson to be lit, and many publishers refused to touch it, citing the controversy. Many reviews focused on Johnson’s support of radical policies, arguing that he viewed Cobbett as a turncoat like many other Radicals and that this book was little more than an attack on him and his fellow Tory Radicals.

The book, even while it was being published as serials, led to Johnson being sued in court by William Cobbett’s nephew J. A. Cobbett for libel. Johnson’s case was funded and defended by many Radicals and Whigs, who understood how libel was used as an excuse by the pre-revolutionary British government to persecute political opponents. Ultimately, the jury ruled Johnson not guilty of libel unanimously, while J. A. Cobbett received criticism even from his own allies for suing Johnson for political reasons.

Reviews softened in the 1850s, after the volatile political climate calmed down. They focused on the quality of its writing and viewed it as a still-relevant critique of unscrupulous elements of the press. From here it became increasingly popular, until by the late nineteenth century it became considered one of the great works of the recent past. More recently, the one-dimensional nature of Charles Foster has received criticism, but it seems Citizen Foster’s stature as a literary classic is unbreakable.

 

[Indicus]

The Radical Party is the oldest current political party in the British Isles. The party espouses the principles of radicalism and sits on the centre-left to left-wing of the political spectrum, while the Moderates sit on the centre to centre-right, the Traditionalists sit on the right-wing, and the Productivists sit on the left-wing. The Radicals are a broad tent, attracting support from a broad base of support. In its long history, it has faced numerous splits, most strikingly the splitting off of the Old Radicals over the increasing influence of social radicalism in 1902.

The name radical comes from the Latin word radix, meaning "root". While its original policy of parliamentary reform can ultimately be rooted in John Lilburne and the Levellers through to John Wilkes, the word radical as it pertains to parliamentary reform comes from a speech made in 1797 by Whig leader Charles James Fox calling for "radical reform of the political system". The radicals as a loosely affiliated parliamentary and extra-parliamentary bloc emerge from this period, but the Radicals as a party only emerged in 1830s in the chaotic post-Popular Revolution climate, when Samuel Whitbread brought his left-leaning Mountain Whigs into coalition with the Humeite Radicals, and specifically it is dated from 1833, after Whitbread's Pall Mall Address created a common platform for Radicals across the country.

The Radicals' major legislative achievements in its long history include the Municipal Reform Act, household suffrage, female suffrage, House of Lords and peerage reform, old-age pensions, universal suffrage, and universal health care. More recently, it has legalized same-sex marriage and has entrenched the Charter of Liberties and Securities and the Frame of Government Act as formal constitutional law.

In the 2017 election, the Radicals won a majority in the House of Commons, gaining a majority government after nine years of Moderate control; however, owing to the staggered nature of Lords elections, it merely won a slim minority in the House of Lords.

 

[Indicus]

Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) was a lawyer who became Ireland's first great nineteenth century political leader.

Born into a wealthy Catholic aristocratic family, he went to college in France in 1791, during the French Revolution. There, as a foreign aristocrat, he was naturally met with suspicion and was forced to flee in 1793. This experience gave him his lifelong aversion to violence. After further legal studies in Britain, he became a lawyer and was called to the Irish Bar, where he quickly became notable owing to his enormous charisma. Here, his aversion to political violence continued when he found the vast amounts of violence of the Great Irish Rebellion (1796-1801) and the French invasion of Ireland disenchanting, fleeing Dublin when it was captured by United Irishmen.

But nevertheless, he did believe in some of the goals of the United Irishmen. He believed in three fundamental principles, ultimately derived from William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice - that violence must be avoided because it is inherently evil, that properly-controlled public opinion can achieve any aim, and that civil rights are absolute and universal regardless of religion, race, colour, or condition. He first became a major politician after the passage of Prime Minister Addington's amendments to the Toleration Act in 1813 which gave magistrates wide power to disallow the creation of Dissenter chapels for virtually any reason. Such a law angered Presbyterians across Ireland, particularly in Ulster where they make up a plurality, and O'Connell created the Religious Liberty Association to fight against the law. Despite being a proud and religious Catholic, O'Connell believed in religious liberty and also realized that an attack on the rights of Dissenters would result in an attack on the rights of Catholics. O'Connell led vast, enormous rallies consisting of Catholic, Dissenter, and even some Anglican Irish people against Addington's law which were noted for being peaceful. However, Prime Ministers Addington and later Perceval refused to budge.

With the movement for Dissenter rights connected to the radical movement for parliamentary reform, O'Connell increasingly became connected to the radical movement. He advocated universal male suffrage, but was pragmatic enough to allow for less radical suffrage expansions. As economic malaise, spurred by the Year Without a Summer, continued, the radical movement continued to grow in strength, ending with the Saint Peter's Field Massacre in 1820. This event shocked many, including O'Connell, and spurred him to plan further protests against the British government. However, Perceval succeeded it with the passage of new authoritarian laws, including even the suspension of habeas corpus. When 1821 saw war between France and Britain with the Saint Domingue War of Independence as the spark, O'Connell was one of many voices advocating peace. For this and his radical views, O'Connell was imprisoned with no legal recourse. Ireland in the 1820s was faced with the Great Famine which killed a sixth of the population, as well as the violent Irish Rebellion of 1826 which was rapidly crushed; both of these events saddened O'Connell.

After 1827 and the Popular Revolution, the British government was forced to flee to Hanover and a smattering of Whigs and Radicals took over Britain. They announced a Convention Parliament, where no MP would have to swear an oath. This meant that Convention MPs would not have to be Anglican, and it meant for the first time O'Connell could run for Parliament. He ran for County Clare, where he was elected, and with he became the first Catholic MP. In London, he proved just as charismatic as outside Parliament, and he fought to ensure the eradication of all civil liberties. When various radicals moved to support the Whigs temporarily, O'Connell joined them, and when those same radicals forced the Whigs to accept the consolidation of the constitution, he supported them. He successfully got provisions in the Charter of Liberties and Securities ensuring total religious liberty, as well as the eradication of all civil liberties for all religions. Furthermore, though he made speeches advocating universal male suffrage, he accepted the census suffrage (owning five shillings' worth of property, or living in a property worth more than ten pounds) adopted by the Whig-dominated Writing Committee, and he played a role in its passage. On the question of who would replace Frederick as monarch he was silent, and he accepted Lord Folkestone becoming provisional Chief Magistrate of the British Isles. When the Convention Parliament came to an end, Daniel O'Connell was viewed as a success. He had achieved Catholic emancipation and Jewish emancipation, and he had ensured a sensible compromise between radical and Whig demands.

In the 1829 election, Daniel O'Connell was elected once more to Parliament, where he formed a bloc with aligned Irish MPs fighting for repeal of the Acts of Union between Ireland and Britain. However, as the Whig government fell and Samuel Whitbread's Mountain Whigs formed a tenuous coalition with Humeite Radicals, O'Connell realized this was an opportunity to get better government in Ireland. Forming the Precursor Association, he led vast rallies in the name of better government, and O'Connell was appointed as Attorney-General of Ireland in 1831. When Whitbread's government briefly fell over municipal reform, O'Connell backed him to the hilt. His Irish MPs were at the Reform Club when Whitbread made his famous Pall Mall Address, and in 1834, Whitbread cruised back into office after an election, and O'Connell became Attorney-General once more. These years saw many of the old flaws with Irish governance torn away. However, in 1837, Whitbread's government fell and O'Connell lost his job.

In opposition, O'Connell reawakened the campaign for repeal of the Union, forming the National Association and holding mass rallies across Ireland. With his influence over Radicals as far afield as Britain itself, he was able to make repeal an important issue in the Radical Party. However, the Moderate government of John Russell was opposed to repeal and not so subtlely toyed with anti-Catholicism. After the Radicals led by Wilfrid Lawson won power in the 1846 election, O'Connell was able to finally force the issue of repeal, and Lawson proposed a bill which established a two-tiered Irish legislature subsidiary to the Parliament in London. Despite opposition by some of his supporters, O'Connell rallied his supporters to the bill, and though the so-called Irish Confederation, stringently republican unlike O'Connell, opposed the Irish Legislature Bill as a half-measure, O'Connell got it passed nevertheless, calling it an "instalment" on the way to the restoration of Irish legislative independence. He wanted to run for the Irish Legislature, or the "Restored Parliament" as he called it, but he died soon after. He was buried in Dublin, heralded as a great hero.

Daniel O'Connell is a beloved Irish national hero, referred to as the "Emancipator". He is beloved not only for his work for the people of Ireland, but also for his intense hatred for slavery, refusing to even accept money from American slaveholders because he believed it was tainted. Today there is a great statue of him at College Green, where the Irish Parliament sits.

 

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The Burning of Parliament is widely considered one of the most important events in the tumultuous post-Popular Revolution era. Following the passage of the Charter of Liberties and Securities as well as the Frame of Government Act by the Convention Parliament, Britain was, in a very real sense, in a place of severe doubt. The placement of Lord Folkestone as Chief Magistrate of the British Isles did not resolve the question of who the next monarch was to be - Folkestone was intended as a placeholder till the enthronement of a proper candidate - considered to be the Duke of Cambridge by most Whigs, but moderate Tories desired the next person in line after Frederick, and still others desired the restoration of Frederick. There were still others who desired a republican Britain, and those who wanted to simply enthrone a standard British citizen. All of these factions passed pamphlets to justify their desired choice, using a variety of historical arguments muddled in various interpretations. That ultimately Britain today retains Chief Magistrates despite their intended "provisional" nature represents the failure of these factions to compromise.

At the same time, mutual improvement societies emerged like clockwork across Britain for every cause imaginable. One such society was the Orange Order, a society spreading a very extreme sort of High Toryism. While they had, strictly speaking, emerged in 1795 in Ireland, they dramatically expanded during the Great Irish Rebellion (1796-1801), where they gained members across the water in Britain itself among the army members stationed there. As such, they quickly expanded their membership, and despite their staunch Toryism did gain many low class adherents. When the Popular Revolution led to King Frederick along with many of his supporters fleeing to Hanover, certain Orangemen fled with them, but still others stayed in Britain to help along a restoration of Frederick to the British throne. And indeed, its membership increased - Orangemen created their own mutual improvement societies which converted members of the lower classes to their ideology. With the right of people to drill as they sought fit assured by the Popular Revolution, the Orangemen also trained themselves in arms.

As the Radical Prime Minister Samuel Whitbread continued radical reform of the British political system, establishing more representative municipal corporations over the Lords' veto through ennoblement, the Orangemen were angered. So-called "Loyal Anglican" priests, who made clear their disdain for the new revolutionary regime and broke all ties with the Church of England still tied to the state, called for "obedience" to King Frederick and delegitimized the Popular Revolution in their sermons. And Orangemen met in front of Parliament, calling for the restoration of Britain's "just laws and liberties" and the "rightful king". Though Parliament was currently prorogued, it was nevertheless a fearsome sight.

What happened next was an Orangeman dressed as the speaker of the House of Commons called for a mock "session" of the House of Commons outside Parliament. Here, he denounced the ruling government as illegitimate and called for a mock voice vote, and the mob called for the affirmative. Then, the result was a frenzy of violence. And the Palace of Westminster, being old and filled with much flammable material, was accidentally lit, and it quickly burned. Even members of the mob were shocked - they wanted the government ended, not the "ancient" parliament of their "venerable ancestors". And though the government put out the fire, by the time they did, most of the Palace of Westminster was destroyed. The largest exception to this was Westminster Hall, long venerated by Radicals for its role in the career of the great radical hero Charles James Fox.

This event shocked many. Some Tories tried to pretend it was a natural event of "divine providence" against the ruling government. Others distanced themselves from the violent tactics used by the mob, and still others alleged it was really done by "Jacobins" masquerading as Orangemen. But to Radicals, this was an opportunity to denounce the Tories as anti-Parliament, and anti-history. Samuel Whitbread derided the Orangemen as "no better than the Jacobins of France" and stated that they would "establish an anti-revolutionary tribunal to terrorize [their] opponents in the fashion of Robespierre". It enabled him to claim that the true threats to the British constitution and British liberty came from the Orangemen and their Tory "allies". And indeed, this event did cause the destruction of the Orange Order, as it broke up into many factions (most famously the Tory Radical Scarletmen), and it strengthened Whitbread's hand.

And so, Parliament, housed in temporary chambers, passed the County of London Act, establishing a County of London covering London, Westminster, and its surrounding area. Despite the traditional English aversion to police as tools of foreign despotism as well as the disdain for how local militia were used as secret police by the pre-revolutionary government, nevertheless police forces were established to be run by county councils, with principles such as policing by consent, to prevent such an event from happening again.

The construction of a new Parliament proved to be yet another area for division. Tories advocated a Gothic parliament with all its medieval and traditionalist implications, while Radicals and Whigs wanted a "modern" and "rational" neoclassical parliament as a temple to parliamentary sovereignty. Ultimately, the Radicals won out and the new Parliament - known as Senate House - was constructed as a neoclassical building, albeit with some Palladian traits (owing to it being considered a British style), and rather than the cramped and dilapidated St. Stephen's Chapel in which the former House of Commons was situated, it was given a vast chamber based on the Olympic Theatre at Vicenza. The former layout of opposing benches was thrown out in favour of a horseshoe shape, which even included separate seats for the ministers to sit, and even mechanical counters to enable the automated calculation of divisions (though this was disposed of when it was found to be abused). Paintings to icons of British liberty - John Hampden, John Lilburne, John Milton, Algernon Sidney, and Charles James Fox - were erected on the walls of the building. Today, the Senate House, with its neoclassical and Palladian architecture, is an iconic building which looms large in British thought. Thus, the burning of Westminster affects the British Isles in more ways than one.

 

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Even before the Popular Revolution, there were many voices deriding the confusing state of British common law. Core among them was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), who after briefly serving as a lawyer quickly derided the state of the law as a mere tool for lawyers to squeeze out every penny they could from their clients. He derided its various legal fictions, and he derided judge-made law as mere "dog law", to train people to follow laws in much the same manner an owner would train their dog - through punishing the breaking of such rules. His solution was to codify all British law into a variety of codes, to then be amended by the legislature and to then allow every citizen to precisely understand the law. Later on, in the nineteenth century, the refusal of elites around the world to accept his legal reforms would turn Bentham into a radical democrat, and his view of what the law should look like has influenced many nations, including Britain, but Goa more than any other nation. And among many British Whigs and Radicals, these points became increasingly mainstream, and Scottish lawyers like Henry Brougham who were active in Britain wanted to impart the "order" of Scottish law to England through a variety of means such as codification. In particular, British criminal law received immense criticism for how it punitively and brutally led to execution for people charged with crimes as minor as pickpocketing.

In the wake of the Popular Revolution, suddenly the legal reformers were given political power. The first post-revolutionary Parliament established a Law Reform Commission, led by the newly-elected Legislation Minister[1] Henry Brougham, which looked into the existing criminal law. Its report, issued in late 1829, was a scandal in itself. It so thoroughly exposed the brutality of existing criminal law that even hardline Tories advocating the restoration of Frederick were forced to admit that legal reform was necessary. However, its exposed solution was met by scandal. It advocated the creation of a criminal code covering the entirety of the British Isles. This was immediately met with scandal - many stated that this would amount to the abolition of common law and believed that its uncodified state was essential. Today, opinions have changed - just as civil law may exist in uncodified states as in Scandinavian nations as well as in codified states as in France, so may common law - but this only became the consensus position in the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the Commission was given the go-ahead to write out a criminal code, as it became increasingly apparent that, in the post-revolutionary climate, biased judges quite blatantly made judgements that were blatantly contradiction - the very chaotic nature of the law allowed this.

But this hit some snags around the way. Henry Brougham wanted something based on the French penal code, while others on the Commission, Benthamites Romilly, Bickersteth, and Thompson, wanted something based on the greatest happiness principle. Thus, the eventual product marks an awkward compromise between the two differing traditions. It was proposed in early 1831, receiving easy passage through the Commons even as the Whig government increasingly began to break apart as into its radical- and moderate-leaning parts. In the Lords, due to most of the would-be opponents living in Hanover or in their manors in fear of revolution (only in 1832-33 during the rise of Whitbread and the Radicals did they return to active politics), it also received easy passage. Today the Criminal Code is honoured today, even if draconian elements like its criminalization of same-sex relations (repealed in 1959) have received attack for good reason.

From there the Law Reform Commission proposed yet more laws - it passed a Commercial Code, Criminal and Civil Procedure Codes, and it also passed two separate Civil Codes (one for Scotland, and another for the rest of the Isles - Scottish people were totally opposed to any loss of their legal distinctiveness). By 1840, the chaos of the uncodified system was put to an end, and now the common law of the Isles was as clear as the civil law of the continent. Despite those who feared that British law would be made too rigid, while this was the case in criminal law for obvious reasons, in other law judges were given ample room to judge at their own discretion, and this was an intention of the Commission. It is hard to dispute that British codified law has not been anywhere near as influential as France's famed Cambaceres Code, but nevertheless it has been influential; today, legal systems clearly descended from British codified law in whole or in part include Borealia, Laurentia, Nova Scotia, Australia, Hindustan, Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra, Madras, Natal, and many others.



[1] A Legislation Minister is a "servant" of the legislature who serves the roles of accepting petitions by the people for amending the law, as well as proposing amendments to existing laws, announcing proposals for amendments by judges, and critiquing proposed legislation by any MP. They sit as a non-voting Member of Parliament. This position was introduced in the Frame of Government Act issued by the Convention Parliament in 1829 after having been proposed by Benthamite Radicals after the idea was included in Bentham's Constitutional Code, and it is today considered an element of the Westminster model of government.

 

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This probably needs some tweaking, but I'm pretty happy it looks as good as it does.

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The Seal of the Parliament of the British Isles is the symbol stamped on all official documents issued by either house of Parliament. It identifies the legislative branch, separate from the judicial and executive branches.

Originally, Parliament did not have any separate symbol. Owing to its origins as a mere creature of the monarchy, it simply used the monarch's coat of arms as its seal. This continued even after the Popular Revolution, with the new government desiring to expand its limited legitimacy by using the symbols of the old regime, including the coat of arms in Parliament. This only really changed during the premiership of Wilfrid Lawson (1846-1856). His tenure saw the end of the post-revolutionary tumult which hitherto affected the British Isles, and as such it saw the birth of a new sort of confidence. With it, he saw it time to give Parliament its own symbol with its stature. As he put it, "Parliament is no longer a mere creature of the Crown. It is through Parliament that all sovereignty flows, from the people to all the other institutions of the British Isles". Parliament ratified for itself a seal containing Britannia.

The seal contains Britannia, the personification of the British Isles, holding a spear in one hand and an olive branch in the other. She sits on a rock, and on the rock sits a shield with the flag of the British Isles on it. Britannia wears a helmet and armour around her chest, as well a green scarf and a light-green robe. The substantial usage of green comes from it being the traditional colour of Parliament, as well as of the wider people of Britain.

Today, this seal is stamped on all official documents in Parliaments (including bills to be presented to the Chief Magistrate), and is as such the chief symbol of Parliament.

 

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Liberty Square is a public square in the City of Westminser, County of London, England, British Isles, built in Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the concept of British Liberty, or of the British Isles having a distinct sort of liberty defined by its own historical traditions (as opposed to French or American liberty).

The site around Liberty Square, known as Charing Cross, was long a landmark in Britain, but after the Popular Revolution it was developed into a series of buildings, and a space was left clear for the creation of a public square. With his ministry continuing to face the unrest stirred from the ratification of the controversial Indigence Relief Code (popularly known as the New Poor Law), in 1835 Prime Minister Whitbread had this square devoted to the concept of British Liberty, which was and is an important part of Radical political thought, and he felt such a square could strengthen a form of patriotism formed around liberty. It, however, would only be completed in around 1850, during the time of Wilfrid Lawson's premiership by which point much of the post-revolutionary tumult had calmed. Even then, it became a focal point for protest and tourism, and today it continues to be as such.

Liberty Square has four "liberty pillars" located on its corners, each devoted to a piece of legislation viewed as a "great charter of liberty". One is devoted to the Magna Carta, signed in 1215 between King John and rebellious barons; another is devoted to the Habeas Corpus Act, passed in 1679 despite the resistance of the king; another is the English Bill of Rights, ratified in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution; and finally there is one to the Charter of Liberties and Securities, ratified in 1829 after the Popular Revolution. Although today the real liberty of all of these things has been questioned - the Magna Carta only applied to aristocrats, the Act of Habeas Corpus was often suspended by Parliament, the Bill of Rights were avowedly anti-Catholic, and the Charter of Rights and Liberties were not applied in nonwhite colonies - nevertheless the symbol is widely understood. By combining commemoration of the then-contentious Charter with widely-respected acts, Whitbread hoped to make the Charter as well-respected as the other three "great charters of liberty", and in this he succeeded.

Liberty Square also has many statues. It contains statues for John Hampden (1595-1643), Parliamentarian during the English Civil War who died fighting against Charles I; John Pym (1584-1643), similarly a martyred Parliamentarian; John Lilburne (1614-1657), a Leveller who advocated democratic reform of the British political system, advocated human rights, and opposed both Charles I and Cromwell, who was able to get himself acquitted by multiple juries despite the ruling regime wanting him dead before finally dying in jail; Lord William Russell (1639-1683), who was executed for plotting against the Stuarts; Algernon Sidney (1623-1683), who came up with a comprehensive theory of the right to resistance and opposed both Cromwell and the Stuarts before likewise being executed; and Charles James Fox (1749-1806), who advocated parliamentary reform and spent most of his political career in opposition to what he perceived as reductions on British liberty. These statues, all of generally beloved radical icons, are together to be viewed as connecting a line of descent from the seventeenth century struggles between Parliament and the Crown to the post-Popular Revolution government. More recent inclusions include statues to the first American president George Washington, and to a politician lionized by Moderates Edmund Burke.

Some of the most significant protests in the Square include the anti-Catholic protests of 1857, where the pillar to the Charter of Liberties and Securities (which abolished civil disabilities for Catholics) was destroyed (later rebuilt); labour protests over the matchgirls strike of 1888, where a fifth "pillar" made of plaster devoted to labour rights was constructed (before being taken down); female suffrage protests in 1893, in which the female suffrage movement was connected to the long struggle for liberty; and the anti-colonial protests of 1958, where signs saying "Liberty, not Empire" in allusion to the oxymoronic nature of a liberty-loving people also ruling over a colonial empire.

Liberty Square remains one of the most important squares in all of Britain, and it seems its status as such is unbreakable.

 

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William Wilberforce was a British politician and an anti-slavery campaigner, who played a large role in the abolition of the slave trade in 1813.

Born into a fairly wealthy family, he went to good grammar schools and later to Cambridge, where he befriended one William Pitt the Younger, with whom he witnessed parliamentary debates. Pitt was able to convince Wilberforce to join politics, and in 1780 Wilberforce became an MP. When Pitt became prime minister in 1783, Wilberforce supported him in the complex environment of the era; however, despite being broadly a Tory in politics, Wilberforce chose to maintain a degree of separation between Pitt's government.

In 1784, Wilberforce became a very intense evangelical Christian, though he remained very much an Anglican. Despite evangelicals receiving ridicule in politics, he was convinced to stay, and his Christianity affected much of his politics; his traditionalism was informed by a belief that the current political order was vested by God, and most crucially he also gained a humanitarian impulse. He aligned with the Clapham Sect, of evangelical, establishment Christians who had similar humanitarian impulses.

When Wilberforce saw the condition of slaves being shipped across the Atlantic, he was horrified, and immediately he put his efforts on the side of the small abolitionist movement. Recognizing that abolishing slavery itself would be difficult, he instead moved resolutions condemning the slave trade, giving speeches where he described the conditions of slaves. As the British mood turned un-egalitarian due to the French Revolution, his efforts became increasingly difficult; the public hysteria in Britain was as such that even Wilberforce was accused of being pro-slavery. And despite Pitt's sympathies, the slave trade still could not be abolished; when in 1797, Pitt was removed from office over his advocacy of Catholic emancipation to resolve some of the underlying issues of the Great Irish Rebellion, Wilberforce's position was weakened ever further. Nevertheless, Wilberforce persisted in his efforts.

As Prime Minister Addington's tenure continued, it became apparent that he cared little about the issue of the slave trade. Nevertheless, Wilberforce continued. After Pitt died in 1806, Wilberforce was forced to work with the anti-slave trade Foxite Whigs despite being suspicious of them. In 1807, with the public mood of disappointment following peace with France and the Sieyes government, Wilberforce attempted to play on anti-French attitudes by banning the slave trade between British traders and French and its sister states' colonies (though France had banned the slave trade along with slavery, the Batavian Republic had not), and he downplayed his and "radical" Foxites' roles. It was successfully banned. Follow-up attempts to ban the slave trade entirely failed. Things would change in 1813 when, after a sympathetic member of the House of Lords proposed abolition of the slave trade, it got passed albeit by a narrow margin; it swiftly passed the Commons as well. Wilberforce had tears running down his eyes when it got passed.

But Wilberforce continued to fight for his goal of abolishing slavery, creating a campaign out of Parliament when it became increasingly apparent that abolishing the slave trade did not mean the end of slavery. Nevertheless, his efforts were stopped by the government, supported by slave traders and suspicious of even the whiff of "Jacobinism". Even Wilberforce's resolutions for establishing a slave registration system failed. In 1825, Wilberforce was forced to retire from daily politics, though he remained the figurehead of the anti-slavery campaign. When in 1827, the government was overthrown in the Popular Revolution, Wilberforce was angered by the destruction of what he viewed as God's political order, denouncing it as such despite most abolitionists being broadly supportive of it, even with reservations. In 1830, the Whig government led by Lord Althorp finally proposed a measure calling for the abolition of slavery. Despite a lot of resistance in the massively Tory-dominated Lords, in large part thanks to the efforts of Wilberforce, it nevertheless narrowly passed the measure. Finally, slavery was abolished and his life's work was accomplished. In 1833, Wilberforce finally died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey next to his friend Pitt.

In his own time, Wilberforce was attacked for his support of the pre-revolutionary political system despite its oppression of many Britons, and he was accused of hypocrisy in only caring about the welfare of faraway slaves by radicals. In particular, the Tory-then radical-then Tory newspaper magnate William Cobbett derided him for wanting to abolish the slavery of "well-treated" Caribbean slaves while ignoring the oppression of "true" slaves, English labourers. This argument in particular is a deeply racist one; nevertheless, in less overtly racist forms, many radicals were very suspicious of the establishment tendencies of abolitionists (including Wilberforce).

Today, Wilberforce is often forgotten. The abolition of slavery is often remembered as a corollary of the Popular Revolution, while Wilberforce is forgotten. He, a Tory-leaning-independent who despised the Popular Revolution as destructive of God's order, does not fit in with the narrative of British history, of the people fighting for liberty, and the abolition of slavery is remembered as simply being one battle in this great conflict. Typical historiography remembers the work of Radicals like O'Connell and Brougham and of Moderates like Russell and Althorp in the abolition of slavery, but it would have been much harder if not for the work of Tories like Wilberforce. Yet, it is perhaps the tendency of nationalist historiography to ignore those figures contrary to their grand narratives, and Wilberforce and the wider Clapham Sect is no exception.

 

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The Prime Minister of the British Isles is the head of government of the British Isles, as well as a non-voting member of the House of Commons, and is a member of and generally considered the head of the Council of State of the Britannic Confederation.

The post of the Prime Minister originates ultimately in the post of Lord High Treasurer, a post similar to that of finance minister. In 1714, it was put into commission between members of a Treasury Board, headed by a First Lord. The post of First Lord of the Treasury only became dominant over the rest of the executive branch, however, in the time of Robert Walpole, who used the power of the purse and melded the powers of the executive and legislative branches to become an extremely powerful minister, and it was in this period the term "Prime Minister" originates, as a satiric term deriding Walpole's centralization and comparing it to France, whose head was (more) officially called the Prime Minister. Although its power hemmed and hawed after Walpole was defeated in a vote of no confidence in 1742, by the time of Pitt the Younger in the late eighteenth century, it had become firmly established as the head of government (while also running the finances of the nation). Furthermore, the Prime Minister also generally held the title of "Chancellor of the Exchequer", this referring to a position with a combination of financial and judicial duties, except in periods in which the Prime Minister was in the House of Lords; as this was before the cabinet was ex officio a non-voting part of the House of Commons while being excluded from election, this meant that the Chancellor served as a representative of the government in the House of Commons.

After the Popular Revolution, government was generally simplified and reorganized by the Frame of Government Act. The cabinet was excluded from membership in the House of Commons, though they were allowed to be non-voting members. The Treasury Board was recreated so it was instead headed by a President, and this President of the Treasury Board was de facto the head of government as well. From 1846 to 1856, when Wilfrid Lawson was Prime Minister, he generally ignored treasury duties in favour of heading foreign policy. Instead, treasury duties were given to another member of the Treasury Board, John Lambton. Though other prime ministers care more about the treasury, this division stuck and increasingly Britain had its own treasury secretary in practice, though this was only formalized in the 1903 amendments, when the Prime Minister became a formal position and the Treasury Secretary was formally established. Furthermore, the consolidation of the British Empire into the Britannic Confederation meant that the Prime Minister became its informal head, though the fact that the Confederation as a concept has become weaker over the decades has made this meaningless.

The incumbent Prime Minister is Francis O'Connor, elected with the victory of the Radical Party in the 2017 election.

 

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After the collapse of the Orange Order in Britain proper over the Burning of Parliament, its many members split up into many different groups. Some worked with High Tories in Parliament, creating partially successful grassroots. Others went into the Loyal Anglican Church, in an attempt to swell its base. And still others went and founded the Scarlet Order, with the support of certain Tory Radicals.

The Scarlet Order, much like the Orange Order, was a fraternal organization organized on similar lines as the Freemasons. But while the Orange Order supported High Toryism, the Scarlet Order was dramatically different. It was a Tory Radical group, supporting both a House of Commons with universal male suffrage and the enthronement of the pretender in Hanover. How did it get over the clear contradiction between these views? Well, in the words of its Grand Master Charles Wolseley, it believed that the rise of the manufacturing classes was infringing on both the rights of the working classes as well as the traditional aristocracy. It believed, in the absence of a strong "Patriot King", that mere universal male suffrage would result in the superiority of a natural oligarchy of wealth, or of "borough-mongers" and "profit-mongers" as they were derisively called. But a strong monarch, with a source of power independent of wealth, would naturally support the people against the manufacturing classes. For these views, the Scarlet Order also received support from inside Parliament, from Tory Radical Francis Burdett. It also found appropriate ways to look back at history to create a grand narrative endorsing their beliefs - beyond a look back at the supposed "Saxon utopia" that was destroyed by William the Conqueror, which was a standard belief at the time, it also looked to the early eighteenth century politician Bolingbroke and the populist Toryism which he wielded as a weapon against the "Whig oligarchy" of Prime Minister Walpole.

Its name came from the scarlet uniforms worn by the British Army, which was also a symbol of monarchy (today, it remains a symbol of the right-wing of British politics for that reason). It flew the old Red Ensign, one of the three ensigns of the Royal Navy before it was abolished after the Popular Revolution owing to the Jacobin implications of a red banner being flown by a revolutionary government, and ironically it became a symbol of the pre-revolutionary regime. It gained much support owing to the continued state of the economy. It terrified many - Tories felt it was a "Jacobin" movement, while Moderates and Radicals were terrified it would unify both of the far extremes of the political spectrum to create a force capable of overthrowing the government and supplanting it with an absolutist state much like that of the Stuarts or Cromwell. It was allowed to drill with weapons, this right confirmed by the Popular Revolution, and all the government could do was try to weaken it by sending spies into the organization. Nevertheless, it continued to grow. Scarletmen were responsible for many bouts of electoral violence, including even capturing a polling station which meant polling for that subdistrict had to be held a few days later. Though they were convicted, there was little implying they did so due to orders from the centre.

However, in 1838 Frederick, Elector of Hanover and claimed King of Britain, died. While he was unpopular in many quarters, his successor Ernest was even more so - indeed, he was accused of murdering his own valet. Immediately, Scarletmen were unsure of whether to support Ernest's claim to the throne, and it increasingly split up into parallel factions. Some alleged that Ernest had an inherent right to the throne, and others thought this amounted to an endorsement of divine right and alleged that someone else should be a "patriot king". The Scarletmen were at war with themselves, and increasingly it became less of a presence on the British political spectrum. Though there were those who continued to call themselves Scarletmen, by 1840 they were all but dead. Members of the Scarletmen joined a variety of groups - some went to join Tories, but others went into an entirely different direction, and they joined Productionist groups. Perhaps it was not a very large difference to go from believing a king was necessary to avoid the formation of an oligarchy of wealth to believing common ownership of land and capital was the real solution to the problem.

 

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Old London is a borough of London, as well as the core of the city. It consisted of most of the city of London from its settlement by the Romans to the medieval era, but since then London has grown past it, and as such Old London consists of a tiny fraction of modern London. As such, it is one of eleven boroughs in the city of London, although these are not used for representative purposes beyond at the submunicipal level.

Old London originates from Roman settlement in about 47 AD, as Londinium. This city swelled under Roman rule and became a major centre for administration and commerce, but after the collapse of the Roman Empire Londinium collapsed and became virtually uninhabited. It was later resettled by the Saxon king of Wessex, Alfred the Great, and its conquest was a very important part of the unification of England. Trade and commerce likewise moved towards London. It reduced slightly in stature during the reign of Edward the Confessor, when he established Westminster just west of London as his capital, draining some wealth. During his conquest of England, William the Conqueror attempted to march on London but failed, though London nevertheless was forced to surrender but not before extracting a charter for the city. William, suspicious of London, created multiple castles to keep the city subdued, of which one (the Tower of London) survives today. London later gained the right to elect a sherriff which also served as Sherriff of the County of Middlesex (which London was then part of), and also to elect its own Lord Mayor (not to be confused with amalgamated London's Lord Mayor). London also receives a mention in the Magna Carta where a brief mention is made to its "ancient liberties", thus indicating that even in 1215 it was considered ancient.

The city was also a centre of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 when it was briefly taken by the rebels, but when its leader was killed the rebellion soon collapsed. In the 1630s the Crown attempted to extend its influence towards London, but the city refused. In 1666, London had a Great Fire which destroyed most of it and required it to be rebuilt (a process which took till the end of the century). In the eighteenth century, as the British Empire grew, London became ever-present and wealthier, and the city expanded past the set limits. The famed radical John Wilkes (1725-1797) was an alderman (councillor, in modern terminology) of London, and he was supported by the city's Lord Mayor, which turned the city into a centre of radicalism. It gained a reputation as a centre of the commercial classes. During the Popular Revolution, the city supported the new government wholeheartedly.

After the Popular Revolution swept aside restrictions on religious minorities as well as reformed Parliament substantially, ire was raised towards the feudal state of municipal governance. Among them was London, which then had guilds, complex franchises, and other old practices. When the first Radical Prime Minister Samuel Whitbread raged against the state of municipal governance in his famous Pall Mall Address, the government of London was unnerved, and during the fight for the Municipal Reform Act of 1834 it successfully bribed MPs to induce them into excluding London, as well as cities in its vicinity, from it. Yet, this only increased attacks on London's governance, as now London stuck out like a sore thumb with its feudal practices. This tore a wedge between Radicals and London, and during John C. Hobhouse's brief attempt to unify all supporters of Reform often discussion on London proved omnipresent. Further attacks raged on London's relative squalor with its sewage, which was contrasted with other cities within and without the British Isles. Furthermore, the city was affected by electoral violence during the post-revolutionary tumult, and the Burning of Parliament resulted in the unpopular imposition of the County of London Police - though Whitbread tried his very best to calm angered people by creating a mode of policing centred around maintaining the confidence of the people, the very presence of "Greencoats" as they were called angered Londoners. Aldermen openly compared themselves to John Hampden and Whitbread to Charles I. Yet, the rest of the British Isles did not sympathize nearly as much, particularly Radicals who despised feudal strictures.

Finally, when in 1846 the Radical Wilfrid Lawson came to power with the aim to fulfill Radical aims, he included reforming London among them. The Municipal Reform Amendment Act 1851 brought the administration of London (as well as surrounding cities) in line with other municipalities[1]. Guilds were abolished, and a City Council was established with a simple franchise based on ratepaying. Though many of these changes did improve London substantially, it consequently lost much of its valued independence as a direct result of them. The 1864 London Amalgamation Act, which established a unified London, made the old city just one of its boroughs, with the name of "Old London". Yet, throughout the 19th century, it continued to prosper, gaining immigrants and remaining a major centre of trade while also being a major financial centre. After the British Empire fell, it continued to prosper, and indeed Old London continues to do well to this day.




[1] In OTL, this hasn't happened to this day, and the City of London still has a bizarre mode of governance with guilds, corporate votes, alderman, and many other weird things that have generally been abolished everywhere else in Britain. It is also a county in its own right despite being two square kilometres in size and being surrounded by the much larger County of London on all sides, and it even has its own flag and coat of arms.

 

[Indicus]

Landing Day, officially A Day of Thanksgiving for the Securement of Representative Government, is a day commemorating the landing of William III on the British Isles as part of the Glorious Revolution commemorated on the fifth of November.

Ultimately, it originates in 1605, with the Gunpowder Plot when one Guy Fawkes along with English Catholics attempted to blow up Parliament and assassinate the king. In honour of the "divine deliverance" of being saved from this attack, its anniversary November 5 became a day of commemoration known as Gunpowder Treason Day. It quickly gained anti-Catholic overtones, with bonfires in which the pope waslit in effigy. Following the Puritan Revolution and the execution of Charles I in 1649, this day gained new connotations. With Cromwell's absolutist regime, the day was no longer officially celebrated due to the Puritans frowning on open celebration, but unofficial bonfires were still lit. After the collapse of the Cromwellian regime and the restoration of the Stuarts, the event was re-formalized. However, it also intensified in magnitude. With such events as the Exclusion Crisis, it became a partisan affair, and it also saw rioting that meant that militias had to be called in. Fireworks were banned under James II, but commemoration continued despite it being frowned upon.

As part of the Glorious Revolution, William III landed in the British Isles at Brixham on the fifth of November 1688. As such, the day gained new connotations of celebrating the Glorious Revolution, and it also became more pro-establishment despite associated disorder. Overtime, also, the pope was burned less and less and Guy Fawkes more. Rioting continued to be an issue. Furthermore, hated figures such as the king of France were also burned in effigy. With the French Revolution, so indeed were many revolutionary figures, most notably Thomas Paine, who despite being a British national hero today was then considered a murderous terrorist. As the ruling regime grew unpopular, figures such as Addington and Perceval were also burned in effigy, and in 1827 the Popular Revolution occurred.

When the Charter of Liberties and Securities were enacted in 1829 with its abolition of civil disabilities on Catholics, the Fifth became a day of opposition, with the lighting of government figures like Whitbread in effigy, as well as attacks on Catholics. In an attempt to stem this disorder, in 1835 the Whitbread government abolished Gunpowder Treason Night and replaced it with Landing Day, to celebrate the landing of William III at Brixham and the Glorious Revolution. It, along with Rights Day (celebrating the Bill of Rights and, in Scotland, the Claim of Right) on 16 December were part of an extended attempt to tie together the Popular Revolution with the grand British narrative of liberty. The bonfires and rioting were to be supplanted by feasting and peaceful celebration of the hard-fought liberties the people extracted from tyrants. Yet, Gunpowder Treason Day continued to be commemorated along with rioting and disorder, and it was not till the Lawson era that this receded. Though the restoration of the Catholic episcopacy in 1857 resulted in the return of such disorder (most infamously an anti-Catholic mob destroyed the Charter column in Liberty Square), it nevertheless continued to recede, and by the 1870s the fifth of November was primarily Landing Day. Nevertheless in many parts of the country Guy Fawkes continues to be lit in effigy, and in others bonfires are still lit. In many cases the roots of this celebration in "gunpowder treason" were forgot.

Indeed, Landing Day became a generic day of celebrating British Liberty, with figures of liberty unassociated with the Glorious Revolution like Hampden and Sidney often invoked. Furthermore, Charter Day, celebrated from 1852 in honour of the Charter of Liberties and Securities, began to grow in stature, and today it is very much the British Isles's national day. The bicentennial of the Glorious Revolution in 1888 was a grand, unabashed celebration, and saw much commemoration; on this day, a statue of William III was unveiled at Brixham by a director of the Batavian Republic in honour of the new Anglo-Dutch alliance. The proclamation of magisterial assent of the First Female Suffrage Act, which was cynically implemented by the Moderates solely because they voted for them but nevertheless opened the door considerably towards true universal suffrage, took place on the fifth of November 1896 to tie it to liberty. And so, Landing Day continued as a day of celebration.

However, then came the dramatic rethinking of historiography by revisionists throughout the twentieth century. Many asked whether the anti-Catholicism of the Glorious Revolution should really be hastily ignored, as Radical and Moderate historians often do. Some alleged that all the stated successes of the Glorious Revolution were in truth successes of the Popular Revolution or alternatively the Puritan Revolution, simply attributed to it as part of national myth-building. And so, with that, the Glorious Revolution was no longer perceived near-unanimously as a good thing by the people of the British Isles. Instead, to accommodate this sentiment, the government began to stress the First Female Suffrage Act which is viewed with near-unanimous praise. Nevertheless, there are still many who are willing to look past the Glorious Revolution's anti-Catholicism and celebrate Landing Day for William III regardless.

Today, Landing Day continues to be a notable day on the British national calendar. Though it is not the national day of the British Isles, it is still a day of festivity. And though the reasons for celebration have changed, a four-hundred year old celebration continues to this day.

 

[Indicus]

The Legislature of Ireland is the legislature of Ireland, as one of the subsidiary legislatures that exist across the British Isles in an arrangement which has been called "pseudo-federal". Though officially it exists only through an Act of British Parliament, in practice the Irish Legislature is fairly powerful.

It is ultimately derived from the Irish Parliament pre-1797, which grew out of the feudal council of the Lordship of Ireland to evolve on broadly similar lines as England's Parliament, which it was subsidiary to. In 1494 Poyning's Law was passed, which decisively made Ireland's Parliament subsidiary to England's. After the Tudors made England a Protestant nation, due to the failure of the Reformation in Ireland, it retained Catholic nobility and Catholic MPs. Though they were barred after the Puritan Revolution, in 1660 with the return of the Stuarts they were allowed back; nevertheless, land redistributed after the Cromwellian period remained in the hands of Protestants. After the Glorious Revolution, and the passage of civil disabilities, non-Anglicans were forbidden from becoming MPs or indeed any office. Increasingly, in the eighteenth century, a movement rose to establish Irish legislative independence, to keep its laws from being subsidiary to English laws, and this movement began with William Molyneux (1656-1698). Nevertheless, Ireland remained decisively in Britain's orbit, contributing much to wider British society; Irishmen like the famed writer Jonathan Swift, the moderate philosopher and politician Edmund Burke, and the playwright and Whig politician Richard Sheridan all contributed to wider British society.

During the American Revolution, in an effort to stop a French invasion, Ireland saw vast amounts of militarization with the establishment of the Irish Volunteers, and they petitioned for the establishment of legislative independence; this and fears of Ireland breaking away like the United States, as well as the agitation of MPs like Henry Grattan, resulted in the accomplishment of Irish legislative independence in 1782. In 1791, Catholics were given the franchise (if they passed qualifications), though they were forbidden from membership, and reform was in the air. The 1790s also saw the creation of the Society of United Irishmen, inspired by French Revolutionary ideals, and they were radicalized by the mass repression of radicals into becoming a society seeking violent revolution. In 1796 a French army led by Lazare Hoche landed on Ireland, and concurrent rebellions saw the taking of Dublin. An Irish Republic was declared, with Wolfe Tone as the President of the Government. The Great Irish Rebellion had begun, and it took five years for it to be decisively crushed, though petty warfare lasted much longer. In its wake, the British government believed that Ireland would need to be integrated, passing the Acts of Union 1797 which unified Ireland and Britain through.

Yet, Ireland took this union unhappily, and it saw much resent. It continued to see periodic revolts, and many felt despair at Ireland being reduced to a mere English province. After the Irish Famine of 1824, there was another large rebellion in Ireland, though it was crushed. In 1827, the British government was overthrown and, with the influence of Irish people like Daniel O'Connell, the eventual Charter of Liberties and Securities included an ambitious declaration of religious liberty which gave Catholics religious liberty. And indeed, Daniel O'Connell's influence in radical circles in Britain decisively expanded, and he was also a firm supporter of the restoration of "Grattan's Parliament", idealizing it while ignoring that it lacked many things important for nationality like a responsible government and was massively corrupt. Nevertheless, through his influence, he forced the Lawson administration to create a subsidiary Legislature of Ireland in 1847, which O'Connell viewed as the first step on the road to full repeal of the Union. It had limited powers of taxation, and any and all of its legislation could be overridden by the Parliament of the British Isles, but nevertheless O'Connell heralded it as the "restoration" of Ireland's Parliament.

However, soon afterwards, O'Connell died, Irish radicals split, and his son proved a bad successor; this split enabled Moderates to control the Legislature of Ireland decisively, and they opposed further moves for Irish autonomy. As such, Ireland lacked even a responsible executive. This only changed in the 1870s with the land agitations; this merged into Irish nationalism, most of all pushing of responsible government. In 1884, this was established, as the Chief Secretary along with other Irish ministers was given non-voting membership in the Legislative Assembly on the model of British Parliament. This resulted in the establishment of responsible government in 1884. Subsequent sympathetic administrations gave Ireland increasing amounts of autonomy, though it didn't stop Irish Nationalists taking control of the Legislature in 1961. A subsequent referendum for independence failed, but these tensions remained, with the Irish Nationalists continuing to advocate independence. Furthermore, the Irish Legislature directly inspired movements for a Highland Legislature, and many others; today, that the British Isles is pseudo-federal is ultimately rooted in Ireland's Legislature.

Most recently, the Radical landslide of 2018 effectively reduced the Nationalists to a minor party, though they are striving for a revival, and elections in Ulster in 2019 confirmed that they are still a force to be reckoned with. Will Ireland remain a part of the British Isles, or will it break away? Perhaps only time can tell.

 

[Indicus]

Ram Mohan Roy was a Bengali socio-religious and -political reformer in Colonial India.

Born into an aristocratic Bengali Kulin Brahmin family with a long history of service within the Mughal Empire, Ram Mohan Roy proved to have a career dramatically different to what one would expect. In his youth, he traveled much outside Bengal, learning non-traditional religious concepts, while also learning Persian, Sanskrit, and English, in addition to his native Bengali. He was taught in an Islamic madrassa, where he read the Quran and absorbed his concepts; it is believed that this influenced his later rigid monotheism, though this is disputed. He worked with the East India Company as a young adult, as the servant of one John Digby, and from here he gained the Christian influences which also influenced his theology.

His theology, as published in an 1803 tract, consisted of a belief in a very rigidly monotheistic interpretation of Vedanta Hinduism, which excluded any and all idolatry. He alleged that this was the "pure" Hinduism which once existed in the time of the Vedas and Upanishads, before being corrupted over time. He also grew interested in the Bible, reading it and finding that a lot of it was fully reconcilable with his Hinduism. Specifically, he was drawn towards Unitarian Christianity, with its own belief in a rigidly monotheistic god, its denial of the divinity of Jesus, and its associated politics of liberty. The sect he founded of Brahmo Samaj is in many ways a syncretism between Hinduism and Unitarian Christianity.

Ram Mohan Roy was also increasingly brought towards socio-political activism. In 1821, he railed against the fresh new restrictions on the press established by the Governor-General of India. He stated that freedom of the press was an inheritance from the Mughal era, pointing to its news service, and that the British authorities were going against established custom. It is perhaps the first advocacy for freedom of speech in Indian history. From here, he moved more and more into the domain of politics. He railed against the practice of sati, the Bengali practice where widows would burn themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres, and he condemned it as against pure Hinduism. His texts on the matter also influenced many in Britain, particularly Unitarians who agreed with most of his religious beliefs. He also founded the Vedanta College to teach youth in new western ways of education, and advocated administrative reform.

In the wake of the Popular Revolution, Ram Mohan Roy was ecstatic. He had long idolized the French Revolution, and believed parliamentary reform was an excellent cause; now, Whigs and Radicals controlled the British Isles and were intent on just that, passing the Charter of Liberties and Securities, as well as the Frame of Government. He believed it was an excellent opportunity for reforming India's administration. And so, he left India for the British Isles in 1829, where he was quickly greeted by cheering crowds. In addition to widespread glorification of his effort against sati, Unitarians believed he was one of them and as such celebrated his effort in extending the Unitarian faith in India. In short, he was a celebrity. He also quickly gained connections with the British administration, including with the Prime Minister, Lord Althorp. Many Indians were joyous, believing that he would serve as an unofficial Member of Parliament for India. But there were those who wanted him to become an official Member of Parliament.

Core among them was the radical philosopher Jeremy Bentham. His religious views were viewed as being similar to Unitarianism, and he too saw much to admire in Ram Mohan Roy's fight for the freedom of the press. Many others, like the Radical MP Joseph Hume, also saw much to admire. [1] With religious checks having been abolished, he was now eligible. And so, in 1830, he was drafted to run in East Finsbury against the Whig-turned-Tory Robert Spankie. Though he faced questions over his religion, whether he was a Hindu "heathen" or a Christian, he evaded them by giving the impression of being a Unitarian while still leaving room to maneuver. When his eligibility was questioned owing to his Indian birth, he stated that he was a natural-born British subject due to his birth in Company-ruled Bengal. With East Finsbury being a generally Radical grand division, it was an easy victory for Ram Mohan Roy. And so, Ram Mohan Roy, with his flashy turban and exotic "Oriental" robes, was sworn in as an MP.

In office, however, Ram Mohan Roy experienced difficulties. He was thoroughly disenchanted with the short lived Althorp administration after it passed an Irish Coercion Act, believing that the causes of Ireland and India were intertwined. His increasingly radical opinions were shouted down. After the Mountain Whigs led by Samuel Whitbread split the Whig Party and formed their own government, Ram Mohan Roy joined them. But even this government proved too moderate for him, as reform continued to be sluggish. Furthermore, he faced attacks from the Tory press, who derided the idea of a "Hindoo" seated in the Parliament of a Christian nation. He was repeatedly accused of blasphemy and faced numerous failed petitions for unseating. And even those who sympathized with him were often condescending, more covertly racist than Ram Mohan Roy anticipated. The only fellow MP he genuinely liked was Daniel O'Connell, if only because they were both representatives of colonized peoples. But nevertheless, Ram Mohan Roy did propose an anti-sati bill and he got it passed, ending the practice. Furthermore, when time came for renewing the East India Company's Charter, he advocated the creation of a Legislative Council with a partially-elective composition, as well as the full implementation of the Charter of Liberties and Securities in India, proclaiming that good government was the only cure for rebellion; he only grew more radicalized by his experiences as MP. These were ultimately watered-down; the sixteen-person Legislative Council only had four elected seats, and only some rights like religious liberty, trial by jury, and freedom of the press were assured. In 1833, Ram Mohan Roy declined to run for re-election.

Instead, he took a ship to the United States, where he was met by Unitarians who loved him. His arrival caused a brief craze there - children were baptized with his name, and a small Western settlement was named after him. However, he quickly grew disenchanted when he realized the full scope of American slavery - how, he thought, could the land of civil and religious liberty have so much slavery? And so he decided to go back to India, armed with experiences of interacting with the colonizer, as well as a truckload of western books.

Back in India, he met up with friends like Dwarkanath Tagore, learning that though things had improved, it was not nearly enough. And so, Ram Mohan Roy went to work to improve things. He published the works of Locke, and Bentham, and Sidney, and Cicero, and many other works, in Sanskrit, Persian, Bengali, and many other languages. He wrote a lengthy dialogue between a thinly-veiled version of himself in discussion with various Britons, to serve as an introduction to the Western canon, whose learning he believed was necessary for the youth to gain advancement. He presented the Charter of Liberties and Securities to the Maratha Peshwa, and he requested its immediate adoption. Though it was refused, some in the royal court did take notice of its provisions, and found them to be not quite so radical; the 1861 Decree of Rights took much inspiration from this document, and today Maharashtra's modern Declaration of Liberties also owes much to it. Ram Mohan Roy established schools and colleges as far afield as Bombay and Delhi. He was hopeful that the cause of good government in India would be accomplished beyond his lifetime. And so he died in 1841. Even in death he sparked controversy one last time, when he requested to be buried rather than cremated.

Ram Mohan Roy is remembered as a radical icon, as a Bengali nationalist hero, and as a reformer of the British Isles. The Goan Constitution, issued in 1829, included a dedication to Ram Mohan Roy and his fight for the "cause of liberty", even though it established the Goan Republic as an explicitly Catholic state [2]. More recently, after independence, the Bengali government gave him the Bangla Mukti Patak for his accomplishments for Bengali and wider Indian freedom.




[1] While the idea of a Hindu MP in 1830 may seem totally insane, note that in OTL in 1832 both Bentham and Hume wanted Ram Mohan Roy to become an MP. Note than in OTL he was likely ineligible - the oath to become an MP at the time required one to swear "on the true faith of a Christian", and though Ram Mohan Roy was influenced by Christianity, he was not a Christian. ITTL, this isn't an issue because no such oath has to be sworn.

[2] In case this seems insane, note that in OTL the restoration of the 1812 Spanish Constitution in 1820 included a dedication to Ram Mohan Roy, despite affirming Spain as an explicitly Catholic state.