I don’t know the answer and you don’t, either. I just want to point out that there are many wrong ways of looking at it. Two wrong reasons to oppose the British Rule are:
- “They did it for selfish reasons!” Excuse me? The question was not whether they wanted to help India. The question is what they ended up doing. So to say that the Railways and the modern system of government that they gave us do not count because they were done for selfish purposes, is fallacious. I especially don’t want to hear this from fellow Capitalists. We spend so much of our time groaning about how the evil Socialists don’t understand that intentions don’t translate into results. How do you think it sounds when you do the same thing?
- “India’s share of world GDP went from 22.6% in 1700 to 3.8% in 1952” If you aren’t a subscriber to the fallacy of zero-sum thinking, what does this prove? This statistic has been used to argue that the British robbed India’s wealth. It is entirely possible that they did, but this statistic does not prove it. It so happens that the Western world was enjoying an Industrial revolution at that time. This revolution hit India late. This is the proximal reason why Britain ended up wealthier than India.Was it Britain’s fault that India’s industrialisation took place late? Many people think so. But the policy they hold responsible for this looks suspiciously to me like… Free Trade.
Now I can understand how free trade in that specific instance would have led to the deindustrialization of India. The Britons had a comparative advantage in manufactured goods and we in agricultural commodities. But it is wrong to talk just of the unemployment among weavers, but not of the benefits to farmers from cheap clothes. A flood of cheap manufactured consumer goods must have brought some benefit to some people – after all they were getting something they valued at a lower price. Does this benefit cancel out the loss of some livelihoods? I wish someone would run the numbers. Besides, India didn’t just buy consumer goods from the British. We also bought machinery from them – machines which were used to set up textile mills in India by traders who earlier used to import finished cloth from Great Britain. So free trade policies ultimately resulted in the start of the reindustrialization of India. Would protecting the handloom weaver have resulted in the modernization of the textile industry faster? Protection didn’t work during Nehru’s time. What makes you think it would have worked in that bygone era?
So as I was saying, I would really like to read a criticism of the Raj that doesn’t reflexively assume that free trade was a bad thing. To what extent the did the British deviate from free trade policies? What other bad policies did they follow? The share of world GDP doesn’t tell me anything.
Actually, even if such criticism could be made, it would not automatically condemn the Raj. All governments are imperfect in some way. The right way to do the comparison is to look at what kind of rule we would have been under if the British had not ruled us. There, I am afraid we enter the realm of speculation.
The supporters of the Raj do indulge in the speculation, but then they go out and say things like:
- “The British delivered us from bad feudal rulers!” Really? All of Europe was under feudal rule till about 1600 or so. It was the spread of technologies like the printing press that made possible the widespread change in attitudes that led to the enlightenment. To be fair, the process was two-way – the attitudes in turn led to further technology advancements. It is simply unrealistic to assume that India would not have gotten the benefit of technology and this would not have led to changes in our political structure. Please note – I am not saying that it is unrealistic to conclude the same things after giving the matter some thought. Just don’t assume that the situation would have been the same for 250 years.
- “The British united us!” Um… that’s simply not true. As I’ve explained, political unity is one thing. The consciousness of ourselves as a common people is quite another. Political unity requires an army, transport and communications, the technology for which was simply not available before the industrial revolution. But the idea that we Indians have something in common has been in our consciousness for centuries. If an educated class had arisen in India, I’d be very surprised if a movement for unity had not arisen among them. Whether they would have succeeded or not is a different matter altogether.
The challenge then in understanding the benefits or harms from the Raj is in constructing an alternative history which is not completely imaginary. We should be able to say “If events unfolded in a slightly different way, then this would have happened.” I submit that the event that took place on January 14th, 1761 is the most promising place to start.
I could not recollect the significance of January 1761, and had to look it up to realize that the battle of Panipat took place that day. I agree that it was indeed one of the turning points in 18th century Indian history. I look forward to your post.
Btw, how about postal service and railways as benefits of British rule in India?
Good post. Very balanced. A few points from my side.
Post, railways etc were not patented by the Britishers. They would easily have come about without their presence, at least in some parts of India.
About the unification of India, in fact I will take away the little credit given to the Britishers. The princely states were kept separate, and that resulted in a lot of headache for Sardar Patel and co. If the Brits had truly unified India, there wouldn’t be a Kashmir problem, would there?
Another thing that bothers me is when I hear some Libertarians like Sauvik say that the Raj was an era of free trade. Come on, how can we oppose taxation on one hand and then call the Raj an era of free trade on the other? Most of the struggles were about excessive taxation, be it Bardoli or Kheda.
Yes, there is little material on the economic freedom, or the lack of it, during the Raj. That would be an interesting topic to research.
Of course, the Salt Act was blatantly anti-free-trade. It made salt manufacture a government monopoly and anybody else found making salt could be thrown in jail.
I don’t know how the British can be said to have practised even a deviant version of free trade. In textiles, they not only brought in cheaper clothes, but also put extra duties on Indian garment reaching the British market. I don’t have the references at hand now: it was one of the issues of the quarterly journal of the mythic society. And, what about the salt tax?:
http://www.rmoxham.freeserve.co.uk/salt%20starvation.htm
Yesterday I attended a talk on “The impact of British rule on Indian industries,” by Dr. Suryanath Kamat. His conclsion was that destruction of Indian industries was willful, rather than a natural consequence of competition with British industries.
Hi Ravikiran
Interesting post.
The question: “Was the British Raj Good for India” needs to be qualified: “compared to what?”
Obviously, it would have been better if India had been the big power in 1700 and never been colonized, but that wasn’t the case. On the other hand, if France had colonized India, they could have made a complete mess of the land. Here is an interesting post from Coyote Blog:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2004/10/french_vs_anglo.html
British Have done more good than bad.
a)They freed us of BARBARIAN MUSLIM rulers.If not for them major part of india would have been Islamicized.
b)They united us.Political unity after some decades leads to complete unity.
c)THEY HAVE NOT,EVEN IN THEIR DREAMS,tried to desroy our great cultural heritage.Look at Latin America ,whose culture and language were exterminated by spaniards.They(Brits) never laid their hands on any temple.It is surprising that you did not compare them with other imperial powers of that time.
d)They saved us from being a satellite state to Russia during Stalin’s regime.Russia with it’s immense power would have influenced us if not invaded us.At that point of time we were pathetic.
e)They have given us english,which engraved the ideas of free speech and democracy in our minds.Of course our love for peace also helped a great deal in attaining a working and stable democracy.
f)They invested heavily in railways.Look at the statistics and the amount ofnew railway lines we have added after our independence.It is just pathetic!!!!
g)Our distrust towards the Raj stems from the false impression that our society was educated and balanced as japanese etc.,.And we were stymied only by greedy brits.They were greedy,but they have given us or rather we have taken some good ideas from them.We had a largely back ward looking rural society with zero potential for development at that time.
h)They did not try to rub christianity on our heads.Look at Goa ,a portugese colony.It is largely a christian community with no resemblance to rest of the country.
Ravikiran,
Wonderfully put. Excellent read. I am going to trackback to my dead blog
>>It is simply unrealistic to assume that India would not have gotten the benefit of technology
I completely agree with this. A classic example is of the Kirloskars who began manufacturing ploughs with the blessings of the Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur.
I’m not a regular blogger. However after reading Ravikiran’s insightful views craftily analysing our country’s eventful past , I think I’ll blog more often.
Maybe India would not have been united (politically) as much as it is today without the British Raj. Maybe the industrial revolution would have reached us later. But even if that would have been true, it does not automatically show that we would have been poorer today. Even if we had politically united slowly or started on industrial revolution late we might have progressed faster after that. That is because, without the power of British-given beaurocracy socialism could not have spread its tentacles in India. One of the reason why so many African colonies got screwed by socialism was because socialist elites were left in charge of a huge Govt. machinary after British were gone. That has caused so much poverty that the political disunity and late start at industrialization would have been much better by comparison.
I think the analysis posted on the blog is very simplistic in my opinion.
The points are valid, but unless you dig down deep you can’t say for sure, especially when it comes to economics. My instinctive feeling (that might be biased) is that British rule didn’t allow free trade. There were a lot of unfair taxes on goods produced in India, and that kind of helped them to systematically kill the Indian industry. You know now that Indians can compete at the world level if the field is opened up.
The second most important aspect of colonisation is psychological. The author doesn’t take this into account. The British people drilled into our mentality that “white” is better or good. I think these things last for a longer time! e.g. Look at how brahmins over centuries oppressed the other castes. Brahmin population was just 2%, but even then they could do that. Why? Why the rest of the 90% people didn’t revolt. I think there is a psychological aspect to it, where they drilled into the masses that the other castes are inferior and suitable to do only certain things.
Just to think these subjugation in terms of strategy of retaining power and monopoly, the caste system, or the “White man’s burden” are masterstrokes.
-i
Let us think out a few scenarios:
1. India still under the British rule.
Would we have been similar to Hong Kong? Advanced but culturally diffused.. ?
2. India never under the British rule.
Would we have been under-developed and fallen wayside to capitalistic growth and post-industrial boom like some of the remote African countries?
3. Finally, the historically accurate scenario of being under British rule for 150 or so years..
Presently, we are plagued by problems of an underdeveloped nation while we are clearly developing technologically. We are leaders in respect to human resource outsourcing and have the largest democracy – two direct residual effects from the British Raj. We also have lost much resources to combatting terrorism and fighting wars with Pakistan – something that is also a direct fallout from the British rule. Is it possible for us, as Indians, to weigh the pros and cons in an unbiased manner? I think not.
Finally, I’d like to finish by saying that self-rule and freedom are what everyone years for and oppression (in the name of colonialization) is opposed to these fundamental rights any way one sees it. But then, we weren’t or aren’t a tolerant and respectful society in India, then why should anyone else be?
good discussion,
how do you make the blog run directly from apache?, i have to restart my blog from ssh every now and then ?
anon
Bhanu wrote:
e)They have given us english,which engraved the ideas of free speech and democracy in our minds.Of course our love for peace also helped a great deal in attaining a working and stable democracy.
I would like to differ with that opinion. My response is too long to be posted here. Therefore, I have written an article in my blog.
Some folks have speculated that India was/would’ve been technologically underdeveloped, were it not for the British. Here’s my post on that topic.
Very thought provoking post Ravi. Did you by any chance read Dilip’s Post on the Raj?
It is not enough for the pro-british lobby to prove that the british did “some or significant” good or for the opponents to claim that the british caused “some or substantial harm”. It is incumbent on either of the parties to show that the Brits did more good than harm ( or vice versa) to establish their respective veiwpoint. Otherwise,the argument will never get into a convergent mode.
My view is that the British did more good than harm and the net effect or legacy was beneficial to us.
Good discussion guys…
Just a couple of points. I support Free Trade and I am a Nationalist. If it turns out that the British did not follow free trade policies and India developed slowly as a result, it relieves me of the huge burden of cognitive dissonance. But I didn’t want my wishful thinking to be turned into theories. Besides, the standard theory that we’ve been taught tells us that it was free trade that caused the deindustrialization of India – and that standard theory makes sense – from the comparative advantage point of view I mean. So I just assumed that it was correct.
I am also particularly interested in the Kirloskar story and the points being raised by Quizman. Once again, the standard theory being taught to us is that industrialization, mechanization and education started only after the British took control. Even if true, it proves only correlation, not causation. I will however be very happy if it is proved false.
>Did you by any chance read Dilip’s Post on the Raj?
Yes. I agree with him. I think that we should learn from it and accept it. Or accept it and learn from it. Either way would be fine.
The points you have mentioned , Ravikiran, are largely valid ones, but like as someone said, some of them are way too simplistic.
First point is the quality of life people living at that time. Exploitation was absolute. Governance, though claimed to be unbias, was highly biased. Seperate laws for English & Indians. This set examples. Our system not only inherited modern system of government, but also this corrupt system.
This culture was setup right there under their faulty buerocratic system whos was supposed to be a civil “servant”, but slowly graduated to “officer”, as most of them were from ruling class.
Now this attitude has dug deep into our system. This is a british legacy.
Interesting debate. My views are that the British did more good than harm.
I strongly suspect India would have emerged the poorer and less developed, fragmented and politically in grave trouble without their influence. The British did not at first think themselves superior to us, but their great unprecedented successes in India led them to become arrogant.
If the British had remained a marginal power in the country or had no presence, we would have been the poorer for it. We would have been fragmented into several states- or a few superstates with underdeveloped political structure. Let’s also face the fact, they were more benevolent than any of those who ruled us in the past- medieval or ancient.
They did destroy our native industry and lead to people giving up useful trades and overcrowding the agricultural sector, but they also gave us a superior education system and were the first rulers who allowed us to speak and question freely. They did drain our resources and institue unfair practices like the salt tax- one among many. But it was the first time in our history that we weren’t ruled by the arbitrary wish of an emperor or rajah. The judicial and administrative system they instituted is also a first of its kind in the country and laudatory.
Its as simple as this- we are a huge and geographically and culturally disparate country- we needed an outsider to dispassionately unite us and rule us. I personally think it almost impossible for any of the native states to have united us into a whole and done an equally good or better job. There were too many vested and narrow interests.
There were no doubt brilliant rulers like Ranjit Singh and to some extent Tipu. But would they have had able successors to carry on the organisation and work- we know for a fact that Ranjit Singh didnt. The British didn’t always supply us with the best Governor Generals, but more often than not, they were able to rise to the task at hand.
Interesting post, especially the bit about Panipat. After you mentioned it, I thought about constructing an alternative history, based on a reversal at Panipat (which I agree is a better starting point than a reversal at Plassey or any other such event). After Panipat, European dominance in India was pretty much guaranteed, and Plassey and Arcot basically decided if it was British or French rule (another “what if”, possibly for another day).
So, let’s assume the Marathas won Panipat. They would have assumed supreme power on the subcontinent, defeating people like the Nizam and other Nawabs, and ruling from Puna. India would be a loose confederacy of Holkars, Gaekwads, Scindias etc. The principalities would together have been strong enough to repel a large-scale European take-over, but I think the resulting situation would have been a little too close to what ended up in China. There, Europeans basically maintained trading outposts around the edges of the country, and from there spread a cancer throughout Chinese society without accepting any Imperial responsibilities of keeping order, creating an educational system or maintaining a governance structure.
Also, they being Indians, I think rule by various Maratha princes would have devolved into one long stretch of infighting which would probably have resulted in under-development.
But of course, you never know. We might have ended up like the Japanese, who with a confident political establishment (and our guys could have had that confidence if they’d won at Panipat) were able to advance and compete on the West’s own terms.
Nice thought experiment. I’d be interested to know how you construct the alternative scenario.
For one thing, the British were much more gentlemanly than many others. I cannot imagine oursleves being ruled by the Japanese, German, Spanish, or even French. First of all, they would have done away with Mahatma Gandhi the moment he stepped into India.
Some people have argued in their comments that British united India politically. I don’t understand why that is supposed to be a good thing for Indian people. Europe is divided into small nations continously fighting against each other. Various empires came and went unleashing huge destruction in their wake. European went through Napoleanic wars, various uprisings, invasions, World I, World II, communist rule and so on. And inspite of all that on an average European nations are in much better situation compared to India in terms of economy. Most of the European nations have maintained their own language and not taken to English.
So, why do we think that integration of India and introduction of English is supposed to be good for India?
Some very relevant points have been articulately raised in the above discussion. The debate of whether a particular phase in Indian history was good for the nation can be never ending. The mere fact that so many different viewpoints have come up itself shows the complexity in reaching a definite answer.
The fact is that today our country is doing much better than it was doing a few decades ago. Added to that is the immense satisfaction and hope of analysts, statisticians and economists for the future of our great nation. It has been repeatedly highlighted that the world will become tripolar by 2040 with India as one of the major powers along with the US and China.
I think we can come close to the answer of Ravikiran’s question by concentrating on the present moment in the timeline of our country. If we do a good job today then positive justifications for our history and legacy will come automatically. Similarly the converse will also be true.
The more important question now could be whether we can seize the opportunities that lie ahead of us and ensure that India can make complete use of its vast potentials to prove all the realistic predictions right.
Analysis some what simplistic.Our societies are way backward when compared to european ones.Remaining disunited would have made us prey to terrorism,both left and right(Look at srilanka and Columbia).Chinese would have easily gobbled up fair part of these small ‘indpendent’ nations.We have a good amount of similiriaties.All of he have a common religion(Hinduism),we were one even during reign of Mughals and Mauryans.Now even europeans are tryin for unificaion through EU.The notion that we are part of a huge political entity gives us immense pride.More over sum is always more than its parts put together.
English exposed us to liberal ideas .You must note that almost all the elite congress(of those days) leaders had good english education here or abroad.
The question here is about ex-post evaluation of British rule. What we need to compare is the difference between our country, had there been no British rule vs. our current scenario post British rule. This question is different from the one which compares colonialism vs. no colonialism. I.e. was British rule better than Portuguese rule, vs. was British rule better than had we been independent and fighting throughout.
Before the British took over, there were atleast a few empires (Moghul and Maratha empire) which were significantly big to be countries themselves. India had enough mineral wealth (although the coal was of substandard quality compared to Europe). It is difficult to say, ex ante what would had happened if we were an independent country.
But we can say what would had happened if we were a Dutch (Indonesia) or a French colony (Francophone Africa).
All said, this is an excellent article and a wonderful question and thanks for that. And btw, I was led to this link through Amit Varma’s blog!
I 100% agree with you and gr8 thx for putting all these thoughts in such a structured manner … but the free trade funda didn’t fit in .. this is because British Raj never encouraged ‘free’ trade in India. They actually indulged in ‘closed’ trade.
1. They allowed trade of agricultural goods only with Britain and not with other countries – this stifled competition among buyers which led to fall or exploitation of Indian farmers
2. By natural trade the comparative advantage slowly fades away (acc to the modern post-adam economics). Thus India as you rightly said would have industrialised and united into a nation without the British – and this industrialisation would have started in early 1900 and not in 1940 as it did. (Esp bcoz as we know today India has enuf minds so that it could have invented the steam engine even if no one wud have allowed tech transfer)
The argument that we would have industrialised earlier if the British had not been there – is a little too far-fetched. For much of our history, we have been a pretty insular entity ( or a heterogenous group of 500 entities). We never sought knowledge from beyond our boundaries, as we were so contended with ourselves. Let’s accept it. Industrial revolution started in Britain due to convergence of several factors and spread to the rest of the world. India, as a colony of the British was a direct beneficiary as technology transfer took place automatically.
Nice thread this is developing into and thanks a lot for Ravikiran for a well-written, thoughful post. But this is in response to the above comment that we had been an insular entity. I beg to differ. I had always thought that we had a great amount of trade going on between the various ‘entities’ that ruled the sub-continent and the ‘foreign’ nations – thereby enabling exchange of ideas and … whatever! So, I think it would be wrong to assume that if not for British, our industrial revolution would not have been possible at a much earlier time – it would definitely have been, but possibly via a different route.
Looking forward to more of the same by Ravikiran… Cheers!
Please checkout http://indiaupdates.blogspot.com. You can find good comments about happenings in India.
I’m deeply saddened by Bhanu’s sentence:
English exposed us to liberal ideas .You must note that almost all the elite congress(of those days) leaders had good english education here or abroad.
and Coolhead’s claim:For much of our history, we have been a pretty insular entity ( or a heterogenous group of 500 entities). We never sought knowledge from beyond our boundaries, as we were so contended with ourselves.
These are misinformed views. Unfortunately, these views have gained currency in the post-Macaulay era.
“But the policy they hold responsible for this looks suspiciously to me like… Free Trade. ”
Ok so prohibiting textile imports from India is Free trade, especially if produced by handlooms and if the ban is carried out by Adam Smith’s motherland.
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/colonial.html
Quizma,about the insularity, let me clarify. While trade took place between India and other countries, it was more due to the fact that the Europeans and Chinese travelled to India, and not because we ventured out. I haven’t seen, in any of the history books on the pre-British era, the name of a single Indian who travelled abroad and brought back “knowledge ” or “technology”. We can’t claim to have had the equivalents of Fa-Hien, , Ibn Batuta,etc.There is evidence, of course, that we exported our philosophies ( Buddhism,etc) through such travellers, but the reverse flow happened only when invaders reached our shores and settled down here..
Benefit of industrial revolution would have reached us eventually, but the British presence here catalysed the process. In our zeal to extol our own glory, let us not delude ourselves. In any case, past glory is not a guarantee for present or future prosperity.
Coolhead/ Bhanu Pratap
Firstly English brought liberal ideas, that will be news to macaluay himself, Englishmen never pride themselves on being liberals and the Victorian England was retrograde compared to rest of Europe. If anything they made Indians more prudish
And as far as “British presence here catalysed the process” of industrial revolution in India, it would be the joke of the day if it had not been uttered by an Indian. India is not a great industrial power today, name one country (or even region) that was ever a colony of an European power that went on to become an industrial power. None of the major Asian tigers Japan, China, South Korea was under European occupation. All of Africa was under European occupation, none of them have and in all probability ever will enter the industrial age till date.
Your comments on Indians not venturing out is even more comical, Ashokas monks took Buddhism all across Asia (including China), traders took Hinduism and other aspects of Indian culture to all of South East Asia including Indonesia. And on the other handsome of Varamihira’s Panchasiddhanta were based on Roman and Alexandrian theories which was brought to India by Indian scholars travelling abroad. Infact Indians were well aware of all the scientific developments happening in the world as testified by Al Barauni
I know you will not have read all this and you are the product of India’s distorians and not to blame, being a worshipper of Romila Thapar as you seem to be but here are some websites that can open your eyes if you wish to see
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/tks_essays_frameset.htm
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/history_essays_frameset.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/sahistory.html
http://berclo.net/page00/00en-sea-history.html
Having said all this there is no doubt that Englishmen were humane colonists compared to either Delhi Sultanate or Spaniards or Japanese (and Mughals except for Akbar). They were more organised in terms of administrative abilities as compared to either the later Mughals or Marathas. And while they were not liberal by any stretch of imagination, atleast some of the colonial administrators tried to do good and respected India and Indians. However in the end analysis they reduced Indian economy to the same state as that of Africa, an resource exporter
This criticism of the British can apply to any colonial power…
Free trade…well, when one looks at the tax structure, various acts(Salt Act being the most prominent) and also the trade policies implemented, one would oppose this notion…..
Examine the situation more closely and look at the legacy of the Brits. Even the license Raj was a legacy of the brit era. Argreed, the successive Congress regimes only made things worse, but look at the beginning…..
All in all, I don’t see a single positive in the British Raj. They ruined our very thinking, they made us ashamed of being Indian (a malaise very common to us), they made us belive our legacy and culture was something to be looked down upon…..and nothing can take away pride as much as these…..
I know that the above para may attact fire, but think of it…..we look down on Indians who can’t speak English, we love embracing Western philosophy without ever bothering to delve into our own, much deeper philosophy etc. etc….
Before blaming Indians for this, read a book on Warren Hastings’ life. is letters contain the message clearly. His aim was to achieve these very objectives, through the systematic deismantling of all Indian systems, cultural and societal…..
If after all this, anyone can still say the Raj had positives, all I can do is smile at the ignorance that leads to that attitude….
CoM, your argument, as I understand it ,goes as follows :
– Many bad things happened during British rule- Blame the British for these.
– Some good things that happened, railways, legal system, etc during the British rule. Don’t give the credit to British. We would have got these, by ourselves, anyway.
A balanced outlook will be to accept the “good” and the “bad” that happened during the british rule and give them credit or apportion the blame as the case may be . Also, isolated examples of Indians venturing abroad or sporadic instances of technology transfer do not prove your point.
Coolhead your comments show that you are a typical unintellectual slave head with no understanding of elementary nuances of argument.
For all the more intelligent people on this discussion two points. I specifically questioned two things, one that industrial revolution in India was accelerated due to British colonisation and second that British brought something called “Liberal thinking into insular India”
Of course British brought in some very desirable features without which India would not have been what it is today, It brought in a government and legal system that has stood us in good stead, which one might say is lacking even in some of the more developed countries of the West. And as I mentioned in my later comment, they maintained a fairly humane and open system of governance which particularly stands out in comparison to other colonisers like Russia, Turkey and Japan ( in China 1936-45).
But it is only slaves like Coolhead who will be over impressed by British building railways, China was never colonised in recent times but it has a larger railway network. Every country in the world wether colonised or not has railways and telecom network (and internet) but I reiterate my challenge name one European colony that entered the industrial age and became a major industrial power during the course of colonial regime or even later , name one…
And if Coolhead can call India’s contribution to devlopment of world mathematics , medicine and science sporadic or regard Indian traders transporting to South East Asia (a region larger than Europe) all the culture, script and philosophy that it is known for then I can only shudder at the cold sting of Macaluay that has rendered this person completely inarticulate and unreceptive. No point in any further discussion. Have a nice bleach Cool and lick your white master’s whatever
CoM, from the profound to the profane – you certainly cover a wide range. My compliments. At least we agree on one thing now. That there’s no point in any further discussion..
Cool, you definately have the ability to drive the profound to profane, with your exasperating lack of reason and unmatchable intellectual cowardice. These extraordinary abilities could find many uses especially in ICICI bank call center, best luck there
I apologise to other participants for the profanity and resolve not to get worked over such matters in future
Having read most of the thread, CoM’s well reasoned arguments present an accurate and balanced opinion of both, the positive and negative fallouts of British Rule. That the perpetrator of an act of aggression be absolved for the involuntary positives of his act, not withstanding the fact that the negatives by far outweigh the positives, is a fallacious argument. That India was wronged by England through its act of aggression is unquestionable. The passage of time does nothing to undo this wrong.
Great discussion. The views expressed in all the threads add up to quite a balanced view.
My views on the topic are on my blog: http://www.ashishthakare.blogspot.com
An interesting thread!
I have a few comments on points I haven’t read so far.
Most of the commenters seem to focus on the actions of the British *government*, rather than the rest of its society. Note, that the major impact that Britain had on the rest of the world, including India, required *far* more than a domineering government. The networks of the industrial revolution were far more a civil affair than one of governmental policy. The government of Britain acted mostly to step out of the way, for a while.
This allowed the rest of British society the market freedoms needed to build up and maintain far stronger market networks around the world, mostly outside what became the 2nd British Empire*. It was these market networks, and the accompanying intellectual networks, and physical networks, that were the primary benefactors of India during the Raj.
It has also been noted by several commenters that Britain was far less restrictive of Indian political networks than almost any other asian government of the time was. Even in Thailand and Japan, the independent asian nations, there were only spurts of political freedom for building political networks that were greater than inside India. Freer domineering oligarchs in those countries? Granted. I believe that’s hardly what most Inidian commenters would have wanted for India.
(*Note: We here in the US had truncated the first British Empire. Their aristocrats who thought so little of lower-class merchants found employment in dominating the lands that Clive’s victory at Panipat opened to their ambitions. Thus, they weren’t inside the ‘home islands’ so often, fighting to keep their old social status. I’ve always felt this was one great contribution of India to the industrial revolution. The more Brit nobles there were in India, bashing people there, the fewer were fighting liberalization back in the ‘home islands’.)
Then, when the changes of the industrial revolution, including nascent Indian industrial operations, began to make other political majority ‘home islands’ groups unhappy enough, the British government once again leaned towards intervening in the economy. The first place they began their turn in policy decisively was in their 1895 imposition of a tax on those Indian cloth goods competing with ‘home island’ cloth produced inside Britain by British workers.
This was done, interestingly enough, by Randolph Churchill, Conservative Party Chancellor of the Exchequer, and father of Winston Churchill. He did it to keep British workers from opposing the continued existence of the Empire! This came from the father of the arch British Imperialist of the mid-20th Century, who was ejected from office in 1945, just in time to allow India to become independent.
It is the period from 1835 to 1895 that saw the growth of a legal structure for free trade in Britain and its Empire. It is the period from 1895 to 1955 that saw the near extermination of market freedoms in Britain. Indian commenters should note that the laws restricting market freedoms in India often were passed not too far in time from laws doing similar levels of damage in Britain, if in different areas of the economy.
A last point of irony and political interest. I was told, in 1973, by an elderly man who’d involved himself in the Congress Party as a youth, of the effects of the 1895 tax law, and subsequent measures. He noted that Congress was founded in 1885, and for 10 years had been divided between those who wannted to be like the US Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and wannabees for being similar to the 1970s Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. They didn’t have the one resource to be effective at either, Money!
Then, the growing Indian middle class saw the 1895 tax law. They knew that they were its targets. I was told that donations from such previous middle class supporters of the Empire more than doubled every 5 years from 1895 to 1945. Money is the grease of all politics. That’s not the only thing needed to build a political machine, but the machine can’t move without sliding past normal social frictions, and for that you need money, money, and more money. The 1895 tax law, and subsequent market interventions, made that thinkable for the Indian middle classes, who had money.
Still, the major effect of Britain in the world between 1835 and 1895 was to allow most of the networks of the continuing industrial revolution far greater scope for growth, through allowing the freedoms of action needed to build and maintian those industrial networks. For that, we can thank British society far more than British government that was then a far smaller part of that society. Even a confirmed buff of the American Revolution like me can admit that!
Regards,
Tom Billings
Corrector of Maladies has already highlighted most of the silly arguments.
The fact remains that by the time the British left, India that was one of the two richest countries of the world was poor and this happened under the stewardship of the British rulers.
The British rulers were brutal and excercised full control over India and hence the responsibility for impoverishment of India does fall on them. To call colonial rulers who built the Cellular Jails in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, massacred innocents in Jallianwalla Bagh, used one community to fight another community, broke agreements and several other brutalities ‘liberal’ is the height of comedy that has gone on here.
Somebody wondered why leftist movements were always at the forefront of struggles for liberation. Leftists are ideologically allergic to sectarianism. The act of ‘divide and rule’ doesn’t work for them. Unlike the mercantile, agricultural communities, leftists are one of the first to understand western capitalism and politics. Hence they are the ones who start out early. Moreover, the sectarians are always won over by small inducements and realise their political slavery much later. Look through the history of struggles against colonialism around the world and you will see this pattern. At best the leftists are defeated by the colonial power in cooperation with the sectarians but end up ceding power to the sectarians in return for their cooperation.
Another argument is that the British are better colonisers than say the French or the Portuguese. This overlooks the nature of colonialism. Colonialism aims to transfer wealth from the colonised country to the colonising country. Each colonial rule is unique depending on the kind of wealth that is to be transferred. I am not going to elaborate on this now.
Tom Billings, ‘free markets’ or ‘closed markets’ the priority is self-rule and sovereignity. A free market imposed under brutal conditions that allows the British to escape their class origins is of no consolation to Indians who were murdered and brutalised. Were Indians afforded the same opportunities? The answer is more or less no. Colonialism and imperialism is about control that can be used for self-gain and that passed into the hands of the British. So don’t look for ‘thank yous’ from Indians.
Again, in many parts of the country the railway networks were built with money that was directly contributed by the local rulers (for whom it was a matter of pride). I know of an instance where temple funds were used by the King to build an important rail line. The British were not interested in building these rail lines themselves because either they wouldn’t help in resource exploitation or because many British investors had lost their shirts in infrastructure projects (a fair enough warning for private investors in ‘infrastructure projects’).
PS: I am the guy who used to post as ‘yum yum’ and I have never posted on Yazadjal’s blog.
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K.Bhanu Prasad Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 10:06 pm
British Have done more good than bad.
c)THEY HAVE NOT,EVEN IN THEIR DREAMS,tried to desroy our great cultural heritage.
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HAHA Are you for real?? most young student Indians in India today don’t even know that Nehru was the first prime minister of India, and that he helped develop the country!
The cultural heritage was untouched by the British, but it is the Western influence today that is slowly underpinning India’s heritage.
In his letter K.Bhanu Parsad said that British never laid their hands on any temple. It is true but you know did not let any person to go near the temples. The person was beaten with sticks if he go near a temple. So I tell you(K.Bhanu Parsad) that you are an Indian so do not go in favour of the British because they destroyed our cultural heritage. They weakened us poilitically s well as economically.
It is really alarming to see people speculating that we would not be a country or a technologically advanced country as we stand today without a foreign rule !!
Its preposterous to conceive the notion that without being subjected to atrocities and suppressive policies of Raj there would be no nationalist movement. People like Tilak , Bose , Sardar Patel would still be born. Remember, men are not creations of circumstances but circumstances are creations of men.
British Raj on the surface as you said has been helpful in few ways, but for the GDP going down the Raj was responsible too, please read the book
The men who Ruled India, it gives a complete idea of how the taxation system worked bfor and after British ruled India. The concept of “Free Trade” was twisted extraordinarily by the British “Free Trade” here means that Britishers who came as traders dont have to pay tax as opposed to native business people and such. Mir Sahib one of the Mughal rulers opposed exactly this and he made tax free for the natives too which led to the British usurping him with his son in law or son I dont remember exactly.
So please dont misuse the term “Free Trade”