Return to Index
It's shocking to think some people still see the British Empire as a "good thing"
for India. Empires are built to enrich the invaders, not the natives.
Supporters of the British sight development in agriculture, Western education, civil service,
infrastructure such as rail and docks as boons of the British to the benighted,
heathen Indians.
The only reason the British irrigated
Irrigation of
Having banished slavery, British used “indentured labour” as
a ruse to get cheap farm hands from India.
Indian indentured labour was exported to other parts of the British empire, Ceylon,
Fiji, Africa and as far as Trinidad.
One thing most historians forget is,
The Chinese are doing the same in Africa right now. Africans are saying the same thing - we love the fact that the Chinese are putting in all this infrastructure at such a cheap price !! What Africans don't see is "why" the Chinese are doing this !!! There is a BBC documentary about this "The Chinese are Coming" exploring this phenomena.
Well before the British, India had well run law courts.
Even during the rule of various Muslim rulers, there was an understanding of how
different communities ran their affairs and laws reflected this. Language
of "officialdom" has always been different to the language of the people. Sanskrit
united India before Farsi and now English. Even now, English of the
"ruler" and the "ruled" is very different in India. Language of the
various empires and
their empire builders may have changed, but, at the grass roots, we still have use
local dialects at the Panchayat and local court level.
Sometimes it's difficult to admit that you are standing on
shoulders of giants. People often want to "prove" they did this all by
themselves. British used the Indian civil service and
infrastructure they inherited from the Mughals and Marathas to rob
British revised,
updated and renovated the existent service to suit its purposes, but the basis
of the "service" was there and that never changed. British modified some
of the processes to suite the need of the empire, but, the core aims and
mechanisms of the service were never altered. That is the root cause of
India has been a “unified whole” many a times. Many empires came before the British
and united the kingdoms to form a whole.
More than that,
Before the British came,
Who did the British keep us safe from ?
Each other mainly !
Through Pax-Britannica, Indian kings, nawabs, princes and chiefs were forced to
observe peace amongst themselves and not alter their boundaries without British
permission.
During the British Raj, Indian soldiers were utilised in wars
across the various continents the British ruled. Wars with kingdoms and
nations that surrounded India were also a terrible drain on our young blood.
British won the two “World Wars” mainly thanks to its troops from the
“colonies”. Soldiers serving in the British army and armies of the Indian
rulers fought against the Germans, Italians, Turks, Africans and the Japanese.
Little thanks we get for pouring our blood for the “empire”. Till date,
British play up the role of their own “glorious dead” in the two wars. They
sometimes pay lip service to the terrible loss of Indian soldiers and their
families back home.
Before Alexander the Great, India used to trade with foreign countries far beyond its borders. Before the British came, India had global trade with Africa, Middle East, Far East and China. India used to produce 27% of world's finished goods. By the time British left, this was reduced to single digits. British took the raw goods, transported them to British factories and banned production of certain finished goods in India. This is what M.K.Gandhi opposed in his “Civil Disobedience” movement. He wanted the Indians to have the RIGHT to be self sufficient. At the very basic level, he wanted Indians to be able to clothe and feed themselves without having to rely on the colonial power. To this end, he insisted that Indians should spin their own clothes, grow their own edibles and shun foreign goods where possible. During the British Raj, Indian production centres were deliberately destroyed and skilled labour dispersed. British reduced the Indian entrepreneur to a factory / office worker. So much so, even now most parents look for a "boy with a steady job" rather than one who has his own "business" for their daughters.
Modern Brits are so embarrassed about their “empire”, its skimmed over in their history curriculum. They go over in detail about the histories of Roman, Medieval and Tudor periods. They then skip over the slave trade, founding and loss of America, building of the Empire and the Raj and arrive at the two “World Wars” to conclude the history syllabus. The World Wars are explored in technicolour detail and explained as if they were won with the sacrifice of the Brits alone.
None of this is new. Plenty of people know about this. But, many Indians still live in the cloud cuckoo land of "it was all so glorious during the British Raj". Lets not forget, Empires are built to enrich the invaders, not the natives.