Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj”
Whenever the issue of economic exploitation and the “drain of wealth” during the 200 years of British colonial rule comes up, the one rebuttal from western historians is that there is scant evidence to prove it. To bolster the argument, the point is then made that Indian historians are nationalist, biased (sometimes as a consequence) and do not pay attention to figures and statistical evidence.
In my analysis of this topic, I have therefore, relied heavily on recent research by Western historians and tried to draw conclusions based on that.
Even by the accounts of western historians, the positive impact of British rule, which PM Sh. Man Mohan Singh had so pointedly mentioned during his speech at Oxford in Jul ’05, is questionable.
The “drain of wealth” from India to Britain during the two centuries of colonial rule was very real, very substantial and there are strong reasons to believe that India may have looked significantly different (and far better) economically and socially had it not been for the two centuries of British rule.
The beginning of this period can probably be traced back to the Battle of Plasssey. As Prof. Richards writes in the introduction to his paper  “Imperial Finance Under the East India Company 1762-1859[i], “On June 23,1757, Robert Clive, commanding a small force of East India Company professional troops, defeated and killed Siraju-ud-daula, the ruling Nawab of Bengal, on the battlefield of Plassey. The battle marked a significant turning point in world history, for it permitted the English East India Company to gain control over the rich resources of the Mughal successor state in northeastern Bengal and Bihar. This was the starting point for a century-long process of British conquest and dominion over the entire Indian subcontinent and beyond. To help grasp the full extent of this exploitation, I have split my analysis into five parts. In Part 1, I look at the tax regime and the burden of administrative machinery. In Part 2, I try to get behind the assertion that the British contributed much to the improvement of education and public works in India. In Parts 3 and 4, I look at unfair trade practices and the drain of wealth. In the final part, I have tried to summarize the impact of these 200 years of servitude.
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TAXES & ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN
In their recent research on deindustrialization in India[ii], Profs Williamson and Clingingsmith mention that while the maximum revenue extracted by the Mughals as high as 40%, this paled in comparison to the effective tax rate in the early years of colonial rule: “as central Mughal authority waned, the state resorted increasingly to revenue farming (raising) the effective rent share to 50% or more..
Further, “There is no reason to believe that when the British became rulers of the successor states the revenue burden declined (pg 7)”.
After initial attempts at revenue farming, Company officials aggressively introduced new taxes in an attempt to reduce their dependence on agrarian production, thus worsening the tax burden on the common man.
As Prof Richards points out in his paper (Ref 1), “Land revenue continued to be the mainstay of the regime until the end of British rule in India, but its share of gross revenues was far less than under the Mughal emperors..To a larger degree, however, new taxes not imposed by the Mughals accounted for land revenue’s declining share. Company officials began early to diversify their tax base so that the new regime was not so overwhelmingly dependent upon agrarian production.
In his research on the subject, Prof Maddison[iii] mentions the burden imposed by the administrative machinery of the State: ��British salaries were high: the Viceroy received �25,000 a year, and governors �10,000�From 1757 to 1919, India also had to meet administrative expenses in London, first of the East India Company, and then of the India Office, as well as other minor but irritatingly extraneous charges. The cost of British staff was raised by long home leave in the UK, early retirement and lavish amenities in the form of subsidized housing, utilities, rest houses, etc.�
Prof. Richards mentions that although the Company �raised their revenue demands in each territory � to the highest assessments made by previous Indian regimes� they were still insufficient to �meet the combined administrative, military and commercial expenses of the Company�
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SPENDING ON EDUCATION & PUBLIC WORKS
Although there is a prevalent myth around British contribution to development if education and infrastructure in India, in reality, the situation was quite different.
Prof Maddison writes that as late as 1936, the bulk of government expenditure was focused more on ensuring the stability of the empire than anything else: �Even in 1936, more than half of government spending was for the military, justice, police and jails, and less than 3 per cent for agriculture (pg 4)�
Amidst all the paraphernalia of the �Raj�, public works and social expenditure was completely forgotten. As Prof. Richards notes ��the Company allocated negligible funds for public works, for cultural patronage, for charitable relief, or for any form of education�.(confining) its generosity to paying extremely high salaries to its civil servants and military officers. Otherwise parsimony ruled.�
The following excerpt from Prof Maddison�s essay squarely debunks the notion that the British did a lot for education and were conscious of the wealth of ancient knowledge � some of which was still extant at the time. The contempt that Macaulay felt towards the knowledge and wisdom of ancient Hindus is evident from this quote:
� We are a Board for wasting public money, for printing books which are less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank; for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology … I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic … But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value … Who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia … all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England. (pg 5)�
Unsurprisingly, �(pg 6) The education system which developed was a very pale reflection of that in the UK. Three universities were set up in 1857 in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, but they were merely examining bodies and did no teaching. Drop-out ratios were always very high. They did little to promote analytic capacity or independent thinking and produced a group of graduates with a half-baked knowledge of English, but sufficiently Westernized to be alienated from their own culture.��the great mass of the population had no access to education and, at independence in 1947, 88 per cent were illiterate� at independence only a fifth of children were receiving any primary schooling.�Education was used as a tool ��to turn a tiny elite into imitation Englishmen and a somewhat bigger group into government clerks.�
If we turn our eyes to other areas of development, the picture does not improve.
In spite of agriculture being – by far – the most significant part of the economy, �Little was done to promote agricultural technology. There was some improvement in seeds, but no extension service, no improvement in livestock and no official encouragement to use fertilizer. Lord Mayo, the Governor General, said in 1870, �I do not know what is precisely meant by ammoniac manure. If it means guano, superphosphate or any other artificial product of that kind, we might as well ask the people of India to manure their ground with champagne� (Pg 11).
In his analysis of the various charges and expenses that the Company incurred, Professor Richards mentions how Company officials were extremely wary of any public works spending uinless it was for projects of direct use to the state.
The following sentences are instructive and effectively blast the myth that the British did lasting good by building modern infrastructure in India: �The Company even failed to repair and maintain roads, river embankments, and bunded storage tanks for irrigation that had been the responsibility of earlier regimes. When, in 1823, the Governor General in Council decided to devote a portion of anticipated surplus revenues to works of public improvement, the Court of Directors rejected this proposal. When, the Directors learned of heavy expenditures on buildings in the mid 1820�s, they wrote to the Governor General to condemn this extravagance.�
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MONOPOLY & UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES
To comprehend the extent of �unfair� trade norms, just one example would suffice (excerpted from this excellent essay: �The Colonial Legacy – Myths and Popular Beliefs[iv]�)
�As early as 1812, an East India Company Report had stated “The importance of that immense empire to this country is rather to be estimated by the great annual addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom…..”
Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair – but it may be noteworthy to see how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%!As a result, British imports of cotton manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to one-fourth! A similar trend was noted in silk goods, woollens, iron, pottery, glassware and paper�millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters, smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural workers.�The monopoly on trade in salt and opium was an important mainstay of the Company�s finances. Prof. Richards notes that �Together opium and salt produced on average 18.9 percent of gross revenues. In last fifteen years of Company rule their share climbed to 25.1 percent, as opium became one of the most valuable commodities sold in world commerce.�
Prof. Richards has noted Edmund Burke�s report that accompanied the Select Committee of Parliament meetings in 1782-1783 to investigate the Company�s affairs. To quote Edmund Burke:
�But at, or very soon after, the Acquisition of the Territorial Revenues to the English Company�a very great Revolution took place in Commerce as well as in Dominion;�.From that Time Bullion was no longer regularly exported by the English East India Company to Bengal, or any part of Hindustan;.� A new Way of supplying the Market of Europe by means of the British Power and Influence, was invented; a Species of Trade (if such it may be called) by which it is absolutely impossible that India should not be radically and irretrievably ruined��.
This is how the pernicious system worked: �A certain Portion of the Revenues of Bengal has been for many Years set apart, to be employed in the Purchase of Good for Exportation to England, and this is called The Investment, The Greatness of this investment has been the standard by which the merit of the Company�s Principal Servants has been generally estimated; and this main Cause of the Impoverishment of India has generally been taken as a Measure of its Wealth and Prosperity�.
This Export from India seemed to imply also a reciprocal Supply, which the Trading Capital employed in these Productions was continually strengthened and enlarged. But the Payment of a Tribute, and not a beneficial Commerce to that Country, wore this specious and delusive Appearance.�
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THE DRAIN OF WEALTH
However, the high taxes, the heavy burden of state, the neglect of education and public works and unfair trade practices � these were only the tip of the iceberg.
The most damning evidence of British exploitation was the irrefutable �drain of wealth� that took place over the period of two centuries.
Prof. Williamson and Clingingsmith have noted that �between 1772 and 1815 there was a huge net financial transfer from India to Britain in the form of Indian goods. The �drain resulting from contact with the West was the excess of exports from India for which there was no equivalent import� included �a bewildering variety of cotton goods for re-export or domestic [consumption], and the superior grade of saltpeter that gave British cannon an edge�Javier Cuenca Esteban estimates these net financial transfers from India to Britain reached a peak of �1,014,000 annually in 1784-1792 before declining to �477,000 in 1808-1815 (Pg 9).�However even this high figures are significantly lower than the estimates by Prof John Richards (cited later in this essay).
Like all other commentators, Maddison too has mentioned the debilitating effect of the drain of funds from India: �Another important effect of foreign rule on the long-run growth potential of the economy was the fact that a large part of its potential savings were siphoned abroad.This ‘drain’ of funds from India to the UK has been a point of major controversy between Indian nationalist historians and defenders of the British raj. However, the only real grounds for controversy are statistical. There can be no denial that there was a substantial outflow which lasted for 190 years. If these funds had been invested in India they could have made a significant contribution to raising income levels. (Pg 20)�The total �drain� due to government pensions and leave payments, interest on nonrailway official debt, private remittances for education and savings, and a third commercial profits amounted to about 1.5 per cent of national income of undivided India from 1921 to 1938 and was probably a little larger before that� about a quarter of Indian savings were transferred out of the economy, and foreign exchange was lost which could have paid for imports of capital goods.
Separately, Dadabhai Naoroji estimated the economic costs and drain of resources from India to be at least at 12m per annum. Here is an extract from one of his essays, �The Benefits of British Rule[v], 1871�
�Financially: All attention is engrossed in devising new modes of taxation, without any adequate effort to increase the means of the people to pay; and the consequent vexation and oppressiveness of the taxes imposed, imperial and local. Inequitable financial relations between England and India, i.e., the political debt of ,100,000,000 clapped on India’s shoulders, and all home charges also� Materially: The political drain, up to this time, from India to England, of above ,500,000,000, at the lowest computation, in principal alone�The further continuation of this drain at the rate, at present, of above ,12,000,000 per annum, with a tendency to increase.�
Prof. Richards mentions in his research that: �Between 1757 and 1859� �.Officials of the East India Company� tapped the productive people and resources of Bengal and the eastern Gangetic valley to fund the protracted military campaigns necessary to conquer India. Over the same century, these same resources also supplied the wherewithal for a century-long transfer of wealth from India to Great Britain�.���Burke estimated that in the four years ending in 1780 the investment averaged no less than one million sterling and �commonly Nearer Twelve hundred thousand pounds�. This was the value of the goods sent to Europe �for which no Satisfaction is made�. The transfer continued without interruption and with formal approval from Parliament.�In 1793, this devious system of extortion was given official sanction and thus was paved the path to financial ruin: �By this 1793 Parliamentary directive, the Company was enjoined to take ten million current rupees (1 million sterling) each year for the investment from the territorial revenues of colonial India�. After 1793, the Company zealously maintained its annual investments. Between 1794 and 1810, the average annual cost of the investment was 1.4 million sterling.���In a recent contribution, Javier Cuenca Esteban �puts the �arguably minimum transfers� from India to Britain between 1757 and 1815, Plassey and Waterloo, at 30.2 million sterling. This figure is the estimate of exports from which there was no compensating import for India.�Post 1833, when the Company�s commercial operations ceased, the �drain� took the form of �Home Charges� which represented the expenses in Britain borne by the Indian treasury.
These �Home Charges� were a huge burden on the finances and contributed to a sustained and continuous deficit in the budget throughout the 19th century.
As Prof Richards notes, �(pg 17) there were few years in which the Indian budget was not in deficit. For the entire period (1815 � 1859), deficits reached a cumulative total of 76.9 million sterling or an annual average of 1.7 million sterling�.
This systematic drain was nothing short of a loot � albeit carried over 200 years and under the cover of colonial trade. It left the economy in shambles and reduce this great country from one of the powerhouses of the world economy to a laggard which was barely able to sustain itself.
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THE IMPACT
The collective impact of these policies and system of exploitation was severe.
In their preface to the research, Profs. Clingingsmith and Williamson have this to say: �India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market�While India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900.�
This table eloquently depicts the impact of almost two centuries of British colonial rule over India
The cumulative effect of this greed, neglect and rapacity led to the situation where �From the beginning of British conquest in 1757 to independence�per capita income probably did not increase at all. In the UK itself there was a tenfold increase in per capita income over these two centuries.� (Maddison)
And thus a country that was famed for its riches and wealth and prosperity in the came to resemble a basket case with an economy in shambles and its people bereft of any prosperity, struggling for a decent livelihood.
At this dawn of a new age of prosperity, it is even more important to remember these lessons from history. Eternal vigil is the price of continued prosperity and progress.
Jai Hind!
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REFERENCES
[i] �Imperial Finance Under the East India Company 1762-1859� by John F Richards, Duke University (citing P J Marshall�s 1988 book �Bengal: the British bridgehead: eastern India�)
[ii] �India�s Deindustrialization in the 18th and 19th Centuries� by David Clingingsmith, Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University, August 2005 http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/jwilliam/papers/GEHNIndianDeind.pdf
[iii] �The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India� (Chapter 3 of Class Structure and Economic Growth: India & Pakistan since the Mughals, 1971), Prof. Maddison
[iv] http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html
[v] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871britishrule.html
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Related Posts:
Loot – in search of East India Co.�(excerpts)
Image Courtesy: http://www.congresssandesh.com/AICC/history/presidents/dadadabhai_naoroji.htm
An interesting summary of the arguments, with some very important observations. Whilst it is difficult to be precise in an essay of this length, and you make some good points which illustrate the nature of British colonial rule in India, there are a few points which I feel detract from the overall flow of the argument.
For example, I think it is important to avoid getting caught up in the fervour of ‘200 years of colonialism’ (1757-1947), similar to the Irish nationalist claim of ‘800 years of tyranny and oppression’. The era of colonial rule in India was uniform neither geographically or temporally, and this is not clear from some of your quotes. The era under Company administration was very much removed from that of direct British administration. Also, of course, around a third of India remained under local rule, albeit owing allegiance (and dues) to the British crown. And whilst I know it is splitting hairs, the granting of Diwani to Lord Clive in 1758 is probably a more accurate starting point for British governance in India than the battlefields of Plassey.
As regards the issue of taxation, you cite Profs Williamson and Clingingsmith as claiming the tax burden of early colonial rule to be higher than 40%—where do these figures come from? Naoroji would claim in his “Poverty and Un-British Rule in India” that taxation per capita in India was roughly double that of Britain (circa 15% over 6-8% I believe), so are Williamson and Clingingsmith’s figures particular to agricultural labourers or similar? Surely they are representative of the extreme and not the normal experience. Regardless, the tax burden was certainly too great for the majority of the population, and some of the other colonial policies you outline, such as unfair trade, served to maintain their impoverished status.
Probably your most contentious point is that of education. Quoting Prof Maddison, “even in 1936, more than half of government spending was for the military, justice, police and jails,” whilst this is no doubt true, the 1930s were a period when any semblance of legitimacy for the British colonial regime evaporated as Nehru so rightly claimed, and self-preservation became the key goal of the British administration in India. It is unfair to put these kinds of statistics side by side with the words of Lord Macaulay, who offers up an image for ridicule today almost on a par with George Dubya. Yet it is vital to note that it was Macaulay’s “brown Englishmen” in the form of Naoroji et al who were able to investigate and elaborate on the ‘drain of wealth’ theory which was so vital to the Indian freedom struggle.
Your point about the salaries and pensions of British officials in the administration being paid out of Indian tax revenues is extremely important, and the contrast between the India Office and the Colonial Office in this regard is stark. Also, the issue of agricultural technology remaining static under colonial rule is important, but I think comparison must be drawn here between India and other colonial states, and between the Indian princely states and the direct British controled areas. Perhaps you could offer some comparison in these and other areas to add weight to the argument?
Fips,
Just a quick note to say thank you for your comment.
I will respond in some detail later.
However I must confess that I am neither a researcher nor an economist so some of your points may have to await a response from someone who is a real “expert” in this area…
I am merely a curious student…still learning and a long way to go.
Dear Shantanu – I read your excellent posts on the Indian perspectives of history – and some of the colonial fallacies.
You must also look at book Conjuring Hitler by Guido Giacomo Preparata – who without the Indian interests wrote the book from a western perspective as to how Montagu Norman, the Governor, Bank Of England, who through a series of measures, looted India from 1920-1945 of tons of gold (which financed the WW2) and created the Bengal Famine of 1943.
Look at http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/india-the-worlds-richest-economy/
Best Wishes –
Anuraag Sanghi
Dear Sir,
An excellent analysis and another great harbringer of the truth to open the eyes of the “Christian Hindus and the Muslim Hindus” (Seculars).
We have one of the most popualrised somewhat doubtful economist, supported by the Secular media, supposed to be the architect of Indias opening to the world, supporting the greatness of the British Rule.
It is high time that we Indians state the truth for what it is instead of white washing to get a few free beers and caviar from the embassies.
Just like they destroyed the fundamentals of this great way of life they have destroyed the economics of this nation also.
I would like to pose a question to you. Was the major contributor for our independence was that the British had nothing further to loot and take away and that they were an economically broken nation after WWII and that it was also to be broken into three parts?
I know it is a red flag that I am waving, but can we have some light thrown on it, as they not only “broke” us they also “Broke” us apart.
How far does their destruction extend? Does it only end with what you have expressed or the hidden history has more to reveal than it actually does?
Regards,
vck
Dear Sir,
Continuing on this same trend. Let me welcome some inputs from other readers as to whether the recent economic roll of India is for true at all?
Let me make amplify it by stating that are we heading for a greater downfall than what we are really looking at? If we look at the statistics and even drawing reference to the interview with Shri. Naik, Chairman of L&T, whether all this humbug of outsourcing is to reduce India to what Macalauy planned more than a hundred years ago, reducing us Indians to a land of brown, english speaking clerks!
Shri. Naik rightly pointed out that most of us Indians are joining marketing and BPO and KPO outfits rather than entering into the field of true knowledge of science and Technology or even investment and business analysis.
In a recent report it was, agonisingly, brought out that MBA’s are looking more for a career in marketing than real business! Marketing, let us learn it from the local Raddiwala or Shri. Karsanbhai Patel, or Shri. Rajagopal of Saravana Hotels group. You need not do an MBA for it. So what is the big game behind all this?
Again I recall that Standard and Poor reduced the rating for the Tata Steel when it took over Corus stating that it was a vey high risk transaction, but our poor “Black men” have been proved right.
What was the rating that S&P gave when the subprime problem hit the US market to the major Investment advisors?
I think that we Indians should have a relook at all these strategies and look at the future with more concern and wariness rather than this “Jeez” we are doing great.
Are we once again looking at a “lootmaar” program from the west disguised extremely well??
Regards,
vck
vck: Interesting line of thought.
I am little pressed for time but will respond in a day or two.
Thanks.
Dear Mr. Shantanu,
It was very enlightening reading you paper on the Drain of Wealth during the British Raj. I was wondering whether it is legitimate for us to also consider another important factor – the productivity of human resources lost to the Raj. This happened in many forms – able young men sacrificing life and/or limb, or at the very least the most productive years of their lives in fruitless activities such as
i. fighting for the British in World Wars 1 and 2.
ii. starving to death due to British exploitation
iii. fighting the British Raj (either violently or non-violently) instead of doing productive economic activities
I also wonder if there has been any discussion of restitution from the UK to India. If yes, what was the outcome?
Thank you once again for this wonderfully informative analysis.
Regards,
Nikhilesh
I read that total drain of wealth from India by British alone will amount to some trillions of dollars. Please let me know as to whether this figure is correct or not.
Thanks
i just thought i should say a thank you for your article you wrote about the British Raj it has helped me with writing a research paper so thank you 🙂
I’m a student of Humanities, class 11 of Patha Bhavan, Kolkata. I have a great interest for the subject of history and for this reason only I left my previous school, science or commerce stream and even my family(as they were all against my wish of studying History). I thank you for sharing your ideas on the given subject and I’m sure that this will be a valuable reference for my studies.
Regards
Shuvayan Mukherjee
Anyone want to comment about this raj apologist writing a fat book to prove that the benevolent empire was good for the world?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization?CMP=twt_gu
Ashraf, quoted in Akhtar Riazuddin, “History of Handicrafts: Pakistan-India†(Islamabad: National Hijra Council, 1988). “It has been estimated that the total amount of treasure that the British looted from India had already reached Pds 1,000,000,000 (Pds 1 Billion) by 1901. Taking into consideration interest rates and inflation this would be worth close to $1,000,000,000,000 ($1 Trillion) in real-terms today†(Dr Leo Rebello, “My Indiaâ€, pps, http://www.healthwisdom.org/).
Re. British spending on Education, pl read this extract from Will Durant’s “A Case for India” (chapter titled, Social Destruction):
“When the British came there was throughout India, a system of communal schools managed by the village communities. The agents of the East India Company destroyed these village communities….
There are now (100 years later) in India 730,000 villages and only 162,015 primary schools. Only 7% of the boys and 1½ % of the girls receive schooling i.e. 4% of the whole.
In 1911 a Hindu representative, Gokhale, introduced a bill for universal compulsory education in India. It was defeated by the British and Government appointed members. In 1916, Patel introduced a similar bill, which was defeated by the British and Government appointed members.
….
Instead of encouraging education, the Government encouraged drink. When the British came, India was a sober nation. ‘The temperance of the people,’ said Warren Hastings, ‘is demonstrated in the simplicity of their food and their total abstinence from spirituous liquors and other substances of intoxication.’
With the first trading posts established by the British, saloons were opened for the sale of rum, and the East India Company made handsome profits from the trade. When the Crown took over India it depended on the saloons for a large parts of its revenue; the license system was so arranged as to stimulate drinking and sales.
The Government revenue from such licenses has increased seven-fold in the last forty years; in 1922 it stood at $60,000,000 annually-three times the appropriation for schools and universities.”
[source]
Shatanu,
I am writing this because I am tired of one sided discussions on any matter regarding British rule in India. Lot of things are missed in any discussion about it. We have no learned Indian scholar opposing our nationalist historians. As if doing so will be sacrilege. Sixty years after independence it shows immaturity. There won’t be many British historian interested to discuss and defend their side of story. India is not that much important in their history.
But there are important points to ponder.
– The British rule was not uniform in 200 years.
– The first few decades were nothing but a kind of piracy, that is one sided plunder. Bengal and Bihar suffered the most. Whereas staying in India did not make any strict economic sense for the British from the 1900 onwards as whatever wealth may have transferred afterwards were insignificant for the UK economy. India though helped it maintain global power status and strategic reach in teh first half of 20th century.
– Because of the technology development at tremendous pace in UK, and lack of it anywhere outside Europe, India had to lose its market share anyway. You can look at china which did not come under direct foreign rule but lost its market and prosperity all the same during that period.
– If British economy got ruined after WW-II, should not they have clung more to India for economic benefit. As I read UK history during and after WW-II, the economic and political discourse inside UK had very little space for India. As if India was irrelevant in internal eco & politics of UK or at best it was an irritant. The leaders and the mass alike never thought reconstruction of their war ravaged country will in any way be helped by India occupation. The independence of India did not create any ripples there. No tear was shed for a lost empire. Within a few years after that Britain had ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity and improved standard of living likes of which they had never seen in history.
– There was nothing glorius in the period preceding British rule. The Indian feel never existed. Communities hated each other not only on the basis of religion but also on the basis of language and territory. Muslims looked down upon Hindus. Even the Hindu Marathas raided Bengal at regular interval and brought the destruction, rape, murder & plunder which had very few parallel anywhere in world history.
– About eucation, the rulers were hardly ever concerned. Welfare policy and also the rule of law and justice system were strictly guided by the revenue and military benefit. Institutions hardly ever existed. The British prided on creating lot of pan India Institutions like various Survey of India, census, Indian Army, Police, judiciary, the local governments etc. If you consider them as instruments of exploitation then consider their roles against those that existed before the Brits. Every institutions that were created by previous rulers were very narrow in their purpose and activity.This will explain why politically India was basket case even when compared to other empires in the early eighteenth century.
– My purpose is not to glorify British rule in India. But to give it a proper historical perspective and to note that it was just another chapter in our history. We did lose or benefit from our earlier encounter with other raiders as well and there is no point splitting hair about it. In fact our lopsided analysis of British rule gives us unnecessary ideological baggage and makes us less confident as a nation while interacting with other nations.
For the record: Communities as open-air business schools by S. GURUMURTHY.
I recently found a biography of Charles Fox and while reading that I came across the debate on Warren Hastings and whether he was a rascal or not. A fascinating debate which totally missed the point but it awoke my interest and as a result I keyed into the internet: “Books on the exploitation of India under British rule” and found your essay but I want more so can anyone suggest any reading from an Indian perspective on the exploitation of India at the time of Warren Hastings?
Adding this here for the record..Hope to post excerpts later..
Shashi Tharoor’s full speech asking UK to pay India for 200 years of its colonial rule and this youtube video clip
Extracts from HOW INDIA ROTTED UNDER THE RAJ, Wednesday, 05 August 2015 by Anirban Ganguly:
…
Writing to James Mill on April 8, 1820, Alexander Walker lamented the rapacious nature of British rule in India, “It has been computed that Nader Shah carried out of India 30 million sterling; this was besides all that was consumed, destroyed and plundered; but the spoils which we have brought from India probably exceed a hundred fold all that our predecessors have taken by fits and starts. It would be a curious calculation to ascertain the amount of wealth which has been brought by the Company and individuals from India. … The drains which we have made from India have been less violent than the exactions of other conquerors, but they have perhaps in their operations proved more destructive and deadly to the people. We have emptied gradually, but the pitcher has gone constantly to the well.â€
RC Dutt’s two volume exhaustive study, The Economic History of India — Under Early British Rule in two volumes which examines not only India’s economic exploitation but also the chronic famines that wracked her apart under British rule, is another work that deserves mainstreaming. Describing the result of just 25 years of British rule, Dutt observed that “The poverty of the Indian population at the present day is unparalleled in any civilised country; the famines which have desolated India within the last quarter of the 19th century are unexampled in their extent and intensity in the history of ancient or modern times. By a moderate calculation, the famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900, have carried off 15 millions of people. The population of a faired-sized European country has been swept away from India within 25 years.â€
In the same context, below courtesy Sh Chowgule-ji:
In addition to what has been quoted in the article, Will Durrant wrote:
“I went to India to help myself visualise a people whose cultural history I had been studying for “The Story of Civilisation”. I did not expect to be attracted by the Hindus, or that I should be swept into a passionate interest in Indian politics. I merely hoped to add a little to my material, to look with my own eyes upon critical works of art, and then to return to my historical studies, forgetting this contemporary world.
But I saw such things in India as made me feel that study and writing were frivolous things in the presence of a people – one-fifth of the human race – suffering poverty and oppression bitterer than to be found elsewhere on the earth. I was horrified. I had not thought it possible that any government could allow its subjects to sink to such misery.
I came away resolved to study living India as well asthe India with the brilliant past; to learn more of this unique Revolution that fought with suffering accepted but never returned; to read the Gandhi of today as well as the Buddha of long ago. And the more I read the more I was filled with astonishment and indignation at the apparently conscious and deliberate bleeding of India by England throughout a hundred and fifty years. I began to feel that I had come upon the greatest crime in all history.
And so I ask the reader’s permission to abandon for a while any researches into the past, so that I may stand up and say my word for India. I know how weak words are in the face of guns and blood; how irrelevant mere truth and decency appear beside the might of expires and gold. But if even one Hindi, fighting for freedom far off there on the other side of the globe, shall hear this call of mine and be trifle comforted, then these months of work on this little book will seem sweet to me. For I know of nothing in the world that I would rather do today than to be of help to India. (A note to the reader, Will Durnat, October 1, 1930.)
From Durrant Will, The Case for India, Strand Book Stall, Mumbai, 2007. pp x-xi.
Namaste.