British Raj Flag

The idea that British rule in India was a force for good is not uncommon in Britain and even in certain sections of westernised Indian elite. Read right-of-centre British newspapers and you will regularly find articles and columns that glorify Britain’s colonial past, giving the impression that Britain was spreading the light of Western Civilisation to the dark corners of the world. Many British history books still do their best to highlight the benefits that British rule brought to the numerous colonies, rather than the hardships.

Recently in an interview with the BBC, Niall Ferguson, a British historian who has recently produced a six-part documentary series for Channel 4, and also works in a research department at Oxford University, said that British rule greatly benefited the ruled nations and people. To be sure, many white Britons, perhaps even the majority, think that the colonial era is not something to be proud of. But at the same time it must be acknowledged that the idea of British rule as benevolent is not just a fringe idea. In this light it is worth examining some facts about the British Raj that are seldom discussed in the media.

History is never black and white. There are benefits that come out of otherwise bad situations. In the case of India, British rule certainly did have some benefits, such as development of previously absent infrastructure. Of course, colonial historians such as Niall Ferguson will be fast to point this out:

By the 1880s the British had invested £270 million in India, not much less than one-fifth of their entire investment overseas.

But at what cost were these investments made? The pro-colonial authors miss out or even cover-up some basic points about the British Raj, which should be the foundation of any debate about the ‘merits’ of colonialism,

The economic devastation of India under British rule is discernible from the fact that India’s share of world trade fell from 17% percent in 1800 (almost equal to America’s share of world trade in 2000) to less than 2%. It is a very telling fact that during British rule of India, British per capita gross domestic product increased in real terms by 347 per cent, Indian by a mere 14 per cent. But even more important are the famine statistics of British-controlled India.

According to British records, one million Indians died of famine between 1800 and 1825, 4 million between 1825 and 1850, 5 million between 1850 and 1875 and 15 million between 1875 and 1900. Thus 25 million Indians died in 100 years! Since Independence, although poverty still exists, there have been no such mass famines, a record of which India should be proud. Funnily enough, there is no mention of this by pro-colonial authors. It is certainly a strange omission on their part and something they should be ashamed of. Perhaps not surprising as it would make British investment in India seem trivial and pointless by comparison. Any rational person would rather avoid millions of deaths than have a few railway tracks built and some land irrigated.

How did these famines occur? The main reason was not bad weather or natural causes but rather the breaking up of India’s indigenous crop patterns. The British replaced food crops such as rice and wheat and instead forced Indian farmers to produce jute, cotton, tea and oil seeds, which they needed as raw materials for their home industries. The implication of this in times of shortages was catastrophic, as the famine figures show.

Niall Ferguson also credits the British with labouring to improve India’s public health:

It was the British who introduced quinine as an anti-malarial prophylactic, carried out public programmes of vaccination against smallpox – often in the face of local resistance – and laboured to improve the urban water supplies that were so often the bearers of cholera and other diseases.

Once again, there is some truth in this, but also some omission, and some downright distortion. On the subject of smallpox vaccination, it is well documented that before the British arrived, Indians had a system of immunisation against smallpox, in which cowpox was used inoculate against smallpox. The British doctor J Z Holwell wrote a book in 1767 describing the system, accepting that it was safe and effective. European medicine did not have any treatment against the disease at that time.

Inoculation against smallpox became a part of Western medicine by 1840. No sooner did that happen that the British in India banned the older method of vaccination, denouncing it as barbaric, without making certain that sufficient number of inoculators in the new technique existed. Smallpox in India became a greater scourge than before. This is not the only example in which the British undermined and even banned indigenous systems of knowledge, particularly medicine, creating dire consequences.

In writing this article I am not trying to stir up bitterness. As I have mentioned, many if not most white Britons see colonialism as a dark part of their history, and refrain from glorifying it or acting triumphant over it. I am simply trying to combat the smug, celebratory version of Imperial history that is in vogue in some circles. This distorted version of history should be discarded into the dustbin of history.

This article is dedicated to the millions men, women and children, of India as well as other nations, who perished in unnecessary and avoidable famines during the colonial era.

Caste or Class Systems versus India in Global Perspective – CHAPTER EIGHT

The Western invaders arrived with an express desire to colonise and exploit the indigenous people wherever they went, materially as well as spiritually. India was no exception. They had to find a way out to create further chasm in the local people to divide, rule and exploit policy. Hence every system then after, once their rule was firmly established; was devised to subserve their perfidious motive for exploitation. With the passage of time, one more agenda of religious conversion by predatory proselytisation was added on the menu of Christian Missionaries. This is still going on with impunity; in fact it has become intensified in India due to political malevolence and malfeasance.

It is pertinent to recall here Malcolm Muggeridge who succinctly portrayed his feelings in these words: “As I dimly realised, a people can be laid waste culturally as well as physically; not their lands but their inner life, as it were, sewn with salt. This is what happened to India. An alien culture, itself exhausted, become trivial and shallow, was imposed upon them; when we went, we left behind railways, schools and universities, statues of Queen Victoria and other of our worthies, industries, an administration, a legal system; all that and much more, but set in a spiritual wasteland. We had drained the country of its true life and creativity, making of it a place of echoes and mimicry.”

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. … He is credited with popularising Mother Teresa. He was employed by BBC also, but is said to have been reprimanded for his remarks, “Does England Really Need a Queen?”

“In 1957 he received public and professional opprobrium for criticism of the British monarchy in a U.S. magazine, The Saturday Evening Post. Given the title “Does England Really Need a Queen?” Its publication was delayed by five months to coincide with the Royal State Visit to Washington, D.C. taking place later in the year. While the article was little more than a rehash of views expressed in a 1955 article “Royal Soap Opera”, its timing caused outrage back in Britain, and he was sacked for a short period from the BBC, and a contract with Beaverbrook newspapers was cancelled. His notoriety propelled him into becoming a better-known broadcaster with a reputation as a tough interviewer.” More at: click here

Class ridden and gender bias in Victorian British Society:

Britishers reigned India longest amongst the Europeans, used the class division and intensified it to suit their purpose. In Britain, people’s lives have been determined by the class they are born into for centuries. The country still has its royals, its lords and ladies and its subjects. The bankers’ big bonuses have struck a nerve across the country, just when Britain’s economy is shrinking.

Suddenly, class divisions are back in the limelight.

It’s come as a shock to some politicians. The political parties, it seemed, had successfully written off class as a phase that Britain went through.

When David Cameron became Prime Minister two years ago, for example, it wasn’t a big deal that his cabinet was overwhelmingly made up of privileged men and women, educated in elite private schools.

But the anger over bankers and the recession has changed that. Just this month, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries labeled Cameron and his finance minister George Osborne “posh” and out of touch.

“Not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk,” Dorries said. “They’re two arrogant posh boys, who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others.”

This attack from a Conservative MP directed at her own party leaders has raised eyebrows.

For Leigh, classlessness is a mirage.

“There are the haves and the have-nots, there are the rich and the poor…and there is always class” said Leigh. “You can certainly look at the current political landscape and apply that very accurately to what’s going on, and who’s in charge and who are on the losing end and who are on the winning end.”

It may be true that Britain is among the world’s most class-obsessed nations.

Patrick Cox has expressed his caustic feelings in these preceding words under the title of his essay, “Britain’s Long Love Affair with Class, and Its Brief Fling with Classlessness”. More on: click here

One source explains it in these words: “The caste system had been a fascination of the British since their arrival in India. Coming from a society that was divided by class, the British attempted to equate the caste system to the class system. As late as 1937 Professor T. C. Hodson stated that: “Class and caste stand to each other in the relation of family to species. The general classification is by classes, the detailed one by castes. The former represents the external, the latter the internal view of the social organization.” The difficulty with definitions such as this is that class is based on political and economic factors, caste is not. In fairness to Professor Hodson, by the time of his writing, caste had taken on many of the characteristics that he ascribed to it and that his predecessors had ascribed to it but during the 19th century caste was not what the British believed it to be. It did not constitute a rigid description of the occupation and social level of a given group and it did not bear any real resemblance to the class system. … At present, the main concern is that the British saw caste as a way to deal with a huge population by breaking it down into discrete chunks with specific characteristics. Moreover, as will be seen later in this paper, it appears that the caste system extant in the late 19th and early 20th century has been altered as a result of British actions so that it increasingly took on the characteristics that were ascribed to it by the British.

One of the main tools used in the British attempt to understand the Indian population was the census. Attempts were made as early as the beginning of the 19th century to estimate populations in various regions of the country but these, as earlier noted, were methodologically flawed and led to grossly erroneous conclusions. It was not until 1872 that a planned comprehensive census was attempted. This was done under the direction of Henry Beverely, Inspector General of Registration in Bengal. The primary purpose given for the taking of the census, that of governmental preparedness to deal with disaster situations, was both laudable and logical. However, the census went well beyond counting heads or even enquiring into sex ratios or general living conditions. Among the many questions were enquiries regarding nationality, race, tribe, religion and caste. Certainly none of these things were relevant to emergency measures responses by the government.” More at: click here

In an essay on British Empire,                      

Graphic representation of, “The Indian Caste System and the British”

“Ethnographic Mapping and the Construction of the British Census in India”

Contributed by Kevin Hobson 

The author states, “When the British first gained a foothold on the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century their concern was profit. The men who administered the territory for the East India company were more inclined to profiteering than to attempting to establish an effective government. By the beginning of the 19th century this type of attitude had begun to change. A series of conquests expanded the territory held by the British and the idea of responsible trusteeship began to creep into the thinking of the individuals charged with governing British India. The freebooters of the 18th century were giving way to the bureaucrats of the 19th century. Ironically, it is highly debateable which of the two, freebooters or bureaucrats, were the most dangerous to the people of India. Treasure can be replaced. Cultures, once tampered with, are nearly impossible to reclaim.”

Kevin Hobson couldn’t be more explicit and obtuse in his prototypal expression, no different than Malcolm Muggeridge. More at: click here

Despite its repeated Islamic invasions and plunders, India was still economically far better off than after the European invasions because they did not settle here in contrast to the Muslims who did adopt it as their homeland, if not the people. This meant that the wealth still remained at home. When the Europeans set out in quest of newer worlds, the economic conditions in the Europe were pretty grim. Once they developed the better war weaponry like guns and cannons besides the large boats and ships to travel by sea, they set out on their adventures in search of new greener pastures. This allowed them to subjugate the local people by their all fair or foul means, to intrude into the foreign lands and their societies easily. It is pertinent to recall the British maxims about India, “Golden Goose or The Jewel in the Crown”. India supplied them both – wealth as well as a large consumer society to support their industries back home. It also helped them to supply cheap labour force to employ both at home and in the colonies – labourers, clerks and subordinate staffs. Thus a divisive caste system in Hindu society became an easy excuse to split them apart and use; and shedding the crocodile tears in empathy paradoxically. This myth is repeated relentlessly in the western literature to keep the embers of this caste malady burning on one hand and pretending to reform the society by their dubious divisive exclusive agendas e.g. separate schools, wells for water, separate housing colonies etc on the other hand. It helps in their religious conversions as well as economic exploitation. The more one talks, the more it remains vibrant and active.

Let us examine a quote from a Wikipedia source, “Caste system is not a natural result of any religion, because caste systems have been systematically practiced in societies that are, for example, predominantly Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist.

The word caste can also just generally refer to any rigid system of cultural or social distinctions. In Latin American sociological studies, the word caste often includes multiple factors such as race, breed and economic status, in part because of numerous mixed births, during the colonial times, between natives, Europeans, and people brought in as slaves or indentured laborers.

Although Indian society is often associated with the word “caste”, it has been and is common in many non-Indian societies.

Identification and sometimes discrimination based on caste, or casteism, as perceived by UNICEF, affects 250 million people worldwide.”  More at: click here