What Was One Negative Consequence Of The British Raj’S Rule In India?

What was one negative consequence of the British raj’s rule in India? Sanitation and public health continued to suffer. The legal system saw few modern improvements. Only a few thousand Indians got a higher education.

What are the negative effects of the British Raj in India?

Negative Effects of British Colonialism The British restricted Indian industries, such as textiles. An emphasis on cash crops resulted in the loss of self-sufficiency for many villagers. The conversion to cash crops reduced food production, which caused famines.

What was one negative of the British Empire for India?

Amartya Sen: what British rule really did for India T he in India was in effect established at the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The battle was swift, beginning at dawn and ending close to sunset. It was a normal monsoon day, with occasional rain in the mango groves at the town of Plassey, which is between Calcutta, where the British were based, and Murshidabad, the capital of the kingdom of Bengal.

It was in those mango groves that the British forces faced the Nawab Siraj-ud-Doula’s army and convincingly defeated it. British rule ended nearly 200 years later with Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech on at midnight on 14 August 1947. Two hundred years is a long time. What did the British achieve in India, and what did they fail to accomplish? During my days as a student at a progressive school in West Bengal in the 1940s, these questions came into our discussion constantly.

The positive influences of British rule in India – #1.5 | History made Fun

They remain important even today, not least because the British empire is often invoked in discussions about successful global governance. It has also been invoked to try to persuade the US to acknowledge its role as the pre-eminent imperial power in the world today: “Should the United States seek to shed – or to shoulder – the imperial load it has inherited?” the historian Niall Ferguson,

1. It is certainly an interesting question, and Ferguson is right to argue that it cannot be answered without an understanding of how the British empire rose and fell – and what it managed to do.
2. Arguing about all this at Santiniketan school, which had been established by some decades earlier, we were bothered by a difficult methodological question.

How could we think about what India would have been like in the 1940s had British rule not occurred at all? The frequent temptation to compare India in 1757 (when British rule was beginning) with India in 1947 (when the British ) would tell us very little, because in the absence of British rule, India would of course not have remained the same as it was at the time of Plassey.

1. The country would not have stood still had the British conquest not occurred.
2. But how do we answer the question about what difference was made by British rule? To illustrate the relevance of such an “alternative history”, we may consider another case – one with a potential imperial conquest that did not in fact occur.

Let’s think about Commodore Matthew Perry of the US navy, who steamed into the bay of Edo in Japan in 1853 with four warships. Now consider the possibility that Perry was not merely making a show of American strength (as was in fact the case), but was instead the advance guard of an American conquest of Japan, establishing a new American empire in the land of the rising sun, rather as Robert Clive did in,

If we were to assess the achievements of the supposed American rule of Japan through the simple device of comparing Japan before that imperial conquest in 1853 with Japan after the American domination ended, whenever that might be, and attribute all the differences to the effects of the American empire, we would miss all the contributions of the Meiji restoration from 1868 onwards, and of other globalising changes that were going on.

Japan did not stand still; nor would India have done so. While we can see what actually happened in Japan under Meiji rule, it is extremely hard to guess with any confidence what course the history of the Indian subcontinent would have taken had the British conquest not occurred.

Would India have moved, like Japan, towards modernisation in an increasingly globalising world, or would it have remained resistant to change, like Afghanistan, or would it have hastened slowly, like Thailand? These are impossibly difficult questions to answer. And yet, even without real alternative historical scenarios, there are some limited questions that can be answered, which may contribute to an intelligent understanding of the role that British rule played in India.

We can ask: what were the challenges that India faced at the time of the British conquest, and what happened in those critical areas during the British rule? T here was surely a need for major changes in a rather chaotic and institutionally backward India.

To recognise the need for change in India in the mid-18th century does not require us to ignore – as many Indian super-nationalists fear – the great achievements in India’s past, with its extraordinary history of accomplishments in philosophy, mathematics, literature, arts, architecture, music, medicine, linguistics and astronomy.

India had also achieved considerable success in building a thriving economy with flourishing trade and commerce well before the colonial period – the economic wealth of India was amply acknowledged by British observers such as Adam Smith. The fact is, nevertheless, that even with those achievements, in the mid-18th century India had in many ways fallen well behind what was being achieved in Europe.

1. The exact nature and significance of this backwardness were frequent subjects of lively debates in the evenings at my school.
2. Sign up to the long read weekly email An on India by Karl Marx particularly engaged the attention of some of us.
3. Writing in 1853, Marx pointed to the constructive role of British rule in India, on the grounds that India needed some radical re-examination and self-scrutiny.

And Britain did indeed serve as India’s primary western contact, particularly in the course of the 19th century. The importance of this influence would be hard to neglect. The indigenous globalised culture that was slowly emerging in India was deeply indebted not only to British writing, but also to books and articles in other – that is non-English – European languages that became known in India through the British.

1. Figures such as the Calcutta philosopher Ram Mohan Roy, born in 1772, were influenced not only by traditional knowledge of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian texts, but also by the growing familiarity with English writings.
2. After Roy, in Bengal itself there were also Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Madhusudan Dutta and several generations of Tagores and their followers who were re-examining the India they had inherited in the light of what they saw happening in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Their main – often their only – source of information were the books (usually in English) circulating in India, thanks to British rule. That intellectual influence, covering a wide range of European cultures, survives strongly today, even as the military, political and economic power of the British has declined dramatically. The Gateway of India in Bombay, a monument commemorating the landing of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. Photograph: robertharding/Alamy I was persuaded that Marx was basically right in his diagnosis of the need for some radical change in India, as its old order was crumbling as a result of not having been a part of the intellectual and economic globalisation that the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution had initiated across the world (along with, alas, colonialism).

There was arguably, however, a serious flaw in Marx’s thesis, in particular in his implicit presumption that the British conquest was the only window on the modern world that could have opened for India. What India needed at the time was more constructive globalisation, but that is not the same thing as imperialism.

The distinction is important. Throughout India’s long history, it persistently enjoyed exchanges of ideas as well as of commodities with the outside world. Traders, settlers and scholars moved between India and further east – China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere – for a great many centuries, beginning more than 2,000 years ago.

• The far-reaching influence of this movement – especially on language, literature and architecture – can be seen plentifully even today.
• There were also huge global influences by means of India’s open-frontier attitude in welcoming fugitives from its early days.
• Jewish immigration into India began right after the fall of Jerusalem in the first century and continued for many hundreds of years.

Baghdadi Jews, such as the highly successful Sassoons, came in large numbers even as late as the 18th century. Christians started coming at least from the fourth century, and possibly much earlier. There are colourful legends about this, including one that tells us that the first person St Thomas the Apostle met after coming to India in the first century was a Jewish girl playing the flute on the Malabar coast.

We loved that evocative – and undoubtedly apocryphal – anecdote in our classroom discussions, because it illustrated the multicultural roots of Indian traditions. The started arriving from the early eighth century – as soon as persecution began in their Iranian homeland. Later in that century, the Armenians began to leave their footprints from Kerala to Bengal.

Muslim Arab traders had a substantial presence on the west coast of India from around that time – well before the arrival of Muslim conquerors many centuries later, through the arid terrain in the north-west of the subcontinent. Persecuted Bahá’ís from Iran came only in the 19th century.

At the time of the Battle of Plassey, there were already businessmen, traders and other professionals from a number of different European nations well settled near the mouth of the Ganges. Being subjected to imperial rule is thus not the only way of making connections with, or learning things from, foreign countries.

When the Meiji Restoration established a new reformist government in Japan in 1868 (which was not unrelated to the internal political impact of Commodore Perry’s show of force a decade earlier), the Japanese went straight to learning from the west without being subjected to imperialism.

1. They sent people for training in the US and Europe, and made institutional changes that were clearly inspired by western experience.
2. They did not wait to be coercively globalised via imperialism.
3. O ne of the achievements to which British imperial theorists tended to give a good deal of emphasis was the role of the British in producing a united India.

In this analysis, India was a collection of fragmented kingdoms until British rule made a country out of these diverse regimes. It was argued that India was previously not one country at all, but a thoroughly divided land mass. It was the British empire, so the claim goes, that welded India into a nation.

Winston Churchill even remarked that before the British came, there was no Indian nation. “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator,” he once said. If this is true, the empire clearly made an indirect contribution to the modernisation of India through its unifying role.

However, is the grand claim about the big role of the Raj in bringing about a united India correct? Certainly, when Clive’s East India Company defeated the nawab of Bengal in 1757, there was no single power ruling over all of India. Yet it is a great leap from the proximate story of Britain imposing a single united regime on India (as did actually occur) to the huge claim that only the British could have created a united India out of a set of disparate states.

That way of looking at Indian history would go firmly against the reality of the large domestic empires that had characterised India throughout the millennia. The ambitious and energetic emperors from the third century BC did not accept that their regimes were complete until the bulk of what they took to be one country was united under their rule.

There were major roles here for Ashoka Maurya, the Gupta emperors, Alauddin Khalji, the Mughals and others. Indian history shows a sequential alternation of large domestic empires with clusters of fragmented kingdoms. We should therefore not make the mistake of assuming that the fragmented governance of mid-18th century India was the state in which the country typically found itself throughout history, until the British helpfully came along to unite it. An illustration of British soldiers capturing Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, in 1857. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Even though in history textbooks the British were often assumed to be the successors of the Mughals in India, it is important to note that the British did not in fact take on the Mughals when they were a force to be reckoned with.

British rule began when the Mughals’ power had declined, though formally even the nawab of Bengal, whom the British defeated, was their subject. The nawab still swore allegiance to the Mughal emperor, without paying very much attention to his dictates. The imperial status of the Mughal authority over India continued to be widely acknowledged even though the powerful empire itself was missing.

When the so-called threatened the foundations of British India in 1857, the diverse anti-British forces participating in the joint rebellion could be aligned through their shared acceptance of the formal legitimacy of the Mughal emperor as the ruler of India.

1. The emperor was, in fact, reluctant to lead the rebels, but this did not stop the rebels from declaring him the emperor of all India.
2. The 82-year-old Mughal monarch, Bahadur Shah II, known as Zafar, was far more interested in reading and writing poetry than in fighting wars or ruling India.
3. He could do little to help the 1,400 unarmed civilians of Delhi whom the British killed as the mutiny was brutally crushed and the city largely destroyed.

The poet-emperor was banished to Burma, where he died. As a child growing up in Burma in the 1930s, I was taken by my parents to see Zafar’s grave in Rangoon, which was close to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The grave was not allowed to be anything more than an undistinguished stone slab covered with corrugated iron.

I remember discussing with my father how the British rulers of India and Burma must evidently have been afraid of the evocative power of the remains of the last Mughal emperor. The inscription on the grave noted only that “Bahadur Shah was ex-King of Delhi” – no mention of “empire” in the commemoration! It was only much later, in the 1990s, that Zafar would be honoured with something closer to what could decently serve as the grave of the last Mughal emperor.

I n the absence of the British Raj, the most likely successors to the Mughals would probably have been the newly emerging Hindu Maratha powers near Bombay, who periodically sacked the Mughal capital of Delhi and exercised their power to intervene across India.

Already by 1742, the East India Company had built a huge “Maratha ditch” at the edge of Calcutta to slow down the lightning raids of the Maratha cavalry, which rode rapidly across 1,000 miles or more. But the Marathas were still quite far from putting together anything like the plan of an all-India empire.

The British, by contrast, were not satisfied until they were the dominant power across the bulk of the subcontinent, and in this they were not so much bringing a new vision of a united India from abroad as acting as the successor of previous domestic empires.

• British rule spread to the rest of the country from its imperial foundations in Calcutta, beginning almost immediately after Plassey.
• As the company’s power expanded across India, Calcutta became the capital of the newly emerging empire, a position it occupied from the mid-18th century until 1911 (when the capital was moved to Delhi).

It was from Calcutta that the conquest of other parts of India was planned and directed. The profits made by the East India Company from its economic operations in Bengal financed, to a great extent, the wars that the British waged across India in the period of their colonial expansion.

What has been called “the financial bleeding of Bengal” began very soon after Plassey. With the nawabs under their control, the company made big money not only from territorial revenues, but also from the unique privilege of duty-free trade in the rich Bengal economy – even without counting the so-called gifts that the Company regularly extracted from local merchants.

Those who wish to be inspired by the glory of the British empire would do well to avoid reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, including his discussion of the abuse of state power by a “mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies”.

1. As the historian William Dalrymple has observed: “The economic figures speak for themselves.
2. In 1600, when the East India Company was founded, Britain was generating 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was producing 22.5%.
3. By the peak of the Raj, those figures had more or less been reversed: India was reduced from the world’s leading manufacturing nation to a symbol of famine and deprivation.” While most of the loot from the financial bleeding accrued to British company officials in Bengal, there was widespread participation by the political and business leadership in Britain: nearly a quarter of the members of parliament in London owned stocks in the East India Company after Plassey.

The commercial benefits from Britain’s Indian empire thus reached far into the British establishment. Calcutta in 1912, illuminated for the occasion of a British royal visit. Photograph: RCAHMS/PA The robber-ruler synthesis did eventually give way to what would eventually become classical colonialism, with the recognition of the need for law and order and a modicum of reasonable governance.

• But the early misuse of state power by the East India Company put the economy of Bengal under huge stress.
• What the cartographer John Thornton, in his famous chart of the region in 1703, had described as “the Rich Kingdom of Bengal” experienced a gigantic famine during 1769–70.
• Contemporary estimates suggested that about a third of the Bengal population died.

This is almost certainly an overestimate. There was no doubt, however, that it was a huge catastrophe, with massive starvation and mortality – in a region that had seen no famine for a very long time. This disaster had at least two significant effects.

1. First, the inequity of early British rule in India became the subject of considerable political criticism in Britain itself.
2. By the time Adam Smith roundly declared in The Wealth of Nations that the East India Company was “altogether unfit to govern its territorial possessions”, there were many British figures, such as Edmund Burke, making similar critiques.

Second, the economic decline of Bengal did eventually ruin the company’s business as well, hurting British investors themselves, and giving the powers in London reason to change their business in India into more of a regular state-run operation. By the late 18th century, the period of so-called “post-Plassey plunder”, with which British rule in India began, was giving way to the sort of colonial subjugation that would soon become the imperial standard, and with which the subcontinent would become more and more familiar in the following century and a half.

H ow successful was this long phase of classical imperialism in British India, which lasted from the late 18th century until independence in 1947? The British claimed a huge set of achievements, including democracy, the rule of law, railways, the joint stock company and cricket, but the gap between theory and practice – with the exception of cricket – remained wide throughout the history of imperial relations between the two countries.

Putting the tally together in the years of pre-independence assessment, it was easy to see how far short the achievements were compared with the rhetoric of accomplishment. Indeed, Rudyard Kipling caught the self-congratulatory note of the British imperial administrator admirably well in his famous poem on imperialism:

Take up the White Man’s burden –The savage wars of peace –Fill full the mouth of famineAnd bid the sickness cease

Alas, neither the stopping of famines nor the remedying of ill health was part of the high-performance achievements of British rule in India. Nothing could lead us away from the fact that life expectancy at birth in India as the empire ended was abysmally low: 32 years, at most.

• The abstemiousness of colonial rule in neglecting basic education reflects the view taken by the dominant administrators of the needs of the subject nation.
• There was a huge asymmetry between the ruler and the ruled.
• The British government became increasingly determined in the 19th century to achieve universal literacy for the native British population.

In contrast, the literacy rates in India under the Raj were very low. When the empire ended, the adult literacy rate in India was barely 15%. The only regions in India with comparatively high literacy were the “native kingdoms” of Travancore and Cochin (formally outside the British empire), which, since independence, have constituted the bulk of the state of Kerala.

These kingdoms, though dependent on the British administration for foreign policy and defence, had remained technically outside the empire and had considerable freedom in domestic policy, which they exercised in favour of more school education and public health care. The 200 years of colonial rule were also a period of massive economic stagnation, with hardly any advance at all in real GNP per capita.

These grim facts were much aired after independence in the newly liberated media, whose rich culture was in part – it must be acknowledged – an inheritance from British civil society. Even though the Indian media was very often muzzled during the Raj – mostly to prohibit criticism of imperial rule, for example at the time of the Bengal famine of 1943 – the tradition of a free press, carefully cultivated in Britain, provided a good model for India to follow as the country achieved independence. Corpse removal trucks in Calcutta during the famine of 1943. Photograph: Bettmann Archive Indeed, India received many constructive things from Britain that did not – could not – come into their own until after independence. Literature in the Indian languages took some inspiration and borrowed genres from English literature, including the flourishing tradition of writing in English.

Under the Raj, there were restrictions on what could be published and propagated (even some of Tagore’s books were banned). These days the government of India has no such need, but alas – for altogether different reasons of domestic politics – the restrictions are sometimes no less intrusive than during the colonial rule.

Nothing is perhaps as important in this respect as the functioning of a multiparty democracy and a free press. But often enough these were not gifts that could be exercised under the British administration during imperial days. They became realisable only when the British left – they were the fruits of learning from Britain’s own experience, which India could use freely only after the period of empire had ended.

1. Imperial rule tends to require some degree of tyranny: asymmetrical power is not usually associated with a free press or with a vote-counting democracy, since neither of them is compatible with the need to keep colonial subjects in check.
2. A similar scepticism is appropriate about the British claim that they had eliminated famine in dependent territories such as India.

British governance of India began with the famine of 1769-70, and there were regular famines in India throughout the duration of British rule. The Raj also ended with the terrible famine of 1943. In contrast, there has been no famine in India since independence in 1947.

The irony again is that the institutions that ended famines in independent India – democracy and an independent media – came directly from Britain. The connection between these institutions and famine prevention is simple to understand. Famines are easy to prevent, since the distribution of a comparatively small amount of free food, or the offering of some public employment at comparatively modest wages (which gives the beneficiaries the ability to buy food), allows those threatened by famine the ability to escape extreme hunger.

So any government should be able stop a threatening famine – large or small – and it is very much in the interest of a government in a functioning democracy, facing a free press, to do so. A free press makes the facts of a developing famine known to all, and a democratic vote makes it hard to win elections during – or after – a famine, hence giving a government the additional incentive to tackle the issue without delay.

India did not have this freedom from famine for as long as its people were without their democratic rights, even though it was being ruled by the foremost democracy in the world, with a famously free press in the metropolis – but not in the colonies. These freedom-oriented institutions were for the rulers but not for the imperial subjects.

In the powerful indictment of British rule in India that Tagore presented in 1941, he argued that India had gained a great deal from its association with Britain, for example, from “discussions centred upon Shakespeare’s drama and Byron’s poetry and above all the large-hearted liberalism of 19th-century English politics”.

1. The tragedy, he said, came from the fact that what “was truly best in their own civilisation, the upholding of dignity of human relationships, has no place in the British administration of this country”.
2. Indeed, the British could not have allowed Indian subjects to avail themselves of these freedoms without threatening the empire itself.

The distinction between the role of Britain and that of British imperialism could not have been clearer. As the union jack was being lowered across India, it was a distinction of which we were profoundly aware. Adapted from by Amartya Sen, published by Allen Lane on 8 July and available at This article was amended on 29 June 2021.

What was wrong with British rule in India?

Britain’s shameful colonisation of India INDIA 09 December 2019 In “An Era of Darkness”, Shashi Tharoor demolishes many myths harboured by a Britain which still wallows in “imperial nostalgia”, as John West reviews. As Britain struggles with Brexit, and evokes “imperial nostalgia”, Shashi Tharoor’s book, “An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India”, demolishes at least three common myths.

• First, the myth of the beneficence of British colonialism.
• Then there is the notion that 18th century England was a promising model of democratic governance.
• And lastly is the myth of the English gentleman.
• For example, Robert Clive, the once (in)famous “Clive of India”, was a juvenile delinquent who arrived in Madras in 1744 as an 18-year clerk, but found his vocation as a thuggish fighter in the small security force of the East India Company.

The story of British colonisation of India is in fact at least two stories. First, through the 18th century, much of India was progressively conquered by the East India Company, a violent and rapacious enterprise, supported by the British crown. But then, the East India Company’s own army (mainly comprising Indians) led an uprising against it in 1857 – known as the Indian Mutiny or the First War of Indian independence.

• This uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, and following this, the British Crown took over governing India from the East India Company until India’s independence.Tharoor provides us with a devastating portrait of how the British decimated the Indian economy through these centuries.
• In 1700, India was the world’s richest country, accounting for some 27% of global GDP.

But in 1947, when India achieved its independence, India had been reduced to one of the world’s poorest countries, with just over 3% of global GDP. The British took thriving industries – like textiles, shipbuilding, and steel – and destroyed them through violence, taxes, import tariffs, and imposing their exports and products on the back of the Indian consumer.

They taxed the Indian peasantry at a level unknown under any other rulers, and through torture and cruelty they extracted vast sums of money which they shipped off to England. Tharoor quotes the young American historian and philosopher, Will Durant, who visited India in 1930: “The British conquest of India was the invasion and destruction of a high civilisation by a trading company utterly without scruple or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain, over-running with fire and sword a country temporarily disordered and helpless, bribing and murdering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that career of illegal and ‘legal’ plunder which has now gone on ruthlessly for one hundred and seventy-three years.” According to Tharoor, much of Britain’s prosperity was built on the drainage of resources from India.

He is convinced that India would have been a much richer, prosperous, educated country without the British. Most importantly though, Tharoor is not seeking to blame colonial history for India’s current situation. Independent India is guilty of many policy shortcomings.

• In addition to decimating the economy, the British inflicted massive suffering on the Indian people.
• Tharoor estimates that some 35 million Indians died because of British policy in a succession of famines.
• The Bengal famine of 1943/44 was one of the most egregious where some 4 million died, as Churchill shipped grain from Bengal to Britain to buttress reserve stocks for British soldiers in Europe while Bengalis were starving to death.

When apprised of the consequences of his actions, Churchill retorted: “Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” Tharoor puts Churchill in the same class as Hitler, Mao and Stalin, despite the idolising of him in Britain. Tharoor also highlights the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre) as one of the great atrocities of British rule.

It took place on 13 April 1919 when Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops of the British Indian Army to fire their rifles into a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, killing at least 400, including 41 children, one only six weeks old. Over 1,000 were injured.

There are many apologists for the Empire who argue that the British gave many things to India, like the very idea of India, democracy, the English language, the railways, tea and even cricket. But Tharoor has answers for all these claims. Were the British responsible for the idea of India? No! In history, there had been various rulers who had consolidated much of India, including the Moghuls who were ruling at the time of the arrival of the British.

1. Moreover, Tharoor argues that there was always a shared sense of a civilisational heritage on the sub-continent, a sacred geography of India, knit together by tracks of pilgrimage.
2. He speculates as the Moghul empire was disintegrating, there is no reason why a new knitting together of the country could not have occurred.

In mid-18th century, the Maharashtras were in the ascendancy, and they could have done it. He imagines a consolidation of the country under Maharashtra rule with the Moghul emperor as a constitutional figurehead, and with strong regional autonomy. He argues that democracy would have been inevitable in this country of the “argumentative Indian” and in this world where most countries enjoy at least some degree of democracy.

• He also argues that it is a bit rich of the British to claim that they bequeathed democracy to India, after 200 years of exploiting and abusing the country.
• Rather than uniting India, the great British achievement was to divide it.
• Tharoor argues that India’s Hindu/Muslim divide only began under the British colonial rule, and that partition between India and Pakistan would never have happened without the British.

In 1857, the British were horrified to see Hindus and Muslims fighting together against the British during the Indian Mutiny. So British launched a divide and rule policy along religious lines. They sought to forment a separate Muslim consciousness. The British were also disturbed to see that when the Indian National Congress was first formed, and its first presidents included Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Parsis.

The British then lobbied for and financed the creation of the Muslim League as a rival body, deliberately to split the nationalists along religious lines, that being the easiest way to divide and rule. In 1905, the British partitioned Bengal, explicitly telling Muslims that they were giving them a Muslim majority province.

Tharoor also argues that while India long had the caste system, it was a rather fuzzy thing. But the British took the caste system, and codified and entrenched it, to use as a means of social control. The English language was not given to India for the country’s benefit.

1. The British taught English to only a narrow stratum of Indian society which they could use to enhance their control of India.
2. Even today, only about 10% of Indian speak English.) The British had no incentive to educate Indians as that they might learn of the injustices of the British.
3. The fact that the Indian elite has seized upon English, educated themselves in it, and turned it into an instrument of their own liberation is to the credit of the Indians, not the British.

Overall, Tharoor reluctantly concedes that there have been some benefits for India from British colonialism, but that this is not because the British of magnanimity. They were basically indirect consequences of British self-serving actions. But he also argues that India suffered from the colonisation of the mind, something which it is much more difficult to overcome.

• How then did this poor little country of Britain manage to conquer India? At the time of the East India Company’s arrival in India, the Moghul regime was disintegrating, and several Indian local powers were rising.
• But they never managed to unite themselves.
• Indeed, the British were able to collaborate with some of these local Indian groups, and bribe them for support.

Thus, Indians were very much complicit in their own oppression. The British could not have ruled India without Indian complicity. The British also succeeded thanks to its superior military technology.Tharoor’s book grew out of a speech he made at an Oxford Union debate on the proposition that “Britain Owes Reparations to Her Former Colonies”.

He does not believe that reparations would make any sense. But he does believe that a formal apology is due. Britain has a moral debt. Tharoor believes that Britain is suffering from historical amnesia about the time of the Empire, abetted by rose-tinted television shows like “Indian Summers”, “Far Pavillions” and “The Jewel in the Crown”.

He argues that the colonists at the time had no illusions about what they were doing. They were most clearly in it for the money. He is thus perplexed that British schools do not teach colonial history. According to opinion polls, many young English people are strangely proud of the empire and would like to have it back.

• Further, London, a world capital of museums, does not even have a museum of British colonialism.
• There are still very many apologists for the British Empire who criticise Tharoor’s writings and seek to justify all the British actions.
• But virtually all of his information comes from highly respected sources and passes the test of academic credibility.

It is also true that Tharoon offers several speculative opinions and scenarios. But even if only half of his material were reliable, it would still represent a very shameful period of British history. Tags: india, “An Era of Darkness”, Shashi Tharoor : Britain’s shameful colonisation of India

What were 4 consequences of British colonial rule in India?

Colonialism in India was traumatic – including for some of the British officials who ruled the Raj When India gained independence from Britain on August 15 1947, the majority of Anglo-Indians had either left or would leave soon after. Many within the Indian Civil Service would write of the trauma that they experienced from witnessing the violence of the years leading up to the end of British rule and the bloodbath that would follow as the lines of were revealed.

Colonialism was certainly a far more traumatising experience for colonial subjects than their colonisers. They suffered poverty, malnutrition, disease, cultural upheaval, economic exploitation, political disadvantage, and systematic programmes aimed at creating a sense of social and racial inferiority.

While some may argue that any suffering on the part of the British colonialists ought to be met with little sympathy, this is not a reason to obscure it from history. It was the very notion that Indian civil service servicemen were usurpers, full of privilege, in a foreign land that led to the sapped sense of humanity that many wrestled with – both during and after their India careers.

As my own forthcoming book details, some shut themselves off from the day-to-day lives of Indians, unless forced to engage for work purposes. Others escaped through drowning themselves in alcohol, opium or other drugs. Some convinced themselves of the intellectual superiority of the white man and his right to rule over “lesser races”, while a number found solace in Christianity.

Several came to see their role as being a peacekeeper between various ethnic and religious groups, despite the irony of the British having encouraged and exploited the categorisation of colonial subjects on these grounds in the first place. Underneath all of this sits a trauma that the coloniser had to either deal with – or resign their post and go home.

What were 3 consequences of British rule in India?

Indian society underwent many changes after the British came to India. In the 19th century, certain social practices like female infanticide, child marriage, sati, polygamy and a rigid caste system became more prevalent. These practices were against human dignity and values.

Did britain have a positive or negative impact on India?

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The British colonialism in India started in the 19th century and ended in 1947, after the Mughal Empire and the Aurangzeb (that controlled India at that time) collapsed. One of the reasons for colonizing India was trade, due to India’s great amount of raw materials. This colonization caused many negative and positive consequences. The British treatment to the Indians was derogatory, consequently, the Sepoy rebellion started. Did you know in the 17th century India was one of the richest countries in the world? British imperialism began with the fall of the Mughal Dynasty in 1757. The East India Company noticed the Mughal Dynasty collapsing and took advantage of it. Robert Clive led his troops to victory, taking over India. Although many Indians were killed, British imperialism led India on the right path to success. The British developed a government and brought the nation together. They developed railways and infrastructure throughout India and provided jobs to those who searched for them. The idea of national parks came along and protected wildlife from going extinct. In 1885, nationalist leaders organized the Indian National Congress who called for greater democracy which they felt would bring more power to themselves. Other Indian nationalists, took a more radical, anti-British stand. I believe this is positive because I feel that the first instance of British resistance was the first step towards independence. Negative effects of the imperialistic rule in India were that there was a rapid population growth, hence, there was a strain on the food supply, especially since farmland was turned into cash crops instead of food. They cleared new farmlands which led to massive deforestation and other environmental destruction. Also, in the late 1800s terrible famines swept India. The railroads could not carry food to the suffering areas, but overall, millions of Indian peasants sank deeply into poverty. “Englishmen. have given the people of India the greatest human blessing – peace.” (Dutt). Merely coming to India in the 1600s to trade, the British East India Company established trading outposts. After ridding of French influence in India during the Seven Years’ War and having Indians mutiny against British rule, Britain gained full control of India. India has been under the imperialist control of the British until their independence in 1947. British imperialism caused some negative effects on India through poverty and persecution, but retained more of a positive impact due to its massive improvements in the modernization of India and the overall improvement of Indian civilization. Many positive things happened during, and as a result of, the British colonization of India. When the East India Company took control of India in 1612, they began modernizing, westernizing, and industrializing India. This westernization included giving women more rights, an attempt to eliminate the caste system and the loss of many of the more backward Hindu religious beliefs such as the domination of women by men and denying an entire class of people any rights. British occupation also did things long term for India. The modern technology and western customs allowed India to become a burgeoning regional superpower. The colonization of India was helpful for India because it went a long way to modernize India, westernized India in

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In the 1700s Britain established the British East India Company to create more profitable trade around the world. It became one of the most powerful mercantile organizations by creating and maintaining a monopoly on many exotic goods including cotton, silk, tea, and spices transferred to Britain.

1. As it grew in power the company began to develop its own standing military, which established further control of the region and its peoples.
2. Once Britain had fully taken control they began to implement changes, these changes had both positive and negative British Imperialism had a negative impact on the politics of India because the British took away control of the country for their benefit and enforced laws that discriminated against Indians.

Lavani claims the British “established the framework for India’s justice system, civil service, loyal army, and efficient police force.” However, this framework was not intended for the Indians, but for the British. For example, 94% of government positions were held by Englishman (Doc.

• 2). These people had “no permanent interest in their well-being” and returned to England after “forty-five or fifty-five years of age with large pensions (Doc.
• 2).” This shows the British government used India as a source of wealth and controlled the people without Have you ever wondered the real impact british had on india during the time the ruled? British may have created railroad taught indians how to communicate protected forestry and endangered animals.

The truth is the jobs they created paid indians un fair compared to british men, indians learned mort english in their own independance then when the british ruled, the didn’t protect forestry for long because they would clear cut and ship it back to britain, and animals became endangered due to clear cutting which led to temperature rise water table drop and unplantable soil.

1. Here are some examples of what really happened and why british were unsuitable for rule.
2. For Britain, there was barely a negative side to imperializing in India.
3. British citizen did not change the way they went about their day at all.
4. Prices of goods dropped which, of course made life easy, but nobody lost sleep over the colonization.

Britain’s Britain had a desire to have a more economic, political, and social influence over India. Even though the British never preserved a notable military existence in India, they were able to maintain political control. Many changes were made, which benefitted India, but there were also some changes, which contributed to its deterioration.

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What was a negative consequence of the British Empire?

On the downside, people living in countries taken into the Empire often lost lands and suffered discrimination and prejudice. Countries in the Empire were also exploited for their raw materials. Slavery was another negative because despite the enormous profits made, the suffering of the slaves was terrible.

What negative things did the British Empire do?

Through vicious military conquest, it used enslavement, massacres, famines and partitions to create profit. It was the largest empire ever known, covering a quarter of the world and colonising hundreds of millions of people. The Union flag represents its barbarity.

What were the positive and negative effects of the British Raj?

What were the positives and negative effects of British rule on Indians? Positive: Improved transport, Farming methods, order justice, and education. Negative: Exploitation, destruction of local industry, deforestation, and famine.

In what ways was the British rule in India oppressive?

Answer the questions that follow: The Independence Day Pledge, 26 January 1930: ‘ We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth.

• We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it.
• The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually.

We believe, therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or Complete Independence.’ (i) In what two ways was the British rule in India oppressive? (ii) Explain the immediate effects of the Lahore Session of the Congress on the Indian National Movement.

What was one positive consequence of British rule in India?

The introduction of modern education, the improvement of women’s lives, the improvement of India’s infrastructure as a result of the construction of railways, hospitals, and schools, modern governance systems, as well as the introduction of industrialization are just a few of the positive impacts of British rule in

How did British colonial rule affect Indian agriculture?

Discuss the impact of British policies on Indian agriculture during the colonial period. (150 words) – Approach Start your answer by briefly discussing about British policies on Indian agriculture. Discuss their negative and positive impact. Conclude accordingly.

• Introduction The British colonial rule in India had a significant impact on the country’s agriculture sector.
• The policies implemented by the British government had a lasting effect on the production, trade, and distribution of agricultural products.
• Some of the key impacts are discussed below.
• Body Impact of British Policies on Indian Agriculture: Positive impacts: Commercialization of agriculture: British policies motivated the commercialization of agriculture in India by promoting cash crops and providing markets for their sale.

This led to increased production and more income for farmers. For example, the British introduced Indigo cultivation in Bengal, which became a major cash crop. Use of modern implements and technologies: British policies incentivized the use of modern implements and technologies in agriculture.

• This led to increased efficiency and productivity in farming.
• For instance, the British introduced new irrigation techniques such as drilling wells and canal irrigation, which greatly improved agricultural output.
• Freedom from exploitative zamindars: In many cases, British policies freed poor farmers from the clutches of exploitative zamindars.

The British implemented revenue policies that reduced the power of the zamindars and provided more security for the farmers. For example, the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, which fixed revenue collection rights with zamindars, relieved the pressure on the farmers.

1. Negative impacts: Increased pressure on land: British policies led to increased pressure on land as many artisans, faced with diminishing returns and repressive policies, abandoned their professions and took to agriculture.
2. This led to a decline in the artisan sector and overcrowding in agriculture, leading to decreased productivity and profitability.

Overburdening of agriculture sector: British policies overburdened the agriculture sector, leading to poverty during British rule. The British implemented policies that increased the revenue demands on the farmers, leading to decreased spending on inputs like seeds and fertilizer, leading to low yields and decreased income for farmers.

1. Impoverishment of the peasantry: The British policies led to the impoverishment of the peasantry.
2. The policies favored cash crops over food crops, which created food scarcity and increased food prices.
3. Additionally, the policies like Ryotwari revenue system, where the ownership rights of the land were handed over to the peasants and the revenue was collected directly from the peasants by the state.

The revenue rates in this system were 50% for dry lands and 60% for irrigated lands which resulted in excessive taxes that impoverished the farmers, who held the ownership of the land. Destruction of self-sufficient village population: British policies mandated the modification of Indian agriculture, leading to the destruction of the self-sufficient village population.

The British policies aimed to integrate Indian agriculture into the world market, which required changes in production methods and the destruction of traditional systems. This led to a decline in the traditional, self-sufficient village economy and the rise of a monetized economy. Conclusion : The British colonial rule in India had a lasting impact on the country’s agriculture sector, with both positive and negative effects.

The British policies led to the commercialization of agriculture, the use of modern implements and technologies, and the freeing of farmers from exploitative zamindars. On the other hand, the policies also led to increased pressure on land, overburdening of the agriculture sector, impoverishment of the peasantry, and the destruction of the self-sufficient village population.

1. These impacts continue to shape India’s agriculture sector to this day.
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How did it affect the British policy in India after 1858?

Divide and Rule Policy –

The British had conquered India by taking advantage of the disunity among the Indian powers and by playing them against one another. After 1858, the British continued to follow the policy of divide and rule by turning the princes against the people, province against province, caste against caste, group against group, and, above all, Hindus against Muslims. The unity displayed by Hindus and Muslims during the Revolt of 1857 had disturbed the foreign rulers. They were determined to break this unity so as to weaken the rising nationalist movement. Immediately after the Revolt, the British repressed Muslims, confiscated their lands and property on a large scale, and declared Hindus to be their favorites. However, after 1870, this policy was reversed and an attempt was made to turn upper class and middle class Muslims against the nationalist movement. Because of industrial and commercial backwardness and the near absence of social services, the educated Indians depended almost entirely on government service. This led to keen competition among them for the available government posts. The Government utilized this competition to foment provincial and communal rivalry and hatred. It promised official favors on a communal basis in return for loyalty and so played the educated Muslims against the educated Hindus.

What was the impact of colonialism on Indian environment?

Impacts of Environmental Colonialism – Environmental colonialism has both obvious and unexpected impacts on Indigenous peoples and native lands in both the short and long term. The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in 1492, for example, marks the onset of disease epidemics resulting in the loss of the majority Indigenous people living in the Americas over the subsequent century 1500-1600.

A recent study out of University College London (UCL) estimates that around 1 per cent of total land mass in the Americas was abandoned during the spread of waves of pandemic disease, or approximately 56 million hectares of land from 55 million post-epidemic human deaths among indigenous communities in the century following Columbus’s arrival (Koch, et al.).

Large-scale depopulation resulted in massive tracts of agricultural land being left untended, UCL researchers find, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation (Milman). The regrowth caused by secondary succession soaked up enough atmospheric carbon dioxide to cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study found.

Successful European colonies are often located in temperate zones akin to European microclimates, which Crosby terms “Neo-Europes.” These environmental similarities allowed European colonists to raise crops and livestock to the detriment of native habitat diversity (Stoll). Today, many of these “Neo-Europes” – the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Uruguay – are the largest exporters of grains and animal products which were completely foreign to their landscape prior to colonization.

However, in Late Victorian Holocausts (2000), Mike Davis explores how colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation caused devastating famines of the late 19th century in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and New Caledonia.

Davis documents how colonialism and capitalism in British India and elsewhere increased rural poverty and hunger while economic policies exacerbated famine. Although environmental damage caused by colonialism is not always intentional, its effects cannot be undercut. In Slow Violence (2011), Rob Nixon explains how Western environmentalists have at times inadvertently harmed native ecosystems through preservation efforts intended to repair original harm done by colonialism.

Robert H. Nelson offers several examples wherein the establishment of national park systems in African nations has displaced native populations. Writer Teju Cole refers to this kind of Western interference as the White-Savior Industrial Complex, and explains that “caring about Africa” must first begin with the reevaluation of American foreign policy, which often plays a direct role in local elections.

What happened to India after British rule ended?

Independence and Partition, 1947 The birth of India and Pakistan as independent states in 1947 was a key moment in the history of Britain’s Empire and its army. But the process of partition was attended by mass migration and ethnic violence that has left a bitter legacy to this day. Map briefing for Sikh recruits, 1947 The long campaign for Indian independence, which had begun with the (1857-59), grew in intensity following the (1939-45). Indians increasingly expected self-government to be granted in return for their wartime contribution. But with this came serious inter-communal violence between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims.

The recently elected government in Britain was determined to grant independence and hoped to leave behind some form of united India. But, despite repeated talks, the mainly Hindu Indian National Congress and the Muslim League could not agree on the shape of the new state. After another failed conference in 1946, Muslim League leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah called for ‘direct action’ to create a Muslim state.

Violence escalated and the threat of civil war loomed. In August of that year, six British battalions had to be deployed in Calcutta. They took nearly a week to restore order. The violence quickly spread to Bombay, Delhi and the Punjab. ‘The whole country was mad with this blood lust.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Gray, 1990 Eventually, the British concluded that partition was the only answer.

On 2 June 1947, the last Viceroy of India, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, announced that Britain had accepted that the country should be divided into a mainly Hindu India and a mainly Muslim Pakistan, encompassing the geographically separate territories of West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The ‘Princely States of India’, not directly ruled by the British, were given a choice of which country to join. Those states whose princes failed to join either country or chose a country at odds with their majority religion, such as Kashmir and Hyderabad, became the focus of bitter dispute. Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, talking to Indian soldiers, 1945 Nehru visiting the Khyber Rifles at Jamrud, 1946 Mountbatten confirmed the date for independence as 15 August 1947. As soon as this was announced, British troops were withdrawn to their barracks. In the weeks leading up to independence, responsibility for maintaining law and order was handed over to the Indian Army.

• This was a chiefly British-officered force with other ranks recruited from across the subcontinent.
• As well as attempting to keep the peace, they helped administer referendums in the and Assam.
• ‘The ordinary Indian soldiers are terribly worried especially whose homes are in the Punjab.
• They are getting no news from home and members of minority communities are very fearful for their families.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Hill, 1947 Partition meant that millions of people found themselves on the ‘wrong’ side of the borders.

Ten million became refugees in what was the largest population movement in history. Muslims travelled to Pakistan; Sikhs and Hindus to India. Up to a million of these refugees were killed in a series of horrific massacres in the border regions. Some of the worst atrocities took place in the Punjab.

Despite the efforts of the 55,000-strong Punjab Boundary Force, over 200,000 people were murdered. Mountbatten was later criticised for rushing the partition process and failing to tackle the migration and communal violence that attended the birth of the new nations. ‘When we cleared it, we counted 2,400 identifiable bodies and I don’t know how many more heads and arms and legs and everything there were, they’d all been hacked to pieces.

Blood was running out of the doors.’ Captain Edward Walsh describing a massacre of Muslims on a train in the Punjab, 1992 The end of British rule in India also spelled the end of the existing Indian Army and its administration. Field Marshal oversaw the division of this force.

1. Around 260,000 men, mainly Hindus and Sikhs, went to India.
2. And 140,000 men, mainly Muslims, went to Pakistan.
3. The Brigade of Gurkhas, recruited in Nepal, was split between India and Britain.
4. Many British officers stayed on to assist in the transition, including General Sir Robert Lockhart, India’s first Chief of Army Staff, and General Sir Frank Messervy, who became Pakistan’s first Chief of Army Staff.

Individual units were split up. The 19th Lancers in Pakistan exchanged their Jat and Sikh troops for Muslims from Skinner’s Horse in India. ‘They had this terrible problem of getting the Hindu squadrons out without them being murdered by the Pathans. And this is where the loyalty within a regiment played such an important part, and the Muslim Punjabi Squadron protected the other two squadrons and eventually they smuggled them out one night.’ Major Edward McMurdo Wright, 1991 Following independence, British Army regiments were gradually withdrawn from the subcontinent.

• This included a well-planned and orderly withdrawal from Waziristan and other tribal regions of the,
• The last unit to leave India was the 1st Battalion,, which embarked at Bombay on 28 February 1948.
• Although these units were now available for other duties, Britain’s global military capability was actually reduced, as it no longer had the Indian Army at its disposal.

Many British officers were sad to leave India and their Indian soldiers. ‘The awful thought was that I was leaving India in those circumstances and leaving Skinner’s Horse people behind. And one of them actually came to me and, with a pleading look, he said, “But Sahib, we fought for you in a war, why don’t you fight for us and do something?” and I nearly burst into tears.’ Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Gray, 1990 India and Pakistan’s independence at midnight on 14-15 August 1947 was a key moment in the history of the British Empire. Pakistan Independence Day at Razmak, 15 August 1947 Presentation of Colours to 2nd Battalion, 15th Punjab Regiment, by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, April 1948 Almost immediately after independence, tensions between India and Pakistan began to boil over. The first of three full-scale wars between the two nations broke out over the princely state of Kashmir. The Maharaja there was reluctant to join to either India or Pakistan.

• Pakistan therefore sponsored a tribal invasion aimed at annexing the state.
• The Maharaja appealed to India for help, which was granted on the condition that he accede to India.
• Indian troops were airlifted into Srinagar and managed to repel the Pakistani invaders.
• A bitter war raged across the state until a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire in 1948.

Former comrades in the old Indian Army found themselves fighting each other. The Kashmir issue still remains unsolved and is the cause of much tension on the subcontinent today. “First time @NAM_London today. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought the presentation & interpretation made the subject accessible.” : Independence and Partition, 1947

What were the causes of British rule in India?

The prime reason for the British government to control the English colonies was so Britain could trade with the colonies. The English colonies had crops like sugar and tobacco that couldn’t be grown in England so the British relied on the colonies to ship these products to them.

Why did British take over India?

Answer–The British came to India for trade and to establish colonies. They also wanted to spread Christianity throughout the country. Answer-British rule had a profound effect on India. The British introduced Western ideas and culture, which changed the country forever.

What problems did the Indian industrialists have with the British government?

What problems did the Indian industrialists have with the British government? 5 The Indian Industrialist faced a number of problems under the British colonial rule:1. Unlike the Europeans, the Indian Industrialist did not have any access to the British government authorities.2.

• They did not have a significant share in the foreign trade market which led in a shortage of funds.3.
• They did not have many factories, banks and ships under their control.4.
• Although they received help from the government in the form of tax on foreign goods, it was not adequate.5.
• The required to resources and facilities such as Railways, roads, electricity, coal and iron.

But the British government did not focus on the development in these areas.6. They also had to buy all of their machines from abroad because those industries which would manufacture the required machinery was not started in India.7. Education was not given adequate importance.

What were the negative effects of the British colonization?

S ince Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952, dozens of nations colonized by the British Empire have gained independence and continue to rebuild their societies. Some critics of the royal family see last week’s death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch as an opportunity to re-envision the monarchy’s role and to finally acknowledge the struggles of all those who were affected by British imperialism around the world and in Britain itself.

The legacy of colonization has been well documented and often included slavery and the forced movement of people, brutal suppression, and the extraction of resources at the expense of local economies. “For many of us from the ‘colonies,’ the death of Elizabeth II signifies in very particular ways that she was the symbol of an empire built on genocide, slavery, violence, extraction, and brutality, the legacies of which continue in our present day,” says Anna Arabindan-Kesson, a professor of Black diasporic art at Princeton University.

“She was not only a symbol, she was complicit in this empire.” This part of the monarchy’s history is often “conveniently hidden or ignored in Britain,” says Arabindan-Kesson. This history needs to be addressed in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, she adds.

What were the disadvantages of the British Empire?

On the downside, people living in countries taken into the Empire often lost lands and suffered discrimination and prejudice. Countries in the Empire were also exploited for their raw materials. Slavery was another negative because despite the enormous profits made, the suffering of the slaves was terrible.

What were the impacts of British Raj on Indian Muslims?

Muslims were, indeed, reduced to poverty and destitution as a result of British rule. As the East India Company took control over the Subcontinent, it approached Hindus for co-operation, and the latter proved to be, from the very start, staunch supporters and reliable partners of the new rulers.