British ruled us for almost 200 years, came as the trader and went on to become the Ruler. What's the takeaway for Indians from this long endeavour?
It is the British way of administration which is perhaps the greatest thing they can give. Some of them are:
1) Codified Rules and Anglo-Saxon law
2) Land Policy
3) Tax policy
4) Unified Administration, Civil service
5) Bringing new technology, infrastructure like Railways, Telegraph
6) Police: law & order
7) Legislation, limited adult suffrages, path to democracy
8) Market Economy, private ownership
9) Municipal corporation, Urbanisation
10) Industrialisation
11) Education: English, Science, Humanities etc., Press, universities
12) Social Reforms like Sati, child marriage, widow remarriage etc.
There is more such contribution of the British. But the question arises, Is India today as the rising superpower because of these inherencies from the predecessor or despite it?
In order to arrive at some view, I would try to dissect each of these administrative policies.
Firstly, codified rules and Anglo-Saxon law, they did bring some consistencies with new Judiciary system and it treated every Indian equally regardless of class, caste, race, wealth, religion etc, and upheld Rule of Law. Moreover, it was accommodative enough to inscribe Hindu and Muslim law. But it was biased for the British people. Lord Rippon effort to bring the Ilbert Bill is an evident where British elite was against this provision in 1881 CE. Further, the Anglo-Saxon law also gave the regressive law like Official Secrecy Act, Sedition law which is still creating for India in reaching towards real democracy. Most of the outdated colonial laws are being still followed through the provision of the Article 372 of the Constitution. Recently, efforts have been made by the government to do away with the outdated law. As per the words of President of India, there are around 1803 numbers of the outdated law.
British brought the land policy with an idea of privatization, market economy etc. But by doing so they have had destroyed the village economy self-sufficiency. The various land policy like Zamindari system, Ryotwari system, Mahalwari system etc. led to the creation of another sub-classes of money lenders and the system of the vicious cycle of loans. This marred the people and perhaps is the main cause of burgeoning poverty.
Moreover, it is being documented through various sources of historians, an economist like Dadabhai Naoroji about the callous nature of British economic policy which shattered the Indian handicraft industry. The famous "Drain of Wealth" theory where British would export cheap raw material to mother country(England) and mass manufactured product there, then export to India with almost zero duty and sold back to Indian at lower prices. All those profit collected went back to England for re-investment as British were not interested investing in the Industrial development of India. In fact, first such effort to establish Steel Industry was by Indian entrepreneurs Tata in 1907 CE and for that, they faced an enormous hurdle in getting the permission from British.
The Indian handloom industry faced the biggest setback with British policy. It is being said that many weavers hands were chopped off and handloom was thrashed so that they could not weave again. Further, the handloom products faced enormous discrimination outside India with heavy import duties.
The railways, macadamized roads, telegraph etc. were great input by Britain but it was not intended to serve but for easing the administrative work and British influence. These rail tracks were used for transport of raw materials, sending army troops to control the territory etc.
The Education system and introduction of English were to not enlighten India, as per Macaulay " We want to create a class of Indian who is Indian in class, colour and skin but British in taste, language, moral and intellects.". Certainly, they found it difficult to administer such a humongous diverse country and they needed an intermediate class who could fill the lacuna in their administrative system. Later, Indian Civil Service also took Indian to top position and this legacy prevails today in form of All India Services. But they were created not for the development of Indian subjects but to monitor them. The police force was created in military style and were aloof from the masses. These policemen were mostly indigenous people who went on to become the great asset for the British empire. The brutal beating, the massacre of Jalliawala Bagh and many more such shameful events are evident of British inhumane.
Speaking of the inhumane act, British administration were least concerned about Indian subjects during the time of famine. Around 6 million people died during 1943 Famine of Bengal and still, the taxes were collected during those hard times. The food buffer stocks were not distributed to the people in order to meet future food challenges during the second world war, and those foods stocks remained unutilized.
Social reforms were half-heartedly brought with few exceptions, but after 1857 revolt British learnt their lesson and did not much took interest in bringing social reform.
Communalism, Divide and Rule policy of British is a gift to India which led to Partition in 1947. Moreover, Partition was severely illogical and mismanaged. It is being said that there was lack of expertise from Radcliffe commission which further created confusion in the border on both fronts of India. Partition and various communal clashes would not have had brewed had the British Raj and administration would have acted as responsible moral guardian from start.
We can't change the past but that doesn't mean that we should not learn about it. In the word of Shashi Tharoor "If we don't know about our past then how we would be able to proceed further". These past events of history should be the great lesson for us.
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