Ambedkar on the assessment of economic impact of British Rule on India.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->More than anything else in the world, imperialism stands in greater need of defence and Imperialists have not been wanting in their duty.
Unlike the Greeks who did not have even a word for imperialism nor knew the idea of the federation of city states, the Romans were the world's first and greatest imperial people and they coined a justification for imperialism that became the heritage of their successor.
They proclaimed that they were a people of superior race with a culture too high to be compared with any other, that they had better system of administration, that they were versed in the arts of life. They also proclaimed that the rest were people of inferior race with a very low culture and were absolutely devoid of the arts of life, and that their administration was very despotic. As a logical consequence of this the Romans argued that it was their divine mission to civilise their low lying brethren, nay to conquer them and superimpose their culture in the name of humanity.
The British have justified their imperial policy in India by similar argumentation. The British historian of India have a kind of Leues Boswellianaâdisease of admiration. Their optical vision somehow or other has magnified the vices, not the virtues, of the predecessors of the British in India. Not only have they been loud in their denunciation of the Moghul and the Maratha rulers as despots or brigands, they cast slur on the morale of the entire population and their civilization. This is but natural for individuals as well as states can raise themselves only by lowering the merits of others.
Historians of British India have often committed the fallacy of comparing the Rule of the British with their immediate or remote predecessors. In deference to historical methodology. They ought to compare the rulers of India with the contemporaries in England. Much of historical error will vanish if we closely follow this plan. It would no longer be a matter of contemptuous pity to read perhaps the abject condition of the Hindoos under the conquest of the Mohommedans when we will remember the pitiful condition of the Anglo-Saxons under their Norman conquerors
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The administration of the East India Company was a prototype of the Roman provincial administration, under the Roman Empire, however, local liberties were conserved. Monesen says, "The Roman provincial constitution, in substance, only concentrated military power in the hands of the Roman Governor, while administration and jurisdiction were, or at any rate were intended to be, retained by the communities, so that as much of the old political independence as was at all capable of life might be preserved in the form of communal freedom. "
But the British suppressed everything, and just as Mr. Ferrero insists on our abandoning "one of the most wide spread misconceptions which teaches that Rome administered her provinces in broad-minded spirit, consulting the general interest, and adopting wide and benefit principles of Government for the good of the subjects, " so must we guard against any complacent view of the administration of the East India Company, so current among historians who labour hard to show that with the interval of 1700 years, human nature had greatly advanced in moral standard.
Short may have been our discussion of the situation before the East India Company, it is quite sufficient to show that the supplanter of the Moghuls and the Marathas were persons with no better moral fiber and that the economic condition of India under the so-called native despots and brigands was better than what was under the rule of those who boasted as being of superior culture."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->More than anything else in the world, imperialism stands in greater need of defence and Imperialists have not been wanting in their duty.
Unlike the Greeks who did not have even a word for imperialism nor knew the idea of the federation of city states, the Romans were the world's first and greatest imperial people and they coined a justification for imperialism that became the heritage of their successor.
They proclaimed that they were a people of superior race with a culture too high to be compared with any other, that they had better system of administration, that they were versed in the arts of life. They also proclaimed that the rest were people of inferior race with a very low culture and were absolutely devoid of the arts of life, and that their administration was very despotic. As a logical consequence of this the Romans argued that it was their divine mission to civilise their low lying brethren, nay to conquer them and superimpose their culture in the name of humanity.
The British have justified their imperial policy in India by similar argumentation. The British historian of India have a kind of Leues Boswellianaâdisease of admiration. Their optical vision somehow or other has magnified the vices, not the virtues, of the predecessors of the British in India. Not only have they been loud in their denunciation of the Moghul and the Maratha rulers as despots or brigands, they cast slur on the morale of the entire population and their civilization. This is but natural for individuals as well as states can raise themselves only by lowering the merits of others.
Historians of British India have often committed the fallacy of comparing the Rule of the British with their immediate or remote predecessors. In deference to historical methodology. They ought to compare the rulers of India with the contemporaries in England. Much of historical error will vanish if we closely follow this plan. It would no longer be a matter of contemptuous pity to read perhaps the abject condition of the Hindoos under the conquest of the Mohommedans when we will remember the pitiful condition of the Anglo-Saxons under their Norman conquerors
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The administration of the East India Company was a prototype of the Roman provincial administration, under the Roman Empire, however, local liberties were conserved. Monesen says, "The Roman provincial constitution, in substance, only concentrated military power in the hands of the Roman Governor, while administration and jurisdiction were, or at any rate were intended to be, retained by the communities, so that as much of the old political independence as was at all capable of life might be preserved in the form of communal freedom. "
But the British suppressed everything, and just as Mr. Ferrero insists on our abandoning "one of the most wide spread misconceptions which teaches that Rome administered her provinces in broad-minded spirit, consulting the general interest, and adopting wide and benefit principles of Government for the good of the subjects, " so must we guard against any complacent view of the administration of the East India Company, so current among historians who labour hard to show that with the interval of 1700 years, human nature had greatly advanced in moral standard.
Short may have been our discussion of the situation before the East India Company, it is quite sufficient to show that the supplanter of the Moghuls and the Marathas were persons with no better moral fiber and that the economic condition of India under the so-called native despots and brigands was better than what was under the rule of those who boasted as being of superior culture."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->