09-01-2005, 10:09 PM
Jagmohan's second article from the Statesman, 2 Sept., 2005
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INDIAâS PAST-II
Bright And Dark Sides Of The British Coin
By JAGMOHAN
Bright And Dark Sides Of The British Coin While the impact of British rule was salutary, in some respects, its negative fallout was deep and widespread. <b>During the 17th and 18th centuries, India was the agriculture mother of Asia and the industrial workshop of the world. John M Hobson, in his recent publication, The Eastern Origin of Western Civilisation, has significantly observed: âThe two major industries of the British industrial revolution were cotton and iron/ steel. What is particularly striking here is that in both these industries, India led the way up to the 18th, if not the 19th century. India was well known for its production of Wootz steel which was exported to Persia, where it provided the foundation for the famous Damascus (Damask) steelâ. </b>All this was destroyed by the British policy of âplanned underdevelopmentâ.
Western materialism
The acquisitive and exploitative instincts, inherent in western materialism, propelled the British rulers to set up a mechanism by way of which Britain could become rich and powerful at the expense of Indian peasants and artisans. The raw material from India was taken away at cheap rates and the English industrial goods dumped here. Indiaâs cottage industry was ruined. Her agriculture was oriented towards cotton, jute, oil seeds etc, which the British industry needed at home.
<b>India was badly impoverished. According to the research carried out by Radha Kamal Mukerjee with regard to the movement of the real wages between 1600 and 1900, the unskilled workerâs wage in Northern India was Rs 52 in 1850 and Rs 43 in 1903, taking year 1600 as a base. Another study showed that average per capita income in India, at 1948-49 prices, was Rs 169 in 1857. It rose to Rs 210 in 1876 and then declined to Rs 188 in 1900. The country was also visited by recurring famines. The British records themselves show that one million Indians died of famine between 1800 and 1825; four million between 1825 and 1850; five million between 1850 and 1875; and 15 million between 1875 and 1900. Thus, 25 million Indians died in one hundred years. </b>
There was quite a few other black spots on the canvas of the British regime. One such spot, for example, was the infamous incident that occurred on 13 April 1919, when Brig-General OâDwyer ordered firing, without provocation, on an unarmed crowd, killing 379 persons and wounding another 1200. The firing just lasted 10 minutes. But in âthose ten minutes, General Dyer had destroyed the trust in British justice and fairplay that had been built up over one and a half centuries. He shattered the myth of benevolent paternalism which had allowed a <b>tiny group of barely 1000 civil servants, backed up by sometimes as few as 15,000 British soldiers, to govern over 400 million Indiansâ. </b>
Communal quota
The unkindest cut of the British regime was the introduction of the principle of communal representation in the public services and legislature. From 1922, the practice of nominating In-dians from minority communities, who were unsuccessful at the examinations, was introduced. This development had the effect not only of undermining the purity and fairness of the selection process but also introduced a new loyalty â loyalty to oneâs own community â in the machinery of governance. It was on account of this factor that by the mid-30s and early 40s, the ICS and other services had virtually got divided into two broad camps â sympathisers of the Congress and the sympathisers of the Muslim League. âBy the autumn of 1946, all Indians in central government were either Congress, more or less, or League, more or lessâ. The Muslim members of the civil services were far more active; they extended covert, and sometimes overt, support to the idea of Pakistan. Some of them developed a close rapport with senior Muslim League leaders like Liquat Ali Khan and Sir Feroz Khan Noon.
It was mainly because of these unfavourable developments that the Indian Civil Service failed miserably in curbing the 1946-47 riots. In the circumstances then prevailing, no administration could have, perhaps, stopped the riots from occurring or killings taking place. But the extent to which the riots spread and the extent to which the killings, kidnappings, arson and looting were resorted to, exposed the rot that had set in the spaces within the âsteel frameâ. In no time, the machinery fell to pieces. As a young boy, I was myself a witness, in a small town of Hafizabad, to the horrible violence and massacre and of total collapse of every organ of the British Indian Administration.
Another abysmal failure of the governance machinery in the last phase of the British Raj in India was the Great Bengal Famine of 1942-44 which resulted in the death of two to four million people. A series of mis-judgments and inept handling by a complacent administration caused a grim human tragedy which reached its peak in 1943 when, ironically, Bengal was producing the largest rice crop in history. Even the official Famine Inquiry Commission (1945), which was rather soft on the authorities and understated the death toll, âindicted the Bengal government for administrative bungling and the Government of India for its failure to evolve an integrated food policy for the country as a wholeâ.
Historic lapses
The last years of the British governance in India were tragically inglorious. These were the years of blunders, miscalculations and lapses of truly historic proportion. The political and administrative governors of the time, by their acts of commission and omission, created chaos, confusion and human tragedies which have few parallels in the annals of mankind. These were the years in which the steel frame degenerated to the form of a moth-eaten bamboo structure.
<b>Clearly, the coin of the British Raj in India has two sides â one bright and the other dark. Truths of history demand that both these sides should be seen dispassionately and in depth. If we allow ourselves to be led astray by the âcunning passagesâ and âcontrived corridorsâ, we would not only be doing violence to the purity of historyâs soul but also running the risk of repeating all those mistakes which brought us slavery, economic ruin and division of the country. We would also be missing the opportunity of understanding the fundamental forces that cause good or bad governance.</b>
(Concluded)
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â
Â
INDIAâS PAST-II
Bright And Dark Sides Of The British Coin
By JAGMOHAN
Bright And Dark Sides Of The British Coin While the impact of British rule was salutary, in some respects, its negative fallout was deep and widespread. <b>During the 17th and 18th centuries, India was the agriculture mother of Asia and the industrial workshop of the world. John M Hobson, in his recent publication, The Eastern Origin of Western Civilisation, has significantly observed: âThe two major industries of the British industrial revolution were cotton and iron/ steel. What is particularly striking here is that in both these industries, India led the way up to the 18th, if not the 19th century. India was well known for its production of Wootz steel which was exported to Persia, where it provided the foundation for the famous Damascus (Damask) steelâ. </b>All this was destroyed by the British policy of âplanned underdevelopmentâ.
Western materialism
The acquisitive and exploitative instincts, inherent in western materialism, propelled the British rulers to set up a mechanism by way of which Britain could become rich and powerful at the expense of Indian peasants and artisans. The raw material from India was taken away at cheap rates and the English industrial goods dumped here. Indiaâs cottage industry was ruined. Her agriculture was oriented towards cotton, jute, oil seeds etc, which the British industry needed at home.
<b>India was badly impoverished. According to the research carried out by Radha Kamal Mukerjee with regard to the movement of the real wages between 1600 and 1900, the unskilled workerâs wage in Northern India was Rs 52 in 1850 and Rs 43 in 1903, taking year 1600 as a base. Another study showed that average per capita income in India, at 1948-49 prices, was Rs 169 in 1857. It rose to Rs 210 in 1876 and then declined to Rs 188 in 1900. The country was also visited by recurring famines. The British records themselves show that one million Indians died of famine between 1800 and 1825; four million between 1825 and 1850; five million between 1850 and 1875; and 15 million between 1875 and 1900. Thus, 25 million Indians died in one hundred years. </b>
There was quite a few other black spots on the canvas of the British regime. One such spot, for example, was the infamous incident that occurred on 13 April 1919, when Brig-General OâDwyer ordered firing, without provocation, on an unarmed crowd, killing 379 persons and wounding another 1200. The firing just lasted 10 minutes. But in âthose ten minutes, General Dyer had destroyed the trust in British justice and fairplay that had been built up over one and a half centuries. He shattered the myth of benevolent paternalism which had allowed a <b>tiny group of barely 1000 civil servants, backed up by sometimes as few as 15,000 British soldiers, to govern over 400 million Indiansâ. </b>
Communal quota
The unkindest cut of the British regime was the introduction of the principle of communal representation in the public services and legislature. From 1922, the practice of nominating In-dians from minority communities, who were unsuccessful at the examinations, was introduced. This development had the effect not only of undermining the purity and fairness of the selection process but also introduced a new loyalty â loyalty to oneâs own community â in the machinery of governance. It was on account of this factor that by the mid-30s and early 40s, the ICS and other services had virtually got divided into two broad camps â sympathisers of the Congress and the sympathisers of the Muslim League. âBy the autumn of 1946, all Indians in central government were either Congress, more or less, or League, more or lessâ. The Muslim members of the civil services were far more active; they extended covert, and sometimes overt, support to the idea of Pakistan. Some of them developed a close rapport with senior Muslim League leaders like Liquat Ali Khan and Sir Feroz Khan Noon.
It was mainly because of these unfavourable developments that the Indian Civil Service failed miserably in curbing the 1946-47 riots. In the circumstances then prevailing, no administration could have, perhaps, stopped the riots from occurring or killings taking place. But the extent to which the riots spread and the extent to which the killings, kidnappings, arson and looting were resorted to, exposed the rot that had set in the spaces within the âsteel frameâ. In no time, the machinery fell to pieces. As a young boy, I was myself a witness, in a small town of Hafizabad, to the horrible violence and massacre and of total collapse of every organ of the British Indian Administration.
Another abysmal failure of the governance machinery in the last phase of the British Raj in India was the Great Bengal Famine of 1942-44 which resulted in the death of two to four million people. A series of mis-judgments and inept handling by a complacent administration caused a grim human tragedy which reached its peak in 1943 when, ironically, Bengal was producing the largest rice crop in history. Even the official Famine Inquiry Commission (1945), which was rather soft on the authorities and understated the death toll, âindicted the Bengal government for administrative bungling and the Government of India for its failure to evolve an integrated food policy for the country as a wholeâ.
Historic lapses
The last years of the British governance in India were tragically inglorious. These were the years of blunders, miscalculations and lapses of truly historic proportion. The political and administrative governors of the time, by their acts of commission and omission, created chaos, confusion and human tragedies which have few parallels in the annals of mankind. These were the years in which the steel frame degenerated to the form of a moth-eaten bamboo structure.
<b>Clearly, the coin of the British Raj in India has two sides â one bright and the other dark. Truths of history demand that both these sides should be seen dispassionately and in depth. If we allow ourselves to be led astray by the âcunning passagesâ and âcontrived corridorsâ, we would not only be doing violence to the purity of historyâs soul but also running the risk of repeating all those mistakes which brought us slavery, economic ruin and division of the country. We would also be missing the opportunity of understanding the fundamental forces that cause good or bad governance.</b>
(Concluded)
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