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7/29/2019 Effects of Colonization in India
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Friends Of IndiaAn open
discussionabout past,
present and
future of
India.
Monday, August 27, 2007Effects of Colonization in India
Some people still have the illusion that the
British Raj was not all that bad. But in reality
is that the British Colonial rule as against the
interests of the common people of the Indian
sub-continent and it destroyed the education
system, economy, ancient monuments and
livelihood of the people.
One can trace the education system in India to
third century B.C. Ancient days, the sages and
scholars imparted education orally. After the
development of letters it took the form of
writing. Palm leaves and bark of trees were used
for education. Temples and community centers
often took the role of schools. When Buddhism
spread in India, education became available to
everyone and this led to the establishment of
some world famous educational institutions
Nalanda, Vikramshila and Takshashila. These
educational institutes in fact arose from the
monasteries. History has taken special care to
give Nalanda University, which flourished from
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the fifth to 13th century AD, full credit for
its excellence. This university had around
10,000 resident students and teachers on its
roll at one time. These students included
Chinese, Sri Lankan, Korean and otherinternational scholars. It was in the 11th
century that the Muslims established elementary
and secondary schools. This led to the forming
of few universities too at cities like Delhi,
Lucknow and Allahabad. Medieval period saw
excellent interaction between Indian and Islamic
traditions in all fields of knowledge like
theology, religion, philosophy, fine arts,
painting, architecture, mathematics, medicine
and astronomy. The British bring English
education to India but the old education system
was destroyed. The literacy rate in British
India were only 6% in 1911, 8% in 1931 and
crawled to 11% in 1947. In 1935, only 40 in
100,000 were enrolled in universities or higher
education institutes.
It is true that the British built modern cities
with modern conveniences for their
administrative officers but these were exclusive
zones not intended for the natives. In 1911, 69
per cent of Bombay's population lived in one-
room tenements and in 1931 it had increased to
74 per cent. The same was true of Karachi and
Ahmedabad. After the Second World War, 13 per
cent of Bombay's population slept on the
streets. As for sanitation, 10-15 tenements
typically shared one water tap.
But in 1757 Clive of the East India Company had
observed of Murshidabad in Bengal: "This city is
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as extensive, populous and rich as the city of
London..." Dacca was even more famous as a
manufacturing town, it's muslin a source of many
legends and its weavers had an international
reputation that was unmatched in the medievalworld. But in 1840 it was reported by Sir
Charles Trevelyan to a parliamentary enquiry
that Dacca's population had fallen from 150,000
to 20,000. The percentage of population
dependant on agriculture and pastoral pursuits
actually rose to 73% in 1921 from 61% in 1891.
In 1854, Sir Arthur Cotton writing in Public
Works in India noted: "Public works have been
almost entirely neglected throughout India...
The motto hitherto has been: 'Do nothing, have
nothing done, let nobody do anything....." John
Bright in the House of Commons on June 24, 1858
said, "The single city of Manchester, in the
supply of its inhabitants with the single
article of water, has spent a larger sum of
money than the East India Company has spent inthe fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public
works of every kind throughout the whole of its
vast dominions."
Ancient India was famous for its canal system
which controls flood water and provides
irrigation for the agriculture land. Under the
colonial rule it was destroyed because of the
lack of maintenance. In 1838 G. Thompson notedin India and the Colonies, The roads and
tanks and canals which Hindu or Mussulman
Governments constructed for the service of the
nations and the good of the country have been
suffered to fall into dilapidation; and now the
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want of the means of irrigation causes famines."
In 1858 Montgomery Martin noted in The Indian
Empire, omitted not only to initiate
improvements, but even to keep in repair the old
works upon which the revenue depended." TheReport of the Bengal Irrigation Department
Committee in 1930 reads: "In every district the
Khals (canals) which carry the internal boat
traffic become from time to time blocked up with
silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads end
highways of Eastern Bengal, and it is impossible
to overestimate the importance to the economic
life of this part of the province of maintaining
these in proper navigable order ... As regards
the revival or maintenance of minor routes, ...
practically nothing has been done, with the
result that, in some parts of the Province at
least, channels have been silted up, navigation
has become limited to a few months in the year,
and crops can only be marketed when the Khals
rise high enough in the monsoon to make
transport possible". Sir William Willcock, adistinguished hydraulic engineer, noted Not
only was nothing done to utilize and improve the
original canal system, but railway embankments
were subsequently thrown up, entirely destroying
it. Some areas, cut off from the supply of loam-
bearing Ganges water, have gradually become
sterile and unproductive, others improperly
drained, show an advanced degree of water-
logging, with the inevitable accompaniment of
malaria. Nor has any attempt been made to
construct proper embankments for the Gauges in
its low course, to prevent the enormous erosion
by which villages and groves and cultivated
fields are swallowed up each year."
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Even some serious critics of colonial rule
grudgingly grant that the British brought modern
medicine to India. A 1938 report by the
International Labor Office on Industrial Labor
in India revealed that life expectancy in Indiawas barely 25 years in 1921 and had actually
fallen to 23 in 1931. Mike Davis noted in Late
Victorian Holocausts that life expectancy fell
by 20% between 1872 and 1921. Infant mortality
in Bombay was 255 per thousand in 1928.
Several Indians when confronted with such data
from the colonial period argue that the British
should not be specially targeted because India's
problems of poverty pre-date colonial rule, and
in any case, were exacerbated by rapid
population growth. Of course, no one who makes
the first point is able to offer any substantive
proof that such conditions prevailed long before
the British arrived, and to counter such an
argument would be difficult in the absence of
reliable and comparable statistical data fromearlier centuries. But some readers may find the
anecdotal evidence intriguing. In any case, the
population growth data is available and is quite
remarkable in what it reveals.
Some people believe that the poverty and famine
caused during colonial rule was partly caused by
population growth. But in reality the population
growth in India was less half o that in Europe.Between 1870 and 1910, India's population grew
at an average rate of 19%. Average population
growth in the same period in Europe was 45%. In
the first half of the 19th century, there were
seven famines leading to a million and a half
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deaths. In the second half, there were 24
famines (18 between 1876 and 1900) causing over
20 million deaths (as per official records). W.
Digby, noted in Prosperous British India in
1901 that "stated roughly, famines andscarcities have been four times as numerous,
during the last thirty years of the 19th century
as they were one hundred years ago, and four
times as widespread." In Late Victorian
Holocausts, Mike Davis points out that here
were 31(thirty one) serious famines in 120 years
of British rule compared to 17(seventeen) in the
2000 years before British rule. The export of
food grains had increased by a factor of four
just prior to that period. And export of other
agricultural raw materials had also increased in
similar proportions. Land that once produced
grain for local consumption was converted to
plantations for the cultivation of lucrative
cash crops exclusively for export. Even during
the famine years the British colonial rulers
continued to export food grains from India toBritain.
Annual British Government reports repeatedly
published data that showed 70-80% of Indians
were living on the margin of subsistence. This
is in contrast with the following accounts of
Indian life prior to colonization. Tavernier
wrote in Travels in India about 17th century
India, ....even in the smallest villages rice,
flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables,
sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in
abundance .... Manouchi, chief physician to
Aurangzeb (17th century) wrote: "Bengal is of
all the kingdoms of the Moghul, best known in
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demolition work was to begin, news from London
indicated that the first auction had not been a
success, and that all further sales were
cancelled -- it would not be worth the money to
tear down the Taj Mahal. Thus the Taj Mahal wasspared.
Perhaps the most important aspect of colonial
rule was the transfer of wealth from India to
Britain. In his pioneering book, India Today,
Rajni Palme Dutt conclusively demonstrates how
vital this was to the Industrial Revolution in
Britain. Several patents that had remained
unfunded suddenly found industrial sponsors once
the taxes from India started rolling in. Without
capital from India, British banks would have
found it impossible to fund the modernization of
Britain that took place in the 18th and 19th
centuries.
In addition, the scientific basis of the
industrial revolution was not a uniquelyEuropean contribution. Several civilizations had
been adding to the world's scientific database -
especially the civilizations of Asia, (including
those of the Indian sub-continent). Without that
aggregate of scientific knowledge the scientists
of Britain and Europe would have found it
impossible to make the rapid strides they made
during the period of the Industrial revolution.
Moreover, several of these patents, particularlythose concerned with the textile industry relied
on pre-industrial techniques perfected in the
sub-continent. In fact, many of the earliest
textile machines in Britain were unable to match
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the complexity and finesse of the spinning and
weaving machines of Dacca.
Some euro-centric authors have attempted to deny
any such linkage. They have tried to assert thatnot only was the Industrial Revolution a
uniquely British/European event - that
colonization and the phenomenal transfer of
wealth that took place was merely incidental to
its fruition. But the words of Lord Curzon still
ring loud and clear. The Viceroy of British
India in 1894 was quite unequivocal, "India is
the pivot of our Empire .... If the Empire loses
any other part of its Dominion we can survive,
but if we lose India the sun of our Empire will
have set." Lord Curzon knew fully well, the
value and importance of the Indian colony. It
was the transfer of wealth through unprecedented
levels of taxation on Indians of virtually all
classes that funded the great "Industrial
Revolution" and laid the ground for
"modernization" in Britain. As early as 1812, anEast India Company Report had stated, "The
importance of that immense empire to this
country is rather to be estimated by the great
annual addition it makes to the wealth and
capital of the Kingdom....."
Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have
been unfair - but it may be noteworthy to see
how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indiancotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%.
British imports faced duties of 2-4%. As a
result, British imports of cotton manufactures
into India increased by a factor of 50, and
Indian exports dropped to one-fourth. A similar
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