effects of colonization in india

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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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