Equipped with acuity and articulation, Shashi Tharoor’s new book shows how the legacy of India’s colonisers still influences the nation, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
Eminent politician and author of several books, Shashi Tharoor, recently launched his newest book that delves deeper into Indian colonial history. Published by Aleph Book Company, the idea for
An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India was derived from a speech that Tharoor delivered at the Oxford Union in 2015. The speech had gone viral across digital platforms clocking over three million hits within days.
With perception, meticulous detailing, enlightening referencing and his quintessential wit, Tharoor narrates the detrimental era of the Raj. The book details the exploits of the colonisers, about how they drained the then rich country’s national resources to Britain.
Contradicting Empire apologists, Tharoor condemns how Britain’s Industrial Revolution rose through the destruction of India’s thriving manufacturing industries: Textile, shipping and steel-making, to name a few. Besides damaging the natural reserves and agriculture that the country produced, India’s share of the world economy fell from 23 per cent in the beginning of the 18th century to just 3 per cent by the British left the country. The share of industry in India’s GDP, on the other hand, rose to 7.5 per cent from 3.8 only after the British had left.
For any notions that uphold the British as the ones who brought political freedom, legal reforms, infrastructure, the English language or cricket to India, the author argues that they were benefits showered upon the rulers as opposed to the ruled. The increased imports of British consumer items deeply damaged local industries. These industries — handicraftsmen, fine silk and muslin weavers, luxury good makers — had hitherto catered to the Indian aristocracy.
The book also brings forth issues that imperialism caused but continue to affect contemporary India, specially rural India. For instance, the British ran zamindari system took a toll on numerous underprivileged villagers long after the imperial era was over. Feudal mindset and caste atrocities continue to haunt the psyche of Indians. Caste awareness and atrocities too accelerated during the time of the British rule. The British also became the biggest beneficiaries of the army and the civil service.
Tharoor writes how India’s labour and commercial skills cemented there imperial expansion. The civil service was the highest paid in the world and the British did not leave the opportunity to reap its benefits. The colonial hangover continues till date and the civil service sector is not only a rage today but ironically, is also said to be one of the most corrupted sectors in the country.
Tharoor also writes in detail about how the gap between Hindus and Muslims expanded during the imperial era. The British followed the divide and rule policy and both communities fell prey to their strategy, more so after the First War of Independence (1857-58). One startling incident in the context is that when the British tried to partition Bengal in 1905, the Nawab of Dhaka vehemently opposed it, calling it beastly. Subsequently, when the British offered him 100,000 pounds, that is all that took for him to change his stance. And Bengal was thus partitioned on grounds of religious differences.
At the launch of the book in the presence of Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Tharoor also brought up the topic of modern Britain’s unapologetic demeanour about its ancestors’ inhuman past. He argued that Britain projected to the Western world, that the British Empire in India was an altruistic manifestation or a messiah of progress. Contemporary Britain is perhaps not even aware of how a nation of over a billion people still suffers because of the colonial past that cannot be undone. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened in 1919. Tharoor wonders if a British Prime Minister would have the spirit to get on his or her knees next year (on its 100th year) and beg for forgiveness from the Indians. It is getting late for atonement, he says, yet mentions that it is still not too late.
The legacy of the British rule does not end there. Denying transgender rights, criminalising homosexuality and sedition are a few of their era’s products as well. The scars that the colonial era has left on the psyche of the nation are too deep to be utterly removed.
But at the same time it is pertinent to share information about what the colonisers did to the country among the current generation so that we could collaborate to repair what needs to be fixed. As Tharoor emphasises in the book, we have already lost 200 years that could have taken us to the zenith of industrialisation and modernisation.
In this post-modern era, where technology has already replaced manual labour to a large extent, we need the clarity of mind to compete with the global superpowers. Sharp political mind, awareness about the nation’s past, and substantiated articulation are what could come to our rescue now.
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