'We Should Blame Ourselves For The British Raj, Not The British', A Reply To Shashi Tharoor

I¡¯m sure most of you saw that terrific speech by Shashi Tharoor to the Oxford Union. For those few Sunday Times of India readers who didn¡¯t, I shall not summarize it. That is, assuming I have the ability, which I do not, to compress what is already a masterpiece of compression. Let me say about it only what is obvious: that it was quite superb. The Roman tutor of oratory Quintilian would have approved of Tharoor¡¯s flourishes, his humour, his lightness of touch juxtaposed with the gravity of his subject. And the cascading weight of the facts which surely (though I did not watch the response) overwhelmed those who spoke after him.

Tharoor sought reparations for the Raj. These being mainly moral reparations, yes, but coming out of a conviction that the Raj was a very bad thing.

I went on a TV show on Friday (handicapped greatly by my Surat accent going up against the crispness of Tharoor¡¯s more civilized one). I made a few points which I thought I should repeat and perhaps elaborate on. Mainly because Sunday Times of India readers probably did not watch once my mug was visible.

For me, whether the Raj was good or bad is not as important as whether it was better than what went before it. Of course it was. The British didn¡¯t come to conquer India; it was a creeping takeover facilitated and encouraged by Indians. Gujarat was relieved when the British finally protected them from the excesses of the Marathas (who still squat on Baroda) and the incompetence of the Mughal rump. It was the Oswal Jains who financed and executed Robert Clive¡¯s win at Plassey. They did so because the Mughal governors there were in power but incapable of leading them, even if they were not foreign.

Clive of India. Image: BBC

Tharoor says that Clive looted India. True. But he also stabbed himself (with his pen-knife I understand) in the throat because of his guilt. I wish that fate for not a few of those who looted us after him. But forget that.

Tharoor touches upon the Indian contribution to the world wars as an instance where Britain owes us. The Indian sacrifices at Gallipoli, Monte Cassino and all the rest of it. I am frankly bored by the great stories of these noble contributions.

The fact is that the Indian army has historically been an army of mercenaries that became a national army overnight on August 15, 1947. It has zero history of fighting for national causes, only ever for money. Herodotus describes the clothing and weaponry of an Indian contingent in Greece hired by the Persians against the Athenians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. A century later Alexander fought and massacred mercenaries in Punjab, according to Arrian.

General Dyer

The Jats and Marathas rode to battle for whoever paid them, as did the Rajputs. And why go back that far? General Dyer only ordered the firing at Jallianwala Bagh. Aim was taken and triggers pulled by the Gurkha Rifles and the Baloch Regiment.

If the British failed to govern India well it is because India is ungovernable. They did as good a job as might be expected of colonialists and have little to apologize for. Under the British, India¡¯s population quadrupled for the first time in the 19th century (having only doubled each century before that according to the economist Angus Maddison). That is in my opinion purely down to Pax Britannica, the peace ensured by the Raj¡¯s monopoly over violence. All Indians should be forced to read Sir Jadunath Sarkar¡¯s four-volume history of the century between Aurangzeb¡¯s death and the final defeat of the Marathas. Mother India was weeping and wounded when she went into the arms of Victoria.

India¡¯s share of the world¡¯s economy went down in the period of British rule, as Tharoor points out, but that was not because money was sucked out of it. We had a large share of the global economy in the age when all economies were agrarian and depended on the productivity of individual farmers.

forquignon.com

Europe went to a different level in that period, particularly England after the Restoration and the forming of the Royal Society and the genius of Boyle, Hooke, Newton and all the rest of it. We remained where we were, and that is why it isn¡¯t very different today, not because of the flaws in the Congress and the BJP.

Personally speaking, I would much rather these two parties compensate Punjabis and Gujaratis for slaughtering them in 1984 and 2002 than petition the English for their crimes of a century ago. No statute of limitations bars us from that.

The fault is not in our stars, dear Shashi, but in ourselves. Notice how awkward is my attempt at introducing rhetorical flourish into this argument.

Tharoor¡¯s, on the other hand, was a brilliant performance. A tour de force, acknowledged even by the finest public speaker of our time, the prime minister. It was rhetorical and oratorial ability of the first rank. Shame about the content.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

(Originally published in The Times Of India | Images for representative purposes)