The British Raj: In what ways did the British affect India.

‘The British rule was an everlasting…foreign rule that was utterly,
though gradually, destroying the country”-Dadabhai Naoroji

The Indian economy, before the British invasion, was largely a rural economy, more than 95% of Indians lived in the villages and the ones who didn’t were either the royal families, merchants or traders. We were self-sufficient people. Agriculture was the chief source of livelihood along with the textiles and spice exports. Everything was fine…that was until the British came….

August 24, 1608.

Initially the British came to India as traders through the Portuguese They came as traders in spices, cotton, coarse silk (kora) indigo dye, tea and opium. Spices were very important in Europe back then as it was used to preserve meat. They eventually started building warehouses for the goods they traded which gave them an excuse to build forts and build up armies to “protect” them. Then their interference in Indian politics allowed them to win the Diwani rights of Bengal. Later they formed subsidiary alliances and eventually imposed cultural superiority of British culture over the orient east, thus reducing India to a weak but resourceful colony.

7 years later

The British got a royal order to establish a factory at Surat under the leadership of Sir Thomas Roe, the ambassador of James I. Following this, the East India Company also got similar permission from the Vijaynagara Empire to set up their second factory at Massulipatnam. the British over the years saw a massive expansion of their trading operations in India. Numerous trading posts were established along the east and west coasts of India and considerable English communities developed around the three presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras.

20 years later

20 years later, the Company spread its presence to the East of India by setting up a factory in Kolkata. During their period as a trading company, they realized that the whole of the Indian subcontinent scattered in reality under the provincial kingdoms, That’s why they started thinking of putting all the resources together. In the 1750s, the East India Company became involved in Indian policy. The Company saw the rise of its fortunes, and its transformation from a trading venture to a ruling enterprise, when one of its military officials, Robert Clive, defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah, at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

Finally, the reign of the East India Company ended in 1858, after the independence of the First War in 1857, also referred to as the revolt of 1857. Following the dissolution of the East India Company in India, the British Crown took direct control of India to begin what is known as the British Raj.

UNDER THE BRITISH RAJ

After the world wars, the British had sent out explorers all over the world to look for potential empires which they could rule over. This was due to many reasons, one of them being the fact that all the chemicals from weapons used in the wars had left their soil infertile and unsuitable to grow anything except for ‘the peasants food the potatoes’. They also had suffered a great population decline and had lost a lot of men. They were in need of food and manpower and India became the perfect new home.

Agriculture-

Though most still lived under the umbrella of subsistence farming, the productivity was low due to the British land revenue system. There were no stagnations, but the profits went to the zamindars and in turn to the British, not to the farmers. There was a demand for cash crops as the British wanted to export them to their country, forcing farmers to grow cash crops. (A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit)This lead to mass starvations like the Bengal Famine of 1770 Thus a country that was self-sufficient in food crops and even exported them, now fell short of them.

Textiles-

There was a rumour that the British cut off the thumbs of Bengali weavers who weaved and exported the finest muslin fabric, which disappeared under colonial rule. The colonial government’s explicit goal was to de-industrialize India. They reduced India to a mere exporter of raw materials for England’s emerging industrial industries.

Trade-

Despite the fact that we were an export surplus country at the time, our trade was monopolised only by Britain. We exported raw materials and imported finished goods such as woollen and cotton clothing. The proceeds were used to keep the British government in India afloat, paying for war costs and wages for British employees. As a result, India’s wealth was drained.

Some claim that the British did infrastructure development in India by building Indian Railways, ports, water transport, post offices, telegraphs, and so on.

However, the obvious fact is that many countries have built railways without being colonised. And the railways built were primarily for the benefit of the British, as they linked important trade centres to ports, allowing the British to easily export and import goods, and roads were built to mobilise the army within India. The purpose of the posts and telegraph was to facilitate effective administration and ruling over Indians. These developments have only exacerbated India’s economic losses.

Although the British have mostly harmed us, they have also helped us in some ways.

1)Educational reforms- prior to the British invasion the literacy rate in India was 16% only and the literacy rate for females was lower than 6%

2)Social Reforms: Abolition of Sati system. Empowerment of Women. Slavery abolition, Widow Re-marriage Act, the wicked tradition of offering children as a sacrifice to please God, was banned by Governor-General Lord Hardinge

3). William Jones founded the Asiatic Society. He translated some ancient Indian works like the Manu Smriti.

4)Political reforms: The Govt of India act 1935, which acts as a major source for our present-day Constitution.

5) The Archaeological Survey of India was set up due to the efforts of Alexander Cunningham and John Marshall.

In the end, The British raj was an essential part of Indian history as we know it. For good or bad the British had to come. They left us with both pros and cons. But we must realise that the reason they could rule our country for more than 200 years was due to a lack of unity and love for our own people. We must make an effort so that history cant repeat itself and we stand as an independent, secular, accepting and strong country. And live in peace and brotherhood. :)