Shashi Tharoor (2017), Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, London: Hurst and Co
Sunaina Karki
Inglorious Empire: What British did to India is a sharp and fast-paced book written by an Indian politician, a former senior United Nations official and renowned novelist Shashi Tharoor. Best known for his book The Great Indian Novel, Tharoor has bagged several literary awards which include Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and several other prestigious titles. Published in 2017 by Hurst and Co, London Inglorious Empire is his seventeenth contribution encompassing eight different chapters, each placed alongside his insightful review on various aspects of colonialism in India. Initially published under the title “The Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India” in 2016 by Aleph book company New Delhi, India, the book name “Inglorious Empire”: What British did to India has been directed for the British Market. Following his intense Oxford Union Debate back in summer of 2015, on whether Britain should pay reparations to its former colonies, which concluded on his favor arguing that Britain should, Inglorious Empire is the substantive version of that speech and Tharoor’s attempt on expanding the arguments that he made at Oxford.
“Inglorious Empire: What British did to India” is aacute account of 200 years of British rule in India and British imperialism. The thorough records of the history that center diverse sources into a rational analysis of colonialism in the milieu of India, Inglorious Empire, voices the factual story of the British in India, from the influx of the East India Company in 1757 A.D to the end of the Raj. This two hundred thirteen-page long book attempts on demolishing some of the obstinate myths about “Britain’s allegedly civilizing mission in India”. Tharoor in his book charts the annihilation of pre-colonial systems of government by the British and their abundant records and the statistics that address the need to balance British imperial nostalgia with post-colonial obligations and compulsions. Hence, the book undeniably provides its readers with a deeper awareness and separates the ills of the British Empire from diverse outlooks.
With much of the attention devoted on as how the British ransacked and looted India before consuming it’s all sort of resources available, the offered figures and timelines in the very beginning of the book gives the readers a brief overview on how British during their rule in India was concerned only with their progression, fortune, and supremacy. Tharoor in his book divides the history of British Occupation in eight distinct chapters, keeping its reader rooted to the dominant theme of Colonialism and their harsh tyranny throughout their rule.
In his book, Tharoor denunciates the historians, greatest among them, Niall Ferguson, for being supporters of the racial discrimination, and denial of people’s rights that have been embodied by centuries of British rule in India.
Tharoor, not only factually aware the readers with the circumstances of that time, but also fits them in present-day value to proclaim the extent of loot and destruction that was done to India as a colonized country. At the very beginning of the 18th century, India’s stake of the global economy was 23 percent – the magnitude of all of Europe joint, yet at the very end of nearly 200 years of British rule, (initially under the proto-multinational corporation “East India Company” and then later at 1858, direct governance by the British crown), India’s stake had plunged to just over 3 percent, resulting the measured devastation of booming home-grown industries by the British. Since ‘the British had no intention of imparting democracy to Indians’, Tharoor claims, ‘it is a bit rich’ for the British for trying to take the credit of the fact that India is now the world’s largest democracy.
Shashi Tharoor in his book recalls all of this started as a mildly profitable initiative, in 1600, the British East India Company was formed under royal charter to contend with colonial rivals. By the end of the century, however, they were tired, alienated, and overstretched. In 1857, after Hindu and Muslim rebels joined in a bloody revolt, India came under direct rule from London, and the company was eventually dissolved. The new Raj survived two World Wars and the Great Depression, extending British rule for another 90 years until Gandhi’s Freedom movement triumphed in 1947, notwithstanding at the terrible cost of Partition.
In one of his chapters, Tharoor credibly contradicts the belief of the British role in uniting India; he mentions that the post-Moghul disintegration cannot be measured as the standard since India existed as a distinct nation spread from the Hindu Kush Mountains to Bengal for centuries. Tharoor places much of the liability on the British dogma of ‘divide and rule’. He puts forward that it was rather the British who helped in partitioning the country by promoting the Muslim League and applying the divide between two communities in all possible manners. As Herbert Risley, the architect of the partition of Bengal, admitted frankly, though not publicly, that ‘one of their main objective is to split up and thereby weaken a solid body of opponents to our rule.
When talking about the economy, according to Tharoor, the Indian currency was manipulated to British advantage, and its trade with Europe was forced to go through London. Provisions were set to ensure that Indian steel could not be exported to Britain as he puts in the book “India did not miss the bus of the Industrial Revolution – it was forcibly prevented from boarding it.”
In his book, Tharoor also recognizes the genuine efforts of many British colonials to amend the harsh realities of colonial rule. Nevertheless, even in the 20th century, enlightenment attitudes took second place to the desire to crush the Indian independence movement. The same people who convicted the Nehru to 10 years in British Indian jail cells also branded Gandhi’s non-violent campaign for freedom as terrorism. Also, even the newspapers that alerted the public to such biases, particularly the vernacular press, were often censored or shut down.
The author estimates British colonial rule killed 35 million Indians over recurring famines comparing it to the historic scale of mass murderers, where Stalin ranks at 20 million, Mao at 15 million and Hitler at 6 million. He criticizes Winston Churchill, who embezzled food grain during the infamous 1943 Bengal famine, resulting in five million deaths. He also highlights Churchill’s response to this situation saying.; “He scribbled in the margin of his cabinet papers, Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” Shashi Tharoor mentions about three main factors that cause such insensitivity, the first one being the Malthusian sustainable-population theory, the ‘free trade’ principle and the rigid colonial practice of forbidding humanitarian assistance as financial farsightedness. As mercy is shown could be misunderstood as softness.
Thus, the book Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor eloquently presents the ideas and facts with great persuasion connecting its readers with the very essential bit of history concerning British colonization of India and how by 1947, after two centuries, the economy had declined by six-fold and how beyond subjugation and deception, the Empire slaughtered defenseless and vulnerable activists, embedded institutionalized racism, and causing millions to die from starvation. The book has been and seeks to generate a sense of repentance in the minds of the British public in general. This might as well influence those at the helm to truly deliberate the demand of the author i.e. a public apology on the wrong doings of two centuries.
For those looking forward to reading the book, (esp. the ones new to this background) might find too many details of the Raj and the atrocities. Also, the readers might find hard to catch the flow as one gets bombarded with lots of information and making reading the book quite difficult in the very beginning. Nevertheless, the book stands out to be significant for those who are looking for a more insightful, brief and factual study of Indian history in a milieu of the British colonialism. Although, Shashi Tharoor’s brilliant take on what British did to India is not only to be read by the Indians this book has many things to offer to the non-Indians and the non-British people, undeniably helping answer and clarify the major delusions that have been existing in the minds of many.
Sunaina Karki is Research Associate at NIICE.
