The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari
has said that the author rightly points out that British rule in India was
effectively and regularly supplemented by “famine, forced migration and
brutality” - the ‘three examples of why British rule over India was despotic
and anything but enlightened’. He was addressing the gathering after releasing
the book ‘An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India’ authored by Dr.
Shashi Tharoor, here today.
The Vice President said that Shri Tharoor has penned
an interesting and engaging account of a period whose shadow on modern India
remains disturbingly relevant. The book recalls in some detail the misdeeds of
the British in looting India and making it suffer an agonizing and violent
death, he added.
The Vice President said that the economic
deprivation was one aspect of the colonial rule and more serious was its impact
on the minds of the subjugated and on the totality of their existence. A set of
questions do need to be raised like how did the British succeed in enslaving
India with such ease, was there an India as a cohesive entity and did these
lead to active or passive resistance, he added.
Following is the text of Vice
President’s address:
“Shri
Tharoor has penned an interesting and engaging account of a period whose shadow
on modern India remains disturbingly relevant.
The
last sentence in the book extols the benefits of a rear view mirror. The book
does just that and recalls in some detail the misdeeds of the British in
looting India and making it suffer an agonizing and violent death. The process
was comprehensively traced a century earlier by Romesh Dutt in his Economic
History of India Under the Early British Rule.
Economic
deprivation was one aspect of the colonial rule. More serious was its impact on
the minds of the subjugated and on the totality of their existence. This was
summed up by a colonial administrator, Sir Thomas Munro: “he who loses his
liberty loses half his virtue. The enslaved nation loses the privileges of a
nation as the slave does those of a free man; it loses the privilege of taxing
itself, of making its own laws, of having any share in their administration, or
in the general governance of the country.”
A
set of questions do need to be raised:
·
How
did the British succeed in enslaving India with such ease?
·
Was
there an India as a cohesive entity or a set of disparate territorial entities
oblivious to wider processes underway?
·
Did
these lead to active or passive resistance? Was there any social, intellectual
or ideological awareness about these changes?
An
answer to the second question, perhaps, helps understand the process by which
the British succeeded. A European scholar, writing in the year 1853, addressed
it and analyzed the ground reality: “The paramount power of the Great
Moghuls was broken by the Moghul Viceroys. The power of the Viceroys was broken
by the Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans, and
while all were struggling against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to
subdue them all.”
We
need to accept that there was, in that initial period, no India politically or
emotionally. The encroachment by the East India Company was piecemeal, and
resentment or resistance was per force local. It often took the shape of
peasant uprisings motivated by economic deprivation of severe character often
inflicted through physical brutality or ethnic prosecution. It was at times led
by local landlords. Some of these conflicts involved large numbers but
organized military confrontations, of the type with Tipu Sultan of Mysore, were
the exception. Nevertheless, these popular resistance movements continued for
almost a century.
The
timeline of the progress of British control, and Indian resistance to it, tells
its story – battle of Plassey 1757; Sannyasi Rebellion in north Bengal 1763;
battle of Buxar 1764; battle of Srirangapatna 1799; the last battle with
Marathas 1818-19; the first war of independence 1857.
What
was the process of awakening in terms of perceptions? In 1803 the theologian
Shah Abdul Aziz of Delhi proclaimed: “Our country has been enslaved. The
struggle for independence to put an end to this slavery is our duty.” This
conditioned Muslim perceptions till well after 1857. In Bengal, the presence of
the foreigner induced Rammohan Roy’s introspections to “to reexamine the
presuppositions of his own society” and initiate a reformation in the second
and third decade of the 19th century. Demand for freedom of press
followed. Alongside, resentment to foreign rule developed and culminated in the
upheaval of 1857 that shook the British rule to its foundations. It is another
matter that it failed in the face of superior military technology and
organization.
After
the travails of 1857, good sections of our people (particularly the feudal and
affluent classes) responded to the British policy of cooption and reconciled
themselves, partially or wholly, to aspects of British rule. They also
developed newer methods of dissent and protest. Apart from political activities
within permissible limits and occasional resort to individual and group acts of
violence against the state, activists resorted to the pen, particularly
satirical poetry, often in Urdu.
Khaichon
na kamanon ko na talwaar nikalo
Jab
top muqabil ho to akhbaar nikalo.
Some
years back the National Archives published a collection of poems that were
confiscated by government for being seditious. One of these, bearing the
caption ‘Khoon-e-Shaheedan’ opened with a telling verse:
Naheen
mit-ta nishan-e-khoon kabhi damaan-e-qatil se
Likhi
jati hai ek tehreer-e-khoonin khoon-e-bismil se
Chapters
4 and 5 dwell on the methodology by which divide et empera was
implemented. The author rightly points out that it was effectively and
regularly supplemented by “famine, forced migration and brutality” – the ‘three
examples of why British rule over India was despotic and anything but
enlightened.”
But
is this not the story of all colonial and imperial ventures in history?
Jai
Hind.”
***
KSD/BK