Sometime back, an international painting competition under the title of Queen of Democracy was announced to paint portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. In it, Britain was described as the Mother of Democracies and the Queen as the living example of equality and the custodian of democracy. These titles are quite inept from the sub continental perspective. The British monarchs starting from George II, who ascended the throne in 1727 up to George VI, who was coronated in 1937 and was Elizabeths immediate predecessor, ruled over India, first indirectly, through the East India Trading Company, and later, directly, after the Indian War of Independence in 1857. During the two centuries, the British neither practised equality nor democracy in the sub continent. On the contrary, India was forcibly colonised, its people brutally suppressed, its resources exploited and its riches plundered for the sole benefit of the Englishmen in Britain.
In spite of such a horrendous record, if we, even today, look at the British rule as benign and benevolent, it is because we have no true sense of history. I have used the word true because the most authentic and original works of history consulted to study this colonial period were penned down by our colonial masters.
Naturally, they manufactured such history that glorified them and smirched the natives of India. Just consider a few examples in this regard. Warren Hastings, one of the governor generals was tried on a charge of abusing his office and committing unworthy actions but among other historians, two respected historical authorities presented him as a hero. The fifth volume of the redoubtable The Cambridge History of India published in 1929 censures what it calls inflicting most unmerited suffering on one of the greatest Englishmen of his time. Similarly, Winston Churchill in A History of the English-speaking Peoples stated that Posterity has redeemed his [Hastings] name from the slurs. Even the oft-quoted liberal British historian George Macaulay, to quote Marx has falsified British history in the interests of the Whigs and the bourgeoisie.
The British historians deliberately created several myths such as the myth of British peace to camouflage the reactionary nature of British administration in India. It is nothing more than a shameless lie. The craftier like Churchill totally deny any British imperialist designs against India by arguing that to call this process imperialist expansion is nonsense, if by that is meant the deliberate acquisition of political power. Of India it has been well said that the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind. In fact, the opposite is true.
The historian J Seeley has boldly admitted in The expansion of England that the British trade in India in the 17th and 18th centuries inevitably led to war on which Britain thrived. Moreover, during a hundred years from the mid 18th to the mid 19th century not only that the British waged incessant wars inside India but they also used the Indian territory as well as the Indian soldiers to launch their predatory military campaigns against Nepal, Burma, Afghanistan, Ceylon, Iran, China and Egypt. Neither these wars were fought for the interests of Indians nor for the defence of India. On the contrary, the Indian soldiers were merely the cannon fodder because the British imperialists held that since our Queen is now the Empress of India, these people are obliged to fight for us.
The classical British historians such as R Coupland, P Griffiths, Maurice and Taya Zinkin wrote masterly fabrications to justify the British war-madness. Governor General Wellesleys war was termed as a struggle against Napoleonic France; invasions of Marathas territories were called the wars against plunderers; and the annexation of the princely states such as Oudh was justified on the grounds of bad administration. Somewhat similar fantastic reasons were arrogated by these colonial historians to justify other military occupations by the British. For instance, it is said that the Punjab was annexed to end anarchy on the borders; the Afghan wars and the occupation of Sindh were caused by the fear of Russia; and Burma was annexed for the sake of British prestige because the Burmese had showed inadequate respect to the British authorities.
Yet another case of predatory British instincts was the wars waged against Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in southern India because he had refused to submit to the colonist diktats.The colonial historians, C Carrington, in particular, portrayed this conflict as a praiseworthy British attempt to restore the throne of Mysore to the legitimate Hindu dynasty. The implied meaning in such history writing is to portray Tipu Sultan as a villain and a usurper, who was hated by the Hindus, and to paint the wanton British aggression as beneficial to convert south India into a happy land. This historical construction is fallacious on two counts: one, had Tipu been an unpopular leader, the wars against Mysore would not have lasted for two decades? Two, Tipu enjoyed the support of the Hindus as well because the wars that he fought against the British were widely supported by both the Hindus and the Muslims.
No account of British imperialism in India can be complete without a mention of Lord Clives conquest of Bengal after the battle of Plassey in 1757. Again, the reactionary historians unashamedly claim that after Clives seizure, Bengal entered upon a phase of peace and prosperity and completely ignore the fact that he was an extortionist whose motto of life was Money! Money! And no time to be lost! Historians like H Furber cover up his rapacious acts by terming them as regular and lawful trade policy of East India Company or as P Spear explained them away as the accepted standards of time and the everyday life of the employees of the Company, whereas in actuality, his activities were plain acts of robbery. Clive was a representative of the British mercantile capitalist class about which Marx quite aptly commented that Merchants capital, when it holds a position of dominance stands everywhere for a system of robbery.
More than anything, the history of British in India was a tragic episode of unnecessary wars prompted by insatiable greed for plunder. Under no circumstances could these be condoned but praise be to the master British historians, the likes of which include R Coupland, who justified the whole bloody drama played upon the Indians by a statement that empires are not built with kid gloves, and India proved no exception. This was the inevitable result, human nature being what it is, of power without responsibility.
The writer is an academic and journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]
