British Raj

"One of their [Britain] great bases is Iran, Irak and Syria. That's where their fleet takes on supplies. The other is the Malay archipelago, where they're losing all their refueling -points for oil. They can trumpet abroad their intentions concerning Europe, but they know very well that it's the possession of India on which the existence of their Empire depends."

"The Raj did bring benefits to the Indian people, and its importance to the successor states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh...cannot be overstated. Whether they like the fact or not, these countries are what they are now because they were once governed by Britain and brought directly into contact with British ideas, values, learning and technology. The process of exposure and absorption was slow and uneven; old faiths, customs and habits of mind proved remarkably durable, and outlasted a Raj which lacked either the capacity or will to uproot them. There were enduring features of British rule, too. Attachment to the democratic idea remains strong in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh... [T]here is a consciousness of what constitutes good and honest administration, and the periodic outbursts against corruption in all three countries are a reflection that their people judge their officials by standards laid down during British rule."

"Any balance sheet of the Raj would not be complete without reference to its public utilities. When it ended, the sub-continent possessed what today would be called a communications "infrastructure" which included over 40,000 miles of railways... Enormous headway has been made in education by the successor states, but it could not have been achieved without foundations laid down during the Raj, and the same holds true in public health. Likewise, the criminal and civil law codes of the entire sub-continent are a legacy of the Raj."

"[A]lthough their arguments were grounded in British political and legal philosophies, men like Gandhi and Nehru possessed distinctly Indian qualities. Here lay their immense strength: they could reason with their rulers in terms the latter understood and simultaneously appeal to the Indian masses. And yet, and this is perhaps the greatest irony of the Raj, both men argued passionately for the preservation of India's integrity, something which was a direct result of British rule. It is of course right and proper that Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah should be revered as national heroes, but it should not be forgotten that each in his way was a product of political and intellectual traditions which had been imparted into their country by the British. Quite simply the Raj cannot be disinvented. It happened, and its consequences, from a passion for cricket to a faith in democracy, remain deeply rooted in Indian soil."

"The British came to India primarily as traders but ultimately succeeded in carving out a strong empire in India. During their rule of over two centuries, they brought about far-reaching changes in the economic system of India. They completely destroyed the isolationist and self-sufficing character of the village;…"

"We did not conquer India for the benefit of the Indians. I know that it is said at missionary meetings that we have conquered India to raise the level of the Indians. That is cant. We conquered India as an outlet for the goods of Great Britain. We conquered India by the sword, and by the sword we shall hold it."

"The rulers whom we supplanted were, like ourselves, aliens and usurpers. We found the Hindoos a conquered people, and, little by little, we substituted one yoke for another."

"The ideal of a harmonious, stable, communitarian Hindu India living in a state of contentment until disrupted by Moslem invasions and British colonialism is a component of Hindutva ideology, labor history in India must be examined as a related activity."

"The British exploited differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the sub‐continent, creating deep resentments and divisions that persist today due to the 1947 Partition. Similarly, differences between the Hutus and Tutsis that led to the Rwandan genocide were created and exploited by Belgian colonizers."

"Then I remember, we went on over to Westminster Abbey. And I thought about several things when we went into this great church, this great cathedral, the center of the Church of England. We walked around and went to the tombs of the kings and queens buried there. Most of the kings and queens of England are buried right there in the Westminster Abbey. And I walked around. On the one hand I enjoyed and appreciated the great gothic architecture of that massive cathedral. I stood there in awe thinking about the greatness of God and man’s feeble attempt to reach up for God. And I thought something else. I thought about the Church of England. My mind went back to Buckingham Palace, and I said that this is the symbol of a dying system. There was a day that the queens and kings of England could boast that the sun never sets on the British Empire. A day when she occupied the greater portion of Australia, the greater portion of Canada. There was a day when she ruled most of China, most of Africa, and all of India. I started thinking about this empire. I started thinking about the fact that she ruled over India one day. Mahatma Gandhi stood there at every hand, trying to get the freedom of his people. And they never bowed to it. They never, they decided that they were going to stand up and hold India in humiliation and in colonialism many, many years. I remember we passed by 10 Downing Street. That’s the place where the prime minister of England lives. And I remember that a few years ago a man lived there by the name of Winston Churchill. One day he stood up before the world and said, “I did not become his Majesty’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”"

"I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa. And how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year, they are living very well they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire. All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system. The Church of England sanctioned it. The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England. But something else came to my mind. God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, “And if you don’t do that, I will take charge.” It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear Him speaking throughout the universe, saying, “‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power. And your power will be no more!” And the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, “The sun never sets on our great Empire.” And I say now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire. Because it was based on exploitation. Because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand."

"India's achievements were also very great. Her soldiers lie with ours in all the theatres of war, and no Britisher can ever forget the gallantry and promptitude with which she sprang forward to the King Emperor's service when war was declared. That is no small tribute both to India and to the Empire of which India is a part. The causes of the War were unknown to India; its theatre in Europe was remote. Yet India stood by her allegiance heart and soul, from the first call to arms and some of her soldiers are still serving far from their homes and families in the common cause. India's loyalty in that great crisis is eloquent to me of the Empire's success in bridging the civilisations of East and West, in reconciling wide differences of history, of tradition and of race, and in bringing the spirit and the genius of a great Asiatic people into willing co-operation with our own. Important changes have been effected in India this year, and India is making rapid strides towards the control of her own affairs. She has also proved her right to a new status in our councils; that status she gained during the War, and she has maintained it during the peace, and I welcome the representatives of India to our great Council of the Empire today."

"What were those practical difficulties? The first was that never in the history of India had India or any part of it, any of its many peoples and nations, ever enjoyed the slightest measure of democratic self-government until 1919. The second is that 95 per cent. of the population is illiterate. What is the third? That there are as many different races, nationalities and languages in India as there are in the whole of Europe. To talk about India as a unit, as if it were one people, is to display an ignorance of the elementary facts of the case. There has never been unity in India except under the rule of a conqueror."

"It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government, that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert or to retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history."

"The official history of the freedom movement starts with the premises that India lost indendence only in the eighteenth century and had thus an experience of subjection to a foreign power for only two centuries. Real history, on the other hand, teaches us that the major part of India lost independence about five centuries before, and merely changed masters in the eighteenth century."

"Cambridge University established a prize named for an essay competition on the topic: 'The best means of civilizing the subjects of the British Empire in India, and of diffusing the light of the Christian religion throughout the eastern world.'"

"Indeed, when I turn my eyes either to the present condition or ancient grandeur of that country, when I contemplate the magnificence of her structures, her spacious reservoirs, constructed at an immense expense, pouring fertility and plenty over the land, the monuments of a benevolence expanding its cares over remote ages, when I survey the solid and embellished architecture of her temples, the elaborate and exquisite skiU of her manufactures and fabrics, her literature sacred and profane, her gaudy and enamelled pottery on which a wild and prodigal fancy has lavished all its opulence, when I turn to the philosophers lawyers and moralists who have left the oracles of political and ethical wisdom to restrain the passions and to awe the vices which disturb the commonwealth, when I look at the peaceful and harmonious alliances of families, guarded and secured by the household virtues, when I see amongst a cheerful and well-ordered society, the benignant and softening influence of religion and morality, a system of manners founded on a mild and polished obeisance and preserving the surface of social life smooth and unruffled — I cannot hear without surprise mingled with horror, of sending out Baptists and Anabaptists to civilize or convert such a people at the hazard of disturbing or deforming institutions which appear to have hitherto been the means ordained by Providence of making them virtuous and happy."

"England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution."

"British India... was as much infected by caste as Indian India."

"There were certain unwritten rules in the Punjab service. There must be no hesitation. Show a bold front, take the offensive at once, a blow in time saves nine — that was the first commandment. And the second, supplementing it, was this; because the junior must not wait for support, the senior must back him up. With confidence, one can rule a million. Every officer must be sure he will be supported."

"No one in the average rural district could picture a party system and an opposition which might one day be the government. No one therefore could separate in his thoughts the government of the moment, the actual human government which made plenty of mistakes, from the ideal of government, the principle of law and order as opposed to anarchy. Opposition to the ruler in the traditional systems of India, whether Hindu or Muslim, is a crime and a much more serious crime than gang robbery. No one could understand why the English had suddenly become so tolerant of one form of crime, and it occurred to some people that it might be worth an experiment or two in other kinds."

"The India of the Raj stood forth as a model, not only for the empire, but for Britain itself."

"[W]hen you say that "if reforms do not save the Raj nothing else will" I am afraid I must utterly disagree. The Raj will not disappear in India as long as the British race remains what it is, because we shall fight for the Raj as hard as we have ever fought, if it comes to fighting, and we shall win as we have always won."

"Just as Portuguese rule had given a great simplicity to the history of Goa, so British rule gave a direction to later Indian history and made it easier to grasp. Events, at a certain stage, could be seen to be leading up to British rule; and, thereafter, events could be seen leading to the end of that rule. To read of events in India before the coming of the British is like reading of many pieces of unfinished business; it is to read of a condition of flux, of things partly done and then partly undone, matters more properly the subject of annals rather than narrative history, which works best when it deals with great things being built up or pulled down."

"The spread of tension between Hindus and Muslims in turn, became a key legitimating factor for continuing British power in India. From the well-worn argument of colonialism’s ‘‘civilizing mission,’’ the new justification became one of ‘‘defense of the minorities.’’ In reality, however, minority interests were protected only to the extent that they served imperial power. To quote Lord Olivier in 1926 ‘‘No one with a close acquaintance with Indian affairs will be prepared to deny that, on the whole, there is a predominant bias in British officialdom in India in favour of the Muslim community, partly on the ground of closer sympathy, but more largely as a make-weight against Hindu nationalism.’’"

"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency."

"Patel's presidential address to the Congress, 1931: No one would die of starvation in independent India. Its grain would not be exported. Cloth would not be imported by it. Its leaders would neither use a foreign language nor rule from a remote place 7,000 feet above sea level. Its military expenditure would not be heavy. Its army would not subjugate its own people or other lands. Its best-paid officials would not earn a great deal more than its lowest-paid servants. And finding justice in it would be neither costly nor difficult."

"The native is to be treated as a child and denied franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa."

"Conquest is very rarely an evil when conquerors are more civilised than the people conquered, because they bring to them the advantages of civilisation. Many years of English domination will be necessary before India will be able to resume her political independence without losing much."

"I am afraid a mistake was made by Lord Macaulay and others in the direction they gave to educational efforts in India. Popular education would have enabled the millions to raise themselves a little out of their extreme poverty. The University education only manufactures a redundant supply of candidate for the liberal professions in a country where the demand is small, and as a by-product turns out a formidable array of seditious article-writers."

"As to action the matter is simple: India is held by the sword: and its rulers must in all essentials be guided by the maxims which benefit the Government of the sword."

"It was time to put a stop to the growing idea that England ought to pay tribute to India as a kind of apology for having conquered her: & you have done it effectively."

"The vast multitudes of India I thoroughly believe are well contented with our rule. They have changed masters so often that there is nothing humiliating to them in having gained a new one."

"Speaking generally, I am desirous to push forward the argument from the interests of the people more than has hitherto been done. As I have said, I consider it to be our true rule and measure of action, and our observance of it is the one justification for our presence in India."

"If England is to remain supreme, she must be able to appeal to the coloured against the white, as well to the white against the coloured. It is therefore not merely as a matter of sentiment and of justice, but as a matter of safety, that we ought to try and lay the foundation of some feeling on the part of coloured races towards the crown other than the recollection of defeat and the sensation of subjection."

"Mohammedanism has the only organization and pretty nearly the only ambition hostile to us that is left in India."

"As India must be bled the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested or at least sufficient, not to those (the agricultural people) which are already feeble from the want of it."

"Sahebji, I am sorry I have been misunderstood. Forgive me for what I am being forced to say. The reference to freedom of speech was made by me in a specific context. It was not at all my intention to uphold the British usurpation of my country. Make no mistake. I consider the British Raj to be a curse. I stand for svarãjya [self-rule]."

"There is no doubt that our grievances against the British Empire had a sound basis for. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income."

"Legitimization of the colonial state became bound up with the intertwining of archaeology, anthropology and the Aryan theory of linguistic and racial origins."

"It is commonly said that it was the Mahomedans whom the British displaced as rulers in India. This is true only in a restricted sense. It would be nearer the truth to say that it was the Mahrattas in the main, whom we displaced."

"There are countries with an extensive Asiatic Empire, who, faced by political activity of a kind that in India has long been accepted as mild and entirely constitutional, promptly shoot and hang it out of existence, and inform the outside world that it was "communism". If you call a thing communism, you can do what you like to it, and get away with it. (American Women's Clubs, which have suffered much distress by the spectacle of England's wickedness, never vex themselves about these other Colonial Empires.) The Indian Government, faced by murderous organisations, prosecutes their members anachronistically, for such crimes as "proposing to wage war against the King-Emperor", "seeking to deprive the King-Emperor of his sovereignty over India"... It has invented a form of martyrdom which is mostly garlands for its more distinguished practitioners."

"Britain has become heir to the monuments of Indraprastha raised by the descendants of Budha and Ila; to the iron pillar of the Pandavas, "whose pedestal[20] [32] is fixed in hell"; to the columns reared to victory, inscribed with characters yet unknown; to the massive ruins of its ancient continuous cities, encompassing a space still larger than the largest city in the world, whose mouldering domes and sites of fortresses,[21] the very names of which are lost, present a noble field for speculation on the ephemeral nature of power and glory. What monument would Britain bequeath to distant posterity of her succession to this dominion? Not one: except it be that of a still less perishable nature, the monument of national benefit. Much is in our power: much has been given, and posterity will demand the result."

"He spoke very bitterly of the attempts of the English and Mohammedans to civilize the country by the bayonet and fire and sword. English civilization was composed of the three "B's" - Bible, bayonet, and brandy. "That is civilization, and it has been carried to such an extent that the average income of a Hindu is 50 cents a month. Russia is outside, saying. 'Let's civilize a little,' and England goes on and on.""

"Our nations have mutually destroyed each other on that very soil where we went to collect nothing but money, and where the first Greeks travelled for nothing but knowledge."