India Conquered

Title: India Conquered – Britain’s Raj and the Chaos of Empire

Author: Jon Wilson

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9781471101250

Pages: 564

Now that there are numerous books on the British occupation of India that witnessed two centuries of colonial rule, any new author on the subject is burdened with having to provide a guarantee to the reader of providing at least one previously unknown fact or story in the book. On this aspect, this book is a treasure chest of new knowledge on the colonial rule. Most Indian books on the subject sing the eulogy of Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress party in ‘snatching freedom away from the British’. They typically follow a political narrative of the era. Wilson follows a refreshingly novel approach – that of the economic and social analyses. Gandhi and Nehru appear in several pages, but not more than that, which is the most deserving representation that is warranted by circumstances. This book describes the economic factors that shaped politics and the feeling of insecurity which was firmly rooted in the minds of British administrators. Wilson argues that they had no further agenda than displaying British power and obtain submission of Indian people before the Empire’s might. The British also introduced constitutional reforms that changed the way Indians governed themselves. These were slow at first, initially coming at a time when the Catholics didn't even have the vote in Britain. This book presents a continuous story of how the British conquered India and how it was forced to forego the jewel in its crown, spanning four centuries. Jon Wilson is a professor of history at King's College, London having educated at Oxford and New York. He is an expert in Indian history and has authored another book on the subject.

The English East India Company was a merchant establishment who assisted the crown in establishing a lucrative colony in India. Most historians would stop at this description but this author informs us how it was much more than a mere trading company. From the start, the company was a political body with a single stock of money to hire ships, pay soldiers and build warehouses (called factories). It was empowered to sign its own treaties with local rulers. The crown gave it monopoly on trade with all parts of Asia not in the possession of a Christian prince. At least on this point, they were not much different from the Portuguese who came to India in search of ‘Christians and spices’. When it acted, it did so with the command of the English state. The company tried to squeeze themselves into the already crowded Indian trade, with a bid to claim tax-free status. This was resented by Mughal governors. The first attempts to challenge the Mughal state ended in catastrophic disasters in 1689 in Bombay and Bengal.

Aurangzeb’s death marked the beginning of the end of the Mughal dynasty. Wilson identifies the invasion of Nadir Shah that catalysed the downfall. Nadir Shah's symbolic sovereignty over Delhi lasted only 57 days in 1739, but its aftershocks transformed Indian politics. It massively shrank the sources of Mughal power, leading to lawlessness in the provinces. Mounted warriors ransacked the countryside seeking wealth. Plunder and not negotiation became the effective tool for creating centres of wealth. Credit networks temporally disappeared, making it harder to send money. Trade collapsed and it took public finances along with it. This turned out to be a most opportune moment for the East India Company. Victories against Arcot and Mysore in the peninsula and against Siraj ud-Daula at Plassey had transformed the British from armed merchants to tax collectors. This came about by a clever change in company policy. In return for lending soldiers and money to Indian rulers, the company was entrusted with land from which the money owed to them could be recovered from the taxes accruable. Nizam of Hyderabad had to cede 30,000 square miles of territory in Andhra which was later known as the Ceded Districts.

For better or for worse, the company introduced many novel reforms that disrupted the political fabric at first, but continue to remain with us to the present day. The practice of decision making in writing inaugurated an era of hefty paperwork, but it moved decision-making away from public view in contrast to the open display of authority under the Mughals. Another crucial factor enhanced the military potential of the company. Its victories in battle were not the results of technological or tactical superiority. They were simply better at raising enough money for the campaigns through deficit financing. The company's unrivalled ability to borrow cash from global money markets ensured a reliable source in times of dire need. This was augmented with revenue collection and part of bullion borrowed from London for trade with China, but used for military purposes. It also borrowed from Indian merchants and bankers at 5 to 7 per cent of interest. Compared to this, when the Marathas ran out of cash, their soldiers ravaged the countryside to extract payment from the villagers which caused much acrimony and resentment.

British conquest of India was confirmed with the defeat of the 1857 Mutiny. Wilson follows an attitude sympathetic to Indian interests. The most brutal massacres executed by both sides were at Kanpur where 200 white women and children were killed by the mutineers and many times that many Indians were killed by the British in retaliation. Wilson ameliorates the sepoys by claiming that the killing ‘probably took place because the sepoys had become increasingly frightened about being attacked themselves‘(p.243). Justifications of this kind are way off the top. Similarly, the last Mughal emperor’s picture also gets a sympathetic brush. Wilson claims that Bahadur Shah Zafar shaped the rebel government making sure sepoy leaders were not displaced by nobles, provided moral sanction for the new regime and then tried to use his authority to direct it away from excessive violence. This is in contrast to the image drawn by other historians. Just compare it to William Dalrymple's ‘The Last Mughal’ where instances when the sepoys were disrespectful even to the physical presence of the emperor are narrated. This book examines the finer nuances of the concept of ‘Rule of Law’ implemented by the British regime. The penal code’s priority was the smooth and safe functioning of the imperial administration. Punishment for crimes against individuals was only a sidekick. Ten sections of the code dealt with ‘offences against the state’ and nineteen covered actions ‘contemptuous of public servants’, while only three sections dealt with murder and four covered other forms of culpable homicide. The strange fact is that modern India still retains them.

Wilson rewrites the official narrative of Indian Independence struggle which is monopolized by the supposed larger-than-life antecedents of the Congress party. India's political movements were planted and nurtured by local industry leaders. Growth of the textile industry in Ahmedabad in the 1870s made a rich business class. The inferior political position of India's leaders hampered their trade. The profitability of business and prosperity of the country needed a new kind of political leadership able to put Indian interests first. Similarly, the freedom struggle is often portrayed as a 24x7 fight of Congress leaders against the ‘inhuman British polity’. This is also very far from the truth. The constitutional reforms of 1919 introduced a very limited form of self-rule, but it demoralized the imperial bureaucracy. The clash between British officers and Indian political leaders within and outside the local institutions caused the capacity of imperial administration to collapse in the early 1920s. In many towns, villages and districts, public offices flew Congress’ flag and ensured that government-funded schools taught anti-British curricula. Judiciary and higher education became almost fully Indianised.

The book can be condensed into a single paragraph given on p.481 which runs as follows. “Rather than a coherent political vision, British rule in India was based on a peculiar form of power. Fearful and prickly from the start, the British saw themselves as virtuous but embattled conquerors whose capacity to act was continually under attack. From the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, they found it difficult to trust anyone outside the areas they controlled. Their response to challenge was to retreat or attack rather than to negotiate. The result was an anxious, paranoid regime. The British state was desperate to control the spaces where Europeans lived. Elsewhere it insisted on formal submission to the image of British authority. But it did not create alliances with its subjects, nor build institutions that secured good living standards. The British were concerned to maintain the fiction of absolute sovereignty rather than to exercise any real power”.

As earlier mentioned, the book describes many previously unheard of hard facts and provide an economic perspective to Indian history and freedom struggle. Though it examines the effect on Britain of ruling over India for two centuries and then suddenly letting it go in 1947, a similar survey of the effects of British rule on India is missing. This may probably be as a result of the author’s careful intention to be on the right side of Indian readers and appear to be politically correct to them. The book includes some lacklustre photographs which don't do much justice to the subject. What is astonishing is the huge size of the bibliography, much of which can be freely downloaded from archive.org for serious readers wanting to pursue a specific topic.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Star