The Colonial Legacy - Myths and Popular Beliefs

While few educated South Asians would deny that British Colonial rule was detrimental
to the interests of the common people of the sub-continent - several harbor an illusion
that the British weren't all bad. Didn't they, perhaps, educate us - build us modern cities,
build us irrigation canals - protect our ancient monuments - etc. etc. And then, there are
some who might even say that their record was actually superior to that of independent
India's! Perhaps, it is time that the colonial record be retrieved from the archives and reexamined - so that those of us who weren't alive during the freedom movement can learn
to distinguish between the myths and the reality.

Literacy and Education

Several Indians are deeply concerned about why literacy rates in India are still so low. So
in the last year, I have been making a point of asking English-speaking Indians to guess
what India's literacy rate in the colonial period might have been. These were Indians who
went to school in the sixties and seventies (only two decades after independence) - and I
was amazed to hear their fairly confident guesses. Most guessed the number to be
between 30% and 40%. When I suggested that their guess was on the high side - they
offered 25% to 35%. No one was prepared to believe that literacy in British India in 1911
was only 6%, in 1931 it was 8%, and by 1947 it had crawled to 11%! That fifty years of
freedom had allowed the nation to quintuple it's literacy rate was something that almost
seemed unfathomable to them. Perhaps - the British had concentrated on higher education
....? But in 1935, only 4 in 10,000 were enrolled in universities or higher educational
institutes. In a nation of then over 350 million people only 16,000 books (no circulation
figures) were published in that year (i.e. 1 per 20,000).

Urban Development
It is undoubtedly true that the British built modern cities with modern conveniences for
their administrative officers. But it should be noted that these were exclusive zones not
intended for the "natives" to enjoy. Consider that in 1911, 69 per cent of Bombay's
population lived in one-room tenements (as against 6 per cent in London in the same
year). The 1931 census revealed that the figure had increased to 74 per cent - with onethird living more than 5 to a room. The same was true of Karachi and Ahmedabad. After
the Second World War, 13 per cent of Bombay's population slept on the streets. As for
sanitation, 10-15 tenements typically shared one water tap!
Yet, in 1757 (the year of the Plassey defeat), Clive of the East India Company had
observed of Murshidabad in Bengal: "This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the
city of London..." (so quoted in the Indian Industrial Commission Report of 1916-18).
Dacca was even more famous as a manufacturing town, it's muslin a source of many
legends and it's weavers had an international reputation that was unmatched in the
medieval world. But in 1840 it was reported by Sir Charles Trevelyan to a parliamentary
enquiry that Dacca's population had fallen from 150,000 to 20,000. Montgomery Martin -

an early historian of the British Empire observed that Surat and Murshidabad had
suffered a similiar fate. (This phenomenon was to be replicated all over India particularly in Awadh (modern U.P) and other areas that had offered the most heroic
resistance to the British during the revolt of 1857.)
The percentage of population dependant on agriculture and pastoral pursuits actually rose
to 73% in 1921 from 61% in 1891. (Reliable figures for earlier periods are not available.)
In 1854, Sir Arthur Cotton writing in "Public Works in India" noted: "Public works have
been almost entirely neglected throughout India... The motto hitherto has been: 'Do
nothing, have nothing done, let nobody do anything....." Adding that the Company was
unconcerned if people died of famine, or if they lacked roads and water.
Nothing can be more revealing than the remark by John Bright in the House of Commons
on June 24, 1858, "The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the
single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has
spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout
the whole of its vast dominions."

Irrigation and Agricultural Development

There is another popular belief about British rule: 'The British modernized Indian
agriculture by building canals'. But the actual record reveals a somewhat different story. "
The roads and tanks and canals," noted an observer in 1838 (G. Thompson, "India and the
Colonies," 1838), ''which Hindu or Mussulman Governments constructed for the service
of the nations and the good of the country have been suffered to fall into dilapidation; and
now the want of the means of irrigation causes famines." Montgomery Martin, in his
standard work "The Indian Empire", in 1858, noted that the old East India Company
"omitted not only to initiate improvements, but even to keep in repair the old works upon
which the revenue depended."
The Report of the Bengal Irrigation Department Committee in 1930 reads: "In every
district the Khals (canals) which carry the internal boat traffic become from time to time
blocked up with silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads end highways of Eastern Bengal,
and it is impossible to overestimate the importance to the economic life of this part of the
province of maintaining these in proper navigable order ....... " "As regards the revival or
maintenance of minor routes, ... practically nothing has been done, with the result that, in
some parts of the Province at least, channels have been silted up, navigation has become
limited to a few months in the year, and crops can only be marketed when the Khals rise
high enough in the monsoon to make transport possible".
Sir William Willcock, a distinguished hydraulic engineer, whose name was associated
with irrigation enterprises in Egypt and Mesopotamia had made an investigation of
conditions in Bengal. He had discovered that innumerable small destructive rivers of the
delta region, constantly changing their course, were originally canals which under the
English regime were allowed to escape from their channels and run wild. Formerly these

canals distributed the flood waters of the Ganges and provided for proper drainage of the
land, undoubtedly accounting for that prosperity of Bengal which lured the rapacious
East India merchants there in the early days of the eighteenth century.. He wrote" Not
only was nothing done to utilize and improve the original canal system, but railway
embankments were subsequently thrown up, entirely destroying it. Some areas, cut off
from the supply of loam-bearing Ganges water, have gradually become sterile and
unproductive, others improperly drained, show an advanced degree of water-logging,
with the inevitable accompaniment of malaria. Nor has any attempt been made to
construct proper embankments for the Gauges in its low course, to prevent the enormous
erosion by which villages and groves and cultivated fields are swallowed up each year."
"Sir William Willcock severely criticizes the modern administrators and officials, who,
with every opportunity to call in expert technical assistance, have hitherto done nothing
to remedy this disastrous situation, from decade to decade." Thus wrote G. Emerson in
"Voiceless Millions," in 1931 quoting the views of Sir William Willcock in his "Lectures
on the Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal and its Application to Modern Problems"
(Calcutta University Readership Lectures, University of Calcutta, 1930)

Modern Medicine and Life Expectancy

Even some serious critics of colonial rule grudgingly grant that the British brought
modern medicine to India. Yet - all the statistical indicators show that access to modern
medicine was severely restricted. A 1938 report by the ILO (International Labor Office)
on "Industrial Labor in India" revealed that life expectancy in India was barely 25 years
in 1921 (compared to 55 for England) and had actually fallen to 23 in 1931! In his
recently published "Late Victorian Holocausts" Mike Davis reports that life expectancy
fell by 20% between 1872 and 1921.
In 1934, there was one hospital bed for 3800 people in British India and this figure
included hospital beds reserved for the British rulers. (In that same year, in the Soviet
Union, there were ten times as many.) Infant mortality in Bombay was 255 per thousand
in 1928. (In the same year, it was less than half that in Moscow.)

Poverty and Population Growth

Several Indians when confronted with such data from the colonial period argue that the
British should not be specially targeted because India's problems of poverty pre-date
colonial rule, and in any case, were exacerbated by rapid population growth. Of course,
no one who makes the first point is able to offer any substantive proof that such
conditions prevailed long before the British arrived, and to counter such an argument
would be difficult in the absence of reliable and comparable statistical data from earlier
centuries. But some readers may find the anecdotal evidence intriguing. In any case, the
population growth data is available and is quite remarkable in what it reveals.

Between 1870 and 1910, India's population grew at an average rate of 19%. England and
Wales' population grew three times as fast - by 58%! Average population growth in
Europe was 45%. Between 1921-40, the population in India grew faster at 21% but was
still less than the 24% growth of population in the US!
In 1941, the density of population in India was roughly 250 per square mile almost a third
of England's 700 per square mile. Although Bengal was much more densely inhabited at
almost 780 per square mile - that was only about 10% more than England. Yet, there was
much more poverty in British India than in England and an unprecedented number of
famines were recorded during the period of British rule.
In the first half of the 19th century, there were seven famines leading to a million and a
half deaths. In the second half, there were 24 famines (18 between 1876 and 1900)
causing over 20 million deaths (as per official records). W. Digby, noted in "Prosperous
British India" in 1901 that "stated roughly, famines and scarcities have been four times as
numerous, during the last thirty years of the 19th century as they were one hundred years
ago, and four times as widespread." In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis points out
that here were 31(thirty one) serious famines in 120 years of British rule compared to
17(seventeen) in the 2000 years before British rule.
Not surprising, since the export of food grains had increased by a factor of four just prior
to that period. And export of other agricultural raw materials had also increased in similar
proportions. Land that once produced grain for local consumption was now taken over by
by former slave-owners from N. America who were permitted to set up plantations for the
cultivation of lucrative cash crops exclusively for export. Particularly galling is how the
British colonial rulers continued to export foodgrains from India to Britain even during
famine years.
Annual British Government reports repeatedly published data that showed 70-80% of
Indians were living on the margin of subsistence. That two-thirds were undernourished,
and in Bengal, nearly four-fifths were undernourished.
Contrast this data with the following accounts of Indian life prior to colonization:" ....even in the smallest villages rice, flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables,
sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in abundance .... Tavernier writing in the 17th
century in his "Travels in India".
Manouchi - the Venetian who became chief physician to Aurangzeb (also in the 17th
century) wrote: "Bengal is of all the kingdoms of the Moghul, best known in France.....
We may venture to say it is not inferior in anything to Egypt - and that it even exceeds
that kingdom in its products of silks, cottons, sugar, and indigo. All things are in great
plenty here, fruits, pulse, grain, muslins, cloths of gold and silk..."
The French traveller, Bernier also described 17th century Bengal in a similiar vein: "The
knowledge I have acquired of Bengal in two visits inclines me to believe that it is richer

than Egypt. It exports in abundance cottons and silks, rice, sugar and butter. It produces
amply for it's own consumption of wheat, vegetables, grains, fowls, ducks and geese. It
has immense herds of pigs and flocks of sheep and goats. Fish of every kind it has in
profusion. From Rajmahal to the sea is an endless number of canals, cut in bygone ages
from the Ganges by immense labour for navigation and irrigation."
The poverty of British India stood in stark contrast to these eye witness reports and has to
be ascribed to the pitiful wages that working people in India received in that period. A
1927-28 report noted that "all but the most highly skilled workmen in India receive
wages which are barely sufficient to feed and clothe them. Everywhere will be seen
overcrowding, dirt and squalid misery..."
This in spite of the fact that in 1922 - an 11 hour day was the norm (as opposed to an 8
hour day in the Soviet Union.) In 1934, it had been reduced to 10 hours (whereas in the
Soviet Union, the 7 hour day had been legislated as early as in 1927) What was worse,
there were no enforced restrictions on the use of child labour and the Whitley Report
found children as young as five - working a 12 hour day.

Ancient Monuments
Perhaps the least known aspect of the colonial legacy is the early British attitude towards
India's historic monuments and the extend of vandalism that took place. Instead, there is
this pervasive myth of the Britisher as an unbiased "protector of the nation's historic
legacy".
R.Nath in his 'History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture' records that scores of
gardens, tombs and palaces that once adorned the suburbs of Sikandra at Agra were sold
out or auctioned. "Relics of the glorious age of the Mughals were either destroyed or
converted beyond recognition..". "Out of 270 beautiful monuments which existed at Agra
alone, before its capture by Lake in 1803, hardly 40 have survived".
In the same vein, David Carroll (in 'Taj Mahal') observes: " The forts in Agra and Delhi
were commandeered at the beginning of the nineteenth century and turned into military
garrisons. Marble reliefs were torn down, gardens were trampled, and lines of ugly
barracks, still standing today, were installed in their stead. In the Delhi fort, the Hall of
Public Audience was made into an arsenal and the arches of the outer colonnades were
bricked over or replaced with rectangular wooden windows."
The Mughal fort at Allahabad (one of Akbar's favorite) experienced a fate far worse.
Virtually nothing of architectural significance is to be seen in the barracks that now make
up the fort. The Deccan fort at Ahmednagar was also converted into barracks. Now, only
its outer walls can hint at its former magnificence.
Shockingly, even the Taj Mahal was not spared. David Carroll reports: "..By the
nineteenth century, its grounds were a favorite trysting place for young Englishmen and
their ladies. Open-air balls were held on the marble terrace in front of the main door, and

there, beneath Shah Jahan"s lotus dome, brass bands um-pah-pahed and lords and ladies
danced the quadrille. The minarets became a popular site for suicide leaps, and the
mosques on either side of the Taj were rented out as bungalows to honeymooners. The
gardens of the Taj were especially popular for open-air frolics....."
"At an earlier date, when picnic parties were held in the garden of the Taj, related Lord
Curzon, a governor general in the early twentieth century, "it was not an uncommon thing
for the revellers to arm themselves with hammer and chisel, with which they wiled away
the afternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs of the
Emperor and his lamented Queen." The Taj became a place where one could drink in
private, and its parks were often strewn with the figures of inebriated British soldiers..."
Lord William Bentinck, (governor general of Bengal 1828-33, and later first governor
general of all India), went so far as to announce plans to demolish the best Mogul
monuments in Agra and Delhi and remove their marble facades. These were to be shipped
to London, where they would be broken up and sold to members of the British
aristocracy. Several of Shahjahan's pavilions in the Red Fort at Delhi were indeed
stripped to the brick, and the marble was shipped off to England (part of this shipment
included pieces for King George IV himself). Plans to dismantle the Taj Mahal were in
place, and wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds. Just as the
demolition work was to begin, news from London indicated that the first auction had not
been a success, and that all further sales were cancelled -- it would not be worth the
money to tear down the Taj Mahal.
Thus the Taj Mahal was spared, and so too, was the reputation of the British as
"Protectors of India's Historic Legacy" ! That innumerable other monuments were
destroyed, or left to rack and ruin is a story that has yet to get beyond the specialists in
the field.

India and the Industrial Revolution

Perhaps the most important aspect of colonial rule was the transfer of wealth from India
to Britain. In his pioneering book, India Today, Rajni Palme Dutt conclusively
demonstrates how vital this was to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Several patents
that had remained unfunded suddenly found industrial sponsors once the taxes from India
started rolling in. Without capital from India, British banks would have found it
impossible to fund the modernization of Britain that took place in the 18th and 19th
centuries.
In addition, the scientific basis of the industrial revolution was not a uniquely European
contribution. Several civilizations had been adding to the world's scientific database especially the civilizations of Asia, (including those of the Indian sub-continent). Without
that aggregate of scientific knowledge the scientists of Britain and Europe would have
found it impossible to make the rapid strides they made during the period of the Industrial
revolution. Moreover, several of these patents, particularly those concerned with the
textile industry relied on pre-industrial techniques perfected in the sub-continent. (In fact,

many of the earliest textile machines in Britain were unable to match the complexity and
finesse of the spinning and weaving machines of Dacca.)
Some euro-centric authors have attempted to deny any such linkage. They have tried to
assert that not only was the Industrial Revolution a uniquely British/European event - that
colonization and the the phenomenal transfer of wealth that took place was merely
incidental to it's fruition. But the words of Lord Curzon still ring loud and clear. The
Viceroy of British India in 1894 was quite unequivocal, "India is the pivot of our
Empire .... If the Empire loses any other part of its Dominion we can survive, but if we
lose India the sun of our Empire will have set."
Lord Curzon knew fully well, the value and importance of the Indian colony. It was the
transfer of wealth through unprecedented levels of taxation on Indians of virtually all
classes that funded the great "Industrial Revolution" and laid the ground for
"modernization" in Britain. As early as 1812, an East India Company Report had stated
"The importance of that immense empire to this country is rather to be estimated by the
great annual addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom....."
Unfair Trade
Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair - but it may be noteworthy
to see how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties
of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%! As a result, British imports of cotton
manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to onefourth! A similiar trend was noted in silk goods, woollens, iron, pottery, glassware and
paper. As a result, millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters,
smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural
workers.
Colonial Beneficiaries
Another aspect of colonial rule that has remained hidden from popular perception is that
Britain was not the only beneficiary of colonial rule. British trade regulations even as
they discriminated against Indian business interests created a favorable trading
environment for other imperial powers. By 1939, only 25% of Indian imports came from
Britain. 25% came from Japan, the US and Germany. In 1942-3, Canada and Australia
contributed another 8%. In the period immediately before independence, Britain ruled as
much on behalf of it's imperial allies as it did in it's own interest. The process of
"globalization" was already taking shape. But none of this growth trickled down to India.
In the last half of 19th century, India's income fell by 50%. In the 190 years prior to
independence, the Indian economy was literally stagnant - it experienced zero growth.
(Mike Davis: Late Victorian Holocausts)
Those who wish India well might do well to re-read this history so the nation isn't
brought to the abyss once again, (and so soon after being liberated from the yoke of
colonial rule). While some Indians may wax nostalgic for the return of their former

overlords, and some may be ambivalent about colonial rule, most of us relish our freedom
and wish to perfect it - not gift it away again.