INDIA CONQUERED: BRITAIN'S RAJ AND THE CHAOS OF EMPIRE By Jon Wilson, Simon & Schuster, Rs 799
The title of the book reflects the state of India under the "supreme political force" of Britain beginning from the mid-17th century. The book is an analytical interpretation-cum-narrative, and not just a list of chronological sequence of events in "modern" Indian history. The story starts with the tiny groups of British merchants who essentially came to make money from the Indians. As the merchants travelled in different directions, covering different aspects of Indians' lives, the British stratagem also expanded along various routes, in spite of hurdles. Thus, they built courts and tax offices, churches and cantonments, railways and post offices. Inevitably, however, clashes with natives and tropical diseases took a heavy toll on the Britishers, who were un-acclimatized to the climate. So much so that "perhaps a quarter of a million Europeans are still buried in more than a thousand cities of the dead".
Interestingly, the alien traders who did not use force made more money. Nevertheless, what began as a mini empire of commerce and cash soon turned into a mega empire of forts and foot soldiers to conquer and kill. There was "no civilizing mission" though. Instead, it was a rule of civil service which became a "massive publishing house". And that civil service, at times, became a hereditary profession for some families. This was because India was a place where "good livelihoods for... British middle and upper classes were made". The "East is a career".
In the broader sense, East included "the Deccan". It is here where "Christianity and Islam first took root. It is also here where European fleets initially landed". Nevertheless, it was the same "Deccan" which proved to be the "graveyard of empires". The last days of Aurangzeb in the Deccan heralded the last days of the Mughal empire.
In contrast to the Deccan, Bengal implied "Trading with ghosts", where the empire, beginning with the 17th century Mughal governor, Shaista Khan, needed to be in a "constant state of movement" to survive. Being among the most prosperous of South Asian provinces, Bengal was a magnet for traders from Britain. But too many actors were trying to get a share of the pie, thereby, complicating matters for the East India Company, which wanted monopoly trading rights by virtue of the Royal Charter of the British Crown, bestowed thereon December 31, 1600. The request for monopoly trading rights had come from a "monopolizing maritime power [British], not compatible with a land empire [of the Mughals] held together by balance and negotiation". The failure to acquire monopoly trading rights meant humiliation for the British. It resulted in the use of force and violence by the foreign merchants against the decaying Mughal empire through machinations.
Thus, once the East India Company was established firmly in the saddle, different regions in India under the British underwent varying vicissitudes, with one factor remaining constant: land. The British quickly realized that in India "land is a financial asset", a way to fund their fortified outposts, rather than an opportunity to assert political power over large areas of territory. In India, land generates money, and this "imagination" of India as a place to make money brought the likes of Clive to the country. However, despite the abundance and fertility of land, famines across the countryside meant a colossal failure on the part of both the Mughal and the British ruling classes. This continued till the Second World War. Thus the Bengal famine of 1769 saw the death of between 15 and 20 per cent of the 20 million population.
Famine in India became a recurring feature in the last quarter of the 19th century, when between 12 and 30 million people lost their lives. However, the worst occurred in the 1940s. The "artificial famine" ruined the fertile Bengal countryside. Thus, before the mass migration took place between the two new states of India and Pakistan in 1947, the famine years of South Asia constituted the "greatest movement of people in Indian history".
Understandably, therefore, famine and India's poverty broadly became the major points of discussions in the early sessions of the Congress beginning late 19th century. It was argued that poverty was caused by the annual transfer of resources from India to Britain. India was "depleted", "exhausted" and "bled", so Indians found themselves pushed to the edge of subsistence when flood or drought came.
Fast forward to Second World War; the Japanese appeared at the doorstep of the eastern frontier as the greatest failure of the British rule led to rapid collapse of Burma. With Subhas Chandra Bose taking an explicit anti-British stand, Gandhi privately "admitted that Subhas Chandra Bose, with his active support for the Axis powers, will have to be resisted". Understandably, fierce anti-British sentiment notwithstanding, the leaders of Congress did not desire a total collapse of the British rule, to be substituted by the dictatorial German-Japanese axis in and around Indian soil. It, however, was evident that the British empire was on its last leg as the "great divide" of the Congress and the Muslim League gathered steam. Expectedly, it led to a practical application of the confrontationist political ethos of the Muslim League. This was the "Direct Action" of August 16, 1946, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The result was catastrophic as "violence was heavily organised" and the "great divide" was complete.
Ultimately, however, when the time came for the inevitable departure, the British prime minister, Clement Attlee, knew he had no choice but to retreat. Nevertheless, the British wanted to believe that the retreat could be done under the guise of a "conscious, planned transfer of sovereign power". They wanted to propagate a myth for posterity that the empire ruled until the last and willingly transferred power.
The book is not only a gripping account of South Asian history, but also reflects the author's scholarship and fair analysis of complicated issues. A readable book written with elan.
