Daily Times

Mr Shashi Tharoor, the Indian politician and author, is a walking talking anachronism. I refer to his recent blistering attacks on British colonialism, all delivered masterfully in the Queen’s English. Surely Mr Tharoor belongs to that age of Indian Independence Movement, when Oxbridge graduates and London trained Indian lawyers would out-English the English while enumerating the many failures and crimes of the British Raj. It is anachronistic because India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are no longer colonies of the British and Mr Tharoor’s polemics do not fall in the academic category but purely political. As a politician he is seeking to reinvent himself as a great Indian nationalist, English speaking yes but steeped in the ancient wisdom of India. Consequently he has won praise from all quarters but especially from the resurgent Indian right which till not long ago hated his guts.

A balanced approach is necessary when approaching the past so that one does not become a sound bite for unsavoury propaganda of groups who wish to bring down civil governments and replace them with a fantastic dystopia of their imagining

As a Pakistani I could careless how this sexagenarian Indian politician seeks to reinvent himself but for the fact that recently a rabid group of Islamists, the Hizbut Tahrir, have latched on to his many pronouncements on the Raj to prove that Muslim rule over the subcontinent was indeed far superior to British Raj and that therefore Pakistan at the very least should establish Khilafah in its borders. Of particular interest to this group are the unthinking statements that passionate Mr Tharoor gave on a show hosted by Russia Today’s Afshin Ratansi. In it he claims, quite hysterically, that before the British came India was the richest country on the planet and that Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s treasury was bigger and richer than that of all kingdoms of Europe. He also says that Indian GDP in 1700 was 27 percent of the global GDP. By the time the British left however, India was one of the poorest countries in world. Hizbut Tahrir operatives throughout Social Media and especially in the Pakistani cyber-sphere have shared his interview since then widely. Shashi Tharoor is being hailed by them as a truly enlightened man who has the courage to denounce the British Raj.

The problem with this statement is that it means nothing at all. In real terms the Indian GDP grew 144 percent during the British Raj. According to Agnus Maddison’s figures Indian GDP in 1700 in 1990 International Dollars was 90 750 million. In 1950 the Indian GDP in the same measure was 222, 222 million. Obviously this was not a great increase but the charge that India was poorer is arguable at best. The decline as a percentage of global GDP had more to do with the sharp increase in world GDP as a whole due to industrialisation. That the British did not industrialise India quite at the same pace as they industrialised Britain is true. But why would they have? They were an exploitative mercantile venture, which till the mid 19th century did not even give up the pretence of holding the subcontinent as a vassal power to the Mughal Empire, even if it was totally and completely untrue in reality. However to presuppose that India somehow would have industrialised faster under Mughal or native rulers is also quite untrue. In fact it was the failure of Mughals and their vassals to modernise and keep up with the world that led to them gradually ceding control of the country to a handful of British traders.

As I have said before the British did not come to India for altruistic reasons. They came for commercial exploitation of this region. Yet despite all their evil intentions they brought about a social revolution in the very fabric of Indian society. Karl Marx wrote this about British colonization of India on June 25, 1853 in the New York Daily Tribune: “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.”

This is where anachronism of politicians like Mr Tharoor becomes a liability. In 2017 the people of this subcontinent, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are not waging an independence struggle. We were born free as citizens of self governing independent republics, whatever the messy history that led us here. The epic battle for self rule, which was fought together by such great men and women as Naoroji, Gokhale, Tilak, Jinnah, Gandhi, Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu Ambedkar, the two Nehrus, Azad and Ghaffar Khan, has been won decisively. As free citizens of independent and sovereign republics in South Asia we no longer need to score points against the British Raj. As free people we can now look at history dispassionately and assess the good, the bad and the ugly of British Raj and the period before that.

The British, evil and self serving as their motivations might have been, nevertheless found time to build a whole host of universities, hospitals, courts and irrigation canals which survive to this day. One does not list the railways in this because they presumably did that to facilitate their own troop movements. Even Congress that great organisation that sparked the fire for self rule amongst Indians was founded by an Englishman. Perhaps unwittingly but most definitely the British birthed the national consciousness that was to later inform nationalists and political activists in the subcontinent. More importantly they left us a legal system and such ideas as the writ of habeas corpus, of mandamus, of quo warranto and certiorari. This was a novel idea for a region which had till then only been ruled by autocrats and despots. Ask yourselves this: The Mughals left so many monuments, tombs, pleasure palaces and mosques. How many schools, universities and hospitals did they make? What good was Emperor Aurangzeb’s treasury if it was not spent on the welfare of the people?

So yes remember the British excesses by all means. Their crimes were many but also remember that British rule is a necessary link in the chain, which makes us what we are today. A balanced approach is necessary when approaching the past so that one does not become a sound bite for unsavoury propaganda of groups like Hizbut Tahrir and others who wish to bring down civil governments and replace them with a fantastic dystopia of their imagining.

The writer is a practising lawyer. He blogs at hhtp://globallegalforum.blogspot.com and his twitter handle is @therealylh