Inglorious Empire — A Review
A book born out of a 15-minute Oxford debate lays out the scene of 200 years of colonialism in India and its breathtaking effect on the nation.
Shashi Tharoor, an Indian politician whose debate at Oxford on ‘Why Britain owes reparations to her colonies’ became a full fledged notion unearthing the realities of colonialism in India. Shashi was hailed for his eloquent debate, still he thought the points he made were basic ‘Indian Nationalism 101’, later realizing they were not basic at all, even for Indians, thereby giving birth to this book as an excellent re-introduction to the topic.
His argument on the wrongs inflicted on the nation by the 200 years colonial empire has been carefully narrated taking the numerous British counter arguments into account. The polemic takes on no particular chronology of the colonists’ entry, rather to pick the several critical socioeconomic factors that contributed to the nation’s down fall. His premise is not based on the mere ‘cruel empire’ outlook, rather to look at it in a prismatic manner, acknowledging the complexities on both sides and its various flavors in the quest for free India.
The book starts by looking at the entry of ‘The Corporation’, East India Company, whose entry and ruthless quest for wealth of India results in the collapsing of the then ruling Mughal empire. The browbeaten empire gave way to a company running India and later, the Crown taking over India in the so-called ‘Indian Mutiny’. Shashi dismantles the mystery of this in the chapter ‘The de-industrialization of India’. Here the readers feel a sense of soul snatching with the Indians ripped from an opportunity of a level-playing ground with inexplicable salary discrepancies, racial divisions, colossal taxation, wiping of the textile and shipping industry, extraction of the Indian diamonds and the devaluation of the Indian rupee. This was sucking the life out of free India and feeding it to the Brits. All this and more is summed by the infamous Dadabhai Naoroji’s ‘Drain Theory’ which Shashi promptly discusses.
In further chapters, Shashi counter argues to loosely held claims that the British gave India political unity. He slams this with the well poised accounts of mistreatment of Indians in imperial services and Imperial racism sardonically arguing the trade of disrespect and human torture to getting ‘political unity’. The ever contentious topic of India and Pakistan relations was neatly dismembered when Shashi telling the history of the then ‘One-India’. This united India had religious tolerance and unity, almost a utopia of overlapping cultures, races and communities. The British Raj’s systematization of conducting a census fueled religious and caste margins to finally tear the nation apart into the now India and Pakistan— ‘Divide et Impera’.
Later, the scaring account of India’s involvement in the Great War, resulting in the 74,187 soldiers losing their lives, the betrayal that resulted from India’s participation in the promise of liberalization, and the Malthusian treatment during the Bengal famine inks Shashi’s argument further. He proceeds to mention the existence of xenolatry in the colonial India with many Indians idolizing and emulating their colonizers, cultural hegemony and various societal dysfunctions that came with the despotic empire.
In as much as the topic of reparations fueled this book, Shashi only looks at this at the very end, all the while only exploring the depths of the colonial rule, the trauma, the freedom finally begotten and the concept of reparation not to be made monetary. The reparations is supposed to be token of remorse for lives lost and nations fallen. The concept of putting a number on the lives of soldiers, slavery, socioeconomic destruction, cultural slaughter and India’s heritage diluted cannot be compensated in any said number. As he mentioned in the debate, Shashi suggests no hefty monetary compensation, rather a formal reparation of ‘1 pound a year for the next 200 years for the last 200 years’ as a symbol of respectful acknowledgement and remorse by Britain as a moral debt.
This book is certainly quite the pick for anyone wanting a dose of colonial history in 2020. It’s easily plotted with seamless thoughts and counter-thoughts, having no particular antagonistic, rivalry or overly-patriotic thoughts, rather spilling the plain truth. The Inglorious Empire not only speaks for India, but also for other colonies, unapologetically.
Thank you for reading this review. I have an ambitious reading journey ahead of me for 2020 so I’m hoping to write more reviews like this! If that’s your thing, let’s talk more on bookish matters on Instagram or Twitter.
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