Were the British in Bengal a Necessary Evil?
Perceptions are fascinating!
What I (for one) perceive as oppression, another could view as an exercise to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour — like the British Empire, as Niall Ferguson wrote in his book Empire.
The way the renowned British historian sees it, no organization in history has done more to promote capitalism than the British Empire.… and no organization has done more to impose Western norms of law, order and governance around the world.
This is part of the atypical colonial apologist doctrine which argues that Western powers brought economic development, the rule of law, and liberties to its colonies.
While you, dear reader, may still shake your head in disbelief at the oppressive/exploitative era that saw The British East India Company plunder another nation’s assets, there is no shortage of supporters championing the moderation of post-imperial guilt.
None more so than Nigel Biggar, the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, who opined the same in The Times in 2017.
The title of the article: Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history.
He defended “The Case for Colonialism”, an article by Bruce Gilley, a political scientist at Portland State University, which appeared in an issue of the journal Third World Quarterly (are we still using this term?). Mr Gilley argued that it was time to question the orthodoxy of apologising for colonialism. Colonialism stressed “the primacy of human lives, universal values, and shared responsibilities” and constituted a “civilising mission” that “led to improvements in living conditions for most Third World peoples.”
I explored this topic in my latest Conversation with Uncle especially in regard to education (the colonial apologists’ other key argument in favour of colonialism).
Baba Raihan,
We have discussed at some length how the British, in their deliberate attempt to keep the masses in the dark, neglected educating the masses. The responsibility of education of the Indian people devolved on the shoulders of the British East India Company by the Charter Act, 1813 and it was generally expected that the Company would make some effort to fulfil its obligation. It was no wonder that the Company would do everything to deflect the issue shamelessly.
William Adam, a Christian missionary stated in his report in 1868: “The next form in which government influence may be conceived to be employed for the promotion of education is by making it compulsory and enacting that every village shall have a school. I hope the time will come when every village shall have a school, but the period has not yet arrived when this obligation can be enforced.”
Who will enforce this obligation? The missionaries in their practical wisdom did not fail to comprehend that the people of India would need to bide their time, not being sure when it would arrive at all.
Predictably enough The General Committee on Public Instruction found Adam’s recommendations too impractical to be implemented. The main reason for the rejection of the proposal was its idea of filtrating education from the upper and middle classes to the masses, which the British feared and abhorred intently.
In 1870, The Compulsory Education Act was passed in England. Demands were raised in India for enactment of similar laws and extension of similar facilities for mass education in India. Dadabhai Naoroji, the veteran Indian leader in his evidence before the Indian Education Commission in 1882 popularly known as The Hunter Commission put forward the demand that 4 years of primary education should be provided to all children. The Commission worked vigorously, as they often do, and came up with a voluminous report that ran well over 739 pages but did not contain a single sentence regarding compulsory education.
The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 and its leaders realised the importance of mass education. Congress in its 22nd session in Calcutta in 1906 adopted the resolution: ‘Education is the birthright of the people of India.’ The resolution further demanded ‘The Government should take immediate steps for making primary education free and gradually compulsory all over the country.’
These exhortations could not make any dent in the game plan of the British rulers who had scant concern for the wellbeing of the people they ruled.
The credit for introducing compulsory free primary education for the first time in any part of India goes to the Indian Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda. Primary education was made compulsory and free throughout his state for boys between the ages of 6 and 12 and, for girls between the ages of 6 and 10 in 1907.
The movement for making primary education free and compulsory, however, continued within the legislative framework as well. The celebrated Congress Leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale piloted a Bill in the Indian Legislative Council in 1911 ‘to make better provision for the extension of elementary education in India.’ It was duly rejected by the Council. An astute politician, Gokhale was sure about the outcome, and he famously told the house:
“My Lord, I know that my bill will be thrown out before the day closes. I make no complaint. I shall not even feel depressed. We, of the present generation of India can only hope to serve our country by our failures. The men and women who will be privileged to serve her by their successes, will come later.”
At least in this regard he was prophetic.
The leaders that came later made enormous sacrifices and with the participation of the heroic people in the struggles that they launched and spearheaded, they succeeded in throwing the British out of India.
The Montagu-Chelmsford constitutional reforms put in place a system of governance whereby provincial governments in India began to enjoy some autonomy in running the affairs of provincial administration. Education was made a provincial subject, and the provincial ministers could go ahead with legislating any subject, though the purse strings were held by the Governor and his executive councillors. Provincial Legislatures enacted laws for the rapid expansion of elementary education. The Montagu-Chelmsford constitutional reforms marked the end of colonial responsibility for education in India.
Significant progress however could not be achieved owing to the diarchy or the dual method of governance. The Government of India Act, 1935 did away with diarchy and the provincial governments that took office under the provisions of this act in 1937 could command far more resources than their predecessor governments did.
Look at the tenacity and dogged determination with which they stuck to their guns. They would not budge from their position; they would not relent. They pursued their goals of colonialism and their mission of subjugation relentlessly. It took 180 years to wrest the subject of education from their fisted hands.
A K Fazlul Haq, Sher-e-Bangla (Tiger of Bengal) to his people, was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Bengal (in those days the Chief Minister of Bengal was known as such) in 1937 under the Government of India Act, 1935. Haq held the education portfolio in his cabinet. He introduced the Primary Education Bill in the Bengal Legislative Assembly which was passed into law and primary education was made free and compulsory. Though, as usual, we have forgotten him, let us conclude today with a little tribute to him for playing the pioneering role to make free and compulsory primary education available to the vast multitudes of poor people in rural Bengal.
Shakespeare brilliantly pointed out that the harshness of English Winter is not as unkind as man’s ingratitude:
“Blow, blow thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude”
7 June 2020
Imagining Bengal without the British may be a futile exercise, we can never peak into an alternate reality (unless we live in the MCU). However, how we decide to frame our own reality shows our long standing preconceived notions.
In so many things in life, your view depends on where you are standing.
