They taxed the Indian peasantry at a level unknown under any other rulers, and through torture and cruelty they extracted vast sums of money which they shipped off to England. The British took thriving industries - like textiles, shipbuilding, and steel - and destroyed them through violence, taxes, import tariffs, and imposing their exports and products on the back of the Indian consumer. But in 1947, when India achieved its independence, India had been reduced to one of the world’s poorest countries, with just over 3% of global GDP. In 1700, India was the world’s richest country, accounting for some 27% of global GDP. This uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, and following this, the British Crown took over governing India from the East India Company until India’s independence.īritain’s devastation of IndiaTharoor provides us with a devastating portrait of how the British decimated the Indian economy through these centuries. But then, the East India Company’s own army (mainly comprising Indians) led an uprising against it in 1857 - known as the Indian Mutiny or the First War of Indian independence. First, through the 18th century, much of India was progressively conquered by the East India Company, a violent and rapacious enterprise, supported by the British crown. The story of British colonisation of India is in fact at least two stories. For example, Robert Clive, the once (in)famous “Clive of India”, was a juvenile delinquent who arrived in Madras in 1744 as an 18-year clerk, but found his vocation as a thuggish fighter in the small security force of the East India Company. Then there is the notion that 18th century England was a promising model of democratic governance.Īnd lastly is the myth of the English gentleman. First, the myth of the beneficence of British colonialism. As Britain struggles with Brexit, and evokes “imperial nostalgia”, Shashi Tharoor’s book, “An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India”, demolishes at least three common myths.
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