History explained

In India Conquered , English historian Jon Wilson demystifies the British rule in India

November 17, 2016 12:00 am | Updated December 02, 2016 04:03 pm IST

MAKING A POINT:Author Jon Wilson teaches history at King’s College, London. —Photo: Sandeep Saxena

MAKING A POINT:Author Jon Wilson teaches history at King’s College, London. —Photo: Sandeep Saxena

In a riposte to romanticists of Raj, noted historian Jon Wilson has come up with a critique of the British rule in India. Titled India Conquered (Simon & Schuster), the book unravels the chinks in the victor’s narrative and tells of the lessons to be learnt from the obsession for absolute power.

Wilson is of the firm opinion that the job of a historian is to be diagnostic rather than celebratory. “Romanticism is for fiction,” he says. “What motivated me was that we still live in some degree of myth that the British rule propagated about itself. I think the British projected an idea of power which actually didn’t happen.”

A victor’s narrative

Wilson, who teaches history at King’s College, London, says the British rule was a victor’s narrative; and not just in the sense that is often meant by the term. It’s in fact what conqueror would like to make the action seem.

“A victor will reduce the chaos, will reduce the uncertainty and would make it seem as if everything had some purpose,” says Wilson. “So even those who criticise the British rule would still say, ‘Oh! But the structure had a purpose’.” Right from the subtitle of the book, which says ‘Britain’s Raj and the chaos of Empire’, Wilson makes it clear that it was not a structured event. “The system of power had clear strategic objectives which it wanted to put in practice. Its concern was always to protect its own power.”

The historian says the British could have traded without conquering India. “They probably would have made more money,” he says. “At least across the board, they would have made more money. There was no real opposition from the Mughal rulers in the early 18th century to the British trade.”

He says he Mughals obviously were apprehensive of British dominance, however the colonisers had anxiety and paranoia. “There was fear of being driven away. They defined a power which was permanent,” says Wilson. The book looks at this strange kind of power, which always thinks in terms of absolutes, always tries to assert its control on whatever it can control. There is a reluctance to negotiate, and give and take of any kind of political power.

In India Conquered , Wilson starts his journey talking about cemeteries in different parts of the country, which hold remains of erstwhile British officers and their family members. Many of them are of children. “The idea was to tell that this is not about big structures. It is about real people, motivated by human feelings,” he says.

“The second reason is to give it a sense of continuity. The graves are there. So some kind of legacy is still there. But the most important thing is to break through the fictional stories to get to lives that people were living.”

Wilson says for many British officers, going East was a career. “It was about a desire to earn money,” he says. “After 15 to 20 years they would return to have a life in Britain. It was seen as something secure.”

A gamble worth playing

Of course, there was a risk of physical survival but it was a gamble worth playing. And at the end of the posting, the officers would tell stories about the mission upon their return to give themselves a sense of purpose and virtue. Of course, there were some individual officers who tried to do something good, but Wilson underlines that there was no big project. “It, certainly, was not the motivation.”

Instead, the historian appreciates the Mughal Empire in terms of social cohesion and economic progress. “During the British period, India was quite poor while it was relatively prosperous during the Mughal rule,” he says. “It explains two different kinds of power. A power that recognises that political authority can never be absolute. The British leadership didn’t acknowledge that and created a strange kind of embattled, ineffective kind of power.”

Does this include the steel frame of Civil Services and the Railways? “I am not denying their importance but I am also saying they were not part of the governing project in the same way they were imagined to be. They were not part of a civilising project either. They were not designed for development of India. They were designed to defend political power.” So, of course, they had beneficial side effects in some ways but the bottom-line was India became poorer.

On the policy of divide and rule, Wilson says, “I don’t think it was a deliberate strategy. Apart from some particular events like the Partition of Bengal, I don’t think there was a consistent cunning agenda at work. More than divide, they didn’t allow the forces to unite.” During the days leading up to the Partition, the British seemed to be in an unusual hurry: Wilson says they apprehended complete social breakdown and a civil war. “If you leave a mess, you are responsible for the mess,” he says. “That is what I tell my children. The British rule was about protecting British rule in India. And once it was gone, they were gone.” As for the Indian nationalists, Wilson feels it took them a long time to figure out what was happening. “They came quite late to the idea of state. Nationalism is about institution building and social reform and not just about seizing state power.”

The book suggests that nationalists were okay with the same bureaucratic structure that the British left. “They were frightened of social break down,” says the historian. “They also got seduced by the same idea of power as the empire.” In many ways it seems we got more attached to the colonial rule than the British. The author notes many of the legacies like architecture and furniture have been reinvented for a present-day purpose to define classy and luxurious.

However, he doesn’t agree that the British managed to imbue an inferiority complex in us. “Indians never forgot what they were. And if somebody is trying to paint that picture, I think that’s a very condescending view of India,” he says. “You just have to look at the majority of books produced during that period. There is a critique there.”

The British historian believes that Brexit is not going to make historical research lot more nationalistic in Britain. However, there’s contemporary relevance to the book. “I think one should guard against adopting the idea of centralised power that the empire did,” he says, before adding that political power is always about collaboration.

IndiaConquered(Simon & Schuster)is priced at Rs 799.

The British rule

was about protecting British rule in India. And once it was gone, they were gone

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