Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 19, 2005
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1174625.cms
The British built abridged institutions,
Mr Singh
There are reasons why the last surviving
English gentlemen are today only to be found in India. They have brown
skins, they don't speak the Queen's English, but in their hearts they are
deeply appreciative of the legacies of British colonial rule. They care
little for most aspects of contemporary British culture, though. They have
no interest in British domestic politics. They have no taste for British
art. They sneer at the British fondness for badly cooked curries. They
rejoice in the fact that the best English literature today is produced
by the ex-colonised. They watch the English football league on television
but are fearful of the fans.
It is not the real Britain of Blair
and Bradford and British Rail that they think about when they speak longingly
of the British connection. The Britain they conjure up in their minds is
an idea that once had real referents that have now almost completely vanished
from the face of Britain. Yet the myth continues to gain strength among
India's elites.
One wouldn't have suspected that
Manmohan Singh might become an articulate proponent of this myth. But then
the weight of mediaeval ceremonies practised at Oxford convocations can
have strange effects. As he admitted, it was "a very emotional day" for
him, even when he had already earned an earlier doctorate from the same
university - one for which he had laboured hard. But then, come to think
of it, why shouldn't Singh believe in the supposed virtues of the British
empire? He is an economist-bureaucrat, virtually untouched by the rough
and tumble of electoral politics. It shouldn't surprise us if he shares
the desires and prejudices of India's professional middle classes.
What is this myth of "the beneficial
consequences" of British rule? The PM spoke at Oxford of "good governance",
mentioning, in particular, the rule of law, constitutional government,
a free press, a professional civil service, modern universities and research
laboratories. He forgot to add, however, that each of these elements of
modern governance was introduced into India not in the form in which it
was practised in Britain but always with crucial exceptions.
Thus, the British in India resisted
the jury system or even habeas corpus outside the Presidency towns, resisted
the trial of Europeans by Indian judges and, at every whiff of "sedition",
enacted emergency laws that would have been unthinkable in Britain. Constitutional
government was introduced, but even in the last elections held before Independence,
less than 10% of Indian adults were eligible to vote. Elected provincial
ministries were allowed, but British governors had virtually unlimited
powers to accept or dismiss ministers, and civil servants were required
to send confidential reports directly to the governor without the knowledge
of elected ministers.
A free press? Yes, but only in the
English language. Everywhere in India, until the last days of the Raj,
the vernacular press lived under severe censorship laws. Singh is highly
appreciative of the civil service, especially the district administration,
created under British rule. The much celebrated steel frame epitomised
the paternalist, and profoundly authoritarian, ethos of British colonial
rule. Indians, it was believed, were moral infants, unable to protect or
look after themselves. They had to be ruled by a benevolent master.
It was a form of government that
was, of course, being abandoned in Britain even as it was introduced into
India. Can one imagine a twentieth-century Britain governed by district
magistrates? Finally, it is astonishing that Singh believes that the modern
universities and research laboratories of India were set up by the British.
Of the 20 universities of pre-Independence India, the majority were funded
through endowments and donations by Indians. All postgraduate departments
and science institutes were set up at the initiative of Indian educationists
and against the vested interests of the colonial survey establishments.
Modern education in India was a nationalist achievement, not a colonial
gift.
All regimes, even the most repressive,
have some beneficial effects: this is trivially true. The interesting question
is when, where and why one chooses to point them out. We are being told
that it is a sign of our growing self-confidence as a nation that we can
at last acknowledge, without shame or guilt, the good the British did for
us.
I suspect it is something else.
The more popular democracy deepens in India, the more its elites yearn
for a system in which enlightened gentlemen could decide, with paternal
authority, what was good for the masses. The idea of an Oxford graduate
of 22 going out to rule over the destiny of 100,000 peasants in an Indian
district can stir up many noble thoughts in middle-class Indian hearts
today.
But then, one should not be too
harsh on the PM. He has, one assumes, only expressed a no longer secret
desire of the Indian elite. Mahatma Gandhi, always more perspicacious than
others, had noticed it 100 years ago. What the Indian middle classes, clamouring
for self-government, really wanted, he said, was "English rule without
the Englishman".
The writer is director of the Centre
for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
