Course:HIST317/Empire - Abroad/Mike's Document Analysis

During the 19th Century Great Britain found itself competing for European superiority with the other great nations of Europe, as each began to feel the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Abandoning the futile attempts at maintaining a ‘balance of power’, the great powers instead turned to creating and expanding vast empires in order to establish their position as a power in Europe. The ‘crown jewel’ of the British Empire was subsequently its most populated nation, India. The British Crown, having assumed control over India from the British East India Company in 1857 after insurrection broke out against British rule, began to exercise complete control over the country. As evident from the insurrection of 1856, there was tension among the natives of India regarding British rule, and in 1871 Dadabhai Naoroji, who would later become a prominent Indian political figure, expressed his views in his “The Benefits of British Rule,” in which he both praises and criticizes the British rule over the nation, in an attempt to convince the British to provide more assistance to their Indian subjects. Dadabhai Naoroji was born in Mumbai in 1825 and from a very early age was involved in religious and social reform movements in India. Although he supported the British rule of India, he believed that it was resulting in a drain in the wealth of India to Britain, which he discusses in “The Benefits of British Rule.” In 1885 he helped found the Indian National Congress (INC), the movement that later won independence for India. Naoroji would serve as president of the INC, which initially supported British rule, three times – 1886, 1893, and 1906. Furthermore, Naoroji would also become the first Indian to serve in British Parliament, being elected in 1892 to represent the central London community of Finsbury. Throughout his political career he maintained his principles and beliefs, striving to create better British policies towards India. Being the first Indian to serve in Parliament, Dadabhai Naoroji was perhaps the most qualified person to explain the benefits and detriments of British rule over India. Naoroji outlines the benefits of British rule by separating them into various categories, such as the humanitarian, civilization, and political benefits. He argues that the British have done “glorious work” in India, by “allowing [the] remarriage of Hindu widows,” abolishing infanticide, providing “charitable aid in time of famine,” and destroying the “pests of Indian society.” Furthermore, Naoroji praises the British for providing “peace and order,” “freedom of speech and liberty of the press,” and “education, [to] both male and female” students, though he believes more could have been done. While providing this praise of the British, to whom this document is written, he makes sure to express his appreciation for “what England has done for India.” Indeed, Naoroji states that he knows “it is only in British hands that [India’s] regeneration can be accomplished.” The praise in the first half of his document is meant to soothe the British and make it easier for him to address the real issues he wants to bring to the forefront, which he moves onto in the second half by outlining the detriments of British rule of India. Having conveyed his belief that the British rule over India with nothing but “good intentions,” Naoroji then shifts the focus of his discussion to the negative aspects of India being a colony of the crown. Yet even here he does not wish to offend the British with an immediate attack on the way they govern, and he opens the second half of his piece by stating that the British have done nothing negative in both the cause of civilization and humanity. After softening the initial blow, Naoroji proceeds to discuss the “repeated breach of pledges to give the natives a fair and reasonable share in the higher administration of their own country.” It in this statement that Naoroji finally touches on what he truly wants to address. Just as he later proclaims in his political life, Naoroji has no issue with British rule over India, so long as the Indians are allowed to take a bigger role in their own governing, ending “the great moral evil of the drain of wisdom and practical administration” from India to Britain. To further his point about the drain of wealth from India, Naoroji adds a financial section to the detriments half of his document, which instead of being a counterpoint to a benefit, simply stands alone as a negative aspect of British rule. In this financial section he discusses the drain of economic wealth from India to Britain, and he later advances this point by pointing out that “the great mass of the poor have hardly tuppence a day and a few rags, or a scanty subsistence.” Having thus far expressed what he believes to be the positive and negative aspects of the British rule over India, Naoroji concludes his document by summarizing his point. This summary section, though only a few lines, once again conveys Naoroji’s hope of convincing the British to make changes in the way in which they govern. Naoroji states that British rule has been a “great blessing” morally, and that while the British have brought “peace and order on [the] one hand,” they have made “blunders on the other.” Naoroji does not dwell on these blunders, but instead then moves on to his claim that the British drain of the wealth of India has left the people of India in “impoverishment.” The people of India, according to Naoroji, call the British system “‘Sakar ki Churi,’ the knife of sugar.” “That is to say, there is no oppression, it is all smooth and sweet, but it is the knife, notwithstanding.” On this point Naoroji concludes his argument, with the final comment to the people of Britain that he believes they don’t know the wants of the Indians, and that if they did he has “not the least doubt” that the British would do justice. Despite the fact that the British have left the people of India in “impoverishment,” Naoroji concludes by saying the “genius and spirit of the British people is fair play and justice,” thus leaving his readers just as he began, feeling proud of Britain’s good deeds. Dadabhai Naoroji would become a prominent Indian leader and help create the Indian National Congress, thus helping to launch the organization that would later be instrumental in obtaining India’s independence from Britain. Naoroji’s “The Benefits of British Rule”, written in 1871, was a plea to the British to stop taking from India the economic and intellectual wealth that it would need in order to take a bigger role in the government of its own people. Cleverly disguising this plea in amidst flattering language and praise of the British, Naoroji hoped to bring about changes in policy more favourable to India, a cause he would continue fighting for as a member of the British Parliament later in his life.

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