The Jewel in the Crown: India and British Colonialism

I. Transforming Colonization in India

A. Pre-Capitalist Colonies--before the linkage of India to maturing capitalism, British settlements existed at the pleasure of the princes who controlled the area around the colony--much like the slave factories on the African coast at the height of the slave trade remained open for business because some Africans found it profitable to exchange slaves for manufactured goods there.

1. Fall of the Mughal Empire

a) From the slow collapse of the Mughal Empire, power had devolved into six separate kingdoms that were usually at war with one another. This condition meant that there was little popular support for any of the six kingdoms. This situation was also detrimental, however, for the economic well-being of merchants, bankers, and tax-farmers (or peasants, for that matter, which is why popular support was lacking), who were under increased pressure to come up with the money to fund these wars, as well and the money necessary to maintain the opulent palaces and huge courts of these princes.




b) British East India Company--at the beginning of the 18th century, the East India Company was a marginal player in India, limited to redistributing the goods it bought in India to the rest of the world, and reliant upon remaining in the good graces of both the remaining Mughal princes and the Indian Merchants they traded with. In 1750 an official with the company in the province of Bengal saw on opportunity to advance the interests of the East India Company (as well as his own) by stepping into the power vacuum there and playing one claimant to the throne off another. After defeating French forces attempting the same technique, Robert Clive and his associates gained control of the government functions in Bengal, which was by far the richest province in India--but while still maintaining the prince as a figurehead, and supporting his retinue, as well. The Company collected taxes and ran the government, while the Indian official, called nawab, continued to hold the regalia of office. Britain gained a new control of its colonies in India just as it was losing control of its colonies in North America. The Company was able to do this cheaply because it skimmed money in return for collecting taxes from Indian peasants that they used a small portion of to employ upwards of 300,000 sepoy troops.



c) Success Breeds Success--other Indian rulers, seeing the efficacy of having the British East India Company run their government for them--enjoying all of the trappings of monarchy with none of the responsibilities--put up little resistance to “working with” the Company; and what resistance was put up was quickly overcome by force. Merchants welcomed the rise of the Company, because they bought much of textiles the company sold, and the power of the ruling elites was somewhat checked in regards to seizure of property. The Company further cemented its power among the uper classes in India by creating a new class of large landowners out of a portion of the old zamidars--but these landowners owed their alliegance to the East India Company, rather than to any Indian political leader.

B. Empire on the Cheap

1. Divide et impera--Divide and rule, the old Roman principle. Using bribery and violence in equal measure, the British were able to play one ruler against another, kingdom against kingdom, privileged class against privileged class, and caste against caste.

a) 1818 Maratha conquered

b) 1843 Sind

c) 1849 Sikhs

d) 1856 Oudh

2. Creation of British Wealth--colonization of India created wealth for those persons associated with British rule--particularly the British themselves, but including their Indian agents--became very wealth, while Indian peasants were increasingly impoverished.

a) Indian crop failure of 1769--set the stage for the rise of the East India Company. Famine brought on by crop failure is rarely a single year phenomenon. Mass starvation creates the conditions that continue to have detrimental effects for years afterward--particularly on non-mechanized societies that rely upon animal power to aid cultivation (the reason for the Vedic adoration of the oxen in the first place).

b) Impoverishment of the peasantry--the huge scale of Indian peasantry meant that they largely supported the superstructure of imperial government in India, largely by paying taxes (through turning over a large share of the crops that they raised).

c) Ruin of Indian textile industry--before the arrival of the British, most Indian cotton was utilized in the domestic Indian textile industry (textiles made by crafts people, however, rather than by machines). With the mechanization of textile manufacture in Britain (with machines), Indian cotton became an leading export item, that then made its way back as cotton cloth--cutting out Indian craft workers entirely, and impoverishing them as well.

(1) “Free Trade” at work--India was at this early period “de-industrialized” in order to advance British industry--while at the same time providing a huge market for cheaply-made British industrial goods.

3. 1857 Sepoy Mutiny--The prime example of the height of British arrogance. The Indian troops in the employ of the East India Company (called sepoys) mutinied because their officers insisted that they use ammunition lubricated with animal fat, both beef (an anathema to Hindus) and pork (Muslims). This caused the rank-and-file among the sepoy to rebel; eventually they took over control of much of northern India, and began to unravel much of the controls that the British had been able to install. Tellingly, the Hindu and Sikh sepoy in the region placed a Mughal Muslim heir to the throne of Delhi as the prince of the region. The mutiny was eventually put down with 40,000 British troops from outside India, as well as Sepoy from the southern region of the sub-continent. Some peasants who had joined the mutiny were publicly hung, other were publicly flogged (many sepoy avoided this fate as a condition of their surrender).

C. The Killing Fields of Capitalism--the Sepoy Mutiny marked a change in British colonial policy, and the British government began to assume greater control of the functions of the governing apparatus in India.

1. Thomas Malthus--On Population Control is the work Malthus is best known for. In this work, Malthus argues that the poor always have more children than they can support, because of their moral and spiritual failings--their lack of self-control is evidence of these failings, and the reason for their lack of wealth.

a) In combination with Adam Smith, the reasoning of Malthus led the British government in India to see the effects of famine in India (or at least to justify the inaction to those effects) as part of the moral failings of Indian peasants, who simply had too many children, and famine being a part of a “natural” thinning process on the human herd.