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Pax Britannica : Hyndman’s Report: “The Brit Empire in India is the most striking example in the history of the world of the domination of a vast territory & population by a small minority of an alien race. Both the conquest & the administration of the country have been exceptional, & although the work has been carried on, save in a few directions, wholly in the interest of the conquerors, we English have persistently contended that we have been acting really in the interests of the subdued peoples. As a matter of fact, India is, & will probably remain, the classic instance of the ruinous effect of unrestrained capitalism in Colonial affairs. It is very important, therefore, that the International Social-Democratic Party should thoroughly understand what has been done, & how baneful the temporary success of a foreign despotism enforced by a set of islanders, whose little starting-point & head-quarters lay thousands of miles from their conquered possessions, has been to a population of at least 300,000,000 human beings.... To begin with, India was conquered for the Empire not by the English themselves but by Indians under English leadership, & by taking advantage of Indian disputes.” Karandikar: Pax Britannica took hold outwardly due to (a) the reigning political anarchy, (b) the Indian mind’s tendency to trust Europeans in preference to Indians, (c) Indian traders helping European mercenaries defraud Indian rulers; & (d) inwardly, due to the creative powers of Indian culture & life having lapsed into an inadaptive torpor. Emboldened by the success of their devious dealings with the weak native rulers, Dalhousie (Gov.-Gen. 1848-56) invented the Doctrine of Lapse to annex by ruse & battles, territories whose independence they had recognised by treaties. Every bit of Queen Victoria’s Declaration of 1858 (q.v.) was brazen burlesque. In 1875, Sec. of State Lord R.A.T. Gascoigne-Cecil Salisbury (1830-1903; Sec. of State 1866-67 & 1874-78, & thrice Prime Minister) decreed: “As India must be bled, the bleeding should be done judiciously.” The chief industry in India was the weaving of cotton, silk, & wool, manufacture & export of sugar, jute; brass, copper & bell-metal wares, jewellery, stone-carving, filigree work in gold & silver, & artistic works in marble, sandalwood, ivory, & glass; arts & crafts like tannery, perfumery, paper-making, etc. the carrying trade was also largely in the hands of the Indians. Down to the beginning of the 19th century AD the ship-building industry was more developed in India than in England. Like the Indian textile industry, it aroused the jealousy of English manufacturers & its progress & development were restricted by legislation. The decay of trade & industry in India set in towards the close of the 18th & its ruin was well-nigh complete by the middle of the 18th century. The prominent causes were the policy of the Brit Parliament, the competition of cheap goods produced by machinery, & the unwillingness of the Brit-Indian Govt. to protect or encourage Indian arts & crafts.” India became an agricultural reservoir & market for Brit goods which were admitted duty free, Indian manufactures were barred from England by high tariffs & native handicrafts, esp. textile weaving were thoroughly destroyed. Eager to follow Bismarck, Prime Minister Disraeli passed the Royal Titles Act of 1876, declared Victoria Queen of Great Britain & Ireland & Empress of India, reducing native Indian rulers to feudatories. Lord E.R.B. Lytton (1831-91), as Viceroy (1876-1880) announced Victoria’s new title at his extravagant Delhi Durbar in Jan.1877. “While the Durbar held by Lytton at Delhi to celebrate the declaration of the Royal Titles Act of 1876 declaring the Queen of Great Britain & Ireland also the Empress of India, was in motion ‘some five million men, women & children perished. Entire villages were wiped out. ‘I do not know what we should have done without the dogs & vultures,’ declared a British witness.’ Lytton ‘eventually appointed a famine commission, but his overworked officials could not do much [=did not care to]. There was simply not enough money to feed all the starving people.’ Compare this with the reaction of Chandragupta Maurya when famine struck his subjects. The highlights of Lytton’s rule were the disastrous Afghan war of 1878-80 at the expense of native money & blood, discriminating laws, esp. the Arms Act which snatched every weapon including sticks & knives from natives to prevent any thought of another 1857, reduction of the age limit for the Civil Services Exams (1876) to prevent natives from aspiring to high posts, Vernacular Press Act (1878) to suppress any adverse criticism of governmental measures, Ilbert Bill (q.v.) to place Europeans charged with any crime on a separate class from natives so charged, inflicting heavier Salt Tax, abolishing the duty of 5 hitherto imposed on low-quality textiles imported from second-rate English textile factories to obstruct expansion of better-quality native factories – all aimed at slashing native population through recurring famines & vicious epidemics. In 1894, Elgin (Viceroy & Gov.-Gen 1862-3 & 1894-9) re-imposed import duties of 5 that were repealed in 1882 “to counter his revenue deficit of 2.25 crores”. The result was spiralling rural indebtedness, heart-breaking fragmentation of landholdings & emergence of hybrid rural classes that destroyed the traditional fabric of the village systems. Even Sir C.A. Elliot (1835-1911), Lt-Governor of Bengal (1890-95), whose commitment to ruthless imperialism (1850-95) was highly praised by all he served under, including Lytton, admitted (says Lajpat Rai), “I do not hesitate to say that half of our agricultural population never know from year’s end to year’s end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied.” The Bundelkhand district of Agra Province experienced drought in the autumn of 1895 as a result of poor summer monsoon rains. The summer monsoon of 1896 brought only scanty rains, & soon the famine had spread to the United Provinces, Central Provinces & Berar, portions of the presidencies of Bombay & Madras, & of the provinces of Bengal, Punjab, & even Upper Burma. The native states affected were Rājputāna, Central India Agency, & Hyderabad. All in all, during the two years, the famine affected an area of 800,000 km2 & a population of 69.5 million. In spite of or because the ‘relief’ imposed by the Govt., over one million people “are thought to have died as a result of the famine” & no figures were officially published for the deaths due to accompanying epidemics. The summer monsoon rains of 1897 were abundant, but particularly heavy in some regions, set off a malaria epidemic which killed many people; soon thereafter, an epidemic of the bubonic plague began in the Bombay Presidency, which although not very lethal during the famine year, would, in the next decade, become more virulent & spread to the rest of India. ― The daily wage of an average Indian was 2 shillings in 1850, 1½ in 1882, & ¾ in 1900; there was seven famines over 1½ million deaths in 1800-58, 24 with over 28½ million deaths in 1858-1900, 18 of them in 1875-1900; with native culture being crushed out & agriculture steadily deteriorating, the yearly drain of wealth from India was £35,000,000 in 1907, by which time anything in the shape of patriotism or national feeling was punished, & its advocates persecuted & imprisoned. Sri Aurobindo: Pax Britannica is now seen to be the cause of our loss of manliness & power of self-defence, a peace of death & torpor, security to starve in, the ease of the grave. British law has been found to be a fruitful source of demoralisation, an engine to destroy ancient [royal] houses, beggar wealthy families & drain the poor of their little competence. Brit education has denationalised the educated community, laid waste the fertile soil of the Indian intellect, suppressed originality & invention, created a gulf between the classes & the masses & done its best to kill that spirituality which is the soul of India…. The ancient Romans had a class of slaves who…were allowed to speak with the most unbounded licence…to play tricks sometimes of a most injurious character…; let the master’s temper turn sour or break into passion & the lash was called into requisition. The freedom of speech enjoyed by us under the bureaucratic rule has been precisely of this kind. [“Freedom of Speech”, SABCL 1:790-91] In 1914 the Indian National Congress thanked Hardinge for the prompt despatch of an expeditionary force & a free gift of 100 million pounds sterling “affording Indians an opportunity of showing that, as equal (sic) subjects of His Majesty, they are prepared to fight in defence of right & justice (sic), & the cause of the Empire.” By All Fools Day 1918, Govt. spent 128 million pounds sterling in addition to the 2.1 million extorted from Princes & public, not counting what the country paid for war equipment. Viceroy Hardinge declared in Parliament that India had been “bled white”. Tail-piece: Among the beneficial Acts of Lord Richard Colley Wellesley (1760-1842), 4th Gov.-Gen. of E.I. Co. (1798-1805): “Every native Indian regardless of caste, creed, & common sense, shall observe the Christian dogma of avoiding official work on Sundays; & all Hindu religious & educational bodies are to be administered by appointees of the Govt. who need not be Hindus.” Alleluia! [Based on Hyndman: “Reports of the Social Democratic Federation, Ruin of India by Brit Rule”, in Histoire de la IIe Internationale, vol. 16 (Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1978, 1907), 513-33; Transcribed: by Thomas Schmidt; S.L. Karandikar, Lōkamānya Bal Gangādhara Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957, p.112; P. Heehs, Bomb in Bengal; R.C. Majumdar et al, Advanced History of India, 3rd Ed., 1973-1974; Bhattacharya; Tail-piece by Present Editor]