At the start of the 20th century a map of the world looked like this. These colours are Europe's
colonial empires. France had possessions across Africa and Indochina. Italy was in east Africa
and Libya and the Dutch were in what is today Indonesia. By far the biggest empire however
belonged to Britain and the jewel in its crown was the Indian subcontinent. People talk a lot
about Britain's colonial legacy and whether it's really so bad. Given the importance
of British India for the empire it's the best place to start if you want an answer to that.
It's important to say that the Indian subcontinent at that time the Mughal empire wasn't conquered by
Britain but rather a British corporation. Its name was the East India Company. The Mughal empire of
the 18th century was politically volatile but also immensely wealthy. According to economic historian
Angus Maddison its share of the world economy in 1700 was 23% – pretty much the same as the whole
of Europe combined or the United States today. Although the East India Company started life in
the early 1600s, it was only a century later after the sack of Delhi by the Persian king Nader Shah
that the Mughal empire effectively collapsed. That created a political vacuum with warring
principalities and factions becoming increasingly distrustful of one another
for the East India Company this presented a major opportunity and in 1757 Robert Clive,
who came to be known as Clive of India, won the battle of Plassey eight years later. In 1765
Shah Alam issued an edict that revenue officials be replaced by those of the company. A private
corporation with its own army now controlled one of the largest and wealthiest states on earth.
Over the following century the area they controlled significantly expanded
that was until the Indian mutiny of 1857 at which point the British government administered the
country instead things would remain that way until India gained independence in 1947. So on balance,
over those two centuries did Britain make any positive contribution to India by making it a
part of the British empire? We look back on that period now as just awful don't we? I think there
were some there were some there were some good bits and there was some less than good bits. You
look at the fact that we introduced parliamentary democracy to a lot of countries – this sort of
civil service system of government which all of these countries or a lot of these countries
are still using today. The British put in a system that actually brought about an education that
actually brought about partial emancipation of women that actually brought about democracy that
made India where it is today. It's time to stop seeing empire as a dirty word.
First let's talk about the economy when Clive triumphed the battle of Plassey the Mughal empire
comprised around 23% of the world economy by 1947 as the British withdrew that figure had fallen to
4%. The reason why was that in the intervening 200 years, the industrialisation of Britain
had come to depend on the deindustrialisation of South Asia take textile manufacturers one example
in the early 18th century India enjoyed 25% share of the global trading textiles
but by 1834 Lord Bentnick declared that "the bones of the cotton weavers were bleaching the plains of
India". Meanwhile exports of British textiles to india soared with a billion yards entering the
latter each year after 1870. Things were so bad that by 1896 India produced only 8% of the cloth
consumed domestically meaning it had gone from exporting powerhouse to serving a tiny portion
of domestic demand. It wasn't an accident that Britain became the workshop of the world
starting with cotton manufactures, something which would have been impossible without force. Indeed
according to an economist Britain took around 45 trillion out of India between 1765 and 1938.
That's 14.5 times the size of the British economy today this primarily happened through trade.
Prior to the 18th centur, Britain bought things from Indian producers and would pay for them
with precious metals, generally silver. But this changed after 1765 when the East India
Company established a monopoly over Indian trade. They then began collecting taxes in India using a
portion of those revenues – typically a third – to fund the purchase of Indian goods for British use.
In other words, instead of paying for Indian goods british traders acquired them for free.
Some of these essentially stolen goods were consumed in Britain while the rest were exported
elsewhere. This allowed Britain to finance the flow of imports from Europe including materials
like iron tar and timber which were critical for – you guessed it – Britain's industrial revolution.
But India's exploitation wasn't merely limited to economics and resources. By the late 19th
century two-thirds of the British empire standing army was paid for by Indian taxes and by 1922
around two-thirds of the Indian government's revenues paid for British. Indian troops abroad
Indians weren't just paying for their own subjugation but that of others too.
But India also paid in blood with over 1 million Indian troops serving during the first world war
suffering an estimated 74 000 casualties – a statistic which is generally neglected. Then there
was the second world war which Britain joined in order to defend the sovereignty of Poland. It
did so while maintaining an empire. What is more, India contributed the largest number of soldiers
to British imperial forces, raising the largest volunteer force in history – around 2.5 million
men by 1945. Meanwhile the country's elected political leadership the congress party was in
prison. 87 000 soldiers from the Indian empire lost their lives fighting for democracy and yet
the very politicians they elected were in prison. Some British officers were honest about the scale
of British India's contribution with Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of
the Indian Army, admitting that the British couldn't have come through both world war one
and two if they hadn't had the Indian army indeed in its darkest hour Britain relied on India to get
through – something forgotten today when people say it stood alone. Finally there's famine with
around 30 million people dying as a result of starvation under British rule. Now you could put
that down to natural disaster but the grim truth is that the overwhelming majority of those deaths
were the result of political choices made by the British. Indeed when it came to famine just as in
Ireland in the 1840s and 50s British policy was in action. Firstly because intervention
was undermining free trade. Secondly because of concerns about overpopulation and finally
well they just didn't want to spend money the point of empire was that it was a cash cow this
wasn't a secret. Indeed when Sir Richard Temple imported rice during the Orissa famine of 1866,
the Economist magazine – yes that one – attacked him for allowing Indians to think it is the duty
of the government to keep them alive. That was the position of the British government too.
In British India people were allowed to starve to death as a point of ideology and all in the
name of the free market. That's no different to the forced collectivisations that killed millions
during the 20th century. Unsurprisingly then the last famine on the Indian subcontinent
was in 1943, shortly before the British departed. That was the Bengal famine when Winston Churchill
deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to British soldiers
and to top up European stockpiles. According to Churchill "the starvation of anyway underfed
Bengalis was less serious" and as deaths began to pile up he blamed it on the Indians themselves for
"breeding like rabbits". When the East India Company was established the Mughal empire
presided over the world's largest economy with one of its most sophisticated cultures.
At that point India had literacy rates and a life expectancy on a par with europe. When
Britain departed the subcontinent in 1947 by contrast it left a society with 16% literacy,
a life expectancy of 31% and 90% of people living below the poverty line.
Compare that to japan, which achieved 90% literacy after the Meiji Restoration and rapid development
during the late 19th century. The key difference of course is that Japan was never colonised.
Yet despite all of this a poll by yougov in 2020 found that only 17% of Brits think the
countries Britain colonised were worse off as a result, with almost twice as many thinking
they'd benefited. It's one thing to say Britain's empires in the past but it's quite another to
insist that imposing poverty and starvation on hundreds of millions of people was actually good
for them. It brought order security education and democracy to much of the world. When asked whether
the empire was something to be proud or ashamed of 32% claimed to feel proud of the empire while
19% were ashamed. Personally speaking I don't feel shame for things I haven't done but pride
in what exactly? Theft, starvation, mass murder? The only way to make sense of such findings is
to accept that even today people don't know the truth about the British empire and how gruesome
it really was. Given recent calls from politicians that we should learn about our history rather
than seek to erase it all I can say is I couldn't agree more. But let's start by teaching the truth
about the British empire and how it's one of the world's wealthiest countries and turned it
into one of the poorest. If you enjoyed this video there are two things you can do which won't cost
you a thing. Like this video and subscribe to the Novara Media youtube channel and if you want to
see more like it help us build a new media for a different politics. Go to novaramedia.com/support