Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor Review

Did the British Raj actually bring any benefit to India? That is the question that Shashi Tharoor seeks to answer in his book Inglorious Empire. 

The short answer? Not really.

Across 250 pages, Tharoor uses sources from the time and analytical studies done since the end of the Raj to discuss and disembowel arguments used by Raj apologists.

An example includes the argument that without the Raj, India would never have united into one country. Tharoor points out that throughout India’s history there had always been a sense of a greater unity amongst the peoples of the subcontinent. He points to empires such as the Mauryan, the Guptas, the Mughals and the Marathas who all had subcontinent wide ambitions and sometimes succeeded. He suggests that without colonialism, one of the emerging or prominent powers within the subcontinent could have achieved unification.

Other angles that Tharoor tackles include the arguments that the British brought democracy, freedom of the press and rule of law to India. To each argument, Tharoor points out that whilst the British did introduce some elements of each, they introduced them in a manner that benefitted them and not their subject people. Democracy was strictly limited (at a time when democracy was expanding at home), freedom of the press was limited to those papers that toed a pro-imperialist line and rule of law was subjectively applied. 

Tharoor highlights a harrowing example of how because of how deliberately malnourished Indians were, if an Indian retaliated when a Brit attacked him, all the Brit needed to do was kick the Indian. Said Indian would die a few days due to a rupture internally. The Brit would normally get off with a slap on the wrist.

Tharoor also highlights how the famines that afflicted India under the Raj were usually not the unhappy coincidences of wars or poor harvests, but usually the result of direct indifference or policy from the Raj. Quoting several Viceroys including Lord Lyttleton, who stated. “There are too many of them for our food to suffice. The market is clearing the debris.” Tharoor shows how the Raj deliberately did nothing whilst Indians starved and died. A view that was concluded by Churchill and his refusal to send aid to starving Indians, many of whom had family dying for the Raj abroad.

In short, Tharoor’s book is a fitting rebuttal to those who foolishly believe the Raj was all good and no bad. He highlights some small positives such as cricket and tea, but shows how the Indian people adopted them despite the British not because of the British.

A fitting read and one that should be made more prominent in this time of revisionism.