Another view of the British

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Another view of the British

By M.S.N. Menon

 

 

Was a "Muslim" India possible? Not a chance? But it could have

happened. Almost. The British saved us from that terrible tragedy.

What is more, the Hindus could not have brought about their self-

renewal without the stimuli provided by the British.

 

Are we grateful? We are not. We are confused. We still hold Britain

responsible for our degradation. But, "No" says Vivekananda. And

Aurobindo supports him. They say, we alone are responsible, for our

degradation. We should know the British better.

 

True, the British exploited India. In 1700 India's share of world

income was about 22.6 per cent, but it fell to 3.8 per cent by the

time the British left India. But are not the rich (MNCs) exploiting

the poor even today?

 

Perhaps, we have not done with British bashing? But they themselves

have been their severest critics. Take this for example, "Foreign

conquerors (meaning Muslims) have treated India with violence and

often with great cruelty, but none has treated them (Hindus) with

contempt and so much scorn as we," wrote Sir Thomas Munroe, governor

of Madras Presidency.

 

Our historians have not been helpful in giving us a final judgement

on the British. Fear is one psychosis which has been guiding the

Hindu historians—fear of what will happen to their name and status.

The Muslim historian suffers no such inhibition. He wants to prettify

the Muslim period of Indian history and beastify the British period.

 

I consider the British highly civilised. And more humane, too. Only

the Hindu civilisation was more distinguished. Love of freedom, love

of free enquiry—these were common to both of us. Which is why India

did not deprive others of their freedom, and why Britain, after

having made the mistake, hastily withdrew from its empire fixation.

 

Not all the British thought that the Empire would last for ever.

Warren Hastings did not. In an introduction to a translation of the

Gita (1875), he wrote that works like this "will survive when the

British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist." Hastings

opposed conversion of Hindus and he used to mock at the missionaries

by quoting from the Gita.

 

But the missionaries provided complete justification for Britain's

imperial mission. L.S. Amery, the arch imperialist, says: "...a

pioneer Empire and a stay at home Church went ill together." So, here

in India, the Cross and the Sword got together for their unholy

enterprise. A.F. Hirstel writes in The Church, the Empire and the

World: "It (the Empire) has been given to us as a means to that great

end for which Christ came into the world—the redemption of the human

race." Thus was imperialism given a false religious cloak.

 

It is the missionaries who have done the greatest harm to the image

of the Hindus. We must never forgive them for it. The East India

Company (of traders) had no plans to Christianise India. In fact, it

promulgated an order against "compulsory conversion"

and "interference with native habits." But conversion became a

political issue and the strident missionary voice became a "vote

bank" in Britain, just as appeasement of Muslims has become a vote

bank in India.

 

The "men of Empire" thought that an "unseen providence" was guiding

the Anglo-Saxon race to a higher destiny. Bacon did not agree. What

really animated the imperialist, he said, was his firm, even if

mistaken, belief, that he belonged to the "chosen people.Had the

British appealed to a different vision of their place in the

providential order of things, the Raj would have had a different

story," says Gerald Kennedy. But the British held on to their nobler

vision.

 

It is true the British were arrogant. But there were among them

eminent men, Burke for instance, ready to prick their bloated ego

effectively. He says: "Faults this nation (Hindus) may have, but God

forbid we should pass judgement on a people who formed their lives on

institutions prior to our insect origins of yesterday."

 

Much has been written about and against Macaulay. If his language

policy created babus, it also created Dr S. Radhakrishnan and Dr Homi

Bhabha. Above all, without English we could not have known the world.

But his greatest critic was Horace Wilson, spokesman for the

Orientalists. He wrote: "By rendering a whole people dependent on a

remote and unknown country for the very words to clothe their

thoughts we would degrade their character..."

 

The Muslims destroyed much of what the Hindus had built. But the

British went out of their way to preserve what was left. For this

India is grateful to Lord Curzon. Nahru says: "After every other

Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he

preserved and restored all that was beautiful in India." Can we say

this of the Muslims?

 

The Raj made it possible for the rise of a self-confident Hindu elite

on an all-India scale. The work of Sir William Jones and others gave

them self-esteem. When Vedic learning was almost extinct, Mueller

published his monumental translation of the Rig Veda. Jones created

the Royal Asiatic Society, literally re-constructed India's history

and discovered the greatness of the Sanskrit language. And one cannot

forget that the entire Buddhist story was reconstructed by the

pionering work of British explorers and savants.

 

India is truly thankful. Dr Manmohan Singh said so recently in his

talk to an Oxford audience. He said: "Our notions of the rule of law,

of a constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional

civil service, of modern universities and research labs have all been

fashioned in the crucible when our age-old civilisation met the

dominant empire of the day."

 

To conclude, is it not a remarkable irony that the seed for the

demise of the British empire was planted by an Englishman A.O. Hume?

By launching the Indian National Congress, he launched Indian

nationalism.

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