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Do Britain Owe Reparations To India?

The British established control over Indian trade through the East India Company in the 17th century, gaining control over most European trade in India by 1769. Between 1850-1950, British rule influenced India's development, with the country remaining relatively unindustrialized compared to Britain. The detrimental effects of colonization, including famine and nationalism, played a key role in keeping India underdeveloped. While British infrastructure investments increased India's irrigation and industry, high taxes also caused economic harm, with the effects of British rule leaving India needing support as a newly independent third world country.

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53 views2 pages

Do Britain Owe Reparations To India?

The British established control over Indian trade through the East India Company in the 17th century, gaining control over most European trade in India by 1769. Between 1850-1950, British rule influenced India's development, with the country remaining relatively unindustrialized compared to Britain. The detrimental effects of colonization, including famine and nationalism, played a key role in keeping India underdeveloped. While British infrastructure investments increased India's irrigation and industry, high taxes also caused economic harm, with the effects of British rule leaving India needing support as a newly independent third world country.

Uploaded by

ashwini patil
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Do Britain owe reparations to India?

How British came to India

Indian trade links with Europe started in through sea route only after the arrival of Vasco da Gama in
Calicut, India on May 20, 1498. The Portuguese had traded in Goa as early as 1510, and later founded
three other colonies on the west coast in Diu, Bassein, and Mangalore. In 1601 the East India Company
was chartered, and the English began their first inroads into the Indian Ocean. In 1614 Sir Thomas Roe
was instructed by James I to visit the court of Jahangir, the Mughal emperor of Hindustan. Sir Thomas
was to arrange a commercial treaty and to secure for the East India Company sites for commercial
agencies, -"factories" as they were called. Sir Thomas was successful in getting permission
from Jahangir for setting up factories. East India Company set up factories at Ahmedabad, Broach and
Agra. In 1640 East India Company established an outpost at Madras. In 1661 the company obtained
Bombay from Charles II and converted it to a flourishing center of trade by 1668. English settlements
rose in Orissa and Bengal. In 1633, in the Mahanadi delta of Hariharpur at Balasore in Orissa, factories
were set up. In 1650 Gabriel Boughton an employee of the Company obtained a license for trade in
Bengal. An English factory was set up in 1651 at Hugli. In 1690 Job Charnock established a factory. In
1698 the factory was fortified and called Fort William. The villages of Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindpore
were developed into a single area called Calcutta. Calcutta became a trading center for East India
Company. Once in India, the British began to compete with the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French.
Through a combination of outright combat and deft alliances with local princes, the East India Company
gained control of all European trade in India by 1769.

Effects for Colonization in India


Between 1850 to 1950 the development of the third world in India was greatly influenced by British rule.
Historians have questioned why India did not undergo industrialisation in the nineteenth century in the
way that Britain did. In the seventeenth century, India was a relatively urbanised and commercialised
nation with a buoyant export trade, devoted largely to cotton textiles, but also including silk, spices, and
rice. India was the world's main producer of cotton textiles and had a substantial export trade to Britain,
as well as many other European countries, via the East India Company. Yet as British cotton industry
underwent a technological revolution in the late eighteenth century, the Indian industry stagnated, and
industrialisation in India was delayed until the twentieth century. The detrimental effects of
colonization, famine and nationalism during this time played a key role in managing to keep India
underdeveloped and eventually once claiming their freedom leaving them known as a third world
country. By examining actions taken by British rule during the nineteenth century and how the effects of
colonization influenced India into the twentieth century we can see the impact colonization had in
developing the third world.

Economic impact
India was used to the benefit of the British in every way. The use of the East India trade company was
key to causing famine and drought in India because British demanded that farmers produce products for
trade rather than harvest leaving a large majority of the Indian population at risk for starvation and
disease. The worldwide Great Depression of 1929 had a small direct impact on India, with relatively little
impact on the modern secondary sector. The government did little to alleviate distress, and was focused
mostly on shipping gold to Britain. The worst consequences involved deflation, which increased the
burden of the debt on villagers while lowering the cost of living. In terms of volume of total economic
output, there was no decline between 1929 and 1934. Falling prices for jute (and also wheat) hurt larger
growers. The worst hit sector was jute, based in Bengal, which was an important element in overseas
trade; it had prospered in the 1920s but was hard hit in the 1930s.

The economic impact of British imperialism on India remains contentious. The issue was raised by
British Whig politician Edmund Burke who in 1778 began a seven-year impeachment
trial against Warren Hastings and the East India Company on charges including mismanagement of the
Indian economy. Contemporary historian Rajat Kanta Ray argues the economy established by the British
in the 18th century was a form of plunder and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal
India, depleting food and money stocks and imposing high taxes that helped cause the famine of 1770,
which killed a third of the people of Bengal. In contrast, historian Niall Ferguson notes that under British
rule, the village economy's total after-tax income rose from 27% to 54% (the sector representing three
quarters of the entire population) and that the British had invested £270 million in Indian infrastructure,
irrigation and industry by the 1880s (representing one-fifth of entire British investment overseas) and by
1914 that figure had reached £400 million. The British increased the area of irrigated land by a factor of
eight (contrasting with just 5% under the Mughals).
P. J. Marshall argues the British regime did not make any sharp break with the traditional economy and
control was largely left in the hands of regional rulers. The economy was sustained by a general
condition of prosperity through the latter part of the 18th century, except the frequent famines with
high fatality rates. Marshall notes the British raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept
the old Mughal rates of taxation. Marshall also contends the British managed this primarily indigenous-
controlled economy through cooperation with Indian elites.
Conclusion.
British colonial role had its impact in developing modern India. However, British rule had negative
effects on India specifically by applying heavy taxes on the nation besides the harmful effects of British
rule. Although we have political knowledge passed on from the English, the influence of harsh taxation
and famine has left India under developed and in need of economic support. The economic
opportunities missed on the road to freedom costed more to India, which is why India need reparations
from British.

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