Like a religious text, it tells a straight and narrow story with the zeal of a holy warrior. The story is meant to be blood-curdling and the colourful language-including liberal use of “depredation,” “loot,” “rapaciousness,” “vicious,” “brutality,” “plunder” and “extraction”-produces that effect.

The facts cited in the book are beyond dispute. Tharoor makes his case with passion and plain good writing. In this way, British imperial rule left India devastated. A history of famines reveals how indifferent the state was to the welfare of ordinary Indians (Chapter 5). Though the British did introduce some instruments of modernization such as railways and the rule of law, these “supposed ‘gifts’ were in fact designed in Britain’s interests alone.”īritish divide-and-rule policies strained the parliamentary democracy the British introduced during their reign (Chapters 3 and 4). This drain of resources left India poorer. Likewise, the British-Indian state paid a sum of money every year to Britain for services like interest on public debt or salaries of expatriate military officers. The Free Trade policy of the Empire ruined India’s artisans and enabled Britain to build a world-leading textile industry (Chapter 1). It continued via unequal trade and general extraction in the 19th century. The looting began with the “plunder” of Indian wealth by East India Company officers like Robert Clive. Britain’s “looting” of India led to this disaster, Tharoor writes. So states Shashi Tharoor on the cover of this book.

By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six fold. In the eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was as large as Europe’s. Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.The Indian Empire and Burma, 1909. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry.

Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation.īritish imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' - from the railways to the rule of law - was designed in Britain's interests alone. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. Inglorious Empire tells the real story of the British in India - from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj - and reveals how Britain's rise was built upon its plunder of India.

Inglorious empire by shashi tharoor