Still, Tharoor is good at acknowledging the arguments that arise against his, and personally I find Tharoor's thesis more persuasive than the antithesis. You might consider this book one-sided, but that's defensible, because it is meant to be a thesis and exposé of the Raj, not a full trial by jury of the defendants, the Colonialists, and the plaintiff Indians. He freely admits the failures of Indians which permitted the English to subjugate them and also recounts the resistance that eventually put British Dominion to an end. Tharoor is pretty fair, which is refreshing. I also understood from this study for the first time how so many upper class Britons in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries managed to lead lives of such idle affluence - they did it directly or indirectly by picking India's pocket. Well, the answer is, they were siphoning off the human and material wealth of India and using it to prop themselves up against what otherwise would have been insuperable enemies. This book answers questions that I have often fleetingly considered, such as how England ever managed to dredge up the resources to win the Napoleonic Wars, the Boer War, and WWI and WWII - apart from getting bailed out by the USA in the latter two. The more history I read, the fewer heroes I have. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain’s stained Indian legacy.Having lived in India for two years and having researched and written two books while there, I vaguely knew a fair bit of Tharoor's thesis, but this book drew threads of information that I was vaguely aware of into a carefully woven Bayeaux tapestry of the corrupt British Raj.
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.
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