AN ERA OF DARKNESS

In 1930, the American
historian and philosopher Will Durant wrote that Britain?s ?conscious and
deliberate bleeding of India? [was the] greatest crime in all history?. He
was not the only one to denounce the rapacity and cruelty of British rule,
and his assessment was not exaggerated. Almost thirty-five million Indians
died because of acts of commission and omission by the British?in famines,
epidemics, communal riots and wholesale slaughter like the reprisal killings
after the 1857 War of Independence and the Amritsar massacre of 1919. Besides
the deaths of Indians, British rule impoverished India in a manner that
beggars belief. When the East India Company took control of the country, in
the chaos that ensued after the collapse of the Mughal empire, India?s share
of world GDP was 23 percent. When the British left it was just above 3
percent. The British empire in India began with the East India Company,
incorporated in 1600, by royal charter of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, to
trade in silk, spices and other profitable Indian commodities. Within a
century and a half, the Company had become a power to reckon with in India.
In 1757, under the command of Robert Clive, Company forces defeated the
ruling Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal at Plassey, through a combination of
superior artillery and even more superior chicanery. A few years later, the
young and weakened Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, was browbeaten into issuing
an edict that replaced his own revenue officials with the Company?s
representatives. Over the next several decades, the East India Company,
backed by the British government, extended its control over most of India,
ruling with a combination of extortion, double-dealing, and outright
corruption backed by violence and superior force. This state of affairs
continued until 1857, when large numbers of the Company?s Indian soldiers
spearheaded the first major rebellion against colonial rule. After the rebels
were defeated, the British Crown took over power and ruled the country
ostensibly more benignly until 1947, when India won independence. In this
explosive book, bestselling author Shashi Tharoor reveals with acuity,
impeccable research, and trademark wit, just how disastrous British rule was
for India. Besides examining the many ways in which the colonizers exploited
India, ranging from the drain of national resources to Britain, the
destruction of the Indian textile, steel-making and shipping industries, and
the negative transformation of agriculture, he demolishes the arguments of
Western and Indian apologists for Empire on the supposed benefits of British
rule, including democracy and political freedom, the rule of law, and the
railways. The few unarguable benefits?the English language, tea, and
cricket?were never actually intended for the benefit of the colonized but
introduced to serve the interests of the colonizers. Brilliantly narrated and
passionately argued, An Era of Darkness will serve to correct many
misconceptions about one of the most contested periods of Indian history.