The British Raj attempted to colonize India in an organized fashion while utilizing its luxury, wealth and pleasure. However, that wasn’t always the case. A majority of the time, the British Raj faced political confusion, revolts, and extreme racism towards both British and Indian people. These conflicts were hidden by the common stereotype that India was a realm of spice, wealth, and glory. Suggesting the British Raj was beneficial to the Indian subcontinent would be an indistinct opposition.
To learn why the British Raj was detrimental to the Indian subcontinent, one must first learn what the British Raj is and its history. The period of dominion of the British Raj lasted from 1858 to 1947. The British Raj separated India into the notorious
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Popularity in modern industry grew as colonialism advanced and as a result raw materials became necessary to feed that industry. The immediate solution was to de-industrialize India, to prevent clashing between the Indian and British economies, and begin taking India’s raw materials, usually made into elegant handicrafts, and turn them into cheap products, like woolen clothes or cotton clothes. India suddenly, having the need for finished products, becomes a marketplace to sell cheap commodities, and if one looks at the overall scheme of this, one simple conclusion comes to mind: India was paying for its own destruction. With the money made off of India, the British used the profit to reimburse the war debt, pay British employee salaries, and maintain the army. This became a never-ending cycle of loss and debt for India reducing India’s wealth; basically India’s loss of wealth and local goods became an advantage to the British. India’s decreasing wealth bankrolled the British Empire and its activities, which most likely explains why it was such a strong European power. Had India prevented colonialism by the British, it would continue to flourish exports and free …show more content…
In reality, there remained a lack for the need of colonization, especially in the development of industrialized communication and transport. For example, the Japanese and the Russian developed railways without colonialization; railways received funding by government initiatives formulated by the Japanese and Russian governments. Considering the proximity between Japan and India, India’s government would’ve caught wind of the idea sooner or later. Furthermore, railways had one simple purpose, to ease transportation on the British; the popular purpose, and perhaps the more common one, engrossed the transporting of materials from India to Great Britain. The railroads had no intended purpose to serve the Indian public as a method of transportation. The relocation diffusion that resulted due to the creation of railways was a mere bi-product of the system; no one controlled the supply and demand of railways, it was simply to aid the administration. On the contrary colonialized railways played a significant role in the elaborate scam designed by the British; investing large portions of their wealth British stockholders did, in response, the British government paid them disproportionate returns, to the Britons benefit, graciously provided by Indian ‘taxes’. The other convenience provided to the British by the creation of
One country that had imperialism was India. By the mid-1880s, the British East India Company controlled three fifths of India. The cause of British domination was that the land was very diverse and the people could not unite and that the British either paid local princes or used weapons to get control. Positive effects of imperialistic rule in India were that the British set up a stronger economy and more powerful industries. They built roads and railroads. British rule brought peace and order to the countryside. They revised the legal system to promote justice for the Indians regardless of class. Indian landowners and princes, who still owned territory grew rich from exporting cash crops such as cotton and jute. The British introduced the telegraph and the postal system as a means of communication. These improvements and benefits from British rule eventually lead to Indian nationalism. The exposure to European ideas caused an Indian nationalist movement, the people dreamed of ending Imperial ...
Not only did the inequality and separation of the Indian society frustrate the citizens of India, but the imperialism Britain had upon them as well. In the early 20th century, Indian nationalists wanted to take a stand against the British rule and make India independent. The British created unfair laws that created a nationalist movement in India to regain their freedom. He believed that there should not be a Caste System because of one’s birth.
A new era was dawning on the American colonies and its mother country Britain, an era of revolution. The American colonists were subjected to many cruel acts of the British Parliament in order to benefit England itself. These British policies were forcing the Americans to rebellious feelings as their rights were constantly being violated by the British Crown. The colonies wanted to have an independent government and economy so they could create their own laws and stipulations. The British imperial policies affected the colonies economic, political, and geographic situation which intensified colonists’ resistance to British rule and intensified commitment to their republican values.
Britain saw its empire come apart. In the 1940s India, Burma and Ceylon became independent. Britain had lost their ‘Jewell’ of the empire, India. Britain had now lost its empire which led to the breakdown of Britain’s great power status. The fact that Britain had lost its empire is linked to the fact that Britain could no longer have the close relations with other countries anymore which led to the breakdown of British trade and therefore its economy.
James, Lawrence. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print.
There is a point of time in certain a country’s history where they become dominant and more powerful than ever before. During this elongated process a country becomes an empire. The British and the Ottomans were states that succeeded in this process, but becoming an empire such as theirs required vast amounts of political and social maneuvering to expand their boundaries, called imperialism. Imperialism is, “a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force”. By becoming a modern nation enjoying economic prosperity and political stability, the British and the Ottomans created an imperialistic impact over the globe with distinctive motivations and approaches especially during the transition period of gaining ample amount power and influence globally.
" India was where the riches of the world came from, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. The British needed to dispel the threat of other Europeans in Africa to maintain control of India, and they did so efficiently. They quickly gained control of both the major sea routes to India and then turned their eyes to the rest of the continent. Whether the British were trying to foster public support or prevent another nation from becoming a threat, all British actions in Africa were directly or indirectly linked to India. The British were motivated by their desire to become powerful, and they skillfully combined enterprise and conquest to create a globe spanning empire centered around the wealth of India.
The British considered Indian civilization to be inferior and implemented their western ways, overriding ancient Indian customs. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that British imperialism in India resulted in both positive as well as negative reforms in political, economic and social aspects of its new colony. To begin with, one can observe that the British colonizers did indeed improve Indian civilization by developing means of communication and transport. They built a great number of bridges, over 40,000 miles of railway and paving an astounding 70,000 miles of road (Doc. 4. The adage of the adage.
As many people know, Imperialism has shaped the culture and customs all over the world. Imperialism is the dominance of one country over another politically, economically or socially. Western culture can be seen in all parts of the world; from Asia to Africa, to the Indies and the Americans. The downside of having the bits of western culture all over the world, is how it got there. Western influence was forced upon places in Asia, specifically India, Indonesia with a hellacious price; lives and poverty.
Imperialism in India British imperialism in India had many positive and negative effects on both the mother country, Britain and the colony, India. Many people would argue which effects were more prominent in these countries, and some would agree that they were equal. But in both cases, there were actually both. In India, the British colonization had more positive effects than negative. For instance, when the British colonized India they built 40,000 miles of railroad and 70,000 miles of paved roadway.
British colonialism was reflected throughout the course of the film in many ways for which it would be reflected on how it worked, its purpose and why countries needed colonies. Colonialism why it was needed by countries like England, France and many other countries because they were able to use the colonies resources to benefit their own economy increasing revenue, opening new shipping/trading routes to make more revenue by trading with other countries. However, this affected colonies like India due to British viceroy and landlords told the people on the land they owned what to grow and what cannot be grown. It has shown that in one village was proficient in growing Indigo to be used for dye. However, no money was ever given to the villages
There is no doubt that British imperialism had a large impact on India. India, having previously been an group of independent and semi-independent princedoms and territories, underwent great change under British administration. Originally intended to consolidate their hold on India by establishing a population that spoke the same language as their rulers, the British decision in the 1830s to educate Indians in a Western fashion, with English as the language of instruction, was the beginning of a chain of events, including a rise in Indian nationalism, that led to Indian resentment of British imperialism and ultimately to the loss of British control over India.
1 Moore, Robin J., "Imperial India, 1858-1914", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001a, p.422-446,
The decision to grant independence to India was not the logical culmination of errors in policy, neither was it as a consequence of a mass revolution forcing the British out of India, but rather, the decision was undertaken voluntarily. Patrick French argues that: “The British left India because they lost control over crucial areas of the administration, and lacked the will and the financial or military ability to recover that control”.
India was the first major Asian civilizations to fall victim to European predatory activities (Duiker 31). With conquering India, the British had various purposes behind it. Their main purpose was to achieve a monopolistic trading position (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). The second purpose was the control of India; this was a key element in the world power structure, in terms of geography, logistics and military manpower (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). When the East India Company continued to trade under the British, huge armies were created, largely composed of Indian sepoys (Marshall). The armies were used to defend the Company’s territories protect the Indian states (Marshall).