Advantages And Disadvantages Of Single Benevolent Empires

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Throughout all of history, there has never been a single benevolent empire. Yes, some empires may have shown qualities of benevolence, but the keyword here is sustainability. It is impossible to sustain a benevolent empire because the indigenous population cannot be protected nor preserved, its economic needs cannot be supported, and self-government leads to rebellion.
Very briefly, a benevolent empire is an empire such that both the ruling nation and native people are never considered oppressed by the ruling government, its policies, and social structure.
First of all, the majority of the population within a new empire consists of indigenous people, and there is no way to “benevolently assimilate” them without weakening the empire itself. Some may argue that the indigenous population can simply be treated as the equals of citizens, but there …show more content…

Unfortunately, having too many religions co-existing in the same region created religious tension. This fragility showed itself when Aurangzeb rose up and supported Islamic supremacy, causing all the other pre-existing religious groups to clash and bring the empire down—a problem that could only have been avoided if the Mughals adopted the Spanish conversion mindset.
Evidently, cultural integration cannot be achieved without upsetting indigenous culture or negatively impacting the mother country. If this cannot succeed within an empire, then neither can self-government.
The main problem with self-government is that it allows for quick formation of the desire for independence by the conquered people within the empire. In an almost comical example, the Mongols allowed the Russians to govern themselves as a tributary state as long as Mongol officials were elected. The Russians were able to strengthen themselves to overthrow Mongol rule from 1450 to 1480 by siphoning money from the very tribute they collected for the

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