How Harmful Was British Imperialism In India?

British Imperialism in India

India was first controlled by the British East India Company for growing crops like cotton and indigo. During the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, the British took over the political, economical, and social aspects of India. India became Britain’s most important colony because of the amount of valuable natural resources the country had. Although Britain was the world’s largest employer, structured India’s government and gave Indians freedom of religion and culture, They actually made life for Indians unlivable, structured the government for their own benefit and caused discrimination.

While Lalvani claimed that Britain built the framework for India’s government and that the transition to unified India was peaceful, they

actually didn’t include Indians in the framework and had a violent transition. The British imperial rule established the framework for India’s Justice System (Lalvani). However, the framework consisted of 900 Englishmen and only 60 Natives (Doc #2). This meant that the Indians really didn’t have control over their own taxation, or any voice at all. In addition Lalvani claims that the transition to unified India was peaceful. In reality, over 1 million people died during the fights between Muslims and Hindus (Gandhi). This means that the transition was not peaceful because of the many deaths that had happened.
Although Lalvani argues that the British built a railroad system and was the world’s largest employer, in actuality they extracted India’s wealth and also made their lives unlivable.

First, the British were building 10,000 miles of railroad track which gave Indians jobs (Lalvani). On the other side, that railroad track was used to extract raw materials from India and flood their markets with British textiles (Doc #3, Gandhi) This means that even though they were getting paid to build the railroad, it wasn’t enough to cover the costs of all the raw materials that they were losing to the British. Secondly, the British claimed that they were the world’s largest employer with a staggering 1.6 million workers on the railroad (Lalvani). In reality, they raised taxes on the Indians which forced them to replace their food crops with cash crops such as indigo, which was not wanted at the time. This happened during many famines and caused the death of over 58 million Indians (Doc #7). This is important because the Indians simply didn’t make enough money to support their families, so they died of

starvation.
While Lalvani claims that Britain increased literacy rates and didn’t discriminate against Indians, there actually was a very low literacy rate and lots of discrimination.

According to Lalvani, some of the finest universities in the cities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras as a way to increase literacy rates, but as document #5 shows, only 15% of the population could read and write by the time India got its independance. This is important because it shows that Lalvani lied about increasing literacy rates, and that not even a sixth of the population of India could read and write. Secondly, the British said that minorities and people of different religions felt more secure and less discriminated against (Lalvani). In reality even though that British had a hands-off policy regarding Indian religious and social customs, that didn’t stop the Christian missionaries from harassing because of what they believed in everywhere they went (Quote #3 from pink sheet). This is important because it proves that what Lalvani is saying is wrong because of the Indians that were harassed because of their religion and cultural

beliefs.
Although Britain was the world’s largest employer, structured India’s government and gave Indians freedom of religion and culture, They actually made life for Indians unlivable, structured the government for their own benefit and often caused discrimination. Lalvani claimed that Britain built the framework for India’s government and created a peaceful transition to unified india, but they actually didn’t include Indians in the framework and had a violent transition(Doc #2, Gandhi). Secondly, he claimed that the British built a railroad system to supply jobs for Indians and said that Britain was the world’s largest employer. In actuality, Britain extracted India’s wealth and also made their lives unlivable(Doc #3, Gandhi, Doc #7). Lastly, he claimed that Britain increased literacy rates and didn’t discriminate against Indians, but there actually were very low literacy rates and lots of discrimination throughout the period of British imperialism (Doc #5, Quote 3 from pink sheet). These impacted India in many negative ways. They didn’t have a voice in what was happening to their country, and were being starved to death because of the lack of money they were making. They were often discriminated against by christians and not many could read, so they didn’t have a very bright future. All in all, people should care about this topic because the Indians went through lots of pain and suffered through many conflicts that challenged their way of life. They are still dealing with problems to this day because of British imperialism.