an era of darkness the british empire in india

The chapter on famines, forced labour and massacres perpetrated by the British will have you seething in anger but as many critics point out, all that happened a long time ago. His discussion on the Indian railway, and how much British shareholders actually profited from its creation, is particularly illuminating. He uses extensive research and resources to demonstrate that whether it is the Indian Civil Service and legal system, or railways, tea and cricket – every aspect of British colonial rule that we now use as examples of a benign Empire were not only instruments to cement British rule, but were more often than not a lot more detrimental for locals than we now believe. While there are certain bits of the book that seem to jump from one point to another too quickly, Shashi Tharoor’s arguments are foolproof. Whether the British will ever own up to their reign of terror is subject to debate, but An Era of Darkness plays an important role in holding the Raj to account, and is an important read for anyone inflicted by any ill-conceived love for the good old days of empire. Starting with a comprehensive overview of the looting of India and the destruction of its industries, the writer reminds us over and over again that British rule began with the pillaging of a land and its people by a giant corporation, and ended with a system of government that treated an entire continent as sub-humans and used a “divide and rule” policy to cling on to power for as long as possible. Which is why Tharoor’s book is not only welcome, but necessary in today’s world. Whether it is the rise of British politicians who yearn for the good old days of Britain when it was truly great - Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s inappropriate recitation of Kipling (“the temple bells they say, Come you back, you English soldier”) during a recent visit to Myanmar comes to mind - or the yearning for a romanticised version of the Raj and the Victorian era in popular TV dramas like Indian Summers and Downton Abbey, the sad truth is that there has been a resurgence in colonial nostalgia in recent years.

Tharoor himself acknowledges the impossibility of condensing a book on colonial history within 300 pages, writing that the purpose of the book is not to provide a chronological history of events in the region, but rather to refute the claim that the British empire was, at the end of the day, a good thing.Īn important rebuttal to colonial nostalgia For those of us who are familiar with the history of the British empire as well as post-Partition events, Shashi Tharoor’s book An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India may seem like a rather basic read.

An era of darkness the british empire in india