Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

by Shashi Tharoor

Overview

In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, it had decreased six-fold. In Inglorious Empire, Shashi Tharoor tells the real story of the British in India, from the arrival of the East India Company in 1757 to the end of the Raj, and reveals how Britain's rise was built upon its depredations in India. India was Britain's biggest cash cow, and Indians literally paid for their own oppression. Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry. Under the British, millions died from starvation—including 4 million in 1943 alone, after national hero Churchill diverted Bengal's food stocks to the war effort. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannons, massacred unarmed protesters and entrenched institutionalised racism. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed. Tharoor takes on and demolishes the arguments for the Empire, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift', from the railways to the rule of law, was designed in Britain's interests alone. This incisive reassessment of colonialism exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849048088
Publisher:	Hurst
Publication date:	09/01/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Shashi Tharoor served for twenty-nine years at the UN, culminating as Under-Secretary General. He is a Congress MP in India, the author of fourteen previous books and has won numerous literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers' Writers' Prize. Tharoor has a PhD from the Fletcher School and was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a Global Leader of Tomorrow.

Table of Contents

Chronology
Acknowledgements
Preface

1. The Looting of India
2. Did the British Give India Political Unity?
3. Democracy, the Press, the Parliamentary System and the
Rule of Law
4. Divide Et Impera
5. The Myth of Enlightened Despotism
6. The Remaining Case for Empire
7. The (Im)Balance Sheet: A Coda
8. The Messy Afterlife of Colonialism

Notes and References
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Ferocious and astonishing. Essential for a Britain lost in sepia fantasies about its past, Inglorious Empire is history at its clearest and cutting best."—Ben Judah, author of This is London

"Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so persuasive."— Amitav Ghosh

"Brilliant … A searing indictment of the Raj and its impact on India. … Required reading for all Anglophiles in former British colonies, and needs to be a textbook in Britain."— Salil Tripathi, Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International, and author of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent

From the Publisher

‘Remarkable … The book is savagely critical of 200 years of the British in India. It makes very uncomfortable reading for Brits.’

The Times - Matt Ridley

‘Tharoor’s impassioned polemic slices straight to the heart of the darkness that drives all empires. Forceful, persuasive and blunt, he demolishes Raj nostalgia, laying bare the grim, and high, cost of the British Empire for its former subjects. An essential read.’

Financial Times

‘Eloquent … a well-written riposte to those texts that celebrate empire as a supposed “force for good”.’

BBC World Histories

‘Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so persuasive.’

Amitav Ghosh

‘[A]t once a moral indictment and a moralistic polemic, both intended to expose the ‘‘totally amoral, rapacious imperial machine’’ the British devised to plunder India.’

Canberra Times - Mark Thomas

‘Inglorious Empire is a timely reminder of the need to start teaching unromanticised colonial history in British schools. A welcome antidote to the nauseating righteousness and condescension pedalled by Niall Ferguson in his 2003 book Empire.‘

The Irish Times

‘Well-referenced and full of fascinating facts, quotes and anecdotes, Inglorious Empire is a scorching indictment of British rule in India, and of British imperialism more broadly.’

Green Left Weekly

‘Those Brits who speak confidently about how Britain’s “historical and cultural ties” to India will make it easy to strike a great new trade deal should read Mr Tharoor’s book. It would help them to see the world through the eyes of the … countries once colonised or defeated by Britain.’

Financial Times - Gideon Rachman

‘His writing is a delight and he seldom misses his target … Tharoor should be applauded for tackling an impossibly contentious subject … he deserves to be read. Indians are not the only ones who need reminding that empire has a lot to answer for.’

Literary Review

‘This book burns with the power of intellect married with conviction … this is erudite, well-written, thoroughly documented and persuasive history that focuses varied sources into a coherent critique of colonialism in the Indian context. Tear up your copies of Ferguson’s neo-liberal mind rot and get angry like Tharoor.’

Sydney Morning Herald - Christopher Kremmer

‘Tharoor’s book — arising from a contentious Oxford Union debate in 2015 where he proposed the motion “Britain owes reparations to her former colonies” — should keep the home fires burning, so to speak, both in India and in Britain … He makes a persuasive case, with telling examples.’

History Today

‘Tharoor convincingly demolishes some of the more persistent myths about Britain’s supposedly civilizing mission in India … [he] charts the destruction of pre-colonial systems of government by the British and their ubiquitous ledgers and rule books … The statistics are worth repeating.’

Financial Times - Victor Mallet

‘Brilliant … A searing indictment of the Raj and its impact on India. … Required reading for all Anglophiles in former British colonies, and needs to be a textbook in Britain.’

Salil Tripathi

‘Ferocious and astonishing. Essential for a Britain lost in sepia fantasies about its past, Inglorious Empire is history at its clearest and cutting best.’

Ben Judah

“Listening to Tharoor is addicting enough, and this book, born out of his speech at The Oxford Union (which went viral) is just as captivating. Tharoor compellingly posits why the British Raj in India should never be ennobled or confused as a gift, and exposes the destructive rape of India at the hands of its colonizers.”

Indulge Magazine

‘Tharoor’s impassioned polemic slices straight to the heart of the darkness that drives all empires. Forceful, persuasive and blunt, he demolishes Raj nostalgia, laying bare the grim, and high, cost of the British Empire for its former subjects. An essential read.’

Financial Times - Nilanjana Roy