8 Things That Would Have Happened If The British Never Ruled India

It’d be a lie if we said that we’re completely over the colonial hangover left over by the two centuries of British rule. Today, living in an independent India, it’s hard to imagine a foreign nation ruling over us. A lot of blood was shed for the sweet taste of freedom and there’s nothing that we cherish more than being independent.

Having said so, just for the sake of the mind’s exercise, let’s try to imagine the things that may have happened if the British never really ruled India.

1. The country may have been richer

According to Dadabhai Naoroji’s book, “Poverty And Un-British Rule In India”, the amount of wealth drained by the British from Indian resources amounted to 4 million pounds every year. Therefore, India may not have been a “third world” nation in the first place, had the British never ruled the country.

It can be assumed that we would not have to deal with the devastating destitution had we n0t have to start off from a point where the British had left us almost economically barren.

 

2. What about Democracy?

There’s hardly any suggestion of democracy in pre-British India. The British introduced the Parliamentary elections in India with the Indian Council Act of 1861. It was the first time that Indians could vote for the Lok Sabha which translates to “Council of the people”.

Although the British would retain responsibilities for the defense and foreign affairs of India, they did introduce electoral systems to the country which otherwise may have remained a monarchy for years to follow.

 

3.  World War II wouldn’t have affected India

India had always been a peaceful nation and would have nothing to with the World War II had it not been under the rule of the British. More than two million sons of our soil were sent to fight the Axis powers in a war we had nothing to do with.

The unscrupulous wartime policies of the British to supply food to soldiers at war led to the shortage of food in Bengal and Bihar causing millions of deaths out of starvation. The devastation of the Second World War was not something India ever needed.

 

4. The formation of a consolidated army

Today, India has one of the strongest defense in the world. However, it would have been difficult for India to form such a strong army today had it not been trained for warfare under the British.

Contradicting the previous point, India’s involvement in the World War helped the country form a discipline needed in international warfare and handling modern ammunition and incorporating advanced battle techniques could have remained far-fetched for India without the British influence.

 

5. Indian industries may have flourished better

The industrial revolution of Britain owes much to de-industrialization of our country. The Indian textile industry was almost destroyed and our raw materials were used to manufacture textiles in England which were sold back to us along with the rest of the world.

The hand-loom weavers of Bengal were imposed with sky-high tariffs, had their looms broken and reduced to beggars.Therefore, India could have been the largest exporters of textiles in the world had their ways not been curbed by the British.

 

6. The abolition of Sati

The most heinous Hindu practice where a widow would be burnt alive on the pyre of her deceased husband was finally abolished in 1829 in certain parts of India, starting from Bengal and rest of the Princely states followed suit. Apparently, Mughal king, Akbar, and Aurungzeb had tried to ban the custom but their implementations were not fruitful.

Although personalities like Sahajanand Swami and Raja Rammohan Roy had struggled hard to abolish the practice, it would have been a tough job had the British not backed the cause, especially with the widespread protest from the Hindu community against the ban.

 

7. The introduction of western education

Not that India had any dearth of an academic depth of its own but the introduction of western education had helped the country in various aspects, including gaining independence. The British had introduced English to the Indian bourgeois for convenience in bureaucratic work.

However, this was a gateway for the Indians to a world of literature which had exposed them to tales of revolutions in history that eventually inspired Indians to start a well-educated fight for freedom. India may not have formed such a well-rounded worldview had western education not been introduced by the British.

 

8. Progress would have been witnessed without Indians paying dearly for it

Technological advancements such as setting up telegraph posts, connecting railways, airways and progress in the fields of medicine and academics would have flourished even without the British.

It might have taken its own sweet time and this delay in progress would have been much more sustainable compared to the centuries of plunder of Indian resources that had reduced the country to something that can be viewed as a developing nation by the west.

However, we would have missed the Anglo-Indian culture that has become an integral part of the country, had the British never been here.

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