Prologue continues....

Colonial India was almost a police state. The impoverished masses had no will to fight against repression. The policy of the British Empire was to eliminate the economic independence of India through appropriate administrative and legislative measures. Many Indians collaborated with

this imperial project. The insidious impact of the education system and

the civil service was such that a part of the Indian intelligentsia as well as

the civil servants assimilated the British attitude towards the natives.

The exposure of India to science and new technologies, western institutions of

parliamentary system, etc., benefitted her, but the basic strategy of the

imperial administration to ‘loot’ India never changed. The British rulers

maintained their distance from the natives. Indians were not allowed to

enter elite clubs in Delhi, Bombay and other places. The heart of Delhi,

Connaught Place, was out of bounds for Indians. Only Europeans could

walk in this place. This is a classic example of racial segregation they

practised in India.

The colonial past has been extremely degrading. India came face to

face with the brutality of a race that was in possession of superior technology

created by the Industrial Revolution and superior might. They displayed

a passion, rarely seen before, to conquer and plunder and kill. The Indian

resistance was too feeble to deter these men of superior cunning. They

came as traders and ended up as rulers of this land.

The system they put in place to perpetuate their rule emasculated the helpless Indians physically and mentally. They systematically plundered India’s resources. Agriculture was destroyed by inflicting cruelties on the peasants. Millions of ordinary peasants starved to death as a consequence of the policy of expropriation

followed by the colonial administration. The indigenous crafts were

destroyed to create markets for industrial products produced by machines back home. India witnessed the cruellest exploitation of the poor during

the colonial period.

To be continued....