The Raj

Now that I have a bit of time on my hands before my summer employment, I have tackled the pile of books that has been accumulating on my desk. I began with Raj: the Making and Unmaking of British India by Lawrence James. The subject of the Raj continues to fascinate me. During the several years I spent in India (1974-76) I met a few individuals in the hill station of Kodaikanal who had opted to stay on, left-overs from the end of the Raj. In that way I felt I had intersected with the last living remnants of British rule in India.

We read history to learn about ourselves. Indeed, the same conflicts seem to re-play themselves over and over again in different eras and cultures. And it all boils down to the same thing: men's greed for money and power. The author, Lawrence James, is a prolific historian. He is British, but he is no apologist for the deeds of his countrymen in the past. He tells it like it is (and bravo to you, Mr. James!). One episode in the early stages of British mercantile involvement on the Indian sub-continent struck me in particular because of its uncanny similarity to our own situation here in the USA. The East India Trading Company was set on making as much profit as possible and by the mid-1700's it saw the province of Bengal (of which Calcutta is the capital) as ripe for the picking. The EITC also came to realize that political subterfuge, playing one side against another, would advance their cause. With a single-minded dedication to avarice, the Governors-General Robert Clive and his successor Warren Hastings, made as much mischief as they could, pillaged Bengal, bled the country dry and filled their own pockets at an alarming rate. When word eventually reached London of their doings, those of a more liberal bent raised a ruckus. To the Whigs, such behavior was a blight on the integrity and moral standing of England. The Tories (read: Republicans) claimed that intervention in the affairs of the EITC would forcibly diminish their rights of free trade (think: NAFTA and other 'free-trade' agreements). The Tories yammered about an 'assault on property', bought off members of the parliament and mobilised the bankers and the rich and powerful (today we call it lobbying). The monarch of the time, George III (the Dubya of his day) intervened to have a bill thrown out, one designed to control the East India Company. The Parliament was dissolved and new elections were called. The Tories won the day. Some things don't change in this world; the rich trample on everyone else and see it as their divine right to do so.