Swaminomics did British rule really impoverish India
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His long thesis cannot be fully discussed in a short column, but we can at least mention Madison’s work in it. The figures given in Maddison’s famous book Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD are slightly different from Tharoor’s. According to Madison, India’s share in the world’s GDP was 24.4 per cent in the year 1700 before the British rule, which fell to 4.2 per cent in 1950. The reason, says Tharoor, is simple. India was being ruled for the benefit of Britain. For 200 years, the cost of Britain’s rise was recovered from India.
Madison figures
Do Madison’s real figures support India? From 1700 to 1950, India’s GDP grew from $90 billion to $222 billion, which was the fastest ever. India’s share in the world’s GDP did not fall because it became poor. Rather, it was because of the industrial revolution, due to which other countries progressed rapidly. The population of the country increased from 16.5 crores to 35.9 crores peacefully between the different princely states on the initiative of the British and improvement in the health sector. On the contrary, the population of the country did not increase during the Hindu rule. This is a testimony to how difficult things were before the British rule.
Was the British rule responsible for India’s low income and Britain’s high income? Madison’s data do not support this claim. Before the arrival of the British, from 1000 to 1500, Britain’s annual per capita income growth was three times compared to India’s 0.04 percent. India’s per capita growth from 1500 to 1820 was negative 0.01 percent, while Britain’s was 0.27 percent. From 1820 to 1870, East India Company’s loot was at its peak. During this period India’s growth was zero while Britain’s growth was 1.26 percent. During the British era from 1870 to 1913, India’s annual growth rate was 0.54 percent, which was the highest. But when the British rule was counting its last breaths in the country, it remained at minus 0.24 percent from 1913 to 1950. During this time, the Great Depression affected India as well and there was a huge decline in the availability of food and drink.
condition of britain
Britain’s own annual per capita income growth fell below one per cent between 1870 and 1950. This is an indication that he did not gain much from the colony. Between 1950 and 1973, when it lost its colonies one by one, Britain’s per capita income growth reached a record level of 2.4 percent. This is contrary to the thesis that the plunder of slave countries increased Britain’s prosperity. The reason for its growth was the increase in productivity. Colonization benefited him but not much.
As far as the flow of money from India to Britain is concerned, Tharoor cites Madison’s work in this, there is no doubt that for 190 years there was a huge financial flow from India to Britain. Had this money been invested in India itself, it could have made a huge difference. That’s perfect. But the history of India shows that the tax revenue was not invested in India but was wasted on the luxuries of the officials and incessant wars. Due to this, many rulers could not pay their soldiers on time and loot was encouraged. Because of this, the country’s GDP grew at a slow pace.
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robbery of the company
The East India Company looted the rich of India. But this did not make much difference to the public of India as there was no change in tax for them. Under the British rule, 40 percent of India was ruled by the princely states. He did not hand over his revenue to the British but his economic growth remained weak. In this, princely states like Travancore remained an exception. This proves that keeping the tax revenue in India did not benefit the common people or economic growth. The Nizam of Hyderabad was considered the richest man in the world, but the areas under his rule were among the poorest in the country. Nationalist historians believe that if there was no British rule, India’s industrial revolution would have been faster. But the princely states of the country, especially the largest state of Hyderabad tell a different story.
Tharoor says that the tax of the British was very high, but according to Maddison, the share of farmers’ tax in GDP during the Mughal period was 15 percent, which fell to three percent at the end of the British rule. The East India Company kept the tax like the Mughals, but when the command of the country came directly into the hands of the British government, the tax was fixed in nominal terms. This reduced the tax burden on the farmers. This ended the profits for the British. This was also one of the reasons for the British to leave India.
This column does not contain a complete assessment of British rule in India or Tharoor’s book. But this goes to show that Tharoor has only taken material from Madison’s book to his advantage to strengthen his thesis. Madison did not criticize the British rule much in India. He says that irrigation in India increased eight times during the British rule. Debate continues on this.
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