Legacy of the British Raj
British colonialism left a significant impact on the Indian subcontinent, and through the region's role in the British Empire, on the world.
Economic impact
The English language serves as a distinguishing feature in India's modern economic life; when controlling for extraneous factors, wages have been found to be on average 34 percent higher for Indian men who speak fluent English and 13 percent higher for men who speak some English relative to men who do not speak any English.[1]
Science and technology
Revenues from British trade with India played a significant role in funding the Industrial Revolution.[2]
The British-built railways transformed Indian society in a number of ways, allowing for new forms of transregional and international commerce to emerge. However, the British banned Indians from manufacturing their own locomotive technology in 1912; this meant that Indians had to go to the British to re-learn this craft after independence in 1947.[3]
Ideological impact
At independence and afterward, India has maintained such central British institutions as parliamentary government, 'one-person, one-vote' and the rule of law through nonpartisan courts.[4] It retained as well the institutional arrangements of the Raj such as the civil services,[5] administration of sub-divisions, universities and stock exchanges. The Indian Penal Code (IPC), instituted in the colonial era, went on to serve as the foundation for legal codes passed by the British in several of their other colonies.[6]
Metcalf shows that over the course of two centuries, British intellectuals and Indian specialists made the highest priority bringing peace, unity and good government to India.[7] They offered many competing methods to reach the goal. For example, Cornwallis recommended turning Bengali Zamindar into the sort of English landlords that controlled local affairs in England.[7] Munro proposed to deal directly with the peasants. Sir William Jones and the Orientalists promoted Sanskrit, while Macaulay promoted the English language.[8] Zinkin argues that in the long run, what matters most about the legacy of the Raj is the British political ideologies which the Indians took over after 1947, especially the belief in unity, democracy, the rule of law and a certain equality beyond caste and creed.[7]
Religion
Christianity began to be perceived negatively by many Indians during British rule, as it was seen as part of the imperialist project.[9]
Zinkin argues that certain British political ideologies took root even among Hindu nationalists in the Bharatiya Janata Party, which specifically emphasises Hindu traditions.[10][11]
Geopolitical impact
One major change in India was the rejection of its former separate princely states; British India, which became the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, encompassed more territory than its pan-Indian predecessor, Mughal India.[12] The formation of British India and its frontiers was accompanied by a conscious policy of creating buffer states that could shield against rivals such as the Russian Empire; this elevated the concept of buffer states to international vogue in the 1880s.[13]
Military
The British introduced the idea of separating the political and military spheres of government into South Asia; however, this did not remain in effect in the post-independent Pakistan.[14]
Demographic impact
Many of the roots of the modern South Asian diaspora can be traced to British India, as the British relied on merchants, indentured labourers, and other groups of Indians to expand the British Empire.[15]
Religious communities
The introduction of census-based demography and electoral politics in the colonial era, along with the increase in reservation quotas for lower castes after independence, played a substantial role in defining religious and caste-based identities in modern India.[16][17]
The 1947 Partition of India, cleaving the Muslim- and non-Muslim-majority regions of British India, resulted in 15 million people migrating between the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan, which is the largest mass migration in human history.[18]
Cultural impact
The British colonisation of India influenced South Asian culture noticeably. The most noticeable influence is the English language which emerged as the administrative and lingua franca of India and Pakistan (and which also greatly influenced the native South Asian languages; see also: South Asian English)[20] followed by the blend of native and Gothic/saracenic architecture. Similarly, the influence of the South Asian languages and culture can be seen in Britain, too; for example, many Indian words entering the English language,[21] and also the adoption of South Asian cuisine.[22]
Modern Indian attitudes around sexuality have become more rigid since the colonial era due to the absorption of Victorian-era British Christian ideas around the modesty of the body.[23]
British sports (particularly hockey early on, but then largely replaced by cricket in recent decades, with football also popular in certain regions of the subcontinent)[24][25] were cemented as part of South Asian culture during the British Raj, with the local games having been overtaken in popularity but also standardised by British influences (see also: Sport in British India).[26] Elements of Indian physical culture, such as Indian clubs, also made their way to the United Kingdom.[27]
British archaeologists and cultural enthusiasts played a significant role during the colonial era in rediscovering and publicising some of India's pre-Islamic heritage, which had begun to disappear during the Indo-Muslim period, as well as preserving some of the Mughal monuments.[28][29]
See also
References
- ↑ Timalsina, Tarun (2021-03-18). "Redefining Colonial Legacies: India and the English Language". Harvard Political Review. Archived from the original on 2025-02-20. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ "British colonialism in India - The British Empire - KS3 History - homework help for year 7, 8 and 9". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ JC, Anand (2023-08-14). "The truth about colonial railways: Did the British infrastructure really benefit India?". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
- ↑ "Britain in India, Ideology and Economics to 1900". Fsmitha. F. Smith. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 2 August 2014. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Prevalence of Colonial Influence in India's Bureaucracy: Unraveling the Legacy". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ "377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia". 2021-06-28. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: the British in Bengal". History.ac.uk. History. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 2 August 2014. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Thomas R. Metcalf, The New Cambridge History of India: Ideologies of the Raj (1995), pp. 10–12, 34–35
- ↑ Copland, Ian (2006). "CHRISTIANITY AS AN ARM OF EMPIRE: THE AMBIGUOUS CASE OF INDIA UNDER THE COMPANY, c. 1813–1858". The Historical Journal. 49 (4): 1025–1054. doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005723. ISSN 1469-5103.
- ↑ Zinkin, Maurice (October 1995). "Legacies of the Raj". Asian Affairs (Book Review). 26 (3): 314–16. doi:10.1080/714041289. ISSN 0306-8374.
- ↑ Y. K. Malik and V. B. Singh, Hindu Nationalists in India: the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Westview Press, 1994), p. 14
- ↑ Tully, Mark (1998-07-01). "India: the British legacy fifty years on". Asian Affairs. 29 (2): 131–140. doi:10.1080/714041349.
- ↑ Malone, David M.; Mohan, C. Raja; Raghavan, Srinath (2015-07-23). The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-106118-9. Search this book on
- ↑ "The British Roots Of Pakistan's Dysfunctional And Authoritarian Politics". The Friday Times. 2023-08-09. Retrieved 2025-02-13.
- ↑ Haitao, Jia (2020-01-01). "British colonial expansion with Indian diaspora: the pattern of Indian overseas migration". Cappadocia Journal of Area Studies (CJAS), Cappadocia University. 2 (1): 56–81. doi:10.38154/cjas.27. ISSN 2717-7254.
- ↑ "Viewpoint: How the British reshaped India's caste system". 2019-06-19. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
- ↑ "British Colonialism and Imperialism". obo. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
- ↑ "Partition of 1947 continues to haunt India, Pakistan". news.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ "The unifying power of South Asian cricket". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 2024-05-07.
- ↑ Hodges, Amy; Seawright, Leslie (2014-09-26). Going Global: Transnational Perspectives on Globalization, Language, and Education. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-6761-0. Search this book on
- ↑ "How India changed the English language". www.bbc.com. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
- ↑ "Cricket, curry and cups of tea: India's influence on Victorian Britain". HistoryExtra. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
- ↑ "A Point of View: The sacred and sensuous in Indian art". BBC News. 2014-04-04. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ "What India was crazy about: Hockey first, Cricket later, Football, Kabaddi now?". India Today. 14 August 2017. Archived from the original on 4 January 2023. Retrieved 4 January 2023. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "World Cup 2022: How football fever is gripping cricket-crazy India". BBC News. 19 November 2022. Archived from the original on 4 January 2023. Retrieved 4 January 2023. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Love, Adam; Dzikus, Lars (26 February 2020). "How India came to love cricket, favored sport of its colonial British rulers". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 31 December 2022. Retrieved 4 January 2023. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Heffernan, Connor (2022). "State of the Field: Physical Culture". History. 107 (374): 143–162. doi:10.1111/1468-229X.13258. ISSN 0018-2648.
- ↑ Dalrymple, William (2002-09-27). "When Buddha was sacked". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
- ↑ Masani, Zareer (2023-01-29). "How the British saved India's classical history". The Spectator. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
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