PEACE, POVERTY AND BETRAYAL

Just as some people try hard to camouflage their inert racism by the opening phrase ‘I am not a racist’ only to show their true colour soon, Roderick Matthews starts his book with a disclaimer ‘the point is not to ask whether British rule in India was a good or a bad thing’, yet before long he does just that by claiming ‘the hardy endurance of British rule might suggest that it brought sufficient benefit to enough people to have survived for so long,’ which is a set defence of all tyrants whose iron grip ensures the prolongation of their dynasties’ subjugation of peoples around the world.

Of course Matthews wanted to write ‘a new history of British India’ and dutifully filled it with long and monotonous accounts of the ‘philosophy of Whiggism’, the twists and turns of Britain’s internal politics and the appointments and dismissals of EIC executives, governor generals and later viceroys. But although they exercised enormous power over the lives of ordinary Indians, they were no more than the employees of the EIC and Britain. They will never be accorded a place in Indian history equal to that of the Nawabs, Rajas, Kings and Emperors of India.