Railways
Railways were introduced in India because they were essential to the British for further exploitation and loot of the country. If this were not so, the British would not have introduced or allowed others to introduce railways in India they could have easily forbidden the introduction of railways as they had other types of machinery before 1860. The British always found money for railways and other projects if they were in their own interests, but always pleaded lack of money even for the most basic and elementary needs of the people of India.
Secondly, Britain did not give the free gift of even a single cent for railways or for any other purpose without any retributive charges from the Indian people. Indian people paid, and paid an enormous cost for the railways, which perhaps had never been paid before by any country in the world. The Indian people argued that artificial means of irrigation to grow more food were much more important to them than the railways, which were to be both a means of cheap transit and a protection against frequently recurring famines. They also pointed out that year after year the railways were incurring heavy losses. In spite of these arguments, the British forced the progress of railways in India with a pace more rapid than even in Britain itsell,and in France' since it was in their economic interest to do so.
As discussed before, by about the middle of the 19th century, the industries and manufactures of India were almost completely destroyed. The London Times in 1847 could pronounce that the days had passed when India was considered an El Dorado but there was 'the worth of a ship load of diamonds in the cotton-fields of the Deccan. An article in the London Economist in 1847 made it clear when it wrote that there was no tropical" raw material "for the production of which India is not as well, or better adapted than any other country; while its dense and illustri- ous population would seem to offer an illimitable demand for our manufactures.
Although India had the great potential for supplying raw materials and food to Britain and consume their manu- factured products, in actuality in the early Victorian period India, consumed only 1/10th as much per capita of British manufactures as Brazil, which did not even belong to Britain. Lancashire complained of India's deficiency of supplying raw cotton as well.
To bridge up this gap betwen potentiality and actuality, one of the many things done was the hectic campaign by British businessmen "for the application to India of two of the principal achievements of the Industrial Revolution- the steamship and the steam railway.'
So in 1840, the first steamship company, the 'Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company' (P & O) was started. But still the British exports to, and imports from, India were much less than expected. This situation was thoroughly examined by British businessmen, publicists, and officials; "The central conclusion which they reached was that the low level of Britain's trade with India was directly connected with the lack of good internal transport The logical step forward was to cover India with a network of railways.
The goal was clear. Promoters now started to convin- ce the Governments of India and Britian of the political and military advantages of railways. These businessmen again and again emphasized the commercial, political, and military ad- vantages-all serving the interests of Britian. A talented railway economist, Hyde Clark, argued in 1845 that it was no misplaced philanthropy which dictated the need for rail- ways, but practical political wisdom.
"It is not, therefore, with any hope of inspiring the company of British merchants trading to India with an expensive sym- pathy for the social and moral advancement of their millions of native subjects that we urge the formation of a well-consi- dered means of railway communication, and compactness to their political rule in those territories.
A little later, Clark said that self-interest was the main spring of all things in the world. In short, as Clark candidly remarked, 'the real operation, after all, is to make the Hindoos form the railways, and enable us to reap a large portion of the profits.
The Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie (1848- 56), wrote in a minute dated April 20, 1853 which is, in a sense, the fundamental charter of Indian railways. "Eng- land is calling aloud for the cotton which India does already produce in some degree, and would produce sufficient in quality, and plentiful in quantity, if only there were provid- ed the fitting means of conveyance for it.' Moreover a few railway lines radiating from the three Presidency capitals, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, would have immeasurable political advantages. They would 'enable the government to bring the main bulk of its military strength to bear upon any given point, in as many days as it would now require months.
Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General of India, report- ed in 1845 that the plains of "Hindoostan offered remarkable facilities for building railways which would be of immense value to the commerce, government, and military control of the country" all these for the benefit of the British.
For 'commerce, government, and military control" of India by Britain, railways were started in 1853 by private British companies. These companies wanted guaranteed minimum annual profit of 5% and the government offered free land without any rent or taxes and 4% guaranteed an- nual profit. This was pronounced most satisfactory by every one, including the leader of the companies, Sir George Lar- pent, who conceded "that the offer of a land and a 4 per cent guarantee constituted a great advantage' In spite of this British businessmen were not satisfied with this "great advan- tage' They wanted more and the British government of India obliged them by giving more because, as Larpent pointed out 'the India board, the company, and the Government are hand in hand with' in looting India.
*British imperialists Morris and Taijinkan in 1964 put forward understandable but illogical arguments in favour of their government that "today the Indian government pays 6% interest to the World Bank, and no one calls it a swindler". They lament that "only 5% was guaranteed to the private railway companies".970 These writers want the reader to believe that the value of the interest rate has not changed even in a period of more than 100 years. What an insult to the intelligence and knowledge of the reader! The question is, what was the opinion of the British officials and businessmen of that time, who invested in the railways, about the situation in 1850? Did they find it satisfactory or not? Some opinions are given below. In 1873, before the committee, the highest British official in India, Lord Lawrence, said: "The capitalists will be ready to do anything for a guarantee of five percent...5% is not such a good interest rate." 179 When Larpent heard that the Government of India had agreed to give a 5% guarantee and free land, he declared that the offer was "superior to the benefits of any railway company in Britain or Europe." 172 Lord Hawncliffe, chairman of another railway company (G.I.P.), said that "the railway company got more than it asked for." 173 The question whether the guarantee was really necessary is answered by Daniel Thorner as "no" because the Government could itself have borrowed money from London "at a very low rate" if it wanted, because there was capital lying idle there, which the capitalists wanted to put to use. 173a Sir John Capham said that "capital was never so cheap in London for such a long period as it was from the middle of 1848 to the end of 1852." 174 Meanwhile Britain "had a great glut of capital."
Moreover if the Government of India borrows today at 6 per cent, the profits of the enterprise ca icd on by borrowed money remain in India for the hnefit of Indians and not for the British, the jobs 21 given to th Indians and not to the British, and the capital borrowed sti nulates Indian industries and not British industries, unlike the rail- way Railways in India were one of the means to drain Tndia wealth to Britai
Readers can very well see how British imperialists, even afte Indi's depende ice tr to justify thei magiificent robbery of India by specious and baseles arguments
Sadly not even a single Indian was ever asked by the go- vernment of India on the subject of railways or on the sub- ject of drawing contracts with the railway companies. On both ends only Britons were involved, Britons who were out to loot India as much as possible by various means in order to enrich themselves. Railways were only one means to do So. If there is something that is out of the reach of the rob- bers, they would try to bring some sort of ladder so that their hands can reach everywhere in the house. The British brought the ladder-railways-in India so that they could stretch their hands to get money and goods, in this case raw materials and markets from the interior of the country, and not just from the port towns.
Five per cent guarantee to the British companies, in ad- dition to the free land, from the revenues of the government of India (i.e. the people of India) meant that the people of India would make good the difference if the net receipts from the railways were less than 5% on the capital expended. There was no obligation at all on the companies to spend the money wisely and economically and no obligation to secure the com- fort of passengers. Under these circumstances there was, in the words of an eminent Indian economist who supports his views by quoting the opinions of various government offi cials, 'an extravagance in the construction of lines, and a disregard for the comfort of travellers, perhaps unexampled in the history of railway enterprise in any other country. And these facts were proved by witnesses of the highest rank and position'
William N. Massey, the Finance Minister of India, labelled Indian railways as "the most extravagant works that were ever undertaken' in front of the Parliamentary Committee in 1872. The Viceroy and Governor-General* of India,** Sir John Lawrence, himself condemned the extravagance of the Indian railways and the ill treatment of the passengers in the strongest terms.
Before the direct administration of India by Britain in 1858, the title of the highest British authority in India was merely the 'Governor- General' After 1858, the title was the 'Viceroy and Governor-General'
Considering the terms of the contracts between the British companies and the British government of India, Daniel Thorner concludes that the 'risk was to be borne by the East India Company; uncertainty, should it operate to the disadvantage of the railway promoters, could always be shifted to the East India Company (i.e. the people of India) profit was to accure to the railway companies. In other words, British people through their companies, in an alliance with the British government of India, were to earn money whether the railways make profit or not and Indian people were to bear the loss and risk. Such contracts were 'a perfect disgrace to whoever drew them up": and cannot be explained away on any other ground except that Britons were out to rob and plunder India and railways were one of the means to do so. In such circumstances the railways in India could not be anything but a losing concern till the end of the 19th century and by that time the total investment made on railways was over £226 million result- ing in a loss of £40 million borne by the Indian people. Indian people had to pay every year until 1943-44 (only three years before independence) a sum of about £10 million to the people of England as a debt on the railways alone (other debts will be mentioned later).
Payments of huge sums of money still did not mean that railways initiated an era of industrialization in India, as it did in other parts of the world such as the U.S.A., Germany and Japan. It was a common complaint that the 'railway authorities have paid little attention to 'Indian industrialization. The industrialization of India was an anathema to the British as a red rag is to the bull. The selection of lines and the rate policies were designed to dis-courage Indian industries and to encourage foreign (mainly British) industries.
As pointed out before, if British interests were involved, then even the highest government officials (people of India of course never meant anything to the most despotic and dictatorial British government India ever saw) could not, even if they wanted to which itself very rare, do anything in opposition to the dictator of India-the Secretary of State,
Not only the rates were too excessive-higher and some- times more than double then of even the United States with comparatively poor service; they were designed, in the words of Indian economists, to help European merchants and hinder the development of Indian industries and enter- prises' and 'to favour the import of manufactured goods and the export of raw materials."'* Only in the 20's of the present century, these defects of the Indian rates ceased to be significant because of increasing national and interna- tional pressures (discussed later).
To sum up, the Indian railways for which Indians had to pay huge sums of money and land discouraged modern industries in India, destroyed traditional industries which were still lingering on in the interior of the country forcing more and more people thereby to agriculture and unemploy- ment, strengthened the grip of the galling yoke of the stranger, forced commercialization of agriculture, increased the export of raw materials and food, increased the import of foreign manufactured goods, and enhanced the drain of Indian revenue to England leading to more taxation, poverty, and more deaths of the people caused by frequent famines, 'a painful corollary of the transformation of India by British Capital.'
Whatever advantages, imagined or real, the Indians derived from their railways, such as easy movement of very small minority of people, "herded into almost barren coaches like animals bound for slaughter' were purely accidental and not intentional at all. The Indians and a few thought- ful and considerate British officials of India, alongwith the official Famine Commissions repeatedly demanded to stop the expansion of the railways. Yet the railways were pushed on vigorously beyond the needs and resources of India with 'amazing heedlessness of consequences at a cost so out of proportion to the resources of the people. In building high embankments for the railways, for example, no thought was given to the natural drainage of the country. This resulted in repeated and ever increasing floods, soil erosion, malarial swamps and millions of deaths which never both- ered the British if it was contrary to their interest. The Indian railways built with the money and sweat of only the Indians, provided the rulers a vast market for their finished products, including the products needed for building the railways since almost everything needed was brought all the way from England, provided means of importing raw materials and food, provided profitable investment for their surplus capital, provided tremendous opportunities of highly paid jobs from foreman up according to English standards' to "those superfluous articles of the present day, our boys' and provided a new channel for quick mobilization of armed forces to subjugate those who dared to commit the 'offence' of asking the white man to unload their "burden' Thus the objectives for which the railways were introduced by the British in India were amply fulfilled.
Plantations
Dyeing was an important trade in India as an adjunct to the textile industry. Indigo as a colour was long known in the East and it was manufactured and exported much before the arrival of the British in India. The very word 'indigo' itself indicates that it is of Indian origin and appa- rently was introduced into Europe through the campaigns of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.
Until the 30's of the present century, tea was not at all a common beverage even in towns. It was therefore almost totally exported. Even in the 40's of this century, 70 to 75% of the entire Indian tea production was ex- ported and the rest was for home consumption. Coffee also was mostly for export.
The plantations for producing tea, coffee and indigo were put up by the Europeans (mainly British) in the early 19th century. These plantations were mainly financed by the Europeans, not by bringing capital from Britain, but with the savings and spoils of the servants of the Company and their Asiatic trade, and the savings of the Indians; as were the wars of Company and European mercantile estab- lishments like banking, insurance, shipping, etc. It was only in the 60's of the 19th century, that the British capital started to flow to India on a grand scale, a very small portion of the capital which the British looted from India directly and indirectly throughout their rule.
In 1833, the Europeans were allowed to acquire large tracts of land for this purpose in Bengal Presidency in pursu- ance of the British policy of exporting raw materials trom India. The government encouraged these plantation indus- tries by every possible means as it was demanded by British interests in Britain. In 1833 also, slavery was abolished in the British dominions. But in India in the same year thinly veiled slavery was introduced by the British, it seems, in the words of an eminent Indian historian, 'to make up for the losses suffered by them in other territories' After all, this (Bengal) area attracted a rather rough set of plan- ters, some of whom had been slave drivers in America and carried on unfortunate ideas and practices with them.
By various clever devices, these planters fooled the poor cultivators, who were either asked to work on the planters' lands given by the government, or cultivate indigo on their own best lands. Either way, the labourers or the cultivators, and their families became practically the slaves of the Europeans with the acquiescence of the government. The official Indigo Commission's Report stated. "It matters little whether the ryot took his original advance with reluctance or cheerfulness The result in either case is the same.
He is never afterwards a free man. The peasants by all possible means, such as confinement in stocks, merciless beatings sometimes leading to death, kid- napping, the molesting of their women, the burning or de- molishing of their houses, the destroying of their crops, were coerced into sowing indigo or work for them in tea planta- tions away from the educated public and away from the towns where they could go to someone for redress.
Indigo
So frequent were the acts of violence in the early 19th century that the government was compelled to issue orders to the magistrates in 1810, to find ways to destroy stocks,etc.The licences of four planters were cancelled in 1810 'on account of the severe ill-usage of the natives proved against them'
But the remedy proposed in 1810 was not at all com. mensurate with the crimes committed. It can safely be asserted that the government and its officials were allies of tellow European planters against the natives, barring a few individuals who were willing to do their duty and who, therefore, in the words of an Indian Newspaper 'Hindoo Patriot', 'were insulted and humiliated, even dismissed, for honest enquiry into the oppressions of the planters or attempt to prevent their misdeeds.""" This was clearly stated by all the British and other witnesses who appeared before the Indigo Commission appointed to inquire these crimes in 1860, and by the Commission itself. Not only did govern- ment officials usually side with the planters and help them in every possible way, the planters themselves were made honorary magistrates. As if that was not sufficient, breach of contract-a contract which was not voluntary at all and where the cultivators were forced to sign on a blank paper -was made a criminal offence thereby making the cultiva- tors liable to prosecution and penal consequences. Such a law perhaps had never been enacted in any other country. Although this tyrannical law of 1830 was nominally re- pealed in 1835, yet it continued to be in force in actual practice.
Ultimately when the inhumane oppressions could not be tolerated, the Indian peasantry, who were by now con- verted into half-dead people, rose in unison against the European planters. Village after village refused, to sow indigo, even at the risk of their lives. Planters, aided by the government officials, tried their best by using every possible means to stop the 'non-cultivation of indigo' movement of 1858-60, the forerunner of the passive resistance movement of Mahatma Gandhi in the 20th century. Even then these brave people refused to bow down although they knew fully well that they were pitted against the whole brute force of the British government itself.
One good came out of this agitation. That was the forcing the government to appoint an Indigo Inquiry Com- mission in 1860. This commission was appointed, because the cultivators would otherwise refuse to sow indigo, a possi- bility which could not be tolerated by the government. One witness who once held the office of a District Magistrate* tells the Commission something about British barbarities "I wish to state that considerable odium has been thrown on the Missionaries for saying that 'not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood'. That has been stated to be an anecdote. That expression is mine, and I adopt it in the fullest and broadest sense of its meaning as the result of my experience as Magistrate in the Faridpur District. I have seen several ryots sent in to me as a Magistrate who have been speared through the body. I have had ryots before me who have been first speared and then kidnapped; and such a system of carrying on indigo, I consider to be a system of bloodshed."
The following are some of the observations made by the then highest government authority in Bengal, the Lieutenant-Governor, in a minute on the Report of the Indigo Commission of 1860. "How frequently the peace of the country is still broken by offences connected with indigo, will be found in the appendix of the Report. The sole cause of all such offences is the system under which indigo plant is required by the manufacturer, without paying nearly the cost of its production to the raiyat. The evidence taken by the Indigo Commission fully proves that the "habit" "denounced on the 22nd of July 1810 was still the habit of
1859.'
As a result of the Commission's inquiry and the strong determination of the people not to sow indigo under com- pulsion, the element of force was removed in Bengal.
The planters to a large degree then transferred their investments from Bengal to Bihar and some parts of the present U.P. where they could indulge with impunity the same type of inhuman treatment, in league with their gov- The European planters had let hell loose on the Almost nothing was done to improve their condi- tions till Mahatma Gandhi championed their cause in 1917. After some struggle, he was able to get an official enquiry committee appointed. This committee reported in favour of the tenants, and thereby the tenants were somewhat libe- rated from the planters' clutches. However, the indigo industry was ruined near the close of the 19th century due to the invention of artificial indigo by German scientists.
The District Magistrate in India, during the British rule, was the most important government authority of a district (county). He was the revenue collector, judicial officer, police commissioner and executive officer.
Tea
The situation of the labourers, called coolies, working on tea plantations in Assam and Bengal was similar, and in some respects worse. Labourers including women and children were tricked and very often kidnapped by force or fraud under the laws which were popularly known as 'slave laws'
Many labourers died either on the way to Assam, or soon after arrival there, because they had to work under horrible conditions in the secret enclaves of the planters. The highest medical authority in Assam in its Report of 1884 after narrating the conditions in which coolies had to work says "It is no wonder therefore that the rate of sick- ness and mortality among the tea garden labourers as a class has been always very great; that in many gardens it is above what is counted a frightful epidemic in civilized countries.
If the coolies attempted to escape from this slavery and drudgery, the government empowered the planters to arrest and penalize them. Incidences of outrageous character, com- parable to the white man's treatment of most other non-whites, were frequently brought to the attention of the govern- ment, and even admitted by the highest British officials. But never was an enquiry even instituted. The British judges,' even of the High Court, were as a rule partial to the Europe- ans and against the natives though they were usually impar- tial in matters concerning only the natives. Tea exported to England and other countries was thus 'stained with blood" as was the indigo and other commodities. In the 20th cen- tury, under pressure from the nationalist movement, condi- tions in tea plantations improved.
This thinly veiled slavery was perpetrated not only with- in India, but also in other countries where Europeans want- ed cheap labour. Indian workers were sent abroad to work in European colonies under the supervision and direction of the British government of India. This system of recruitment of labour was called the indentured labour system, which 'sins against the fundamental laws of civilization because it treats the labourers primarily as instruments and not as men.