He does! Ferguson investigates the issue as an economist might – by calculating the costs and benefits of empire and seeing which way the scales tip.

I am constrained by the fact that I have not read the book, but as an economist, permit me to say that calculating the costs and benefits are not all obvious here.

To see the difficulty in answering “was the empire good?” let us imagine how an experimental scientist would answer such a question. She would take two copies of India at the beginning of the 17th century, subject one to “British colonialism” and use the other as a “control.” By comparing the outcomes between the two copies, the scientist can then answer the question “was colonialism good?” The ability to do controlled experiments is part of what accounts for the great success of science but this is a privilege that, for the most part, is denied to social scientists.

The point of this reference to controlled experiments is this: What constitutes a benefit or drawback of colonialism is so *only* if the benefit/drawback were present in the copy subjected to British colonialism but not in the control. This simple point makes accounting difficult. Are Railways — supposedly one of the gifts of the British — truly a benefit? It is so only if we have good reasons to believe that we would not have Railways without British colonialism. Since there are many countries which got Railways without the benefit of British colonialism, it is likely that we would have some form of Railways even without the British empire. It would probably be different from the current system. The problem is then how to compare the current system (which is due significantly to the British) with the one that would have developed in the absence of British colonialism. Not at all obvious!

Similarly, to what extent are famines a drawback? Again, to answer this, we would need to imagine the food scenario in the absence of British colonialism. And as before, the alternative scenario against which the British-era famines is to be compared is not at all obvious.

Answering such questions — counterfactuals in the economist’s jargon — is not easy because it involves the construction of an alternative imaginary universe against which the comparision is to be made. And any alternative universe that you can come up with will rely on untestable assumptions which can always be questioned.

I don’t know what Ferguson has actually done but if it is something along the lines of — Railways (good), Famines (bad) and then “adding” it all up — then I’d say this is *not* how an economist would answer this question. I have said more or less the same on sepiamutiny, incidentally. Let me also add that I personally don’t find this question particularly interesting.

That said, I think I now agree with Jai’s broad thrust in 113.

Where is the need to have a debate as to ‘how evil’ the Empire was? It was a reprehensible idea, period. Doesn’t matter if it was more ‘benevolent’ than other imperialist regimes or communist/fascist regimes.

Sure, we (India) have benefited in ways, most important being that we are a united nation because of the empire. That said, if the costs outweigh the benefits, as they obviously do, that settles the issue pretty much, doesn’t it?

The most specious argument – if it wasn’t for the empire, we (British Asians) wouldn’t be here, would we? Lucky you!!! Someone also mentioned the anglicization of North America and Australia as being a good thing overall. WTF? Wise in hindsight, indeed.

Gopal’s sentence that “More famines were recorded in the first century of the British Raj than in the previous 2,000 years, including 17-20 million deaths from 1896-1900 alone” is clearly intended to lead readers to believe that famines were worse during the Raj than before. But this is at least intellectual dishonesty if not deception, because the assertion is not proven – in fact it’s highly controversial and essentially unprovable. She shouldn’t have made it.

I’m a bit disappointed by your reaction to Mirax’s rebuttals of this assertion of Gopal’s. Your argument seems to be “we haven’t got statistical data for famines in the pre-raj period so assume things were better then”.

There are indeed no statistical data. But in fact, precisely because India has been cultured and literate for millennia, there are plenty of chronicles and other narratives – such as the Babur-nama and Akbar-nama – of the pre-Raj period. Several Indian Nationalist historians (eg Bhatia) have argued that famines were worse during the Raj than before. Yet at the same time the pre-Raj chronicles together paint a consistent picture of century upon century of continuous, immense, destructive wars. (See for example Abraham Eraly’s book about the Mughals.)

These wars involved hundreds of thousands of troops moving across thousands of miles of terrain. Feeding themselves by requisitioning /buying food at below cost rates from the peasants. Ruining farmland by using it to graze their war beasts and beasts of burden and usually paying no compensation. Generally creating the environmental havoc you’d expect from moving up to a quarter of a million heavily armed 15th-16th century men & materiel from one end of India to the other.

These force movements and the enormous battles (including sieges lasting for years sometimes) that such large armies engaged in caused wide scale destruction of farmland, massive population displacements and deaths including through starvation. (Some of the chronicles talk of whole regions of ruined farmland and empty villages for years after some of these wars.)

We don’t know how big the population reductions were for sure. Very few estimates have been done, and none that I can find on the internet, but attempts at projecting the figures have been made examining the chronicles and other data such as regional tax assessments submitted by eg Zamindars.

I’ve read an estimate quoted by Ferguson of 100 million dead as a result of these wars in the 100 years before 1800.

You don’t need to be “industrial” to cause this level of devastation. The chronicles don’t often attribute these deaths to “famine”, because to them famine was a natural phenomenon. Man-made starvation of this sort seems to have been seen as a natural by-product of war.

I’m also a bit worried by your apparent assumption (eg by using the term “industrial”) that the Raj deliberately caused famines or deliberately made them worse – just as Stalin did with the 1930s Ukrainian famine to punish the Kulaks (which was the silly point that the usually sensible Hari made). British incompetence, wilful negligence, doctrinaire belief in laisser faire and coerced consolidation of farmland is to blame for millions of deaths and is utterly to be condemned. And Sen’s work eloquently shows that even a poor, corrupt, inexperienced country (ie India) can abolish famine overnight if it has a democratic government.

Yet to say the Raj famines were man made…? The starvation deaths of the pre-Raj wars were far more man-made. And 1858-1947 war/conflict-related deaths in the Raj were much lower than in the pre-Raj era – I’ve seen a figure of less than 100,000 (although I think that excludes the communal violence).

You must check out http://www.talkingcock.com/ for the full flavour of Singlish, it’s really funny.

> i think i’ll have to share some tidbits.
Please do.

speaking of which – i’ve just got a copy of the ‘journey to citizenship’ handbook out of the library – ch 2 and 3 and 4 are the ones you have to read for the citizenship test. it’s turning out to be a great read – i’d certainly recommend it to ‘citizens’ who might be interested in how their govt. is happily representing the nation..ho ho..and i think i’ll have to share some tidbits.

I looked at some of the Wikipedia links – one list all the states – facinating – One I saw was just 78km2!!

With so many it is a wonder anything was actually ever acheived!

Justforfun

=>”Just look at the number of Princely States had to be brought into the Union of India after the British left – with out lookingh it up it must be over 200 and possible half the land mass of the sub-continent.”

Apologies for the late reply to the above. There were almost 680 princely states by the time of Indian independence and they covered approximately 1/3 of the subcontinent.

For anyone interested, Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_state

The voters of Blackburn could send our Jack on permanent assignment to Pakistan and in addition if they spread out their gas bills to all constituencies, influence completely how the British Empire forces are used in Afghanistan.

Justforfun

This I do not believe.Give me a link.

He mentions it in the White Mughals actually

i’m not sure i sensed in dalrymple’s age of kali a disdain for indians – not at all. or a longing for Empire.

ah well – no doubt yet another misunderstanding!
right i’m off.

=>”Or have I missed something? in the various posts”

No you haven’t missed anything, I was just referring to people in general. Although historians are of course “normal people” too and sometimes have their own agendas like everyone else (consciously or subconsciously). But it was just a general statement.

Amir,

Re: post #140 — Thank you for your kind words, very nice of you and greatly appreciated.

you have to have leave to remain and be living here by the way.. so it’s not as if all pakistanis have the right to vote. sorry if you didn’t realize that – obviously the first condition is you have to be living here.

i wasn’t chasing anything except for clarifying all the words you seemed to be putting into my mouth

Thanks for the info on your voting rights – so a mere misunderstanding rather than enlightenment. You are harsh on the dead British who drafted this law.

I knew Irish citizens could vote but never knew it extended to all Commonwealth Citizens – now we can say that Pakistan is a democracy and not a dictatorship – if only all Pakistanis had a gas bill addressed to themselves at a UK address and registered a postal vote. Pity Gandhi did not organise this pre 1947 – Musharaff’s days are numbered for certain!

Anyway now that you have voted you too have to share your burden of guilt for all that Britain has stood for and stands for now – same as the rest of us carrying around this guilt. No shirking with excuses like you were not born then.

Justforfun

it’s not really ‘enlightenment’ – but rather wording of the 1918 people’s representation act which uses the terminology ‘British Subject’ rather than citizen.

and to be honest with you im not sure how many politicians realize this the case. there’s a lot of confusion – lots of people tell you only british citizens can vote in general elections. as a student i was told the same by the intl. student officer person. also they’d probably be horrified to find out they’d been ignoring a sizeable group of potential voters!
( just think of all those aussies floating around london it’s something i’m thinking of writing about on my site – but it did occur to me people might not be pleased and try and have it changed!

Details of why exactly Commonwealth citizens can slink in the voting booths can be found on the Electoral Commission website here.

basically because of the commonwealth nations’ current symbolic and previously historical relationship to the British Crown.