Let’s begin with a fact that still makes certain corners of the internet choke on their afternoon tea: in 1700, on the eve of serious British meddling, India produced roughly 24–27 % of the entire world’s GDP. One in every four goods manufactured on planet Earth was made in India. China came second. Britain, that damp little island busy perfecting the art of boiling vegetables, limped in at about 2–3 %.
Yes, you read that correctly. The country that would later lecture the world about “civilising missions” was, economically speaking, a rounding error next to the subcontinent it was about to loot blind.
The Industries Britain Pretended It Invented.
Textiles? Indian muslins were so fine that a six-yard sari could be pulled through a wedding ring. Bengal and Coromandel cloth were the luxury brands of the 17th-century world; Roman emperors and Persian satraps had paid fortunes for them centuries earlier. By 1800 the British had smashed the looms, taxed the weavers into starvation, and flooded the market with Manchester’s coarse imitations. The phrase “putting someone out of business” never had a more literal demonstration.
Steel? The word “wootz” still makes metallurgists misty-eyed. Indian crucible steel was being exported to Damascus (hence “Damascus steel”) while English smiths were struggling to make anything sharper than a spoon. The secret died somewhere between colonial monopolies and the deliberate destruction of guilds.
Shipbuilding? The British sailed to India on ships built in Indian yards. By the time they left, the Royal Navy had ensured that no Indian-owned vessel above a certain tonnage could be launched without permission. How very sporting.
The Great Extraction, Served with a Straight Face.
Between 1765 and 1938, Britain extracted wealth from India on a scale that modern economists struggle to calculate without blushing. One careful estimate puts the figure at roughly $45 trillion in today’s money. That is not a typo. Forty-five trillion dollars transferred from one island’s poorest villages to another island’s stately homes, factories, and railway shares.
And when the inevitable famines arrived, twelve major ones under British rule, killing tens of millions, and the official response was often a shrug and a lecture on Malthus. Grain was exported while people starved because the market, you see, must be free. Free for everyone except the dying, apparently.
The “Gifts” Britain Left Behind.
Ah yes, the railways. Built with Indian capital, Indian taxes, and Indian forced labour, they were designed to move cotton to ports and soldiers to rebellions, not to carry Indians anywhere useful. Profit guarantees were written into the contracts: British investors received 5 % returns whether the lines made money or not. India paid the bill either way. One struggles to think of a more perfect metaphor for the entire Raj.
English education? A tiny elite learned Shakespeare while the literacy rate for the masses actually fell during British rule. The goal was never an educated India; it was a compliant clerk class that could file paperwork in triplicate.
By the Time They Packed Up.
When the Union Jack was finally lowered in 1947, India’s share of world GDP had collapsed to under 4 %. Life expectancy hovered around 27. Per capita income had stagnated for a century and a half. The jewel in the crown had been stripped, reset, and sold off piece by piece.
Shashi Tharoor, with his trademark velvet-gloved savagery, called it “the looting of a civilisation.” He was being polite. It was grand larceny dressed up as destiny, theft sanctified by sermons, and an entire subcontinent turned into a raw-material appendage of a distant mill town.
So the next time someone sighs wistfully about the supposed benefits of the British Raj, feel free to smile thinly and remind them: Britain did not “develop” India. Britain underdeveloped India with ruthless, breathtaking efficiency, and then had the brass neck to call it progress.
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