British ruled for themselves, they looted, pillaged India: Tharoor

British ruled for themselves, they looted, pillaged India: Tharoor

Mumbai: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was at his eloquent and wittiest best when he systematically pulled out the bricks from the British empire and exposed that it was nothing but a power hungry nation. He was engaged in a discussion with British historian of Croatian descent, Peter Frankopan, on 'You gave us cricket, we gave you curry. Who got a better deal?'

With a topic as stimulating and provocative as this, the first day of the 7th edition of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest got off to a cracking start. The former UN envoy began by saying that he was not "a huge fan of the British empire and British rule in India" and yet he doesn't "disavow the legacy they left behind". He said, "It is important for me to stress that I don't deny that Britishers have left behind a lot of things, notably, the English language that we are now speaking in, tea, and of course, cricket. Having said this, I must point out that none of these things were brought from England to India, to benefit Indians."

He then gave the audience a glimpse into how tea came to be cultivated in India. "The British used to buy their tea from China and ship it to England. That was an expensive business to conduct and so, they decided to cultivate it in India.

A couple of trials and errors later, they discovered the tea plant in Assam and that's how the cultivation began. They shipped the majority of tea yield to England and left a tiny portion for the British in India. With the depression in the 1930s, when the disposable income of the British plummetted and drinking tea was considered a luxury, the tea growers in India were left with large unsold quantities of tea. So, that was how tea was made available to Indians. That's how our ancestors began drinking tea."

He then went on to expose the ulterior motives of Britishers in introducing the English language in India - the drain of Indian wealth to build their political dynasties back home. 

"The British came here to rule for themselves. The other invaders, and there were many, have looted, pillaged India, but they spent, what they had looted and pillaged, in this country. The Mughals, for instance, left behind a greater contribution by design -Grand Trunk Road, Taj Mahal etc. The Central Asian rulers made India their home. They didn't send money to build buildings in the Fergana Valley. The Central Asian rulers imported their sculptors, artists to India, while British took everything away. I am objecting to the manner of their rule," Tharoor summed it up succinctly.

In his defence, Frankopan said, "Isn't it what all empires did, whether they were winners or losers?" He also compared the British rule in India with the state of affairs in Australia, which was a former colony too. Frankopan added, "The native population of Australia was exterminated. That didn't happen in India. But yes Indians didn't get away scott-free. They were made victims of racism and inferiority complex. This was criticised by the liberals back home."

Coming forth on the topic of discussion - curry and cricket - Frankopan made a tongue-in-cheek remark that if Indian curry was to disappear from the British dining table, the families would dine in silence. He made this point to Tharoor's contention that the Indian curry houses in England employ more people than the iron, steel, shipbuilding and coal mining industries combined. 

On the issue of cricket, Frankopan wanted to know how many Indians would vote for him if he promised to solve all issues plaguing Indian society at the moment, including the smog problem in New Delhi. This was accompanied by a clause that 'No Indian, boy or girl, man or woman, would play cricket! The Indian cricket team crushes us completely'.

Tharoor stepped in again, quoting sociologist Ashis Nandy, "Cricket is actually an Indian game, accidentally discovered by the British".

The session ended with Tharoor having the last word. He was responding to a question - Whether India would have progressed leaps and bounds if British would have continued to rule us? "All the progress that you see, the building of IITs, the space programme, the education policies, all were implemented by the independent governments of India. Not by the British," he replied.

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