Thinking Class

#120 - Lord Nigel Biggar & Tirthankar Roy: Britain's Empire Was Not What You Were Taught — An Indian Historian Has The Evidence

• John Gillam

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For decades, the British Empire in India has been reduced to a simple moral claim: that it was an extractive, exploitative system which left only damage behind.

But is that really the full story?

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam is joined by Lord Nigel Biggar and Professor Tirthankar Roy to examine what the British Empire — and the East India Company before it — actually did in India, and how that history continues to shape the present.

One of India's leading economic historians, Professor Tirthankar Roy challenges the dominant narrative from within — and his conclusions may surprise you.

Together, they discuss the main charges levelled against British rule in India, including famine, violence, extraction, and the denial of self-government. They also explore why some of those claims may be justified, why others may be overstated, and how both British and Indian historians are rethinking the role of empire, markets, law, trade, migration, and state power.

This conversation goes beyond the usual moral shorthand. It asks how Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras became engines of commerce; how British rule helped create the conditions for law, investment, and global integration; how liberal and constitutional ideas were transmitted; and why India’s rise today makes this history newly relevant.

India is now one of the world’s most important rising powers. Its capital, people, and influence increasingly shape life in Britain and across the West. So the question is not simply what happened in the past — but what we think happened, and how that shapes the future relationship between Britain and India.

Lord Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford and the author of major works on empire, ethics, and public life.

Professor Tirthankar Roy is one of India’s leading economic historians and the author of The East India Company: The World’s Most Powerful Corporation.

Professor Roy's books: https://amzn.to/41tWCCF 

If you enjoy Thinking Class, subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack.

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

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SPEAKER_02

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam, and today I'm joined by Lord Nigel Bigger and Professor Titanka Roy. Lord Nigel Bigger is an Anglican priest, theologian, and moral philosopher, a member of the House of Lords, and Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford. His most recent books are The New Dark Age, Why Liberals Must Win the Culture War, Colonialism, A Moral Reckoning, What's Wrong with Rights, In Defence of War, and Between Kin and Cosmopolis, An Ethic of the Nation. In the press, he has written articles for The Financial Times, The London Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Glasgow Herald, The Irish Times Standpoint, The Critic, the Article Unheard and Quillette. Professor Titanka Roy is a professor of economic history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and specialises in South Asian history, colonialism, and industrialization. In this conversation, we think out loud about the true economic impact of the East India Company, whether the British Empire was a system of extraction or something more complex, the rise of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, law, governance and the development of modern institutions, cultural differences, commerce and trust, migration, identity and the future of Britain and India's relations. This is a conversation about empire, economics, the long arc of history, and what any of this might mean for the future. Because as India's global influence grows and migration between Britain and India increases, understanding this shared history is perhaps more important than ever. If you value serious long form conversations like this, then subscribe to Thinking Class on YouTube, follow on Spotify, and support the show on Substack. Enjoy the show, classmates, and now Lord Nigel Bigger and Professor Titanka Roy. Thank you very much for coming on to Thinking Class. Thank you. Well, today we're going to be discussing uh geopolitics and economic development. Um because over the past few decades, the story of British Empire, particularly in India, has been reduced to a very simple claim that it was an extractive, exploitative system which left lasting damage in its wake. But that account is increasingly being challenged, not least by both of you two, uh those of you of both British extraction and Indian extraction. So it's not a one-way street. And it does matter because whilst we talk about the relationship between India and Britain as being something in the past because of that imperial background, it isn't just a question of the past. India is now one of the most important rising powers in the world. Its people, its capital, and its influence are increasingly shaping life here in the United Kingdom and indeed across the Western world. So the question isn't simply what's happened, but what we think happened and how that shapes any future relationship between our two countries. And you two are uniquely placed to explore that question. Lord Nigel Bigger, Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford. Your work has challenged some of the prevailing moral narratives around empire to say the least, and Professor Titncar Roy, one of India's leading economic historians. And your work has examined how the East India Company has helped shape both India, Indian and global economic development. So let's examine what the Empire actually did in India and how it changed both Britain and the subcontinent. And Nigel, we'll begin with you. As I've mentioned, the British Empire is often presented as something Britain must atone for. And you have recently been taking some heat from uh Indians, I suppose, uh, on stage in debate uh that um Britain really should atone for its past, that the the the moral record is not good. So perhaps you can outline the main charges levelled against the British Empire and tell us which of those criticisms may be justified and which ones maybe overstated or misunderstood.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yes, John. Um just to make clear what's what's obvious to anyone who paused it to think about it, I mean, there are lots of Indians and they they know they don't all think the same thing, do they, Titanko? Sorry. I mean I I I I have actually got some good press in India as well as some bad press. And it's important to remind ourselves of that because if you believe what uh decolonial activists say, they represent the the global south, they represent the single vice of the former subjects of empire, whereas in fact they don't, because uh you know what? The former the the descendants of the former subjects of empire don't all think the same thing. That's one thing to say. Um what are the main charges against British rule in India? Well, um I was in conversation recently with someone from the University of Sussex who argued that um uh before the British arrived there was no famine in India and that the the uh the British uh um response to occasions when food sort shortage escalated into famine was uh consistently callous. Uh that's one charge. Um another charge is uh as as mentioned earlier that Britain's economic relationship with India was entirely extractive. It was a simply a matter of British people um raping and pillaging and and um bringing value and resource back from India to um to Britain and not investing in India and in the welfare of its people. Um then you have charges of um uh indiscriminate uh wanton violence, uh the the um the massacre at Amritsar in nineteen nineteen, uh the the failure to deal with the Bengal famine in nineteen forty-three. Um I thought I think those are probably the main charges, famine, excessive violence, um extractive colonial economics. Oh yes, and I suppose um also um the British were uh um grudging in permitting Indians to to come into control of their own government. Um uh yes, that would that would be another another charge.

SPEAKER_02

Titanka? Were you going to add anything?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Um in in um in your original email to us, uh John, there was a very interesting question, which is how our views have changed on history. And let me use that as a entry point into this. Um not just to um explain how my views on on the British Empire has changed, but also um how uh many other people in the field have started to think, rethink the history of the British Empire. Now, when I when I was a student uh in college or university in the 1980s, there was one uh dominant idea about how uh historians would explain um long-term economic long-term change, whether in economic uh plane or s or uh social change. Most people believed that um power, especially the power of the state, was the main force behind historical uh process and historical change. Um this belief showed up in different ways, and uh one of the ways was that uh the scholars of the Brit of the British Empire in India uh often assumed that the Empire was all powerful. Uh it wanted resources and revenue from India, it it knew what it wanted, and it had the capacity to get these. Um dealing with the post-colonial times, uh, especially intellectuals affiliated with the Congress Party or Marxists, um, would often uh emphasize the role of the uh role and agency of the state in a different way. The developmental state which followed um the British Empire and then uh offered a much better deal, uh more rapid economic growth and equity. Um over the last 15-20 years, a lot of people have um have been thinking whether this power matters over everything else is really a good model for studying the uh history of either the British Empire or the or post-colonial India. Um this idea that the state is uh is an all determining force uh that really doesn't work for the British Empire. I mean, whatever it wanted, and it didn't actually leave um a very good blueprint of what it wanted. It didn't have the capacity to get it. It was a fairly weak state. It was constrained by geographical uh uh factors, it was constrained by cultural attitudes uh that it had no influence over. And uh this idea that the British Empire had um uh uh uh had had the power to uh change India needs to be rethought in many ways. Um equally the record of post-colonial India was not particularly great. I mean, often um the idea that the state delivered a much better deal comes from uh intellectuals affiliated with the Congress who are who want to tell us that the development planning is uh is our legacy, our contribution, but also um possibly want to obscure the fact that the Congress's own record of delivering development wasn't great, especially in the 1960s and 70s when India's economic growth was falling behind that of the world. Um so um my work has emphasized uh the point that overstating the power of the British Empire is a bad way of doing history. That's not the right way. We need to um look at geography, we need to look at climate, we need to look at culture, and of course power matters, but uh many other things matter as well in shaping India's history. And uh specifically on the British Empire, I think Nigel uh um described the uh the rethinking quite nicely. Um the way it matters is that um the British Empire was fundamentally, I mean, in terms of its economic policy, if you like, I mean it didn't really have a stated policy, but in terms of its uh focus, thrust, it was uh there was really only one area where it uh where it was very concerned, and that was open markets. Um it was uh not a very powerful state if you take away the military power, and uh its legacy really flowed from this combination of very active market uh integration, incentives for investment and trade and migration and uh and uh uh finance. And on the other hand, the state not being present for many other types of public goods where uh uh uh where a poor country needs the state. Um so uh uh but generally speaking, my outlook on the British Empire is uh follows this combination of a weak state and strong markets.

SPEAKER_01

Could I just uh uh add a couple of comments on that, um Tutanka? Um of course we can we can look look back at uh the late Victorian or early 20th century Raj and complain that uh the state uh wasn't directly involved in education or economic development. But then but then um uh at that time the idea of the state being directly involved in economic development was novel. Uh in 1914, I think, the British state um only spent about eight percent of GDP. Now, of course, it spends about forty-six per cent. Uh so it was small, and uh the the the idea that it that it would become directly involved in economic development was was novel. And I I I guess it took over it took off just before and and certainly after the Second World War in Britain.

SPEAKER_00

I I completely agree with you. I I think the uh you know when uh when I say that the state wasn't there, I mean I uh uh didn't quite have in mind education and healthcare particularly. Um on healthcare, actually, the record is uh not too bad. I mean, India had a population transition from the 1920s um as epidemic diseases uh came down, and that of course had a uh huge role for indirect role for the state. Um the um I mean if you if you look at the areas where the post-colonial development really succeeded, it wanted industrialization. It didn't succeed in delivering industrialization, very not very much, but where it succeeded was spending a massive amount of money on agriculture, um which um uh transformed um the countryside. Uh uh massive rise in food production, famines became a distant memory, droughts became uh much less damaging than before. All of that uh is is is not a product of new knowledge, it's a product of the state spending serious money. Um so this is this is a record that uh it would be very hard to imagine the British Empire um uh uh you know um uh delivering that kind of record uh because its ideology wasn't quite uh didn't quite permit it to.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. The point I was gonna make was that even though the state wasn't directly involved in uh uh in economic development uh uh in in in a large way, um nevertheless by by providing stable government, yeah. It provided an environment uh into which British investors and the British up until 1930 were the largest overseas investors in the world, into which British investors were willing to to put money. Uh so even though the state wasn't directly involved, indirectly, it provided the conditions for investment which did help the uh development.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's exactly the point that I um you know I I meant when uh talking about strong markets. Markets don't just happen. They need laws, commercial law, they need um um uh need the state to provide safety, security, um a condition where money can move around, and all of that happened. Um I mean if you if you look at that side of the record, there is there is no problem there, essential problem. I mean, India was an emerging market, uh emerging economy in the 19th century. It had one of the largest industrializations in the tropical world.

SPEAKER_02

Well, before perhaps we get on to thinking more about how we should properly understand that economic relationship and East India Company, logic of empire, and those themes, it seems to me it's worth paraphrasing or at least summarising how we've come to those viewpoints about the British Empire being a director of all of this activity from the outset, which we've highlighted as a misunderstanding, uh, but also as Nigel you've tried to bring out there, how the British state, even in the early 20th century, wasn't even that active on the island of Britain. Uh and I suppose to put a few things out there for you to opine on, is where do we think this mentality has come from with regards to thinking it was all state-led? Is it because now we've become so accustomed post-second world war with all the centralization of um of productive activities for the state to be able to win the war effort, and that's now become our day-to-day uh reality, at least here in Britain, where the state was just so heavily involved in things? Is it a combination of that plus those rising ideologies of the time, those um both left-wing, and I suppose in the case of India that the nationalist uh arguments, which is is seeking to um uh convince the world as they see it, and so that's where you get the de decolonisation movement and all the rest of it, and those things together are making us look at this relationship in this particular way, in this extractive way, and it was state-led. Um, is this where we think it's come from, or is that are there other factors to it?

SPEAKER_01

I suppose uh certainly in terms of Britain's history, it seems to me the two world wars, the first world war and the second, uh, were occasions when the state, uh in a in a case of emergency, uh uh did take unprecedented control uh and and directed the economy and and everything else. And that made, I think, a permanent difference. I mean, then there may have been a relaxation of that in the interwar years, but the sense that the state really could be uh um a major force for uh uh national cohesion and and efficiency and and improvement, I think, really took off then. Um But I'm just thinking, Titanka, my sense is that uh uh uh in the early decades of independence, um the Congress Party uh um was very fond of of socialist economics, where the state plays a large role in controlling and directing the economy. My my perception is that wasn't terribly successful. And actually India's become much more economically uh uh vigorous since those policies were abandoned in the 1990s. Is that right? That's absolutely right, yes.

SPEAKER_00

I completely agree with that statement. Um the um uh the the question before about when uh do we see the state expanding and what does it do when it expands uh has a slightly different answer for uh some of the post-colonial developing nation states. Um the the the the long-term trajectory for states to grow has been present in many parts of the world, including the developing world, um in terms of uh let's say revenue to GDP ratio. I mean that that goes that that has gone up, that's been going up for a very long time. Um but uh it's been uh going up for a somewhat different purpose in the more recent uh decades. Um there's no question that most states in the 19th century would see defense as it as its primary duty and very little else. Uh but from the mid-20th century, as uh Nigel mentioned, um, other things have added on uh to that list. Um welfare, of course, uh equity, and um healthcare, education. In in the case of countries like India, something um loosely called development has has been uh very centrally on that um um basket of things that the state should do. Um it's not very clear what development really means or what the state's role here it is. And as Nigel mentioned, the um uh there there are quite a few missteps in making development happen. Um quite significant wastage of states' resources, public resources that happened. Um I mean uh in in my work in business history, the two things that I would identify as as completely unnecessary in India was one public investment in trying to change the industrial composition towards heavy um metallurgy, heavy missionary chemicals, which is a policy that largely failed, but it was an extremely expensive policy in in money as well as taxpayers' resources and foreign exchange. And the other thing that the state did was um an anti-market standpoint, especially anti-foreign capital standpoint, uh, which um saw a kind of dismantle uh dismantling of the global economic system, the business um system that had emerged in the nineteenth century in many of these countries, led to a flight of capital, and that was uh I I find no logic in that, and that was uh that attrition of capital hurt India.

SPEAKER_01

Tutenka um I I've read that by nineteen fourteen um India was the fourth largest uh producer of of manufactured textiles in the world, and by nineteen thirty-five or something, uh it was the largest producer of steel outside of North America, Europe and and Japan. Um something like that. Uh I assume that the the owners of these textile and and uh uh steel mills were Indian, not British. Should I assume that a lot of the investment came from London or not?

SPEAKER_00

Well, uh the cotton textile uh mill industry that you mentioned um uh in in this statistics, the fourth largest manufactured textiles, uh, was largely Indian owned. And um it's primarily Western Indian, but it also had uh appeared in certain other hubs in southern India and northern India. Um the Jew textile industry was primarily uh funded with uh money from coming in from London by either through the share market or direct investments. But the uh cotton textile industry also had a connection with steel, and the uh the main um uh figure who uh is cited all the time in starting an integrated steel factory, Jamshetji Tata was uh in his origin, like many other Indian groups, uh mainly a textile producer.

SPEAKER_01

Um the Tata Corporation now employs sixty thousand people in this country. Indeed.

SPEAKER_02

Um yeah, perhaps we can we can talk a little bit about the development then of India into this economic powerhouse. So from from from the beginning of its relationship. relationship with at least British peoples rather than the British states. So as as we will explore, the f the East India Company was uh the most influential of the British to arrive on Indian soil. And uh certainly before it became part of the British Empire. And it was a highly risky commercial venture financially and physically as you've outlined in your book, Tatanka. Perhaps you can begin with a primer as to what drove the East India Company's expansion into the subcontinent in the first place.

SPEAKER_00

Well as you said I mean it was one of the most successful commercial firms of its time. It also followed a model of um uh a firm which um which carried some degree of political power or is sanctioned by uh the political power um which helps it to uh protect a monopoly uh as a uh deal with competition but also in some ways um raise uh money in the stock markets or uh by um in the securities market and and channel that into trade. So it it had a very deep connection with the uh financialization of British uh uh economy in the 17th 18th century um a very very significant contribution so um East India Company stands in the um this intersection of uh Britain's transformation and India's economic history uh it's it's a very significant um entity uh in understanding both and the connection between both um you are absolutely right I mean it was uh well the company came to India as indeed many other European firms did in the 17th century in search of Indian goods uh primarily textiles, spices um maybe a few others indigo perhaps and um it became uh very successful by uh not just in procuring goods but also in finding markets for them um which is something that happened on the other side I mean not in India but in procuring goods when you look at what it was what it was doing and what the others were doing um that history is very deeply connected with how Indian um Indian entrepreneurs were uh involved in that this whole enterprise as um brokers, agents, transporters suppliers um managers of workers managers of artisans information channels and um in a in a variety of roles and the company wouldn't be um in the business without that um that system it's it's much more than a support system it was basically using an existing commercial infrastructure um consisting of people consisting of um uh knowledge and information and skills um so um it's it's history I mean if you look at its success uh at one side of course it's uh it operates like a very successful company in especially in financial deals but on the other side it's it was successful because it could maintain these partnerships and uh for Indian history the legacy of these partnerships is what is very significant in shaping business development.

SPEAKER_01

So um of course the the East India Company uh was a trading company and its its reason for existing was to make profit for people back in London. And my sense is that Yes, I mean certainly uh um when it first came came to to control territory in Bengal they did didn't manage it very well initially although my my perception is after reforms by Warren Hastings and others at the end of the 1700s it became better equipped to govern and you do find it presiding over the building of canals and also the building of engineering colleges, medical colleges. So after about 1800 it becomes it becomes involved in just more than making commercial profit. But I'm wondering what you would say about w whether in the 18th century the East India Company did anything for Indians. One thing I think you would say, because I learned it from you is that the company did of course establish stability in the three and build up the three great ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta and that brought Indian uh merchant financiers into these as it were safe havens uh uh uh where they were plugged into a into a global commercial network. But otherwise if you were asked well what what what did the EIC ever do for India, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00

Well I mean that that's an interesting question. Well well of course I mean as you said um um uh the fact that the company was instrumental in creating commercial spaces which were safe growing and um and relatively protected from uh the effects of a collapsing empire in the inland um that itself is a huge that itself is a massive legacy uh because it it clearly uh I mean we have to we have to understand this fact that although these cities were established by the company but that they they grew by drawing in migration of skilled and moneyed people who were of Indian origin um and they came uh from interior cities most of them um the the big business communities that we uh talk about in history today Marwaris, Khatris, I mean they all came from inland into these cities um uh similarly for South India similarly for Parsis uh came from Surat to Bombay um so these migrations are extremely uh important part of what was going on in the late 18th century business landscape um and uh that has something to do with your question about what it did well it didn't do very much um uh directly besides this because it was doing what every other Indian power was doing which is fight with each other and um I mean if you um I mean if you if you look at it in terms of uh success or failure um the the great success of India company the fact that it laid the foundation for one of the strongest uh powerful states in the in uh in in the Indian subcontinent ever um is exactly that it was very successful in fighting these battles that it created an army out of central resources um a salaried pensioned army a concept that didn't quite exist in India before and that changed uh the military uh power balance quite significantly um so uh one way to look at uh the early history would be that it was actually managing what every state should be doing which is defense and fi and considerating fighting power and uh quite well yes and of of course of course um um successful defense means you have internal peace which makes commerce possible I I remember uh in my own in my own book I quote uh John Malcolm who was an EIC officer in about 1818 observing how given the establishment of peace through force um the the peasants were returning to the fields and they will begin to flourish again. Yeah no absolutely absolutely I I think um I mean if you if you look for one single benchmark of what states do to promote markets is to reduce uh transit duties, reduce uh taxes on on trade. And uh one of the first major um um uh major moves that the company did was to reduce transit duties.

SPEAKER_02

Um so that's the inter it that's a counterpart of reducing um trade tariffs worldwide which Britain moves toward moved towards in in the eighteen forties but that uh counterpart had happened in in in inland trade in India long before whilst I'm not going to be uh at least I'm not intending to engage in a post-imperial battle of the former empires uh there were other Europeans that were uh vying for influence uh on the territory and uh the Portuguese were one of those the Dutch were another um and i y you've you've just alluded uh and the French indeed uh and you've just alluded to it there in that what drew many Indians into Bombay, Calcutta Madras was the uh state enforced uh law and uh con uh commercial contracts that that weren't in existence in other parts of India where you wrote Titanka that um interest rates were often much higher on the the uh on the Indian subcontinent and they were lowered dependent on uh connection to caste and family relations um and things were much more uncertain in the business world whereas going and uh transacting in and living in these three port cities Bombay Calcutta Madras would see people having a level of peace and security that they didn't have before and that was uh something that was appreciated um and I suppose runs counter uh to quite a lot of the decolonizing um ideas of today which is this idea that it was all it was all extraction nothing good came from it but actually in some ways it was a it was a shelter from other forms of extraction uh extraction amongst uh amongst Indians but I'd be interested to to know what the uh what the um attitudes are and I know it's hard to talk about prevailing attitudes but attitudes towards the influence of the English and the British um the French the Dutch the Portuguese suggest were the um uh attitudes towards those different powers and who preferred to work work with whom uh amongst the the Indians that's a question for me yes yes I'm very happy I'm very happy that you asked this um no um I you know as a as a as an Indian we of course uh engage with this question all the time uh you know how how how does an empire live uh in our minds in in some sense um uh but um and my my answer is that you know uh the the there's a conscious level at which uh we deal with this question where this decolonizing uh stuff comes in but there is uh there is a uh many other ways that the uh legacy of the empire is embedded in us um that's in language the way we uh speak the way we think um uh the exposure to um an internationalism which we uh grew up with in in some sense uh as a as a school student I come from a um uh town a university town set up by uh Robidrana Tagore uh the poet um uh Nobel laureate and um uh uh Tagore's later work was steeped in internationalism which you cannot quite understand without the legacy of British rule in India um yeah I mean he was not a great fan of the British Empire but uh but he understood that the British Empire had given us something that is valuable and uh that was this exposure to international culture thinking in terms of beyond borders making connections with other societies other people and I think we grew up with that and at at some level we are very conscious that that's a that's an exceedingly valuable legacy that we don't think in terms of our own communities castes and uh family anymore um and we are kind of uh used to thinking in terms of cross-border interactions and that shows up in many ways I mean the fact that the Indians are extremely uh much readier than many other people to migrate in search of work for example I mean it's one of the most mobile communities has something to do with the fact that you know I mean crossing borders is not a big deal for us.

SPEAKER_01

We we can be at home somewhere else and of course the the um the Empire not least the Royal Navy keeping the seas free of pirates uh allowed Indian merchants to to trade from Hong Kong to East Africa and and and Indian indentured laborers to go to East Africa and even the West Indies um and South Africa too.

SPEAKER_00

I mean Indians were um uh uh the nineteenth century's most mobile people uh thanks to the British Empire along with the Chinese of course but um uh uh the Chinese uh people were sometimes uh given um uh uh places to come to by uh the colonial empires by the Dutch by the uh uh by the British um the the Indians had a much bigger playing field in some sense I mean they were going to East Africa they were going to South Africa um uh Hong Kong Singapore Caribbean everywhere the Indian diaspora is spread and that's um that's something great I mean if you um read especially the Caribbean literature I see how um the influence of India or the Indian ness as a concept um it has been internationalized.

SPEAKER_02

Yes yeah I I I well I understand that's also somewhat of a key part of um Modi's economic policy as well because the Indian population is is is growing so much we're I think uh it is the the world's largest now is it world's largest country it's surpassed China of late on the population level and obviously an increasingly well educated country as well um and uh whilst I'm certainly no expert barely an armchair expert um reports have suggested that Bodhi needs to be able to keep people happy and so that's why he insists in trade deals to include the free movement of uh Indians to say the European Union or tries to cut deals to allow Indians into Britain with different national insurance rules because he wants to tamp down any potential civil unrest because everyone knows that underemployed um youngsters are usually not particularly good for the political environment at home uh and so um hence there's uh it's not just a I suppose a movement of Indians on the basis of feeling at home elsewhere but it's uh hey look we've actually opened up opportunities for you elsewhere and maybe you'd be better off going out and and doing that. Um is is there anything in that or is that more just a faulty economic analysis?

SPEAKER_00

Um I I mean are are you talking particularly about the migration uh policies here um the negotiations on on uh movements?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yes I suppose specifically there there are lots of news items um yeah that that seem to keep popping up whether it's with on bilateral basis with Germany or with Britain or with the European Union as a whole um that suggests that that Modi inserts these these clauses because he knows he's got such a large population and keeping them at home uh won't necessarily lead to a good outcome for them or the country well um there are quite a few things involved here but um you know what one thing we have to uh understand is that the this um market-based flow of uh skills has been going on for a very long time and it's not something that is um politically engineered or uh politics cannot really engineer that can cannot control that. Uh if there is a demand for a skill you will see people move and um it's very likely that with uh uh artificial intelligence coming into more more and more use and Britain is one of the uh leading uh producers of AI and um uh India will have a very capable workforce uh jo uh joining that partnership you will you will you are going to see more partnerships across the border um no matter what individual politicians want or does not want on either side of the border um so there is um there is that uh force which has been working for a long time and uh that force is going to be going to take on new shape but it it will exist um everything else is um everything else is politics of course I mean migration is a very fraught uh topic and um I I I I I would rather not I mean anything I say will will sound uh like taking sides in that politics that that there are enough voices on uh on on migration at the moment and uh and and this podcast has been into that a lot so we don't have to get into that so much here.

SPEAKER_01

Thinking a little bit John could could I just just in case I don't get a chance there are a couple of questions I'd like to ask to Tanker about uh um first of all uh one could get the impression in this country uh that Indians generally uh take a very very critical view of the British legacy. Obviously uh m Modi uh uh uh um plays on that a lot but I'm just wondering um what your estimation is is just to to to to I mean you give a very nuanced you have a very nuanced view. Um um are your views extraordinary in India uh or or are there lots of people who have a nuanced view like you um and in particular this notion of uh the relationship between Britain and India during the colonial period being one of extraction I mean that's not your view um and I I I know for certain that that that uh other imperial historians like David Fieldhouse uh do not accept the view that that um colonial colonial economics generally was about uh plunder and exploitation because he said so uh but just in in terms of where your views fit in the in the ecology of of um imperial history and in terms of uh attitudes in India generally can you comment on that? Yeah but I I'd love to uh do that.

SPEAKER_00

I mean I I I think um at one level um uh uh what you call views are really uh matters of faith. I mean people believe in something it's um uh views uh take shape through dialogue and uh often the ideas that you are talking about are not based on a dialogue it's kind of delivered and you like it because your politics uh likes it and uh I can I can see where for example that like comes from the Marxists don't like markets um so they don't like globalization they have not liked it for a very long time so of course they don't like the British Empire for that reason um but uh but that's um that's the that's the political side of it I mean to some extent I think the reason why these views persist is that historians serious historians who have actually handled evidence um don't really engage haven't engaged very deeply with public opinion or opinion making for quite a long time um and uh that has been a limitation of uh what we do um uh so uh to some extent the reason why um I guess I'm here is that I've tried to to do a lot more uh blogging uh blogging and Twitter kind of stuff um but also write for different audiences um I can I can I cannot think of let's say the Cambridge school historians who are very uh very foundational uh work they have done um do that um they they had didn't really have much influence on public opinion and if you think of the post-colonial North American post-colonial types they have zero influence on public opinion I mean there of course most of them are Marxists anyway um but um but in in terms of uh where public opinion stands I think uh my sense is that there is a great deal of curiosity among thinking people uh is there another story am I we are we missing something and I think the social media uh I mean it it uh recycles a lot of rubbish but it also recycles this uh I mean it also meets this curiosity to some extent um are there other views and uh the best we can do as academics and we are already doing that is to really produce um books um reference works which um showcase what historians have done what evidence based historians have done but for students um so I can I can think of um the Cambridge economic history of South Asia which is uh which has just appeared um and uh this very big book that I'm preparing with a colleague in the Netherlands called the economic history of colonialism um that's again and and and a third one that I'm writing with a co-author on the British Empire and economic history so these these are the kind of stuff that as historians we are trying to do for opinion making um I mean I'm I'm I'm really delighted to that you're doing that.

SPEAKER_01

I mean I I've been dismayed I mean I I know that my views which which are nuanced about Britain's colonial record um I know that my views are are widely represented among particularly an old an older generation of historians but I am really dismayed at how few of them have come forward uh to make any comment on the the the wildly distorted views that seem to dominate public discourse. So it's it's fantastic that you are and and a few others are but too many aren't any other questions Tatanka in case you didn't get a chance. Yeah let me just say I I think I've shot quite a few of them already um just on on the issue of famine I mean I mean my views of of the Raj's uh dealings with famine uh largely based on Tatanka's work but uh um maybe you could just respond to um um something I heard from um an academic called Gominder Bumbra in at this at the University of Sussex who Who um who did say uh in in a debate with m when I was debating with Medi Hassan in London, uh she was a panelist and she made the comment that until the the East India East India Company took control of Bengal there was no famine. Um that's not true. Uh but but then she she talks about how um in the yes, in the in the in the famine of 1769 to 70, the East India Company was was callous. Um and how even though um you you have the development of of a famine code in 1886, a few years later when when foods food shortage threatened famine, it was found that the fund had all been spent on on a war award against Afghanistan. Um and the picture she paints is is is a one of consistent carelessness and and incompetence. Now, uh having read you, I know that that's not true, but could could could you answer her directly?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, well, uh first of all, um whether there were more famines before uh then or or more later, I mean these questions cannot be answered because we don't have demographic data. We uh what we do have is uh some estimates of population growth rate, and population growth rate estimates for pre-1800 years suggests that it was very low, which means that a lot of people were dying young, uh whether they were dying from femines or disease or anything else, but they were not having a great life. Um so uh this idea that there were no femines before is is rubbish. I mean, it doesn't have um uh I mean the the only major um empirical support that we can find uh to test that will say that it's wrong. Um but um um in in terms of uh the state's attitude, well, first of all, there is a lot of simplification involved in how what the state was in in the modern analysis of uh famines uh and what it was supposed to do in in times of drought. Um both the uh 1770 famine in Bengal and the 1943 famine in Bengal, these were two unusual events because Bengal is normally food surplus. It's the delta with uh fertile land, plenty of water, it doesn't normally have a drought. Um but in both these cases, um, the government was not run by the British. The civilian government was uh run by an elected um legislature of Bengali people in 1943, and the civilian government in 1770 was in the hands of the Naabab of Bengal. Uh it was a shared, it was called diarchy, uh it's a shared uh um uh responsibility. Um the the idea that states uh can uh control feminines if they want to, and the callousness is a is a word that implicates an attitude. The uh the theory that states, if they have the right attitude, can deal with disasters is a very bad theory of how disasters happen and what states do. I mean COVID is a is a big example of that, that no matter what um uh you know what your um um um mindset is, uh disaster uh affects by uh by uh compromising your capacity to deal with them. Um so that happens in the case of every major drought, every major famine, that the state doesn't know what is happening here. And um the uh the one thing that happened uh during the late 19th century when three famines, all of them in the in South India, southern and western India primarily, um uh I mean they they were the they were the really big killers. And uh these three famines led uh to not a change in attitude but a serious effort at knowing what happened. And uh that knowledge led to the two uh main um formula, uh not just the famine codes, femin codes, you are right. I mean that's the that deals with the short-term relief. But the two main long-term uh changes were that we need more railways to transport food and we need more irrigation to prevent droughts. Um that um the these two uh lessons that came from the famine literature um remained in place and shaped Indian development for a very long time to come. And that is very good research showing that the railways actually reduced um the intensity of famine deaths after 1900.

SPEAKER_02

Titanka, uh a couple of quick fire questions to appreciate we're we're coming up to the time. Uh first is how the uh institutional influence of the East India Company, and then later the British Empire uh set India on a course to become a unified nation state of its own, having previously been many different regions, different languages, different religions, and so it wasn't actually set in stone that that was going to happen, and nor was it perfectly planned. So it'd be good to hear a summary of how that came to be and the key influences. And I suppose the second point to add on to that is um that was the influence then, that was the relationship then between Britain and India, and indeed the wider west given the other European influences. How do we see that evolving in future from that history to the present?

SPEAKER_00

Great questions. Well, uh, we touched on the company before, and um uh the 18th century, as Nigel explained uh a moment ago, I mean, the 18th century is a very peculiar time because the company is uh a firm and a state, and it's um it's trying it's kind of struggling with these dual id identity. I mean, there are different people who are managing the political enterprise and they don't like the commercial side of things, uh, or they don't like the commercial actors, and these two sides are often uh in conflict. Um so what you what you observe in the 18th century is really the company stop uh uh slowly cease being a commercial firm and uh start behaving like a state. I mean something that uh Christopher Bailey talked about in a series of works very well. Um but once it transformed into a state, it's like any other state. Uh it's not a East India company anymore. I mean it's a it's a company in name, but essentially it's uh state power. As a state power, I think its biggest legacy was really the military enterprise and uh and the cities, port cities that it created. Um as I said, I mean there were lots lots lot else going on in the cities than uh company power, but it was the initiator, initiator of a certain type of urbanism which um transformed India. Um almost all the major business um um innovations um that happened in India, and there were quite a lot, quite a few that happened in these places. They were the most international uh places that you can find, in um some of the most international places you can find in the outside the Western world in the 19th century. Um so that's uh that's one legacy uh of the East India Company. Uh in terms of um uh the way we look at the past, I think that's uh kind of work in progress, and it's very hard to say in what direction it is going. But I I I think it's uh certainly a little less um um a little less ideological than maybe four years ago, uh five years ago. Um so we are um uh it it's not it's not exactly a battle because uh you know as I said, I mean it's more a conversation space. And uh you know I'm I'm very happy to join somebody who thinks uh the British Empire was the most evil thing ever existed. But um but but that's that kind of conversation needs to happen, and uh I think we are moving closer to uh uh to an intellectual space where that's uh that's more likely.

SPEAKER_02

And uh how how would you describe you've mentioned some of the the key skills that modern India has that it's exporting to the world. Uh how how would you describe modern India's um economic trajectory, its ambitions, and and some of the the key policies well um you you know we as I said in the beginning, we always overstate the um the government's role in all this.

SPEAKER_00

I mean I I I'm I'm a much I'm a believer in looking uh outside the government and and seeing where uh what people are doing and what um how they're how families change and how uh communities change. And one thing I find in India which is um extraordinary and especially uh living in Britain for some time, I find that even more distinctive, which is the uh the tremendous energy with which parents educate their children, and um uh especially higher education, especially girls' education. Um families really uh earn money for that. And I see that again and again among my middle class uh friends, of how uh how strong the drive is to educate their children, and uh that is behind the flow of many people who are coming to Britain for higher studies from India. I mean they're not necessarily rich families, but they are uh willing to do anything that is in their power to make sure that um especially girls go out and uh and educate themselves. I find that a tremendous, um tremendously energetic force, and uh that's going to shape the future quite a lot because um the whole world is moving towards skilled services, and here is a workforce which is at the right time at the right place.

SPEAKER_02

Is it a surprising development that there is a a particular focus even on making sure that girls in particular have a uh a big opportunity to educate themselves? Was it particularly more focused on the sons of a family in in yesteryear, or has it has it always been that way?

SPEAKER_00

No, it's not not been that way always. I think it's uh it's growing, and especially with girls. I mean, we we have to um uh um acknowledge that many families now have just one child and that's a girl. So of course all investment falls on that person. Um but also girls are girls still grow up, even in a big city in India, in a in a constrained way, in a variety of ways they are constrained in socially, culturally, going out. That has been changing, but um I I I mean I see that you know from my milieu the girls who come to um London feel freer. And uh the Western world uh means to them not just um uh a better skill that they call that they can learn or the skill that they want to learn, but also a completely different lifestyle, uh which is much more international and much more exposed and much less judgmental in some ways. Um so I think that is um that's a very good compatible uh space between these two societies um to to to develop on.

SPEAKER_02

And and Nigel um finish on uh very much your wheelhouse, which is um the the the the a moral case uh for not just the British Empire, but I suppose some exports of British culture. Uh I'm just trying to read between the the Rudens here, which uh Tatankar has has laid out, which is that there has been uh an appreciation for both the freedom to trade, a freer, more cosmopolitan lifestyle that was afforded by those three great port cities, but more generally just the um the the state-backed enforcement of um contract that enabled trust in trade and everyday life and a proper law enforcement. Do you think that this is one of uh Britain's great exports to the world through its empire and its uh its um settled nations?

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's it's it's one, but uh I think I think before we finish, I just want to mention another. Um I mean, the British government in India throughout most of the 19th century was autocratic. It did involve participation by some Indians because no government can survive without having some idea of what's going on underneath it. Um but at the in the late 19th century, um you do get Indians who have been educated in English and Western liberal ideas. Uh you get the foundation of the Indian National Congress led by an Englishman, uh a former member of the um of the Indian Civil Service who was liberal. And uh over the next 30 years you get you get increasing agitation for uh mass participation in government, so that by the mid-1930s you have provincial governments that are elected by Indians. Now, complaints might be made that the British were too late and too slow and too grudging in allowing the development of mass democracy. There were some, I think, perfectly in good faith reasons for their hesitation, namely the worry about uh majoritarian tyranny over minorities. I think that was a genuine, a genuine concern. Um but here's the thing, uh India had never experienced anything like it before. And it took about 30, 35 years uh for the for the first uh um uh provincial governments to be elected in India, and I think that that was a a gift. Um although it yes, Indians played a large part in in seizing the gift and in making sure it was given, uh, but it was also to some extent um inspired by English liberal ideas uh and it was uh uh over several decades uh promoted and and expanded. So I'd want to add that to the the benefits that uh the British uh helped to give Indians. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Uh Tisankar, anything you'd add to that No, I think I think that um uh that accent on um on um education, liberalism, and um uh some of the key ideological imports from Britain and how that shaped India in the 19th century is a very good one. And um we have to understand that India's nationalism actually uh was shaped by that uh legacy. Um that uh in the value of liberty. I mean, if if you believe in it, then let us have it. That uh sort of attitude. I mean that came from I mean the fact that some of the key spokespersons for Indian nationalism in the 20th century had uh been educated in um in my institution, LSE, um, or Oxford or Cambridge, and uh that that's very significant because they they really uh shaped a discourse of nationalism which they could conduct with the imperialists. Uh but that uh that ability came from uh the Western world.

SPEAKER_02

Well, Nigel has had this question asked to him before, and I know you've already hinted at your your uh mind changing over the years, but a question that I ask all of my guests, Titanka, is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life and what was it that made you think differently?

SPEAKER_00

Titanka? I was groomed in an intellectual tradition which took politics which overplayed the role of politics in economic change, and I've moved away from that. I believe that uh people have agency, they are not victims of um of some darker forces that are uh working on them all the time, and I believe that markets have a lot of agency, and uh broadly I'm very uh positive about uh markets, more positive than negative. Um so this has been uh this has shaped my um um my uh work throughout. Um more recently I have worked on uh geography, climate, and culture, um, which are some of these other things which uh a uh a politics heavy historiography will miss out. Um but uh that's you know I mean not in a spirit of saying that well there here is another grand theory, but more that you know we should be open-minded about what theories work.

SPEAKER_02

Nigel, have you had any um epiphanies since we last spoke?

SPEAKER_01

Any anything new? Well I I can't I can't remember what I said last time, but I but right now I I'd say I guess I um the more I've thought about these things, the more impressed I am that you know um people from the past, like people today, most of the time we are reacting to circumstances in a very ad hoc fashion. And I I I um I I did say at the beginning of my book on colonialism, d don't think of the British Empire as a project that someone someone decided to embark upon in London, let's go conquer the world, wouldn't that be fun? It it were it it wasn't like that. It was just like normal life. Uh we we go along and we we we find opportunities and we find challenges and we respond, sometimes well, sometimes badly. Um and that was the way the empire was. That's one thing. The second thing is uh over the last nine years since I first mooted the idea that the British Empire might have done some good, uh I've actually become more confident that I'm right. Um and I will state more more strongly and boldly um um whatever injustices, whatever whatever failures the British Empire presided over, it also uh chalked up some major humanitarian and liberal achievements, and we should not neglect those as we are tending to at the moment.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you, Tatankar, thank you, Nigel, for joining me. Uh before I let you both go, I appreciate there are books being worked on. Uh Tatankar, what when can we expect one of your many tomes you're working on to be released?

SPEAKER_00

Well, the uh the Cambridge Economic History of uh modern South Asia, that's already out, but I'm not sure. I I haven't seen my copy, so it's um it's just been out.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay. And and Nigel, we know we also know you you've got more work in the pipeline. We spoke about this last time, but to be disclosed.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I'm I'm um I'm I'm currently writing, or just uh finished writing with Robert Tomes, the Cambridge historian, uh a a book for a journal reader that will be entitled Our Island Story, with the apostrophe after this, and the subtitle is A Better Story About Britain, and there's a chapter in there by me which encapsulates the history of the British Empire in 27,000 words, quite an achievement, I have to say. Um and that is due to come out in um I think October. Um but again it's it's it's it's not it's not uh uh an impressive academic tome like Titanka's, it's it's for the general reader, but it's written by by two academics, and we're we're trying to distill our our combined expertise for the sake of the general educated reader.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm sure those who watch in this podcast regularly will be very pleased of both of your endeavours and will read them with great interest. If um people want to follow on these interesting ethical discussions and debates of the day, uh then I really do promote both of your work. I think they are fantastic. They're also very nuanced, it's not like you're just tub thumping in a particular direction. Uh, and then that's very important. It's not just the blands, let's go down the middle. You're actually quite emphatic when you know the evidence stacks up in a certain direction, uh, whichever way it lands. And I think that's to be celebrated. So thank you both for coming on. Nigel for coming on for the fourth time. I'll I'll I'll I'll save a few months until I dare ask you back again with with Robert and uh keep fighting the good fight, both of you. I hope to speak again in the future.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

And uh thank thank you, John, for bringing Titankyo I into conversation. We've never done this before, at least haven't done it for about seven, eight years now, so it's been good to have a have a conversation. I agree.

SPEAKER_02

Glad to hear it. All the best. Bye-bye. Bye.

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John Gillam

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