The good, the bad and the exit
K. N. Chaudhuri
THE BRITISH CONQUEST AND DOMINION OF INDIA by Sir Penderel Moon
Duckworth, f60, pp.1235
Sir Penderel Moon was a brilliant academic, a distinguished member of the legendary Indian civil service, a political adviser to the government of India after Independence, and during the latter years of his life, a historian. Published post- humously, this book will surely rank not only as his magnum opus, a masterpiece of narrative history, but also as a classic description of the strength, weakness, and the final passing of the British empire in the Indian subcontinent. The book is 1235 pages long; its bulk and weight makes it difficult to handle and to read with com- fort. But readers not put off initially by its daunting size will find a high reward, a rich harvest of facts, and much room for thought.
Sir Penderel Moon's academic career was impeccable. Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he gained a prize fellowship to All Souls, before enter- ing the Indian civil service. But in spite of the orthodox background, he remained something of a maverick who was not afraid to speak his mind before superior authority. His history reflects these contra- dictory qualities. He recounts with justifi- able pride the political, military, and eco- nomic process which enabled a small na- tion of merchants and rising industrial
entrepreneurs to take over the heritage of the Mughal empire, one of the richest and most powerful. in Asia, and remain in charge for nearly two centuries. The book is not, however, a mere catalogue of famous battles and the names of soldiers engraved on a victory arch: Moon is not afraid to point out areas where British deeds failed to live up to their ideals. Above all, this is a book which the general reader and beginner students will find most useful, people who until now have not been well served by the professional, academic historians of South Asia.
Of course, it can be criticised on points of detail. It has neither reference notes nor a bibliography, which may have been due to the author's death in 1987. But more seriously, it is not analytical history which asks fundamental questions about British India and seeks to provide systematic answers. For example, Moon notes quite rightly that the British success in demilitar- ising the old warring successor states of the Mughal empire between 1780 and 1820 and setting up modem European-styled admin- istration was followed by a changed British outlook, which carried with it the seeds of future misunderstanding and calamity:
Belief in a divine right to rule and in the beneficence of the British Empire in India often led the British, in pursuit of imperial aims, to high-handed actions and to a com- plete and sometimes quite cynical disregard for good faith, principles of justice, the rights, interests and feelings of others.
The result, Moon concludes, was the crea- tion of a superior 'white' caste. It can be argued equally well that there was no real fundamental change in social attitudes between the 18th and 19th centuries and that the national characteristics which pro- duced these consequences were an in- grained part of a long tradition. British historical successes and failures in India were the two sides of the same coin. Moon's judicious and critical history would have benefited from an explicit recognition of Kenneth Ballhatchet's thesis that the British carried overseas with them the
social stratification prevailing at home and transferred the patterns of class behaviour into stereotyped racial attitudes. After all, conflicts between different groups of peo- ple, communities, and members of reli- gious faith, were nothing new in history. What was decisively strange in the Indian context was the fact that group identities should have been based on colour or Physiological features rather than social codes.
Classic narrative history is at present out of fashion among academic historians, including those of South Asia. In his own defence, Sir Penderel Moon would have said that 40 years after Indian Independ- ence in 1947 and the trauma of the entire decolonisatioin process, there is still no single account of the 'British conquest and dominion' of India. He begins his history with the epic commercial and military struggles between the French and the English and pursues the story through the political turmoils of the battle of Plassey. By 1804, when Britain was still in the middle of the Napoleonic wars, Marquess Wellesley, the elder brother of Arthur Wellesley, had succeeded in extending the East India Company's political frontiers to Delhi, where the unfortunate descendants of the Great Mughals had become mere political pawns in the hands of rival con- tending successor states. In less than half a century, a company of merchants had become the effective rulers of one of the largest territorial empires in the Indian Ocean. The constitutional process which made it possible for the British Parliament to tolerate the division of national sovereignty between a chartered company of private merchants and the Crown still remains incomprehensible to those not familiar with the theory of a single 'British nation'. In other words, the directors of the East India Company and the members of parliament all belonged to the same 'poli- tical club'.
The 19th century was a period of great economic and administrative change in the subcontinent. Principles of European juris- prudence and their application through British law courts transformed the nature of property-holding in India and even identified the different caste groups more closely. The increasing number of English- educated and partially westernised leaders of society welcomed the challenge of a new technology imported by the British, and the liberal atmosphere generated by the concept of the 'rule of law', while the politically disenfranchised Muslim ruling class remained aloof from the new spirit for a long time. Sir Penderel Moon describes with considerable understanding, and no less skill, the rise of Indian nationalism in the early years of the 20th century and the role which Gandhi came to play in national life as the leader of a mass movement. It is hard to believe with hindsight that as late as the 1920s and 1930s few responsible British politicians and administrators in India seriously contemplated the end of the British Empire in India within their life time. The author's first-hand knowledge of India and Indian affairs in these exciting years and his sense of critical detachment make this section of the book particularly interesting and valuable as a historical account.
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