The British rule in India was characterized, amongst others, by: (i) feudal relations—zamindari, mahalwari and ryotwari based on how land right was granted to the people, in individual capacity or as village, and how revenue collection is patterned, and (ii) political relation—subjects bearing the laws, codes and regulations framed by the foreign rule. There was no political participation of the people and political obligation was intermixed with feudal and colonial relations. Understanding of the nature of colonial relations is important for defining political obligation towards a state or political set-up that was foreign.
Colonial rule as modernizing factor: A group of early English educated Indians, known as the Derozions, and some of the great social reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy and others who felt that British rule had a positive and beneficial impact. Raja Rammohan Roy, influenced by Bentham’s Utilitarianism, measured social and religious practices on the scale of social utility and rationality. He aimed at modernization and social reform by use of rational thought and modern education. Like Bentham, Rammohan Roy reposed great faith in legislation as a means of reform. This could be possible when one accepts the reformist character of British rule and their legislation, as a means of social reform and modernization. His campaign against sati, polygamy, casteism and support of widow remarriage and later on provided inputs for the British rule to bring social legislations. By their very nature, reformist movements were not aimed at denying political obligation to the colonial rule. Rammohan Roy’s faith in the British nation as protector and promoter of freedom, liberty and rationalism led him on 15 November 1823 to declare that Among other objects, in our solemn devotion, we frequently offer up our humble thanks to God, for the blessings of British rule in India and sincerely pray, that it may continue in its beneficent operation for centuries to come.’25 His prayer at least was not denied for one and a quarter of century. By the time, God could get busy with other prayers and the British rule would discontinue in its beneficent operation, it had already brought a variety of social reform legislations, including abolition of sati in India. Under the social reform perspective, political obligation to the colonial rule was not denied.
Colonial rule as benevolent constitutionalism: There was a stream of thought in India which reposed trust in the constitutional and liberal tradition of British democracy and hoped that the colonial rule would treat the Indian people in the same way that the British government treats its citizen back home. This was the school of liberal and moderate thinkers and activists, Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, S. N. Banerjea and early Mohd Ali Jinnah. Naoroji and others believed in the civilizing role of the British rule in India. However, they were disappointed by the fact that the Indians under the British rule, instead of being treated as ‘British citizens and hence entitled to the rights and privileges that pertained to British citizenship, ’26 were denied the same. Their liberal optimism led them to believe that some type of political and constitutional relationship with the British government far from being inimical to freedom and liberty would be beneficial to it. They advocated not a theory of nationalist liberation and radical political resistance but one of constitutional linkage and moderate representation. They supported political obligation to the British rule and when resistance was to be offered, that would be only constitutional and representational. They insisted on constitutional, legal and political obligation to be rendered by the Indians to the British rule. Even while agreeing that economic policy of the colonial rule was, what Naoroji accepted in his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, a ‘drain’, they reposed faith in the benevolence of the colonial rule.
Colonial rule as cultural and national invasion: One stream of thinkers believed that British rule in India constituted cultural and national aggression and must accordingly be removed. They offered a nationalist and national renaissance perspective. These activists and thinkers included Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, B. G. Tilak, Veer Savarkar, Hedgewar, M. M. Malaviya, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and others. They believed in Vedic idealism, revival of ancient glory and wanted Indian renaissance as the basis of regeneration and awakening for national liberation. They offered cultural, national, religious and political resistance to the colonial rule and nourished a dream of bringing ancient glory to modern India. They denied any political obligation to the colonial rule.
Dual role of colonial rule: In the Marxian analysis, imperialism is connected with capitalism and Lenin aptly demonstrated this in his book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). New Liberal theorist, J. A. Hobson in his Imperialism (1902) also demonstrates how capitalist system at home requires outside markets and creates imperialist pressure. Marx, however, in a series of articles in 1853 in the New York Daily Tribune, talked about the destructive as well as regenerating role of British rule in India.27 According to Marx, destruction of the self-sufficient village economy, neglect of irrigation and public works, introduction of English landed system and private property in land, heavy duty or prohibition on import of Indian manufactures to England and Europe meant destruction of the Indian economy. Much before Dadabhai Naoroji (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India) and Romesh Chandra Dutt (Economic History of India) presented their economic critique of the British rule as a drain on India’s economy, Marx had estimated the drain. In his Das Capital, he had estimated that ‘India alone has to pay £5 million in tribute for “good government”, interest and dividends of British capital, etc., not counting the sums sent home annually by officials as savings of their salaries or by English merchants as a part of their profit in order to be invested in England.’28 On the other hand, according to Marx, the regenerative role of the British rule manifested in the form of political unity, press and education system, emergence of Indian middle class, communication and transport, Indian market, etc. This promised ‘transformation of India into a reproductive country’ and lay down ‘the material condition for advance. With regenerative condition and new advance, Indian people would have to gain liberation from the imperialist power. Lenin gave a call to oppressed nations to seek their liberation and inserted into Marx’s famous slogan ‘and oppressed nations’ to appear as ‘Proletarians of all countries, and oppressed nations, unite.’29 In the Marxian analysis, there is no room for political obligation to an imperialist-colonialist state.
Colonial rule as Dar al-Harb: In the context of revolts of 1857 and gathering opposition against the British rule, a section of Muslims identified the nature of the colonial rule as Dar al-Harb. This means the territory occupied by the colonial power was House of War and opposition to the same was justified and a moral duty. Theoretically, this was a doctrine of political resistance, which enjoined upon the Muslims to oppose a colonial rule.
Colonial rule as moral and national subjugation and colonial state as repository of brute force: For Gandhi, industrialism and capitalism were integrally linked to the Western civilization, which he proudly and unequivocally denounced in his Hind Swaraj (1938). Colonialism represented not only these evils but above all represented brute force. Gandhi as a critic of the state and its brute force was heavily influenced by the writings and methods of Henry David Thoreau. In fact, civil disobedience and passive resistance advocated by Thoreau in the context of American slavery very much became Gandhi’s weapon as Satyagraha. He treated colonialism as moral and national subjugation and considered the colonial state, or for that matter, any state, as repository of brute force. Gandhi’s approach to political obligation then was unique. He advocated minimal or no political obligation and offered a theory of resistance in the form of Satyagraha or moral insistence.
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