I recently finished reading the book Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor. In the book, the author talks about the devastating effect, British rule had over India. Instead of trying to half-assedly summarise the contents of the book, I will quote the author himself:

The purpose of this volume is to examine the legacy of the Raj, to critically study the claims made for its alleged benefits, and to present the evidence and the arguments against it.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Why did I read this book?

Firstly, I wanted to get back into reading books again.

While I was an avid reader as a school kid, as I have gone through college and professional life, my interests and hobbies have converged to me spending more time on the computer. Being a software developer and avid gamer, I won't be able to cut all the time I spend on the computer. But I do want to move away from the timesink that is Instagram, Reddit and YouTube. And for the time being, I am leaning on books to get me out of this hole.

Coming back to video games, Crusader Kings 3 is awesome

Being an avid gamer, I am always on the look out for fun new games to play. It was thanks to this quest that I ran into this fascinating piece about a Crusader Kings 3 player who ate the Pope in the game. This was back in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was raging and there was little to do except sit at home and work. So I decided to buy the game and started playing it. And while the learning curve was steep, once I figured out how everything worked, it became a daily obesession. The game gives you the ability to change the course of history by playing as historical dukes/kings/emperors who can choose to do things differently than their real life counterparts. So far I have created the Empire of India starting out as the ruler of Maldives and I also created a coastal empire stretching all the way from southern India to Egypt. I am 150+ hours into the game and I am definitely not done.

Playing through the game, I had the chance to revisit history and dive deep into the shape of the world back in the year 867 AD(that's the earliest game start date). Every playthrough introduced me to the state of affairs of a different part of the world and Wikipedia helped me navigate the history and future of that chunk of land. It was honestly fascinating to see the world mapped down into all these small and large kingdoms which would expand or collapse at the whim of the game's AI. And the more time I spent shaping the Indian subcontinent, the more questions I had.

And so began the quest to gather answers

Being a citizen of the country, I felt a certain sense of responsibility in terms of understanding "how did we get here". While the current state of affairs may have been shaped by events that happened over the past few decades, the layers underneath it are plenty deep. And unraveling them will take me back several 100 years prior. And while I am prepared to make that journey back in time, I had to start somewhere small and reasonable. And so I chose to begin with the Indian independence struggle.

Which finally brings me to my original question, "Why did I read this book?"

Make no mistake, I always knew that British rule in India was…bad. But the cultural and socio-economic implications of it only became clear to me as an adult. The revelations made clear by Shashi Tharoor in his Oxford speech titled "Britain does owe reparations" were quite damning and difficult to digest.

So when the time came to pick a book to read, I felt like his book on the same topic would be a good place to start. I already knew the broad strokes of the time spent by Britishers ruling India and this book would help paint a clearer, deeper and potentially darker picture.

My thoughts on the book

The book was an eye opening read. Like I said, I always knew that British rule in India was bad. But after reading the book I realized that a worse adjective was required.

It is one thing to know that the Britishers operated with malice to exploit the land for the advantage of its own people. It is a whole other thing to see a breakdown of the consequences in damning figures. I guess the numbers were always there waiting to be read but I just had to pick up the right kind of books to find them.

I especially loved the Divide et impera(Divide and rule) chapter. It provided an excellent explanation of how the Britishers drove a wedge between the Hindu and Muslim communities at a communal as well as political level, which eventually led to the partition of the land between the countries of India and Pakistan. I made sure to read through that section slowly so as to grasp the intricacies and it helped paint a very clear picture of the ground reality. I have kept that section bookmarked so I can read through it again any time I want to refer it.

Another major highlight of the book was the author's thoughts on Gandhism. Given how instrumental Mahatma Gandhi was for India's independence struggle, his words and ideals are taken as gospel. However the author questions its effectiveness in other situations. To quote the author:

India's independence marked the dawn of the era of decolonization, but many nations still came to freedom only after bloody and violent struggles. Other peoples have fallen under the boots of invading armies, been dispossessed of their lands, or been forced to flee in terror from their homes. Non-violence has offered no solutions to them. It could work only against opponents vulnerable to a loss of moral authority, governments responsive to domestic and international public opinion, governments capable of being shamed into conceding defeat. The British, representing a democracy with a free press and conscious of their international image, were susceptible to such shaming. But in Mahatma Gandhi's own day, non-violence could have done nothing for the Jews of Hitler's Germany, who disappeared into gas chambers far from the flashbulbs of a war-obsessed press.

This was the first time I was reading a nuanced take on Gandhi's shortcomings. I have never held an absolute position in my faith in his ideals but I never had the means to question it either. Nor did I have the need to question it. However having read this book, I realize that there is more to learn about the Mahatma than the words "non-violence".

Now, coming to problems, one problem I felt was with the structure of the book. Because the different chapters of the book were exploring the empire in different aspects of its rule, the book had a tendency to walk back and forth in the timeline in every chapter. While I understand the choice made to write the book like this, it made for a taxing read at times.

Nevertheless, the book was an excellent read.

Miscellaneous

In an effort to digest the contents of the book better, I decided to take notes along the way. Any time I found something interesting or any time I found myself thinking about something written in the book, I would make a note of the same. The hope was that because I was actively taking notes, it would help me focus on the reading better and retain a lot more of the content than I usually do.

I am not sure if the strategy helped. What I do know however is that I have several pages worth of notes taken. And the plan is to go through those notes and close any open points and answer any open questions left in those notes.

I intend to do the same with all the books I am going to read in the future. Hopefully this will help me build better reading habits.