India Conquered: Britain's Raj and the Chaos of Empire Hardcover – January 1, 2016

The Chaos of Empire is an account of the British rule of India and how it evolved over the centuries until independence. It discusses the colonial period with a revisionist angle and focuses on the lack of immersion by the governors, the lack of strategic vision and the constant frictions due to culture clashes. It gives some sense of how the government evolved and how political ambitions were formed and gives both the commercial history as well as the political history of the British in India. It is informative but at times the writing is without direction and so it can be a bit tough to get through at times.The author starts with discussing the East India Company and the way its commercial interests defined its political ambitions in India. These narrow interests led to much more local strategies for taxation and government. In particular the author discusses how taxation with respect to trade was at the center of negotiations in the early periods and such negotiations happened with local Raj's as India was a fragmented society. The Mughal methods of government were discussed and certain alliances and histories of Mughal rulers are detailed. For the familiar reader some of this might give some perspective but for a broad audience there is much material that seems somewhat irrelevant to the story the author is trying to paint. The author discusses how a military mutiny lead to a political response from London that the East India Company would need to cede control over government to Parliament and the governance of India shifted from commercially defined interests to a mixture of political and commercially defined. The author discusses how British politicians did not immerse themselves in the local traditions or understanding and this lead to conflicts and famines. Lack of government led to coordination failures and the author argues that the government was largely absent from the business of governing the people with any real effect. The author argues that the British saw India as a trophy rather than something that they were truly embedded in and as a consequence the various Victorian facades were merely for show but did not reflect any true power. The author's discussion of the period of domestic resistance and the desire for autonomy was very readable. The author gives a history of Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah and the ethnic and religious conflicts that plagued India. In particular the author argues that the vacuum of authority left by the British directly fractured the country and left no architecture for government to operate in. This intrinsic negligence of British government the author views as the primary reason for the failure of the country to form a unified state in the beginning.The Chaos of Empire gives a history of Britain's involvement in India. It is readable but at times it can be quite dull. I read It on and off for longer than I am used to but it was a consequence of the book not being particularly gripping. The 2nd half of the book where a more modern history is discussed was far better for me than the first half which seemed more muddled. Nonetheless for a history of the colonial period in India, there is much to take from this book.

Most books on British Empire thus far focused on the idea of chivalry and heroism of the conquerors, the fiction of their civilizing mission on a helpless people mired in poverty, establishing the rule of law in the subcontinent and the creation of the class of Indians brown in skin color but English in taste, views and values. Jon Wilson explodes these myths and establishes credibly that the colonial regime exercised power by coercion backed by violence, did not have a long-term vision for the country or the society, was perennially anxious about its own survival and acted in an ad-hoc manner with their primary goal of perpetuating the “British sovereignty” regardless of the will of the people it ruled.The book brings out some new information not addressed in past popular works on the subject and provides the narrative with a realistic assessment. The list is long but those that captured my attention are as follow:1. Violence started in 1680 rather than the popular belief that Clive and his minions began their journey of conquest in 1750’s. The violence was driven by the anxiety of survival and the it continued until the end.2. When the colonial judiciary wanted for India a legal system and civil rights on a par with England, the regime’s anxiety of survival led to the 1833 Charter act that centralized the law making and absolute power to the Governor General. That subordinated the judiciary to the executive power and reinforced the ongoing despotic political order and the authority of aristocracy. Macauley’s arguments for the need to govern India by British despotism and the need of absolute power to maintain order and to ensure “the diffusion of European civilization among the vast population of the east” drove the governance.3. The 1825 financial crisis led British manufacturers to flood India with their goods and ships, which destroyed the Indian textile industry and Bombay ship building. Company officers shipped money to banks in Britain leading to capital drain from India and raw material price collapse and suffering of farmers.4. In 1857, it was not a confident government that faced a soldier insurgency as portrayed elsewhere but an anxious regime’s efforts to hold on to power against a popular rebellion. After crushing the rebellion, the regime asserted power by genocidal violence to undo the dishonor of its initial defeat.5. Popular myth is that India would not have the railways but for the British rule. This book brings up the information that the colonial government had no concern for people’s desires for a railroad. In the 1840’s Jeejiboy Jamsetji Tata in Bombay and Dwarakanath Tagore proposed to build a rail lines in Bombay and Bengal but their efforts were frustrated by the lack of support from the government and British finance companies. Governor General Ellenborough (1842-1844) believed that mechanical transportation was a distraction from his mission to impose political order in India. Much later when the railways came to India, it was as an assertion of power through infrastructure and a tool to control the population rather than to enable economic growth. Bombay Governor Frere’s speech while inaugurating the first railway line throws light on the position of the regime: “The greatest benefits for Indians will come not from travelling but by working on the railways and from the closer proximity between indolent Indian workers and their British masters who had the habits of punctuality”.6. Infrastructure development - roads, irrigation, barracks, railway lines - was only focused on the projection of power and maintaining order. Beyond this limited core, expenditure for development was authorized only if it could lead to increased revenue collection.7. Indigenous financial institutions rose as a response to the government’s indifference to people’s suffering during the famines in the 1870’s. Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, and other financial institutions were built to finance Indian entrepreneurs who could not get funds from British financiers. To protect the British steel industry, the Tatas were denied of their request to build a steel mill in1883. Years later, in 1912, they built their steel mill with the advice of American technicians. These were attempts by the people to assert their autonomy in a conquered society ruled by the threat of violence with no concern for the common man. Religion was another way that people asserted their autonomy, however much limited, that led to movements like Arya Samaj and Tilak’s revival of Ganesh festival.8. The colonial administrators viewed the Swadeshi movement as a challenge to their way of life rather than a movement of Indians towards self-rule. To the notorious Reginald Dyer of the Amristar massacre, the way of life with which he was raised was based on the notion of Indian obedience to British commands. If his commands were not obeyed, Dyer would not be able to consider himself a dignified human being. His response during the Hunter Commission hearings was: “Without the killing, I would be making myself a fool”.9. By 1946, the regime was desperate to hand over power as it was simply incapable of controlling the interim government or the population. Viceroy Wavell proposed to simply abandon India and leave. As a soldier, he viewed power only through the eyes of physical occupation of territory with no concern for the popular opinion. The colonial regime could not reconcile to the idea of power by popular support and wellbeing of the people it ruled.10. British belief in the inferiority of Indian society and the rhetoric about their own civilizational superiority were the principles by which the regime functioned. They saw themselves as virtuous but embattled conquerors and responded by violence rather than negotiation, insisted on formal submission to British authority; did not build social institutions or aim towards good living standards for people; were concerned primarily about maintaining the fiction of absolute sovereignty. They left the subcontinent a divided place and a fragmented society. Building Indian civic institutions was blocked by coercion arising from anxieties. Imperial power was rarely exercised toward any grand purposes or for the public welfare. Its operations were driven by narrow interests based on the desire of a few to maintain British rule in India for its own sake.The book is a valuable contribution towards the reevaluation of the colonial regime and a course correction in the Indian historiography. It deserves a careful read and deliberation in Indian academia, civic society and anyone with an interest in Indian history.

Jon Wilson is a great historian...

This book contains strong ideas and persuasive arguments but it lacks verve and style. In fact, it's badly written. There I've said it.

This is an exact copy of the book 'India Conqured' by the same author. I not understand why. I ordered both to find that this is an inferior print of 'India Conqured'. I dis not have time to return it and felt cheated.

Arrived on time and just as advertised

A very interesting and detailed account of British rule in India. The author's sympathetic and impartial treatment of the subject deserves praise. One of the triggers to the 1st. war of Independence was Dalhousie's 'Doctrine of Lapse', Mr. Wilson should have covered it in more detail.