Pros And Cons Of The White Man's Burden Essay

The White Man’s Burden: As Kipling sardonically claimed, it was the self avowed burden of the White man to civilize the brown and the black races. The average British officer and administrator lived by the theory of Social Darwinism. Indians were little better than wild beasts and the only way to rule them was to abandon the paternal methods of the company and rule them henceforward with a rod of iron. (Chand, 479) With this mission in mind, the British gave many gifts of western civilization to India. They brought to their colony in India the Railways, Telegraphs, Roads, Western system of medicine, western system of education, and western system of rule of law. They abolished sati, they banned child marriages. They claimed that were the

Indians saw British imperialism only as economic exploitation, impoverishment of the masses, dwarfing of the moral structure and the dignity of the subject people. (Chand) Dada Bhai Naroji formally propounded the theory of Drain of Wealth, wherein he claimed that England was draining enormous wealth from India in form of taxes. To this the later Nationalist leaders added that this drain of wealth ‘was the fountainhead of all evil in India’ and its backwardness till date. Also some Indians swore by the relevance of the indigenous systems. Gandhi advocated boycott of English courts of law and British educational institutions as part of the Non Cooperation Movement. During his trial post Chauri Chaura, Gandhi said that the British advent in India systematically ruined the cottage industry that was vital for the sustenance of the villages, the British legal system only ensured a systematic exploitation of India’s masses. (Gandhi)
The Writings of Jim Corbett
Amidst this cacophony of dissention and debate, there is a lone voice that is neither hegemonic nor worshipful- that is the voice of Jim Corbett. Hunter and tracker, Jim Corbett published his memoirs The Maneaters of Kumaon in 1944 and as Ruskin Bond puts it, “Corbett’s exploits brought him fame as a hunter. His book turned him into a legend.” (Corbett)
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