British Imperialism Essay

“The reason why the sun never set on the British Empire: God wouldn’t trust an Englishmen in the dark.” Princeton Professor Duncan Spaeth once claimed turning the poetic way of declaring the British as the feared and mighty ruler of the world against them. European imperialism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulted in the carving up of areas of Africa and Asia into vast colonial empires. This was the case for British colonialism in India. As imperialism spread, the colonizer and the colony viewed imperialism differently. By 1857, the British, through the East India Company, directly ruled two thirds of India. The remaining third was overseen by Indian princes who paid tribute to the British. The British not only dominated the Indian economy, sending profits back to Britain: they also imposed their values on the Indian people by preventing Indian soldiers from occupying high ranking positions in the army and introducing social and land

Where there is good there must be bad. By bringing with them an industrial England, old indian crafts were broken up. Consequently, the economic development of India and the growth of new industry was prevented. India wealth now came solely from agricultural industry. Supplying materials and markets for England’s industrial goods. “The destruction of industry led to unemployment on a vast scale. The poverty of the country grew. The standard of living fell to terribly low levels.” Jawaharlal Nehru explains how India became the “typical” colonial economy. Nehru goes on to say that the old Indian industries in which they built their lives on were now being broken up. This was something that Nehru went to fight against with the British. That fight never truly stopped until India was free. However the saddening part of it all was they only were free because it was become a problem for the