Abstract
FORTY-TWO years after the battle of Plassey, British dominion in India, although not yet unchallenged, was virtually secured by the overthrow of Tipu Sultan of Mysore (I799); only one hard fight remained, that with the Sikhs of the northwest. The decline of British power also covers forty-two years, from the Japanese victory of 1905, which stimulated a general stirring of Asiatic nationalism, to August 15, 1947, when one of history's greatest experiments in government came to an inconclusive end and a new venture, perhaps no smaller in scope and intention, began with the setting up of the two Dominions of India and Pakistan. It will be long before a balanced assessment of British rule can be made. In some respects and phases it was revolutionary in its impact; in others it failed to make any real impression on the Indian body social, by reason either of its own conservative caution or of the defense in incalculable depth of Indian social and religious systems; and in some social relationships it acted as a deterrent to necessary change. Neither Machiavellianism nor a devotion to the welfare of India (as that appeared to British minds) has been lacking in its counsels and practice. If in some seasons it found its account in Indian disunity, it can hardly be denied that in the creation of a great, if inadequate, system of transport and communications and of a uniform machine of administration for the larger part of the subcontinent, and in the provision of a common language for the intelligentsia, it laid firmer material bases for unification than had previously existed. Yet in the event the forces of disunion have been too strong.
Published Version
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