THE BENEFITS AND DEMERITS OF BRITISH RULE FOR INDIA

BENEFITS

IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY

• Allowing remarriage of Hindu widows
• Destruction of Dacoits, Thugs, Pindarees, and other such pests of Indian society
• Charitable aid in time of famine

IN THE CAUSE OF CIVILIZATION

• Education, both male and female
• Destruction of superstition and many moral social evils
• Resuscitation of India's own noble literature, modified and refined by the enlightenment

POLITICALLY

• Freedom of speech and liberty of the press
• Services of highly educated administrators, who have achieved the above-mentioned results.
• Equal justice between man and man (sometimes vitiated by partiality to Europeans).
• Freedom from oppression caused by the greed of despotic rulers, and from devastation by war.
• Security of life and property

MATERIALLY

• Loans for railways and irrigation
• Development of a few valuable products, such as indigo, tea, coffee, silk, etc.
• Increase of exports
• Telegraphs

DEMERITS

POLITICALLY

• Political aspirations and the legitimate claim to have a reasonable voice in the legislation and the imposition and disbursement of taxes, met to a very slight degree, thus treating the natives of India not as British subjects, in whom representation is a birthright
• Consequent on the above, an utter disregard of the feelings and views of the natives.

FINANCIALLY

• All attention is engrossed in devising new modes of taxation, without any adequate effort to increase the means of the people to pay; and the consequent vexation and oppressiveness of the taxes imposed, imperial and local.

MATERIALLY

• An increase of exports without adequate compensation; loss of manufacturing industry and skill. Here I end the debit side

WORDS OF DADABHAI NAORAOJI