Essay: To What Extent Was British Imperial Power Positive and Effective in India

To What Extent Was British Imperial Power Positive and Effective in India
While the British were in India, they had some positive and some negative affects. For example they introduced the English language and helped to eradicate ‘thugs’ throughout India. However they also also took a lot away from India and were also extremely cruel to a lot of the Indians. Not only did they damage Indian culture but they also removed a lot of India’s wealth and significantly harmed her economy.
As the British were in India mostly to trade, they needed a way of transporting their goods around India to increase and expand their business. They did so through the introduction of the railway in two privatised firms. Today this service means that India has the largest railway network in the world which aids the country greatly. However, Britain only did this for their own needs and during its rule the railway was only used by the East India company and not at all out of compassion for the poor Indians but merely to maximise the amount of resources Britain could extract from India.
The British improved transport with the railway but also improved the communication in India through postal and telegraph services. Of these, postal service existed before the British rule but were extremely limited and only serviced few people. The post offices were open to the people and the service was expanded throughout British rule until it finally became an official government-run Post Office in 1837. Although this was technically open for use by everyone, people lacked the ability to read and write and this system was then only used by government officials to cimmounitcate with others and by the military.
Lord William Bentinck, the Govener General of India from 1828-1835, decided to educate the Indian people in English due to the difficulties faced with the British ruling over a country with mixed languages. He wanted to enforce laws, and admister the economy in one language. He chose to use English as he consididered it far superior to the Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic languages already employed in India. This however, not surprisingly, caused a decline in the languages used in India. A lot of the regional languages started to die out and today, languages such as Gujarati are nearly dead and Sanskrit has already died out. The English were a minority in India and it was selfish of them to force the country to adopt a language that they did not want over learning an Indian language themselves.
The British also helped India by imposing new rules and regulations. An example of one of theses was the the abolition of sati, the act of a widow getting burnt alive along with her husband when she becomes a widow. This prevented the loss of life through an “illogiacal” act. Sati was made illegal in 1929. This was however, also incosiderate to the millions of Indians who’s practises were disrupted by forefingers who had simply taken over their land. Many Indians were upset by this but their opposition did not make the British change their minds and like many other rules was simply imposed upon the natives. Many similar acts, all changing Indian culture to make it fit. To Western ideals were imposed such as the Sharda act which prevented child marriages.
Under British rule, the British took it upon themselves to reduce the number of  thieves and murderers in India. These were feared greatly by the Indian people and over they course of six years over two thousand of such criminals were put on trial and either gave up information to catch others or were killed or imprisoned for life.
The worst thing that the British rule did to India, is ruin its economy. Britain took a lot of resources and money
Overall British Imperial power was a very negative influence on India and only helped the country very little. The small acts it did to help the people such as help to enforce the law and remove thugs, are far outweighed by the negative impacts British Imperial power brought upon India. It’s people were looked on as slaves, its resources basically stolen and a lot of its money unfailey given for virtually no gain. The infustructure that the Brish built was only for themselves and they left India a worse place than that wich they found it as.