1. Anna Reed
Prof. Carlander
History 108
SBCC Spring 2016
The Imperial Model to End All Models:
Thesis: The colonial relationship between Britain and India in the 19th century exemplifies the
aggressive industrial imperialism that was characteristic of many European countries in this era
of intense nation-state competition and that ultimately led to World War I.
In the beginning of the 19th century the popular ideas of new enlightenment thinking were
spreading all across Europe. The Europeans had started to incorporate science and reason into
the ways that they thought about different concepts and ideas. Scottish philosopher, David Hume,
applied the reasoning method of the scientific revolution to human affairs, which included
religion and politics. Hume’s new ideas of reason and rationalism that he presents in his writing,
“On Miracles”, sparked other new ideas in Europe as well. One of the most important
movements taking hold in the midst of the Enlightenment was the attempt of European countries
to follow the example of the United States and move away from monarchy towards democracy, a
rule of the people. These countries were challenging old ways in an effort to become bigger,
stronger, and more powerful countries.
The Napoleonic War which began in the early 19th century was Napoleon’s effort to
conquer Europe. This war implanted the idea that a state should conquer all of Europe, but the
French people soon adopted the ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau and other leading thinkers of the
Enlightenment. Rousseau questioned the accepted terms of the time and he believed that a nation

2. would only become great and powerful if the people had the right to vote. The French movement
to end political injustices of the monarchy led to the French Revolution in 1789 and the French
citizens proposed “The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”, which declared
their independence from the old regime and social structure. The ideas of citizenship, liberalism,
nationalism, colonialism and equality were then instilled into the French people and into many
other European countries. The idea of Nationalism emerged (partly in response of French
invasions )which resulted in increased aggression and war with the goal of to increase power and
land holdings. **CUT??**
The Enlightenment also had an effect on India in the northeastern region of Bengal. The
Enlightenment changed the people of India’s feelings and idea. This was a sign of the beginning
of the modern self. The modern self, according to Rammohum Roy and Iswarchandra
Vidyasagar, notices and documents suffering and it also has the capacity for sympathy. Roy and
Vidyasagar believed that compassion was part of our “human nature” and the only reason that
people did not have compassion was because of custom and habit. As the historian, Dipesh
Chakrabarty, noted, “Reason… was what could release the flow of the compassion that was
naturally present in all human beings, for only reason could dispel the blindness induced by
custom and habit.” Reasonable people see suffering and have the capacity for sympathy,
compassion and pity. There is a definite role of reason and compassion in creating the modern
self.
In reference to “Compassion and the Enlightenment”, Dipesh Chakrabarty claims that
some connections among people are suffering, compassion, reason, natural sentiments,
universality and custom. Chakrabarty believed that “the recognition of human commonality
began with a reasoned capacity for empathy that the Enlightenment may have bequeathed to the

3. modern world, even shaping modern sensibility.” These ideas regarding reason are remarkably
similar to ideas expressed in Europe during this time period.
One similarity of the Enlightenment in both France and India was increased self awareness and
the resulting pursuit of the recognition of the individual rights and worth of each person. In
France, rights became a political matter where people sought to preserve their rights through
protest and war as demonstrated by the declaration by Lafayette and the “French Declaration of
Rights for Women”. On the contrary, India’s increased awareness of rights came more in the
form of raised social consciousness without formal protest, which is demonstrated in the
documents by Rammohum Roy, which points out the suffering of women caused by their
inability to own property and by the lack of compassion which resulted in the practice of burning
widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. In contrast to the social and political change
brought about by the European Enlightenment in France, Roy’s challenges went largely
unanswered in India during that era.
Ideas of the Enlightenment that helped to shape the modern world such as the democratic
revolution and the dependence on science and reason contributed to the rise of capitalism and the
industrial revolution. Citation! Before 1500, family, religion, tradition and political authority
regulated economic practices, but after 1500, it increasingly became more common to have
markets in charge of economic spending. The invention of many new machines was core to the
Industrial Revolution and closely tied to capitalism, as workers moved to cities and became
dependent on store bought goods. A whole new class of society developed that not only had hard
currency to spend, but had become completely dependent on store bought goods, moving away
from former systems of barter and subsistence agriculture. Development of the steam engine

4. enabled relatively quick transportation by steamship or train and also contributed to the exchange
of goods.
The industrial revolution was very prominent in much of Europe including Britain (when
it began), but in fact, Britain’s colony, India, faced a time of deindustrialization during the
European industrial revolution. India was in a place of economic decline and instability as a
result of the breakup of the Mughal Empire and the disruption of war. India’s once thriving
textile market was soon demolished by Britain’s new machines that could make textiles much
quicker than Indian non-industrialized means. The British did everything in their power to
prevent India from becoming a competitor on the textile market by making laws that levied taxes
on exported textiles from India and by borrowing India’s textile technology and then reproducing
the technology in great quantities. India had developed machine technology to make their textiles
but its use was not widespread.
Britain became the leading producer of machine-spun yarns and printed calicoes. Next,
India seemed to take a step back in time as city workers moved from cities back to the country in
order to produce the raw materials that Britain needed to make their textiles. India was left in the
position of exporting cheaper raw materials rather than the finished textiles they had previously
exported. Iron production and shipbuilding also declined due to cheap imports from Britain and
extra taxes on goods delivered by Indian ships.
Despite India’s deindustrialization, they had an impact on the industrial revolution
because of their advanced technology in shipbuilding, zinc smelting, weapons and farm and
textile equipment which were copied by Europeans. Indian bankers and merchants also played a
part in the industrial revolution because of their investments in shipping.

5. According to Stearns (p. 823), initial attempts at industrialization outside of the west in the 19th
century always seemed to result in an increased production of export crops but never a full-
fledged industrial revolution like in Europe. The deindustrialization of India is not surprising in
light of the fact that capitalism and the industrial revolution in Britain was fueled economically
by the exploit of resources in their colonies including India. Perhaps another reason that India
was not at the forefront of the development of large scale production of machinery is the fact that
India’s cost of labor was so cheap that there was not a big push to industrialize. The milder
weather of India also permitted the people to live a simpler lifestyle without the push to develop
technology such as indoor plumbing and heating.
Other European industrial nation states including France, Germany and Italy mirrored in
the English attempts to create an Empire among non-European states. The atmosphere between
European countries became more aggressive and tense as fragile alliances were formed and
suspicions developed between these countries as they competed for colonies and markets. The
resulting differences in size and power of the various European empires led to instability. These
suspicions caused Britain to deny alliance with Germany because they didn’t want Germany to
gain any more power. When Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria, was assassinated
by a member of the Black Hand of Serbia, it leads to a chain of events which eventually triggers
World War I. This __ system of rival armed camps into the war that now call World War I.
In the 19th centuries colonizers race to gain more lands the idea of over confidence and
superior feeling were going around in Europe. This superiority was not just over non-Europeans
but Europeans alike.