An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

True, there could only have been scientific and technological innovation if a forward-looking Indian ruler had endowed the country with educational and scientific institutions where such research would have taken place. The British, however, failed to create such institutions; the foremost Indian research institution under the British empire, the Indian Institute of Science, was endowed by the legendary Jamsetji Tata, not by any British philanthropist, let alone by the colonial government. And if competition with an industrializing Europe was a challenge, why wouldn’t a free India have used a level playing field to its own advantage, levying its own tariffs when protection was needed, giving its own subsidies and developing its own existing global markets?