British Loot And Plunder Of India: A Post-Colonial Study Of Shashi Tharoor’s An Era Of Darkness

Abstract

Shashi Tharoor made an attempt to talk about the countless mistreatments done by the British Raj through his non-fictional piece of work- An Era of Darkness. The title clearly signifies that those two centuries were the era of Darkness when the Britishers ruled India. Due to them, Indians had to go through extreme humiliation, and suffering and were dragged into the well of poverty. The hangover of such pitiful situations is still there. Situations like Britishers considering themselves as superior, Indians were not allowed in Civil Servants selections, to this Jawaharlal Nehru says, “The Indian civil service was neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service” (Tharoor 60). They introduced multiple methods to divide India in all aspects, so that exploitation will be unchallenging. For that, they introduced the concept of the census. Everything they did was for their own benefit. Whether it was the introduction of railways, disruption of communal schools, or not providing charity to Bengal famine. Tharoor doesn’t want reparations for the destruction that was done by the Britishers, instead, he wants them to acknowledge and apologise for the same. Through this paper, a clear expression of the plight of Indians and the misdeeds of the Britishers is portrayed.