An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

‘An era of darkness: the British empire in India’, by Shashi Tharoor, is a noteworthy book that tells the true story of the British Empire in our country. In a nutshell, this book is a concise history of India under British rule written from an Anti-British narrative by magnifying their atrocities, enormities and monstrous action that they imposed over the poor Indian people and how brilliantly they looted the Indian treasury by dropping our GDP rate from 27 to 3%.
 In addition to its disclosure of a genuine history from a true Indian-born, it can also be viewed as a literature book as it compiles a lot of new words, ideal usages and different kinds of metaphors which personally, I felt so impressive and quite thoughtful. So, I prefer this book for both a historian and literature student for its richness in facts and words and beyond all, every Indian must read this book to know the truly evil face of the British Empire.
Obviously, Tharoor has taken a painstaking effort to establish his arguments and objectives because even some of the renowned Indian historical texts reflect a slight inclination towards the British atrocity as an essential one, mostly they optimize the British enlightened despotism in terms of giving a political unity, application of democratic values, construction of Railways, assimilation of tea culture and cricket. He strongly refutes them with a thoughtful and thunderstruck question “do we, the India of Akbar, the India of Asoka owe a prosperous amalgamation and unity unless they come here?” What the British made here is only for their benefits and advantages, neither for the developments of India nor for the opulence of the Indian government. And later they declare “we did it for you, for your progress” and we, the idiots, admit it and sermonize peripherally in favour of the British atrocities. In such a way, the author enlists all their hollow developments and give them an ideal counter-attack with solid pieces of evidence and crucial arguments. 
As we know, religious disintegration is the most vital success of the British in India. They fomented the cleavages among the Hindu-Muslim unity through the policy of divide and rule. Initially, they divided the religious identities, later intensified the caste system and polarized the Sunni-Shia harmony and finally, solidified it with the policy of reservation and ethnic graphic census. In every sphere, they tried to whip up the religious integrity and fragmented it into several pieces by fanning the flames of customary and ritual differences among the religions over its apostles. Racism, repression, deception, despotism, injustice and secessionism have infected every aspect of the Empire and inflicted them upon the poor masses. Mr. Chetty, an Indian ICS man, shot himself on the racial discrimination in administrative services and plotting as a toy amidst the British servants. 
Economically, they took an intelligent way to drain once the thriving economy of India. Primarily, they destructed the textiles, one of the highly profitable markets of India, and by and by, set off the constraints over the mass productive sections like shipping and shipbuilding, steel manufacturing as well as they tried to replace those sections into their account in order to leave India into the dustbin of spasm and famine. About 35 million deaths occurred in 11 sporadic famines that pervaded us during the period of British not by the inadequacy of the food, but by the lack of means to buy them due to price hiking on food materials. Imagine a nation where its people die of starvation being the eyewitnesses of food transportation to a foreign country. That is what exactly took place in India even the then viceroy discouraged the relief fund to these starving people. It seems a deliberate policy by the notorious leaders of British to starve India as they declared “anyone who gives the relief operation to Indians, he will be imprisoned, tortured and reprimanded” this is a single example I set forth to hammer home the rapacious attitude of British Empire towards Indians. In one of the Subchapters, ‘the Rule of Law: the boot and the spleen’, Tharoor portrays this outrageous incubus by their implementation of the abhorrent penal code, apartheid etiquette and biased jurisdictions and later, declaring unabashedly “we govern for your prosperity”. What the dignity and prosperity they yielded us except some almsgiving lacunas?
Albeit, some of the British apologists like Ferguson, Macaulay and British Novelist Rudyard Kipling tried to whitewash these crystal clear facts by apocryphal and groundless arguments whereas Tharoor brings out their sheep-headed arguments in a sarcastic mirror in order to overshadow them with clear, authentic evidence. In fact, they not only undermined India politically or economically but they put a barrier on the basis of moral standards which are daunting to us even in the current situation. In general view, the greatest triumph of the British over India, as Tharoor thinks, is it could achieve in Anglobalization of India and assimilating them to their culture. 
One of the heart-breaking and ignominious events of the British period is the Jalian Wala Bagh massacre which is spearheaded by the rampage of Brigadier De Iyer. Later, he was awarded! Very interesting an award for a killer of 1516 lives with giving shrift of ₹ 500 to each of the families destructed in the fatality. An empire that tried to prosper a subjugated nation by declaring the awards for the killer of its people. It is just an example. There are multiple examples that Shashi Tharoor explicitly underpins in his books like the mutiny of 1857, the Vellore revolt, and the great deception on the occasion of World War 1. The malice never ceases here. The partition is another Volatile action of the British and it left us to the constant mutinies and insurgencies that retain for good. It is regretful to reclaim that the de-industrialization of India is utterly the default of ourselves. They unscrupulously claimed that we missed the bus to industrialize our India. Tharoor also dismisses this misleading information by self-reliant answers. 
In total, it is a very apt time to be written this book in this contemporary situation where our first prime minister is questioned, where the Villian Robert Clive, the establisher of the British empire in India, is extolled, where the congress is stamped as the main cause behind the partition. The book absolutely expunges these illusionary, unilateral assumptions and magnifies obscure, painstaking efforts of Gandhi and our administrative apostles to design a propitious narrative for our constitution. Besides, for more authenticity, he also pinned footnotes and left one-sixth of the book for solely his research references, bibliographies and further readings. As an expiation for all these crimes, Tharoor back-pedals over the British on the occasion of a Debate conducted five years ago in Oxford University which is also the context of writing this book, he says, “As a token of Apology, Britain should give a symbolic pound a year for the next two years”. 
In 2019, the book won the Sahithya Academy award. As he claims in the final pages, it is really true to have always a rear-view mirror for moving further on the basis of a proverbial quote “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”. For those who extol the British rapacity, for those who eyes to see, for those who live in the free air of independence, it is an essential text to read, to moralize and to know the real face of The English.