72 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
while administration and jurisdiction were, or at any rate were intended to be, retained by the communities, so that as much of the old political independence as was at all capable of life might be preserved in the form of communal freedom.”
But the British suppressed everything, and just as Mr. Ferrero insists on our abandoning “one of the most widespread misconceptions which teaches that Rome administered her provinces in broad-minded spirit, consulting the general interest, and adopting wide and benefit principles of Government for the good of the subjects,” so must we guard against any complacent view of the administration of the East India Company, so current among historians who labour hard to show that with the interval of 1700 years, human nature had greatly advanced in moral standard.
Short may have been our discussion of the situation before the East India Company, it is quite sufficient to show that the supplanter of the Moghuls and the Marathas were persons with-no better moral fiber and that the economic condition of India under the so-called native despots and brigands was better than what was under the rule of those who boasted as being of superior culture.
It is with industries ruined, agriculture “overstocked” and over-taxed with productivity too low to bear high taxes, with few avenues for display of native capacities, the people of India passed from the rule of the Company to the rule of the Crown.
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