Mughal Administration c17.s10.14

c17.s10.14

The greatest gifts of the British to India have been political directly and economic only in a secondary way. They are, security of property and personal freedom (of production and service) for the individual. These, even more than pure and convenient courts of justice, an efficient police, mechanical transport and uniform currency, have improved the economic condition of modern India. On the other hand, Mughal India was under an essentially military type of administration, and that too conducted by a semi-nomadic people. This political factor entirely dominated our economic situation in that age. The unspeakable degradation of the intellect and character of the subject people under nomad rulers is the only adequate explanation of the real economic misery of this fabled land of gold in the age of the Great Mughals. India, even in the economic sphere, has profited most from the political or non-economic effects of British rule,—namely, personal freedom, security of possessions, and, above all, that spirit of progress and that removal of "the slave mentality" of our masses which we owe to Western education, British laws, and contact with English society. These, and not a "return to the learning of Confucius" will enable the Indians to rise to the full stature of their national growth.