British Rule In India
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 1951
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This year's Reith Lecturer is British lawyer Lord Radcliffe. He was Director-General of the Ministry of Information during the Second World War, and is most famous for his role in Partition, the division of the British Indian Empire, His work led directly to the creation of Pakistan and India as independent nations. He examines the features of democratic society, and considers the problematic notions of power and authority in his series of seven Reith Lectures entitled 'Power and the State'. In his fifth Reith lecture entitled 'British Rule in India', Lord Radcliffe examines the early years of British administration in India. He argues that period until the Indian Mutiny succeeded more as a result of the character of its institutions than their excellence. He suggests this offers a classic example of how men really respond to the stimulus of great authority.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:05.0 | This lecture in the series Power and the State, given by Lord Radcliffe, was originally broadcast in 1951. |
| 0:14.0 | This is the BBC Home Service. Power and the State. Lord Radcliffeiffe in the fifth of his wreath lectures |
| 0:22.3 | and talks about the British rule in India up to the time of the mutiny. |
| 0:27.1 | Lord Radcliffe. |
| 0:29.8 | The British have formed the habit of praising their institutions, which are sometimes inept, |
| 0:34.9 | and of ignoring the character of their race, which is often superb. |
| 0:38.3 | In the end, they will be in danger of losing their character and being left with their institutions, |
| 0:44.3 | a result disastrous indeed. |
| 0:47.3 | I move to say this when I consider the strange story of the British Empire in India. |
| 0:52.3 | An administrative achievement which was unique of its kind, |
| 0:56.0 | which had every argument against its success, except the personal quality of those who took part in it, |
| 1:01.0 | and of which the names of the original founders are virtually forgotten. |
| 1:06.0 | Tonight I will recall a few of those names, for one reason, because the connoisseur of human |
| 1:12.0 | character will find in them collector's pieces, and for another, because the whole adventure |
| 1:17.6 | deserves its chapter in the anatomy of power. It represents an episode that has been |
| 1:23.4 | finally closed, and it may well stand, I think, as a classic example of how men |
| 1:29.3 | really respond to the stimulus of great authority. For these men exercised absolute power. |
| 1:36.3 | It came into our hands suddenly and it came without qualification or restriction. |
| 1:42.3 | In 1750, the British in India were a company of merchants, |
| 1:46.0 | clinging not always successfully to their main trading posts at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. |
| 1:52.0 | By 1850, with the overthrow of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab, |
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