S7 Ep17: The long shadow of British rule: India's colonial legacy

About this episode

The episode discusses the lasting economic effects of British colonial rule in India and the impact of post-independence policies on infrastructure and land tenure.

Eighty years after Indian independence, the economic fingerprint of British colonial rule is still visible at the district level. Two institutions in particular left scars: whether a district was governed directly by British administrators or by one of India's roughly 680 Indian princes, and what kind of land tax arrangement the British put in place. For example, by 1991, directly ruled districts had nine percentage points fewer middle schools and a 20-percentage-point lower probability of having a road than areas under indirect rule. The question was whether those gaps would eventually close. Lakshmi Iyer of the University of Notre Dame tells Tim Phillips that by 2011 infrastructure gaps had closed completely. Targeted post-independence programmes, including the Minimum Needs Program of the 1970s and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of 2001, pushed schools, health centres, and roads towards underserved districts. The picture for land tenure is mixed. Areas that historically had landlord-based systems are still 17% behind non-landlord areas in wheat yields, and the gap in fertiliser use has widened rather than narrowed. One reason, the policy response was a universal subsidy rather than…

People in this episode

Host: Tim Phillips

Guest: Lakshmi Iyer

Topics covered

• colonial legacy
• economic impact
• infrastructure
• education
• land tenure

Keywords

• British colonial rule
• India
• infrastructure gaps
• education
• land tax
• wheat yields
• fertiliser use

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Notre Dame

Books & works: Minimum Needs Program, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

Places: India, British

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