UNIT 18 COLONIALISM

Structure
18.1 Introduction
18.2 Approaches to Colonialism
18.2.1 What is Colonialism?
18.2.2 Definition
18.2.3 Basic Features of Colonialism

18.3 The Colonial State

18.4 Stages of Colonialism
18.4.1 First Stage: Monopoly Trade and Plunder
18.4.2 Second Stage: Era of Free Trade
18.4.3 Third Stage: Era of Finance Capital

18.5 Colonialism in Different Territories

18.5.1 Africa
18.5.2 Egypt
18.5.3 South-East Asia

18.6 India
18.6.1 First Stage
18.6.2 Second Stage
18.6.3 Third Stage

18.7 British Colonial State

18.8 Colonialism or Colonialisms?
18.9 Summary
18.10 Exercises

18.1 INTRODUCTION

If Imperialism is what happens in the metropolis, then colonialism is what

happens in the colonies. The same system of capitalism that produced
development in the Western world created underdevelopment in the
colony. In this sense imperialism and colonialism are two sides of the
same coin.

In the previous Unit, you were familiarized with imperialism as a modern phenomenon
directly related to capitalism. You also learnt how the process of conquest, expansion
and domination brought wealth and prosperity to the economies of the European
countries. This Unit is a discussion of what this process meant to the economy and
society in the colonies. It will provide a definition of colonialism and prepare a typology
of colonies (colonies of settlement and of exploitation, inland colonies and overseas
colonies, colonies under direct rule and colonies controlled only indirectly). It will then
go into a discussion of the stages of colonialism and see how these stages functioned in
different colonies.
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Expansion of Europe South Africa, Australia, Canada were colonies of white settlers whereas India and
Indonesia were colonies exploited economically and politically over centuries. There
was a process of colonization which took place through inland expansion (as in Russia)
while there were many cases of overseas colonization as in the case of China. In this
Unit we shall be studying colonies of exploitation.

Similarly colonization could happen both through direct and indirect rule. Direct rule
meant a colonial state as in the case of India; indirect rule meant control over the politics,
economy and society without taking on the onus for ruling the country as was the case
in China. In this sense, colonialism could be both absolute and partial in terms of
political control. Hence, colonialism and semi-colonialism were different in basics.
In the case of a semi colony like China control was over the economy rather than over
the polity. Also, no one imperial power had a monopoly of control as it was exploited
by many powers unlike the case of India, where it was mainly Britain which retained
absolute political control.

Again, neo-colonialism is the continuation of colonialism by non-formal means.

Economic policies were dictated and military might was harnessed by the imperial power.
The US was the foremost neo-colonial power in the later phase.

18.2 APPROACHES TO COLONIALISM

There are mainly two approaches to the understanding of colonialism. The successful
liberation movements of the 1960s and the Cuban and Algerian revolutions led to a
plethora of writings on colonialism. Andre Gunder Frank’s major contribution was
followed by those of C. Furtado, Theodore Dos Santosa, Paul Prebisch, Paul Baran,
Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein, Arghiri Emmanuel and F. Cardoso. According to
the dependency school (Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin etc.) a colony would
continue to be economically dependent even after achieving political freedom, as long
as it remains a part of capitalism – as the capitalist class was incapable of undertaking
the task of development. Wallerstein’s world systems approach divided the capitalist
world into the centre, periphery and semi-periphery, between which a relationship of
unequal exchange prevailed. The core economies of the centre produced high value
products and had strong states. The periphery was constrained by low technology and
low wages, the state was weak as was the capitalist class and the economy was
dominated by foreign capital. The countries on the semi-periphery, like India, were
marked by greater control of the state in the national and international market. Economic
nationalism was the hallmark of such states, which were able to negotiate a stronger
position for themselves in the world system. Cultural aspects of colonialism were
highlighted by Amilcar Cabral, Franz Fanon and Edward Said. Bipan Chandra analysed
colonialism in terms of colonial structure, colonial modernization, stages of colonialism
and the colonial state.

18.2.1 What is Colonialism?

Colonialism is as modern a historical phenomenon as industrial capitalism. It

describes the distinct stage in the modern historical development of the colony that
intervenes between the traditional economy and the modern capitalist economy. It is a
well structured whole, a distinct social formation in which the basic control of the
economy and society is in the hands of a foreign capitalist class. The form of the colonial
structure varies with the changing conditions of the historical development of capitalism
as a world wide system.
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It is best to look upon Colonialism as a specific structure. What took place during Colonialism
colonialism was not merely the imposition of foreign political domination on a traditional
economy, as argued by some scholars. Nor was it merely the outcome of a vast
confidence trick that relied on the docility, cooperation or disunity of the colonized,
buttressed by the racial arrogance of their better-armed white governors. The view that
‘Empires were transnational organizations that were created to mobilize the resources
of the world’ (Hopkins, 1999) is also incomplete; it focuses on the metropolis, not on
the colony. Neither was a colony a transitional economy which, given time, would have
eventually developed into a full blown capitalist economy. It is also incorrect that the
colony suffered from “arrested growth” because of its pre-capitalist remnants. Many
apologists, for example, Morris D. Morris, portrayed colonialism as an effort at
modernization, economic development and transplantation of capitalism which could
not succeed because of the restricting role of tradition in the colonies.

Colonial economy was neither pre-capitalist nor capitalist, it was colonial, i.e., a hybrid
creation. Colonialism was distorted capitalism. Integration with the world economy did
not bring capitalism to the colony. The colony did not develop in the split image of the
mother country –it was its other, its opposite, non-developmental side. Colonialism did
not develop social and productive forces, rather, it underdeveloped them, leading to
contradictions and a movement forward to the next stage.

18.2.2 Definition
Colonialism is the internal disarticulation and external integration of the rural
economy and the realization of the extended reproduction of capital not in the colony
but in the imperialist metropolis.

Colonialism is a social formation in which different modes of production coexist from

feudalism to petty commodity production to agrarian, industrial and finance capitalism.
Unlike capitalism, where the surplus is appropriated on the basis of the ownership of
the means of production, under colonialism surplus is appropriated by virtue of control
over state power. When one understands colonialism as a social formation rather than
as a mode of production, we are able to see the primary contradiction as a societal one,
rather than in class terms. Thus we have a national liberation struggle rather than a class
struggle against the colonial power. The primary contradiction in society is the national
one, not the class one; the struggle against the colonial power is political.

18.2.3 Basic Features of Colonialism

One basic feature of colonialism is that under it the colony is integrated into the world
capitalist system in a subordinate position. Colonialism is characterized by unequal
exchange. The exploitative international division of labour meant that the metropolis
produced goods of high value with high technology and colonies produced goods of
low value and productivity with low technology. The colony produced raw materials
while the metropolis produced manufactured goods. The pattern of railway development
in India in the second half of the 19th Century was in keeping with the interests of British
industry. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Indian nationalist leader, described this as decorating
another’s wife. The colony was articulated with the world market but internally
disarticulated. Its agricultural sector did not serve its industry but the metropolitan
economy and the world market. The drain of wealth took place through unrequited
exports and state expenditure on armed forces and civil services. Foreign political
domination is the fourth feature of Colonialism. Therefore, unequal exchange, external
integration and internal disarticulation, drain of wealth, and a foreign political domination
may be understood as the four main features of colonialism.
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Expansion of Europe
18.3 THE COLONIAL STATE
The colonial state is integral to the structuring and functioning of the colonial economy
and society. It is the mechanism by which the metropolitan capitalist class controls
and exploits the colony. The colonial state serves the long term interests of the capitalist
class of the mother country as a whole, not of any of its parts.
Under colonialism all the indigenous classes of the colony suffer domination. No class is
a junior partner of colonialism. Thus even the uppermost classes in the colony could
begin to oppose colonialism as it went against their interests. It is useful to remember
that big landlords led the anti-colonial movements of Poland and Egypt. This is a major
difference between colonies and semi-colonies, where there are compradors, native
classes that are part of the ruling class.
The role of the colonial state was greater than the capitalist one. The state itself was a
major channel of surplus appropriation. The metropolitan ruling class used the colonial
state to control colonial society.
The colonial state guaranteed law and order and its own security from internal and
external dangers. It suppressed indigenous economic forces hostile to colonial interests.
The colonial state actively fostered the identities of caste and community so as to prevent
national unity. The state was actively involved in reproducing conditions for appropriation
of capital, including producing goods and services. Another important task is the
transformation of the social, economic, cultural, political and legal framework of the
colony so as to make it reproductive on an extended scale.
There is an explicit and direct link between the colonial structure and the colonial state.
Thus it is easy to politicize the struggle against colonialism. As the mechanism of colonial
control lies on the surface, it is easy to expose the links with the industrial bourgeoisie of
the home country. The state is visibly controlled from abroad and the isolation of the
colonial people from policy and decision making is evident.
The colonial state relied on the whole on domination and coercion rather than leadership
and consent. However, it functioned to some extent as a bourgeois state with rule of
law, property relations, bureaucracy and constitutional space within which colonial
discontent was to be contained. We shall discuss this in detail with reference to India.

18.4 STAGES OF COLONIALISM

There were three distinct stages of colonialism. Some countries went through one or
two stages only. India went through only the first and second stages, Egypt only through
the third stage, and Indonesia the first and third stage. These stages lasted over two
hundred years. The forms of subordination changed over time as did colonial policy,
state and its institutions, culture, ideas and ideologies. However, this did not mean that
stages existed in a pure form. The older forms of subordination continued into the later
stages.
The stages were the result of four factors:
• the historical development of capitalism as a world system;
• the change in the society, economy and polity of the metropolis;
• the change in its position in the world economy and lastly;
• the colony’s own historical development.
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18.4.1 First Stage: Monopoly Trade and Plunder Colonialism

The first stage had two basic objectives. In order to make trade more profitable
indigenously manufactured goods were to be bought cheap. For this competitors were
to be kept out, whether local or European. Territorial conquest kept local traders out of
the lucrative trade while rival European companies were defeated in war. Thus the
characteristic of the first stage was monopoly of trade.
Secondly, the political conquest of the colony enabled plunder and seizure of surplus.
For example, the drain of wealth from India to Britain during the first stage was
considerable. It amounted to two to three per cent of the national income of Britain at
that time. Colonialism was superimposed on the traditional systems of economy and
polity. No basic changes were introduced in the first stage.
18.4.2 Second Stage: Era of Free Trade
The interest of the industrial bourgeoisie of the metropolis in the colony was in the
markets available for manufactured goods. For this it was necessary to increase exports
from the colony to pay for purchase of manufactured imports. The metropolitan
bourgeoisie also wanted to develop the colony as a producer of raw materials to lessen
dependence on non-empire sources. Increase of exports from the colony would also
enable it to pay for the high salaries and profits of merchants. The industrial bourgeoisie
opposed plunder as a form of appropriation of surplus on the ground that it would
destroy the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Trade was the mechanism by which the social surplus was to be appropriated in this
stage. In this stage changes in the economy, polity, administration, social, cultural and
ideological structure were initiated to enable exploitation in the new way. The slogan
was development and modernization. The colony was to be integrated with the world
capitalist economy and the mother country. Capitalists were allowed to develop
plantations, trade, transport, mining and industries. The system of transport and
communications was developed to facilitate the movement of massive quantities of raw
materials to the ports for export. Liberal imperialism was the new political ideology.
The rhetoric of the rulers was to train the people in self-government.
18.4.3 Third Stage: Era of Finance Capital
The third stage saw intense struggle for markets and sources of raw materials and food
grains. Large scale accumulation of capital in the metropolis necessitated search for
avenues for investment abroad. These interests were best served where the imperial
powers had colonies. This led to more intensive control over the colony in order to
protect the interests of the imperial power.
In the sphere of ideology the mood was one of reaction. The need for intensive control
increased. There was no more talk of self government; instead benevolent despotism
was the new ideology according to which the colonial people were seen as children
who would need guardians forever.
A major contradiction in this stage was that the colony was not able to absorb metropolitan
capital or increase its exports of raw materials because of overexploitation in the earlier
stages. A strategy of limited modernization was implemented to take care of this problem
but the logic of colonialism could not be subverted. Underdevelopment became a
constraint on further exploitation of the colony.
The third stage often did not take off. Colonialism had so wrecked the economies of
some colonies that they could hardly absorb any capital investment. In many colonies
the older forms of exploitation continued. In India, for example, the earlier two forms
continued, even in the third stage. 41
Expansion of Europe
18.5 COLONIALISM IN DIFFERENT TERRITORIES
So far you have seen the general pattern of colonial expansion spread over three stages.
In the next two sections we will take up specific case studies of colonies.
18.5.1 Africa
The conquest of Africa took place in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Till as
late as 1880 only 20 per cent of Africa had come under European rule. With the
spread of the Industrial Revolution to other countries of Europe rivalries increased as
did the search for colonies. The emerging industrial powers looked for a place in the
sun. A continent of over 28 million square km was partitioned and occupied by European
powers by a combination of two strategies, treaties and conquest.

In Africa in 1939, 1200 colonial administrators ruled 43 million Africans –

through local chiefs.

Three eras of conquest

The first phase, 1880-1919, was one of conquest and occupation. The colonial system
was consolidated after 1910. The second phase, 1919-35, was that of the independence
movements. The third stage was from 1935 onwards. Within forty five years the colonial
system was uprooted from over 94 per cent of Africa. Colonial rule lasted for a hundred
years on an average. British territories in Africa consisted of Nigeria, Gold Coast,
Gambia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Uganda, North and South
Rhodesia and South Africa. Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, French-Congo, Tunisia,
and Madagascar were some of the main French colonies.
Impact
The impact of colonialism in Africa was tremendous. The self sufficient African economies
were destroyed, transformed and subordinated by colonial domination. Class
differentiation in African society occurred as a result of the impact of colonial domination.
The links of African countries with each other and with other parts of the world were
disrupted. European powers reduced the economies of Africa to colonial dependencies
through the power of finance capital. The loans for the Suez Canal enmeshed Egypt in
debt.
There are different interpretations of the impact of colonial rule. The imperialist
school of thought would have it that Africans welcomed colonial rule. Social Darwinism
justifies colonialism by arguing that the domination over the weaker races was the
inevitable result of the natural superiority of the European race. Both colonial rulers and
latter day apologists have presented colonial rule as a blessing. It is said that modern
infrastructure, health and education would not have reached the colony had it not been
part of the colonial system. Other scholars, like D.K. Fieldhouse, have described the
effects as “some good, some bad”.
The primary motive behind colonialism was of course satisfying imperial interests. The
positive effects of colonialism, if any, were byproducts; they were clearly not consciously
intended. The negative impact was huge and in all spheres, with long lasting legacies.
For example, ethnic conflicts which paralyze many parts of Africa today are rooted in
the arbitrary superimposition of territorial boundaries on an essentially tribal society.

18.5.2 Egypt
Egypt was under the protection of both France and Britain. She became an agrarian
42 and raw material appendage of the metropolitan countries. Two stages of colonialism
were merged into one in Egypt.
Britain developed Egypt as a supplier of cotton for her textile industry. By 1914 cotton Colonialism
constituted 43 per cent of agricultural output. It accounted for 85 per cent of exports in
1913. Being a single crop economy was disastrous as Egypt became dependent on
imports for her essential food supply. The control of foreigners over cotton was total,
from owning or controlling the land it was grown on, the cotton processing and cotton
cleaning industry and the steamships it was transported in. There was not a single mill in
Egypt.
Egypt was also a valuable field of investment of banking capital. Five per cent capital
went into industry and construction, 12.36 into trade and transport and 79 per cent into
public debt, mortgage and banks. Egypt was enmeshed in indebtedness as a result of
exploitation by foreign powers.
The First World War showed up the exploitation of Egypt fully. Her natural resources,
manpower and economy were harnessed to the war effort. Crops were seized by the
army. The British Treasury took over the gold reserves of the National Bank of Egypt.
Egypt became a British protectorate in 1914.

18.5.3 South-East Asia

Colonialism in South-East Asia lasted five centuries, from the late fifteenth to the mid
twentieth century. Even after the heyday of the spice trade, South-East Asia remained
important as a supplier of basic raw materials like oil, rubber, metals, rice, coffee, tea
and sugar. The impact of colonialism in this region was considerable, even on countries
like Thailand, which did not formally become colonies. Traditional forms of government
disappeared, trading patterns were disrupted and the rich cultural traditions of these
regions were destroyed.

18.6 INDIA
India has generally been considered a classic colony. A study of colonialism in India
can tell us a great deal about the functioning of colonialism in general. Let us see how
the different stages of colonialism operated in India.
18.6.1 First Stage
In the first stage both the objectives – the monopoly of trade and appropriation of
government revenues – were rapidly fulfilled with the conquest first of Bengal and parts
of South India and then the rest of India. The East India Company now used its political
power to acquire monopolistic control over Indian trade and handicrafts. Indian traders
were ruined while weavers were forced to sell cheap. The company’s monopoly ruined
the weavers. In the next stage cheap manufactured goods finished them.
The drain of wealth was admitted to by British officials. In the words of the Deputy
Chairman of the Court of Directors, “Our system acts very much like a sponge, drawing
up all the good things from the banks of the Ganges and squeezing them down on the
banks of the Thames.”
The colony did not undergo any fundamental changes in this stage. Changes were made
only in military organization and technology and at the top level of revenue administration.
Land revenue could be extracted from the villages without disturbing the existing systems.
In the sphere of ideology too there was respect for traditional systems in contrast to the
denunciation of traditional values in the second stage. The respect with which Sanskrit
was held by British Indologists like William Jones was in sharp contrast to Macaulay’s
later dismissal of traditional learning as not being enough to fill a bookshelf of a good
Western library.
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Expansion of Europe 18.6.2 Second Stage
The era of free trade saw India emerge as a market for manufactured goods and a
supplier of raw materials and food grains. Import of Manchester cloth increased in
value from 96 lakh sterling in 1860 to 27 crore sterling in 1900. Traditional weavers
were ruined by this competition. Rather than industrialization, decline of industry or
deindustrialization took place. In the middle Gangetic region, according to historian
A.K. Bagchi, the weight of industry in the livelihood pattern of the people was reduced
by half from 1809-13 to the census year 1901.
Estimates by Sivasubramaniam indicate that in the last half century of British rule per
capita income in India remained almost stagnant. Dadabhai Naoroji calculated per
capita income at Rs.20 per annum.
Railway expansion was undertaken and a modern post and telegraph system was set
up. Administration was made more detailed and comprehensive so that imports could
penetrate the villages and raw materials could be taken out easily. Capitalist commercial
relations were to be enforced. The legal system was to be improved so as to ensure
upholding the sanctity of contract. Modern education was introduced to produce babus
to man the new administration. Westernized habits were expected to increase the demand
for British goods.
Transformation of the existing culture and social organization required that the existing
culture be denounced. Orientalism, by depriving people of the power to study their
own languages, was an appropriation of the processes by which people understand
themselves. The new ideology was one of development. Underdevelopment was not
the desired but the inevitable consequence of the inexorable working of colonialism of
trade and of its inner contradictions.

18.6.3 Third Stage

The third stage is rightly known as the era of finance capital. A huge amount of capital
was invested in railways, loans to the Government of India, trade and to a lesser extent
in plantations, coal mining, jute mills, shipping and banking in India.
In this stage, Britain’s position in the world was constantly challenged by the rivalry of
new imperialist countries. The result was further consolidation of its control over India.
Control had to be strengthened to contend with competition from rival imperialist powers.
Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, wrote:
Other channels of investment, outside of India, are gradually being filled
up, not merely by British capital, but by capital of all the wealth-
producing countries of the world; and if this be so, then a time must
soon come when the current of British capital, extruded from the banks
between which it has long been content to meander, will want to pour
over into fresh channels, and will, by the law of economic gravitation,
find its way into India, to which it should be additionally attracted by
the security of British institutions and British laws.
Reactionary imperialist policies characterized the viceroyalties of Lytton and Curzon.
All talk of self government ended and the aim of British rule was declared to be permanent
trusteeship over the child people of India.
Loosening of links
The major spurts in industrial investment took place precisely during those periods
44 when India’s economic links with the world capitalist economy were temporarily
weakened or disrupted. In India’s case, foreign trade and the inflow of foreign capital Colonialism
were reduced or interrupted thrice during the 20th Century, i.e. during the First World
War, the Great Depression (1929-34) and World War II. But as the links were not
disrupted, merely loosened, what took place was only industrial growth, not industrial
revolution.

18.7 BRITISH COLONIAL STATE

That the British wielded brute force to maintain their rule in India and to crush opposition
is well known. Very often, the state did not actually repress; the very fact that it had the
capacity to do so was enough to contain revolt. Hence, the British considered the
maintenance of a large, disciplined, efficient and loyal army to be a prime necessity, for
the armed forces remained, in the ultimate analysis, the final guarantor of British interests.
But generally, for the continued existence of their rule and for the perpetuation of
imperialist domination, they relied on a variety of ideological instruments. It is in this
sense that the British colonial state in India was, in however limited a way, a hegemonic
or semi-hegemonic state. Its semi-hegemonic foundations were buttressed by the
ideology of pax Britannica, law and order, the British official as the mai-bap of the
people, as well as by the institutions of the ideological, legal, judicial and administrative
systems.

The impression of the unshakable foundations of British rule, the aura of stolidity and
general prestige of the Raj contributed towards the maintenance of imperial hegemony.
The prestige of the Raj, by showing the futility of attempts to overthrow it, played as
crucial a role in the maintenance of British rule as the armed might behind it. The
prestige of the Raj was very largely embodied in its much vaunted ‘steel frame’, the
Indian Civil Service (ICS), and, more specifically, in the district officer, who represented
authority in the countryside: “At the centre of the ‘benevolent despotism’ that British
rule in the subcontinent adopted stood the steel frame of the Indian Civil Service... and
in particular the figure of the district officer himself, the physical ‘embodiment of
Government’ across the Indian countryside...”

Rudyard Kipling’s ‘A Song of the English’ (1893) went thus –

Keep ye the law
Be swift in all obedience
Clear the land of evil
Drive the road and bridge the ford –
By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!

A state structure of this kind, based on “semi-hegemonic foundations”, called for certain
specific policies in the political sphere. A reliable social base for the state had to be
secured on the one hand; on the other, strategies had to be devised to limit the social
reach and effective clout of the anti-imperialist forces. Active cooperation of ‘native
allies’ in running the country was gained by a variety of techniques, ranging from the
handing out of jobs, favours and positions of some authority to concessions to the
‘legitimate’ political demands of the loyalist and liberal sections. As regards the
snowballing of anti-British discontent, it was sought to be neutralized by confining it
within the constitutional arenas created by the political reforms. Constitutional
concessions were regularly made, though under pressure, to the demands raised by the
anti-imperialist forces. 45
Expansion of Europe
18.8 COLONIALISM OR COLONIALISMS?
If we look at British and French colonial rule it is clear that they are informed by different
perspectives though often the reality on the ground amounted to the same. Some scholars
point to this fact of the same reality on the ground to argue that all colonialisms were the
same. For example, historian D.A. Low disagrees with the view that there were different
patterns of colonialism on the ground that British and French colonies achieved
independence at the same time. In this section the existence of different patterns of
colonialism is discussed.
Wallerstein would have it that there was a basic paternalism which ran through the
philosophies of all the colonial powers. But this basic paternalism expressed itself in
very different forms, depending on the history and national character of the colonial
powers.
From the beginning there was a sparseness and economy about British colonial policy.
The British used trading companies to acquire colonies, insisted that colonies be self-
sustaining and varied the political structure in each of the colonies to suit local needs.
“This, then, is the classic contrast between Africa’s two colonial powers, Britain and
France: Britain – empirical, commercial, practising indirect rule, keeping Africans at a
distance, verging on racism; France – Cartesian in its logic, seeking glory, practicing
direct administration, acting as apostle of fraternity and anti-racism. Anyone who travels
in both British and French Africa will see the grain of truth in these generalizations. The
flavor of life is different; the two colonial governments have produced two different
cultures. And yet, anyone who travels there well knows the severe limitations of these
generalizations.”
In practice the differences were not so clear. The French often supported chiefs where
they were powerful rather than rule directly. As for ‘empiricism‘ versus ‘Cartesian
logic’, this comparison is more the stuff of polemics than of analysis.
To contrast motives of money and glory seems even more dubious. For the British
were surely proud of their empire, and the French surely profited by theirs. As for
‘racism’ and ‘fraternity’, it may be that French paternalism was based on the exclusive
virtue but universal accessibility of French civilization and British paternalism on the
equal virtue of all traditions but the unique accessibility of British culture. Nevertheless,
in practice, there were parallel degrees of political, social and economic discrimination
in two settler territories like Kenya and Algeria, and there were parallel ideologies
among the settlers. There was also parallel absence of legal discrimination in non settler
British and French West Africa, though until 1957 the exclusive white clubs of both
areas barred Africans as members or as guests. There were differences also regarding
the role of the civil service. In Britain civil servants were nonpartisan whereas in France
junior civilians were political. But after independence this made little difference.
No clear distinction can be made between French direct rule and English indirect rule
which allowed traditional institutions to survive when we look closely at the actual
working of administration. Fieldhouse has shown that after 1929 and especially after
1932 attitudes and practices came closer together.

18.9 SUMMARY
Colonialism is as modern a historical phenomenon as industrial capitalism. While the
metropolis experiences growth under capitalism the colony undergoes
underdevelopment. Colonialism is more than foreign political domination; it is a distinct
46
social formation in which control is in the hands of the metropolitan ruling class. In short, Colonialism
colonialism is what happened in the colony and imperialism is what happened in the
metropolis.

18.10 EXERCISES
1) Define basic features of colonialism. How is it different from imperialism?
2) What are different approaches to the understanding of colonialism?
3) What were the different historical stages of colonialism? How did it impact the
Indian economy?
4) Can one talk of different types of colonies rather than one single colonialsm?

47