Page 53 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK
P. 53
Stephenson’s famous
‘Rocket’ locomotive in
an early photograph
11 Powering the
modern world
The development Indians in Calcutta
celebrate their
of the steam engine independence in 1947
Britain, 18th century
12 Ending the empires
Chosen by Professor Jeremy Black,
University of Exeter
The Montagu-Chelmsford Report
Unlike the atom bomb, for example, there
was no single invention with the steam British empire, 1918
engine. First you had the stationary Chosen by Professor Peter Robb,
steam engine where the most important
person was Thomas Newcomen. Then School of Oriental and African Studies
James Watt improved its efficiency and
its capacity to generate power. Later on, After the First World War there was a them up. You might give them some
the stationary steam engine was feeling in Britain that something rights, but no one in authority was
transformed into the locomotive with should be done to recompense India saying you should set them up as
George Stephenson. for its war effort. At the same time, separate self-governing nations.
What the steam engine enabled people there was growing political organisa- But that is what the Montagu-
to do was transform themselves beyond tion and agitation in India and the Chelmsford report said they were
the existing constraints of energy use, business of government had grown so going to do in India. It was a profound
meaning that human society could develop much that the colonial authorities psychological shift. In a sense, all
in all sorts of ways. Now we know needed to involve more Indians in it. British decolonisation flowed from
that the environmental consequences of These were the origins of a report that moment and from its idea that
industrialisation were detrimental, but on written by Lord Chelmsford, viceroy of a new nation-state could be made by
the other hand life would have been totally India and Edwin Montagu, secretary of non-Europeans, who some people
different if we had remained shackled by state for India. The report said the had thought were incapable of
the manufacturing, energy and communi- British should take definite steps self-rule. (Indians had, however,
cation systems before the steam engine. towards giving Indians self-govern- shown themselves to be adept at law
The long-term implications of steam ment. This was the first formal and politics.)
power were everything we understand by admission, at least by the British, that India was the biggest country
modernity. It gave us the ability to speed non-European people could rule them- under European domination by far,
up existence and overcome the constraints selves under a modern system of so when it appeared that it was
under which all other animal species government. All subsequent discus- getting self-government everybody
operated. We were not radically different in sions were not about whether India else started talking about decolonisa-
organisational terms from other animals, should have self-government but when tion. The report gave strength to the
which have language, the capacity for India should have self-government. view that empire was illegitimate and
acting as a group and systems of hierar- Most British thought it would be that it was possible to transfer power
chy. For much of human history that was some time in the next 100 years. They into new nations. The example was
how we were, but we moved to a very didn’t imagine it could happen in 1947, eventually taken up by other countries
AKG IMAGES/HULTON ARCHIVE–GETTY IMAGES Jeremy Black is the author that the offer was sincere; and so they Peter Robb is the
and India itself was a major force on
but once on that particular bandwag-
different tune when we had everything that
the United Nations decolonisation
is understood by modernity. It was the
on it was hard to get off. Indians did
not think enough was being offered, or
steam engine that set that in motion.
committee.
were organising, especially under
Gandhi, setting an example for future
political movements.
Nothing like this had been done
author of A History of
anywhere else in 1918 and no one had
of The Power of Knowledge:
India (Palgrave
really conceded that it could be done.
How Information and
Macmillan, 2011)
Technology Made the Modern
countries then was to get more
colonies. You certainly didn’t give
World (Yale, 2015)
The Story of Science & Technology The whole trend of European Interviews were conducted by Rob Attar 53
