Question

Read the excerpt given below and answer the questions that follow:

The romance is that there is security of life and property in India; the reality is that there is no such thing. There is security of life and property in one sense or way - i.e., the people are secure from any violence from each other or from Native despots.... But from England’s own grasp there is no security of property at all and, as a consequence, no security for life. India’s property is not secure. What is secure, and well secure, is that England is perfectly safe and secure, and does so with perfect security, to carry away from India, and to eat up in India, her property at the present rate of $30,0000,000 or 40,000,000 a year, .... I therefore venture to submit that India does not enjoy security of her property and life.... Тo millions in India life is simply ‘half-feeding’, or starvation, or famine and disease. – Dadabhai Naoroji

1. Who was Dadabhai Naoroji? According to Dadabhai Naoroji, in what sense security of life and property prevails in India?
2. How is England ‘perfectly safe and secure’, as described in the excerpt by Naoroji?
3. Dadabhai Naoroji propounded a theory to describe the exploitative nature of British rule in India. Name it. Explain briefly the last line of the excerpt given above.

Answer 1

1. Dadabhai Naoroji was a prominent Indian political leader, social reformer and an early nationalist leader (one of the founders/presidents of the Indian National Congress and author of Poverty and Un‑British Rule in India). According to him, “security of life and property” in India exists only in the limited sense that people are protected from violence by one another or by native despots.
2. England is “perfectly safe and secure” because, under British rule, it can extract and appropriate India’s wealth (he cites a drain of some tens of millions of pounds/dollars a year) without risk or threat, i.e., Britain can carry away and consume Indian property with impunity, while Indians lose their resources.
3. The theory is the Drain Theory. The last line means that, because wealth is being drained out of India under British rule, millions of Indians live in deprivation, “half‑feeding”, starvation, famine and disease, showing the real insecurity of life and livelihood for the mass of the population.