During the period of about 200 years British rule, apart from plundering the natural resources of India and making India as a British colonial economy, British did help Indians in some areas. They united India into one single country, infused the modern administration, introduced education reforms, transportation services, etc. Certainly, they had vested interests in many of the policies and practices they adopted in India. They created many of the policies to enhance the imperial power than people's welfare. This non welfare and economic plundering policies subsequently led to the Independence struggle and downfall of British Empire in India. British left India in 1947, leaving their administrative methods, policies and practices.
After independence, India did very little experiment in administrative methods and followed almost the same structure and methods which were followed by its Colonial master. For example, Majority theme of the constitution of India is from Indian Council Act of 1935, which was prepared by British parliament. The basic structure of India resembles almost like Great Briton government structure. There are certain procedures established by British in India, which are being used effectively even today like organized land revenue system. The procedures which are effective were very nominal compared to the ones which exacerbated the administration system.
For example, Indian constitution adapted west minister model (parliament) of Briton and created President and Prime Minister Offices, where Prime Minister Office is given prominent position in the administration. President was given very nominal powers. Briton has same system but instead of president, they have Royal King\Queen office. Briton, Australia, Canada, Japan had to create PM post because they have to respect the imperial palace and they recognize imperial palace as the head of the state. Whereas, there was no need for India to create an additional office that has very less powers. India should have adopted presidential form of government instead of west minister model. The method of electing prime minister in indirect method is also influenced from British. In India, there is a vast diversity in culture, language, religion and region. Not surprisingly, many political parties emerged on these basis and forcing the necessity to firm collision government. Due to this only few states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Bihar etc are able to get maximum resources from the union government of India. Due to this type of indirect election method of Prime Minister, neither PM is able to function rationally nor is national interest serving.
India's criminal and civil laws, revenue collection system, judicial methods, education system, election system, parliamentary methods, All India services, promotion system in government employees, government protocols, central state relationships, organization structure of government and many more policies and procedures can be traced back to the policies prepared by British. British prepared those policies and procedures according to the scenarios at that time. The policies, procedures and methods should not be static and they need to be updated according to the present situations. Unfortunately, this is not happening in India.
There are some excellent policies and procedures which are adapted from the colonial methods. There is nothing wrong in adopting good things which are suitable to the situation. Even if we adopt good things in a different situation that may not give you desired result and may even worsen the situation. Let us hope India will come out from its colonial hangover and adopt the methods which are suitable to Indian scenario.
