a state with a predominantly Muslim population created inevitable tensions in
the run-up to Indian independence, as the Hindu elite tried to maintain their
dominance in government and the economy.
Typically, studies of indirect rule have focused on detailed case studies;
there is at least one interesting exception, a study by Lange (2004) which
examines the impact of direct versus indirect colonial rule in 33 former British
colonies. The extent of indirect colonial rule is measured by the relative
number of officially recognized court cases presided over by local chiefs rather
than British colonial officers. The results show that the extent of indirect colo-
nial rule in 1955 was strongly and negatively related to the World Bank gover-
nance indicators (state effectiveness, stability, corruption) in 1997–98 (Lange
2004). The case study of Burma shows that the one thing worse than indirect
rule is having no indirect rule at all.
In Burma the problem was not that the British set up an extractive state or
that they relied on indirect rule through traditional authorities, but that they
abolished all aspects of the indigenous state structure and replaced them with
nothing: ‘The monarchy had been abolished. The court and religious author-
ities had been largely eradicated or marginalised ...which ... ensured there
were no leaders of Burmese society” (Kwarteng, 2011:198). This political
vacuum was an open invitation to the communists and the military in the
years immediately after independence. Elsewhere colonialism had also
crushed emerging feudal states in Africa. The French wiped out the large
Muslim states of the Western Sudan and Dahomey, and kingdoms in
Madagascar. The British eliminated the emerging states of Egypt, Mahdist
Sudan, Asante, Benin, the Yoruba kingdoms, Swaziland, Matabeleland, Lozi
and East African lake kingdoms (Rodney, 1972). The persistent tribalism of
Africa can be partly understood as a result of this destruction. The loss of
emerging state formations deprived the region of the institutions and organi-
zations that could have supplanted tribal loyalty with a broader national
identity.
A comparison with the historical experiences of France and Botswana is
instructive. At the beginning of the nineteenth century France contained many
different languages, ethnicities and local allegiances; only a few people spoke
French or owed any loyalty to the central state, and many straddled interna-
tional boundaries. It was the expansion and consolidation of the central state,
and the related imposition of a uniform educational curriculum, a national
language and symbolic national symbols such as the French flag and national
anthem, ‘La Marseillaise’, dating from 1792, that led to the creation of France.
Gradually Provençals on the French side of the border came to see themselves
as French and those on the Italian side came to see themselves as Italian. A
similar process has taken place in (economically successful) Botswana over
last 50 years. The Tswana assemblies (dikgotla) were the origins of the modern
state. Although in theory these were assemblies of adult males where public
issues were discussed and which ordinary tribesmen were expected to attend,
in practice they were dominated by an inner circle of influential citizens, and
Colonialism 191