CAT 2019 Question Paper | Verbal Slot 2

CAT Questions

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British colonial policy . . . went through two policy phases, or at least there were two strategies between which its policies actually oscillated, sometimes to its great advantage. At first, the new colonial apparatus exercised caution, and occupied India by a mix of military power and subtle diplomacy, the high ground in the middle of the circle of circles. This, however, pushed them into contradictions. For, whatever their sense of the strangeness of the country and the thinness of colonial presence, the British colonial state represented the great conquering discourse of Enlightenment rationalism, entering India precisely at the moment of its greatest unchecked arrogance. As inheritors and representatives of this discourse, which carried everything before it, this colonial state could hardly adopt for long such a self-denying attitude. It had restructured everything in Europe—the productive system, the political regimes, the moral and cognitive orders—and would do the same in India, particularly as some empirically inclined theorists of that generation considered the colonies a massive laboratory of utilitarian or other theoretical experiments. Consequently, the colonial state could not settle simply for eminence at the cost of its marginality; it began to take initiatives to introduce the logic of modernity into Indian society. But this modernity did not enter a passive society. Sometimes, its initiatives were resisted by pre-existing structural forms. At times, there was a more direct form of collective resistance. Therefore the map of continuity and discontinuity that this state left behind at the time of independence was rather complex and has to be traced with care.

Most significantly, of course, initiatives for . . . modernity came to assume an external character. The acceptance of modernity came to be connected, ineradicably, with subjection. This again points to two different problems, one theoretical, the other political. Theoretically, because modernity was externally introduced, it is explanatorily unhelpful to apply the logical format of the ‘transition process’ to this pattern of change. Such a logical format would be wrong on two counts. First, however subtly, it would imply that what was proposed to be built was something like European capitalism. (And, in any case, historians have forcefully argued that what it was to replace was not like feudalism, with or without modificatory adjectives.) But, more fundamentally, the logical structure of endogenous change does not apply here. Here transformation agendas attack as an external force. This externality is not something that can be casually mentioned and forgotten. It is inscribed on every move, every object, every proposal, every legislative act, each line of causality. It comes to be marked on the epoch itself. This repetitive emphasis on externality should not be seen as a nationalist initiative that is so well rehearsed in Indian social science. . . .

Quite apart from the externality of the entire historical proposal of modernity, some of its contents were remarkable. . . . Economic reforms, or rather alterations . . . did not foreshadow the construction of a classical capitalist economy, with its necessary emphasis on extractive and transport sectors. What happened was the creation of a degenerate version of capitalism—what early dependency theorists called the ‘development of underdevelopment’.

Question 20 : All of the following statements about British colonialism can be inferred from the first paragraph, EXCEPT that it:

1. was at least partly an outcome of Enlightenment rationalism.
2. faced resistance from existing structural forms of Indian modernity.
3. was at least partly shaped by the project of European modernity.
4. allowed the treatment of colonies as experimental sites.

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Video Explanation

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Explanatory Answer

The question asks which of the given statements cannot be inferred. Let us check each one by one.

Option 1 states British colonialism was at least partly an outcome of Enlightenment rationalism. The fact that the colonial state emerged at least partly as a result of Enlightenment rationalism can be inferred from paragraph 1: ‘the British colonial state represented the great conquering discourse of Enlightenment rationalism... As inheritors and representatives of this discourse, which carried everything before it, this colonial state could hardly adopt for long such a self-denying attitude...’

Option 2 states British colonialism faced resistance from existing structural forms of Indian modernity. This does not sound correct, as the passage only talks about European modernity, not Indian modernity. Paragraph 1 does mention that initiatives to introduce its logic of modernity on the Indian society by the British ‘were resisted by pre-existing structural forms’. Were these structural forms of Indian modernity? This is not mentioned in the passage.

Consider option 3. British colonialism was at least partly shaped by the project of European modernity. This is clearly true. See paragraph 1 : ‘the British colonial state represented the great conquering discourse of Enlightenment rationalism.... As inheritors and representatives of this discourse.... this colonial state could hardly adopt for long such a self-denying attitude. It had restructured everything in Europe...and would do the same in India’. The British colonial state inherited the discourse of Enlightenment rationalism which had restructured everything in Europe.

Option 4 states that British colonialism allowed the treatment of colonies as experimental sites. This can also be easily inferred from paragraph 1: ‘....some empirically inclined theorists of that generation considered the colonies a massive laboratory of utilitarian or other theoretical experiments’.

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The question is "All of the following statements about British colonialism can be inferred from the first paragraph, EXCEPT that it:"

Hence, the answer is faced resistance from existing structural forms of Indian modernity.

Choice B is the correct answer.