What we saw in its place instead was a strange grafting of the Indian identity with an entirely new culture. The British brought with them the English language and Western education, and with such education came the ideas of modern nationalism self-determination and democracy. however these ideas only reached a small elite-- the British consensus was that, on the whole, Indians and their customs were best left alone.

The large majority of Indians were left unmoored, disconnected from both their foreign government and their English-educated Indian leaders, and untouched by the modern economy and liberal ideas around the wold, Colonial India as a result stagnated in terms of income growth, urbanization and education. In fact the British often collaborated with India's traditional elites the lumpen aristocracy, deliberately strength feudal systems. Form Instance, they protected landlords from land transfers to and emerging urban capitalist class, and encouraged the martial, patriarchal systems of the Jats, Bhumihars, Rajputs and Sikhs since these ' warrior Castes' were a significant source of manpower for the British army.

This divide gave rise to a strange, two-tiered cultural hierarchy in India, with such a vast space in between that  the Indian identity seemed a split personality. Many of the elite, upper middle- class Indians who were educated in British schools embraced the Renaissance ideas of democracy, self-determination and nationalism, and several among them became leaders of the national freedom movement, on the other side of the chasm was India's vast majority, defined by the subcontinent's  common culture, dominated by the iron rules of caste, religion and social custom.