On 1 July 2024, three new criminal laws came into force in India. The most prominent among them, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, replaced the Indian Penal Code, which had stood in amended form since 1860. That code survived the Raj, independence and Partition, the Constitution, wars, elections, liberalisation, and seven and a half decades of robust ideological debate about the republic.

Its replacement was presented as a rupture with colonial inheritance, although legal scholars disagreed about how complete that rupture really was. It was nevertheless a fitting illustration of such claims, because an empire can long outlive its authority over a territory even as it leaves behind institutions through which tens of millions of people are policed, tried, educated, counted, and governed.

This is what I mean when I suggest that the British Empire did not entirely disappear. I certainly do not mean that Britain continues to command its former colonies—far from it. What I mean is that formal independence and the decolonisation of institutions occur on different timelines.

This interpretation is not immediately obvious because our mental image of empire is often the map. The pink ink, after all, is an imprint of territorial claims that have since been dissolved or devolved, and our instinct is to think of decolonisation as an exercise in cartography. That reduces a state to its political geography. The dissolution of administrative territories is rarely the end of institutional inheritance, because states are composed not solely of land and capital but of files, laws, railway gauges, lingua francas, borders, exams, police stations, commercial hubs, and assumptions about the competence of officials. These are not easily erased by lowering the Union Jack.

I am writing this essay in English

English is one of the most immediate inheritances of the Raj, and its institutional role has been carefully retained by India. The choice of language was made by me as an Indian writer and not by London, but neither was it made in isolation. English works as a bridge language in many parts of India, not only because it grants an Indian writer access to audiences in Bengaluru, Lagos, Toronto, Melbourne, and London. It is embedded in the Indian legal and education systems, technology and commerce, media and Parliament. It has even been formally retained by the Constitution in the administration of justice: Article 348 provides for English in the Supreme Court and High Courts, subject to the exceptions and legislative powers set out there.

English, in other words, is a system of immense utility to Indians. Its institutional role predates independence, has been modified by Indian lawmakers and judges, and continues to serve the republic. To describe English as a mere foreign imposition is to ignore the advantages it acquired as an imperial lingua franca, just as it would be misleading to describe any Indian language as a perfectly neutral medium of communication.

The language has been adopted, adapted, and expanded by Indians who have used it to found companies, publish novels, challenge Britain, and conduct domestic affairs. A history of domination can be followed by a history of appropriation and benefit without making the original domination benevolent.

English extends far beyond the former metropolis and its dependencies. International aviation provides one telling window into this reality because the International Civil Aviation Organization has language requirements for pilots and air traffic controllers. Pilots on international flights must demonstrate proficiency in English or the language used by the ground station. Controllers serving designated international airports and routes must demonstrate English proficiency as well as proficiency in any other language used by the station. This reflects the historical power of English-speaking states, but also path dependence: once a standard is established and widely adopted, it becomes incredibly difficult to change, even when new technologies and methods emerge.

Language, law, and borders outlive their authors

The Indian Penal Code was drafted under the Raj, primarily by Thomas Macaulay and the first Law Commission. It was enacted in 1860 and came into force in 1862, after the uprising of 1857 and the transfer of rule from the East India Company to the Crown. It did not expire conveniently with independence in 1947. For more than a century and a half, it was a foundation upon which Indian courts administered criminal justice. It was modified and reinterpreted by independent India's judiciary, legislature, and citizens.

The Indian Penal Code as it stood in 2023 was not a pristine Victorian artefact, mistakenly retained and periodically amended. It was an inherited law with an extensive Indian jurisprudence. Even as some of its most objectionable features were amended or struck down, much of its structure continued to operate.

A similar argument can be made about the new law, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. It retains and reorganises much of the Penal Code while also making additions and substantive changes. The real transformation will take place not only in titles but in practice and interpretation. By itself, replacing one law with another does little to change the relationship between the republic and its citizens. That task belongs to the details of enforcement, judicial interpretation, and limits placed on state power.

The British did not govern alone

Britain exercised imperial sovereignty over British India, but it could not govern such an enormous population using British officials alone. The Raj depended on administrators, local rulers, soldiers, clerks, landlords, and intermediaries, most of whom were not British. There is no point in speaking of British imperialism as if it were a perfectly unitary system, because it was not. Nor was there one colonial experience across the empire.

Australia was settled by British migrants who dispossessed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples while transforming the colony into a largely Anglo-Celtic society. Different arrangements appeared across Africa, where some borders and administrative divisions followed older political or geographic boundaries while others ignored existing communities. The Caribbean was marked by slavery, plantation economies, and coerced labour long before emancipation.

Context matters because it defines what was inherited and how that inheritance manifests today.

British India combined directly administered provinces with princely states governed through different arrangements. The civil service and other institutions employed Indians while reserving much of their senior authority for Europeans, particularly during earlier periods. Settler colonies such as Australia were reshaped by migration from Britain and later developed into self-governing dominions. Colonial ports depended on trade that often connected them more closely to distant markets than to their own hinterlands. These distinctions help explain modern attitudes towards colonial history.

The same care is necessary when reading census statistics. Take Australia, for example, which was settled by the British in a process that brought families as well as institutions. The 2021 Census lists 33.0 percent English ancestry, 9.5 percent Irish, and 8.6 percent Scottish, with “Australian” itself reported by 29.9 percent. Respondents could nominate up to two ancestries, so the percentages do not describe mutually exclusive groups and do not add up to one hundred. They describe ancestry, not political loyalty or national identity.

Nevertheless, the figures record a lasting demographic consequence of settlement. Even as Australia became independent, its laws, institutions, language, and popular culture remained heavily shaped by Britain. The continued use of English reflects that settler history and the practical force of an established language, not continuing British rule. British heritage remains one strand of Australian identity alongside Indigenous histories and the many communities formed through later migration.

Borders define nations, and imperial divisions often become permanent

The detachment of borders from a larger imperial authority is frequently presented as a rupture, when it can also preserve an inherited arrangement. Drawing borders was sometimes the work of distant negotiators and sometimes of officials with local knowledge, but military priorities, treaties, rivers, trade routes, fortresses, and alliances often mattered more than the wishes of every community affected. Beyond their initial purpose, borders acquired additional functions, including the regulation of commerce and migration.

Once a colony gained independence, a border inherited from empire ceased to be a mere administrative line. Efforts to revise it could result in decades of controversy. A shift could satisfy one set of citizens while endangering or disenfranchising another. Even as a symbol of division, a settled border might also prevent direct confrontation between newly independent states. The Organisation of African Unity recognised this danger in 1964 when its members pledged to respect the borders that existed when they achieved national independence.

A legacy of partition may be particularly difficult to accept because the status quo becomes embedded in daily life. The inertia of institutional design often outweighs the flexibility of political will. If a border has divided families for generations, it can be incredibly difficult to agree on abolishing or adjusting it.

Railways, land titles, and capital cities are less existential, but they still serve as examples of institutional inertia. Railway networks built to transport commodities towards colonial ports could later facilitate the daily commute of millions of people. Their present usefulness does not tell us why each line was originally built. Some routes prioritised military movement and extraction; others served multiple commercial and administrative purposes. Plans, budgets, correspondence, and consequences together reveal more than the tracks alone.

Utility does not erase illegitimacy

An institution can serve a useful purpose while having been created through fundamentally unjust power. It is tempting for nationalists to assume that anything inherited from colonial rule must remain illegitimate regardless of how later citizens transformed it. It is equally tempting for defenders of empire to point to a useful railway, court, or language as if later usefulness compensated for conquest. Neither position takes institutional adaptation seriously.

If railways, land titles, and courts were designed partly to enrich or strengthen Britain, we must also consider how independent societies appropriated them and how they affect ordinary lives now.

The parliamentary system used by India and many other former British colonies provides an excellent illustration. The Westminster model developed in Britain and was introduced only partially and unevenly under colonial rule. Indian political actors then used representative institutions to press demands that Britain had not intended those institutions to satisfy. After independence, the Constitution created a sovereign democratic republic with a parliamentary system of its own. The institution did not contain one permanent politics; its purpose depended on who held power and what constitutional limits applied to them.

This is the essence of institutional background noise. The empire is most apparent in its monuments and former capitals, but its legacy often lives on in less obvious ways. Ordinary citizens interact with institutions whose earlier forms were designed to serve imperial government. The language they speak, the procedures they follow, the accents they hear, the roads they travel—these are part of a larger inheritance that continues to shape lives, for better or worse.

Can colonial inheritance be dismantled?

There is no single action that can make a country or society fully free from its imperial history, but there are actions that can change the institutions inherited from it. India can replace pre-1947 laws with laws that better reflect its democratic values. Australia can become a republic and formally sever its remaining constitutional ties to the Crown while still reckoning with the conquest of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands. Britain can return disputed artefacts to the communities and countries from which they were taken and confront the consequences of having built one of history's largest empires.

Complete detachment from colonial history is impossible because history cannot be reversed. A more realistic form of independence requires awareness of where institutions came from, how they affect different populations, and whether they should be retained, transformed, or abandoned.

On 1 July 2024, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita came into force, but the police still had investigations and the judiciary still needed procedures. The repeal-and-savings provisions meant that the old Penal Code continued to matter for earlier offences and proceedings. Citizens still needed protection from the state as well as from one another. The most difficult work began after the symbolic rupture, because republics demonstrate their independence most clearly through how they exercise authority, not simply by removing the Union Jack.

Sources and Further Reading