The Distance That Made Empires Cruel - A 19th Century Indian Thinker's Timeless Warning

What if the cruelty of empires wasn't about ideology, but simply about distance? This was the radical insight of Rammohun Roy, a 19th-century Indian reformer who witnessed British colonial rule firsthand. His diagnosis was stark: distance made the British Empire cruel.

Two centuries later, as we grapple with global governance, remote work, and algorithmic decision-making, Roy's observation feels unsettlingly relevant. Does distance still corrupt power?

The Geography of Cruelty

Born in 1772, Rammohun Roy lived through the height of British colonial expansion in India. What struck him wasn't just the brutality of colonial rule, but its peculiar character. The same Britons who appeared reasonable and enlightened in London became something else entirely in Calcutta.

It wasn't that colonial administrators were inherently more evil than their compatriots back home. Rather, thousands of miles of ocean created a buffer that insulated them from the consequences of their actions. Distance diluted accountability, delayed feedback, and allowed cruelty to flourish in ways that would be impossible under closer scrutiny.

Roy understood this wasn't merely about individual moral failings. It was systemic. The farther you are from the people affected by your decisions, the easier it becomes to make harsh ones.

Modern Echoes: The Digital Distance

Roy's insight predates our current debates about remote governance, but it illuminates them perfectly. Consider how 21st-century power operates at a distance.

Wall Street executives designing complex financial instruments rarely meet the homeowners who'll lose their houses. Tech executives in Silicon Valley make algorithmic decisions that affect billions of users they'll never encounter. Corporate boards approve factory conditions in countries they've never visited.

Digital technology creates its own form of distance. An AI system denying loan applications doesn't see the faces of rejected applicants. A content moderation algorithm doesn't understand the cultural context of the posts it removes. The mediation of technology can create psychological distance even when physical proximity exists.

The Proximity Solution

Roy's prescription was simple: good governance must be close. Not just geographically, but psychologically and socially. Rulers need to see, feel, and live with the consequences of their decisions.

This principle underlies many democratic institutions: local government, town halls, freedom of the press, judicial review. All are mechanisms designed to reduce the distance between power and its effects.

The most effective leaders often understand this instinctively. They make site visits, hold listening sessions, and maintain direct contact with those affected by their policies. They resist the insulation that hierarchy naturally creates.

The Global Governance Paradox

But here's where Roy's wisdom becomes problematic for our interconnected world. 21st-century challenges are inherently global: climate change, pandemics, financial contagion, cyber warfare. These problems require coordination across vast distances.

Yet the more global our governance becomes, the more distant it feels. The European Union faces constant criticism for being run by "Brussels bureaucrats" disconnected from ordinary citizens. International organizations like the UN and World Bank are routinely dismissed as ivory towers.

Brexit and the rise of populist movements worldwide can be understood partly as reactions against distant power. Voters increasingly feel that decisions affecting their lives are made by people who don't understand their circumstances or share their values.

The Technology Trap

Technology promised to solve the distance problem by connecting everyone. Video calls would make remote management more personal. Social media would give leaders direct access to citizen feedback. Data analytics would provide real-time insights into policy effects.

Instead, technology often creates new forms of distance. Algorithms make decisions at scale but lack human judgment. Social media creates echo chambers that isolate leaders from dissenting voices. Big data reduces complex human experiences to simplified metrics.

The 2008 financial crisis exemplified this perfectly. Sophisticated models allowed bankers to package and trade risk without understanding the human stories behind the mortgages. Mathematical distance proved as dangerous as geographical distance.