He never described the _initiative_ as imperialist, just the British rulers. Since the British rule of colonial India is virtually the dictionary definition of imperialism, I'll go ahead and call the author's word choice reasonable.
It's true that the article doesn't describe the initiative as imperialist in so many words, but it does portray it as such in the sense of putting "imperial or sovereign interests over the interests of the dependent states" [1]. I apologise, my use of the word "imperialist" was quite redundant as I had already used "self-interested". I further apologise for extending this tedious game of definitions but since I have now been flagged as well as downvoted, I can only assume that my original comment was desperately unclear.
