Where would India be without the British Raj
The British, by contrast, brought tangible development, ports and railways, that created the basis for a modern state. More important, they brought the framework for parliamentary democracy that Indians, who already possessed indigenous traditions of heterodoxy and pluralism, were able to fit to their own needs. Indeed, the very Hindu pantheon, with its many gods rather than one, works toward the realization that competing truths are what enable freedom. Thus, the British, despite all their flaws, advanced an ideal of Indian greatness. (via India’s New Face – The Atlantic (April 2009).
The Master's Anticipation - Rubbing hands in glee, aren't we? from The Daily Mail dated 25th February. 1946. The British Government apparently did not let the media in London onto the action by the Indian Navy on18th February, in 1946. (Artist: Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, 1902-1979). Courtesy - cairsweb.llgc.org.uk; Click for larger image.
After the guns fell silent
At the end of WWII, Britain was a superpower, its huge colonial Empire intact – apart from the massive debt that it owed the US.
With Germany defeated and Hitler dead, Italy in shambles and Mussolini hanged, Britain sat at the head of ‘high tables’ in the post-WWII world deciding the fate of the nations – with its partner in crime, the US of A.
Trouble from unexpected quarters
On February 18th, the ‘lowly’ Naval Ratings from the Royal Indian Navy rained on the British parade – by raising the flag of Indian Independence.
Britain did not have the stomach to take on the Indian Colonial Army, battle hardened and exposed to warfare in all the global theatres of WWII. They acquiesced and 18 months later the British were out. From then, to …
Flamed out
Britain today, a shell of its former self – with its manufacturing hollowed out, its agriculture in shambles, its economy on the verge of being relegated to the Third World is a huge descent. Much like Spain after Haiti.
In a 100 years after Haiti, Spain flamed out. By 1930, it was in the throes of a Civil War. And in Spain today, prostitution is national industry.
Be afraid ... very afraid
India, in the meantime, led by men of straw, has moved from being a ‘ship-to-mouth’ basket-case, to a significant economic and political success.
Yet, the British colonial administrators needed to prove that only they could rule over India. Indians were after all ‘men of straw … of whom no trace will be found after a few years’. And they were led by ‘half naked fakir‘.
If Britain was indeed so good at its job, why can’t they do anything to save themselves from this terminal decline. For all this, we owe a debt of gratitude to the British?
Next time Mr.Kaplan, can you make up a better story?
Please!
The debt that India owes Britain
Churchill very much wanted the option of squeezing the brown man at least a little more. Whatever little there was left of the brown man after the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. Clement Attlee pointed out that there was nothing left to squeeze. Attlee thought that the cost of squeezing was greater than the value of the extract.
Colonial Indian armed forces took on the complacent Raj. Atlee appointed a Cabinet committee to finalize British departure after the Indian Navy put the British Empire on notice. This cartoon came in some 3 months after the Indian Navy's action. (Artist: Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, 1902-1979; Published: Daily Mail, 14 May 1946. Cartoon courtesy - cartoons.ac.uk; Click for larger image.
How can we ever repay this debt.
Or the great benefit of English language.
These stupid Germans, Italians, Japanese, Russians, French, Chinese – they don’t know what we know!! English is the universal language. All other super powers and developed countries (Japan, China, Russia, France, Germany, Italy) use their own languages. They could have been very successful (like India) if they had learnt English.
I must admit, this small, little, disloyal question keeps raising its head, in my head? Why cant the British use that great English language to lift themselves from that terminal decline?
What could the British do without captive markets and raw material sources?
The British let all this go – so that Indian industry could survive. British business manager taught Indian businessmen how to run business competitively – and completely ignored their own business. Today, Britain has very few of the colonial era multinationals.
Within 10 years of Indian independence, the British car industry started closing down. British coal mining became unviable within 15 years – and had to be shut finally. British Rail similarly collapsed. British capital goods industry (electrical, heavy machinery, electronics) went out of business. There is no British automotive industry worth talking about. British Steel faced with mounting losses, was nationalised within 20 years (Ratan Tata may revive British Steel and British Automotive segments finally).
Should we complain so much, if we inherited a decrepit, run down, accident prone, investment starved railway system with outdated technology from the British – though financed by loot from India?
Even though it took India 40 years, to modernize the colonial railway system, we should be thankful. Remember, they could have uprooted the rails, and taken away the wagons and engines. After all, Indian Railways was the biggest scrap iron collection in the world at that time.
The Masters Anticipation - How about the British abdication of authority? Cartoon courtesy - cartoons.ac.uk; click for larger image.
Till Lal Bahadur Shastri’s resignation – the poor Indian railway-man was routinely blamed for railway accidents – by his British, and later the Indian bosses also.
Hence, they did not kill us Indians in the numbers that they killed (more than 10 lakh Kenyans in 10 years) in the Mau Mau uprising. Or they did not torture and kill Indians the way they killed the Malaysians. Due to this reason, they also did not set up apartheid the way they did in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa.
The other British legacy that we should be very grateful is our colonial bureaucracy. This colonial era bureaucracy, a permanent establishment, has been growing faster than our population – thrives by demonizing Indian politicians. Its corruption is aided by a myriad laws created by the same bureaucracy – for the benefit of Indians. In most states this bureaucracy takes up all the Governmental revenues and leaves nothing but tax increases for us.
The Masters Anticipation - Arent we disappointed? (Artist - Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, 1902-1979 Published - Daily Mail, 29 November 1946). Cartoon courtesy - cartoons.ac.uk. Click for larger image.
A blog reader responds
The whole of black Africa has become a basket case. The people are ripped off by their rulers, in a far worse way than they ever were under white rule. Many of their citizens long for the return of white rule and the stability that would bring. It’s just a shame they are never going to get it.
By this logic, the way Britain is being run, it will need to be governed by, guess who? Indians. Looking at where India was after the end of the Raj – and now, it is clear who is better at governing.
Looking at the ‘decline’ of Britain (what will happen after the secession of Scotland and Wales?) and Spain, after the end of Black Moslem rule, and you know who should be ruling over Britain and Spain at least.
Whatcha say …
The Detritus
As Britain (and the West) was forced out of various colonies, left behind was the garbage of colonialism. This post-colonial debris has become the ballast, that is dragging down many newly de-colonized countries. The Cyprus problem between Turkey, Greece and the Cypriots has been simmering for nearly 100 years. The role of the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, in Indonesia, the overthrow of Sukarno, installation of Suharto and finally the secession of East Timor is another excellent example. The many issues in the West Asia and Africa are living testimony to the British gift to the modern world. The entire Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a creation of the Anglo-French-American axis.
An "anti-imperialist" cartoon, mocking Rudyard Kipling's White Man's Burden idea, published in the USA, during the Philippine-American War, as the US was itself preparing to compete with Europe as an imperialist force. Source - Originally from Life magazine, March 16, 1899. Click for larger image.
Closer home is the Kashmir problem. After 60 years of negotiations, India-Pakistan relations have remained hostage to the Kashmir issue.
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2ndlook 
Hello.. where have you addressed the problem in the post title?
Kalidas – Do you think that the “Flamed out” paragraph does not answer this adequately?
Maybe, I can expand on that if you feel!
I find your blog very interesting and keep checking for updates but is getting a tad repetitive.
I might have been too sleepy when I was reading it for the first time.. but now I get it..
Good to see you back in action!
Great Britian may have done a couple good things for India BUT IT WAS all for self service. By building trains they were able to exploit the wealth much more efficiently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India An estimate by Angus Maddison, formerly of Groningen University, reveals that India’s share of the world income went from 24.4% in 1700, comparable to Europe’s share of 23.3%, to a low of 3.8% in 1952.
The British also found a way (guns helped) to literally amass our wealth not only from pre existing and fluorishing industries but managed to take our diamonds, rubies, gold.
From http://www.hindu.com/2000/10/01/stories/13010613.htm “Two thousand years ago, the Senate in Rome passed an ordinance forbidding senators from wearing togas made from Indian cloth – a legal effort to slow the flow of gold coins pouring out of Roman coffers into India”
This British contribution of railways in India is wearing very thin.
First – Why does anyone assume that India could not have bought the technology and the systems for trans-India railway network.
Two For instance, India has built a modern air transport system by itself in the last 60 years. It has created a national highways system in the last 10 years.
Three The world’s largest scrap collection aka The Indian Railways system in the 1940s comprised of steam engines, a track system which was shot, cattle class coaches without a fan (introduced by LB Shastri in 1954) and wooden slats as seats (changed by Madhu Dandavate in 1977).
The railway signalling system failed consistently – resulting in regular horrific accidents, for which we ‘incompetent Indians’ were blamed. It took LB Shastri’s resignation to bring home the fact that the responsibility for these accidents lay at the highest level – and not at at the end of rope.
Quite a lot of the colonial railway system went to Pakistan. Of the remaining that free India got, much was anyway owned by the Indian rulers – and NOT by the Colonial British Raj.
Crediting the British for the efficient railway system that we see today, is entirely a joke – it is an Indian creation. I only wish that people would stop talking about the Indian Railways as a legacy of the British!
Coming to the British loot
Yes! It was real and it happened. But not because the British had better guns and we had bows and arrows. No! Not at all. It was because Europeans were brutal enough to enslave tens of millions (that is a few crores) of people. With enslavement, came unemployment.
And the unemployed Europeans were recruited into armies – which committed the largest genocides in the history of mankind. It was this economic model which allowed the Europeans to loot and pillage India.
[…] The Truth About British Empire which the Fraud / Propoganda Expert BBC will never tell you..read it all The British, by contrast, brought tangible development, ports and railways, that created the basis for a modern state. More important, they brought the framework for parliamentary democracy that Indians, who already possessed indigenous traditions of heterodoxy and pluralism, were able to fit to their own needs. Indeed, the very Hindu pantheon, with its many gods rather than one, works toward the realization that competing truths are what enable … Read More […]
I agree Britain looted majority of India’s wealth. Without Mughal and Britian there would’nt be a country called India. This peninsula will divided and subdivided by numerous rulers who will be extremely wealthy for themselves and richest in the world. People will be poorer than ever. It will be another Africa with Hindu religious intolerence, especially on low caste Hindus. Since it is smaller kingdoms, it would be impossible to build a vast network in the field of studies specially in technology. Besides, if Britain would not have invaded India there is a chance, Islam would have more authority and brutally converted majority of hindus into Islam by now.
Hindu high caste system will be at their arrogance and greedy Bhramins will never allow a low caste hindu to learn knowledge and be equal to Bhramins. Keep in mind high caste hindus count to very minute percentage and remaining are low caste people. Low caste people will be forced to continue only lower level jobs and education could even be prohibitted. Even today I hear news specially in Northern India low caste are attacked for entering in temple, being of the same religion of Hindu. Even SATI and child marriage would have flourished.
Unlike the Desert Bloc, Indians were not divided by rulers, boundaries, language, or region. Pre-colonial Indian Mitakshara and Dayabhaga laws were framed by single individuals – which were accepted by the world’s largest economy, without the force of armies, or the a parliament or a king. Shankaracharya was a national figure – across nearly 1000 kingdoms.
Yet when the time came …
How was India a country with one of the highest literacy rates in the world history – without State Education – when the British arrived and reported back to London. You must check out Gandhi-Hartog letters on this.
Anyone who has studied world or Indian history knows that till about 1875, India was the world’s largest economy. Even today, if you ignore paper currency, India has the largest gold reserves (in the hands of the people) in the world. Indians are poor today, because gold has been demonetized in the last 65 years – and the Western idea of fiat currency has been imposed.
How many Muslims does EU have? How many Catholics does Britain, Germany have? How many protestants do France, or Italy have? After importing millions of Africans as slaves, how come the Euro-African population of Europe is close to nil. Do I need to remind you of the persecution of Jews from 1490 onwards till Hitler’s final solution.
Maybe you should check out India’s language, religious and genetic diversity – before you write give such informed opinions.
The role of Christian missionaries and Christian West in the many wars in Africa are worth studying.
Indian shipbuilding, gunpowder ingredients, metallurgy were without parallel in the world – till 1875. So, India’s technological prowess is something you know little about – and you can read about it on 2ndlook.
Search – and Ye shall find.
Muslim invaders succeeded in India nearly 400 years after their European conquests. Within 200 years this aggrandizement had been challenged and halted by people like Maharana Pratap and Shivaji. By the time the British arrived, Islam was a spent force.
By the way, where were the British when Nadir Shah raided India?
How could a poor minority of Brahmins impose their will on a majority of people. Basic fault on the caste narrative. The caste narrative was built by a British bureaucrat Herbert Hope Risely who was one of the brains behind the partition of Bengal. He is on record as a user of divide et impera (divide and rule) tactics of the British Raj. Has this happened anywhere in the world?
How did millions of Indians from all walks of life join in more than 200 wars, battles, revolts, attacks, bombings – which the weary British finally throwing in the towel, after the Feb.1946 insurrectionist action by Indian navymen.
I can understand Western envy when Brahmins (poor out of choice) provided intellectual leadership – for food, lodging and clothing.
You should read how even now people converted by Christian missionaries retain dual religious identities – and are often incited to desecrate and defile places of worship. This is the background to restrictions on entry for some people.
By the way, I have not understood, why African-Americans even today in USA (the largest Christian nation in the world) have different Churches?
Do you have any statistics on Sati during the British Raj – which the British claim to have abolished? It is like the thugee myth. Soldiers and people fighting the British Raj were branded as thugs – and a campaign was unleashed, with spectacular ineffectiveness.
Child marriage was an effective response of early marriage – to massacres and genocide by the British Raj. Due to this one action, Indian population stabilized and we did not suffer the fate of the Australian Aborigines and the Native Americans.
Child marriage is an Islamic tradition, not Hindu!
– Long-term
– Stable institution
– For ensuring survival of families
is a Indian social innovation. It is marked by complete absence in the rest of the world.
The rest of the world (I suspect) ‘modified’ this system to ‘suit’ their local conditions.
Islamic societies like the rest of the Desert Bloc find ways and means to limit marriages and family survival. The system of meher guarantees that only the rich can marry. In India, since the system of meher has been ‘corrupted’ by the dowry system, marriage among Muslims has become a common phenomenon.
If we introduce shariat in India for Muslims, and if
1. meher is strictly followed.
2. Dowry is strictly prohibited
We will see the collapse of widespread marriages in Indian Muslim society also.
Remember, Plato supplied an ‘intellectual’ justification’ for ‘sexless’ relationship between genders – which is famous today as Platonic love.
Child marriage to my mind was a unique response during the 1850-1950 period, as India was being de-populated by famines, massacres, disease on a scale unknown to India till then. With families hollowing out, Indian society responded with early marriage and large family sizes.
If we survive as a nation today, it is possibly due to child marriage. As population, economy, health stabilized in the last 60 years, child marriages have become rare and a subject of TV serials.
beautiful man.
My 2 cents on this matter:
I commend Anuraag Sanghi on his accurate details that were gravely misconstrued by many others. First of all let us not forget the glorious past of Indian History which was repelete with wealth and knowledge. India was invaded by “outsiders” various reasons one of the foremost reason being, to plunder the country for its abundant wealth and spices. They did not enter the country with philanthropic intentions but it was rather self centered What they left behind was chaos and confusion, the effects of which can be felt even today.
The temples were constructed of solid gold and the architectural beauty speaks volumes of the engineering skills. The country was also blessed with abundant spice which was a rare commodity in European countries like England and Portugal. Only the affluent classes could afford to purchase them. Back in those days, way before the European and Persian invasion started, India was already participating in international trade relationships.
India can also boast of its intellectual contributions to the world. Despite the fact that the accolades for establishing an effective schooling system in India goes to the British, the very first University was built by the Gupta Dynasty sometime during the 6th or the 7th Century AD. During its heyday, Nalanda university attracted scholars and students from areas such as Tibet, China, Greece, and Persia. The University was equipped with a state of the art library. According to the Historians, the textual collection comprised of hundreds and thousands of volumes of books. The library was so extensive that it burned for approximately > 6 months when set aflame by Turkish invaders. The university was also built with dormitories for students and we are talking 6th or 7th Century. Written documents have revealed that the university accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers! It set an example for the world to follow its footsteps.
With such a memorable past to be proud of, I am sure India would have performed well on a global scale without outside help. If the trend continued it would have left lasting impressions in every field be it science, engineering, or politics. And with all the modernization and the flourishing trade relationships in the surrounding regions, India would have found a way to advance globally without much help from the Brits or the Persians. As a matter of fact under the Golden rule of the Gupta dynasty, intellectual pursuits were at its climax. The period is marked by extensive inventions and discoveries in science, technology, engineering, art, dialectic, literature, logic, mathematics, astronomy, religion and philosophy. The Gupta period produced scholars such as Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Vishnu Sharma and politicians such as Chanakya. Let us not forget that Europe was under the dark ages during those times.
I am sure with such advancements in science and technology, India would have left an indelible stain in the world, had it not been invaded by foriegners who depeleted the country of its wealth and proceeded to ensalved the citizens. That is when India entered its dark ages- the collapse of a great country had begun. We did not need the British or the Persians to “save” us from our despicable state. Infact they were the root cause of India’s decline. The collapse started with the Persian invasion. It further declined with the British Raj. We are referring to the caste system like as if it was a taboo while forgetting the fact that the Indians were treated as third class citizens by the British in their own country (which was far worse than the caste system if you ask me). I am sure with all the advancements in science and literature and what not India would have found its own way of dissolving the rudimentary practices, we did not need the British to help us resolve our local issues. Let me also gently remind you of the fact that Sati was introduced in India after the advent of the Persian invasion. The British people did not actively revolt against this practice. It was prominant figures likes Raja Rammohan Roy who contributed towards the change.
What would have happened to India had we not been invaded remains a mystery. But alluding from the glorious past, I am sure that we would have been far more advanced if we were not invaded repeatedly.
Huh? British did not revolt against Sati. The first law came in 1798. Rammohan Roy was heavily influenced by the western culture introduced by the British. He was a campaigner and not the government. It took an iron hand from the British government to eradicate Sati. William Bentinck passed the law banning Sati. Ever heard of William Henry Sleeman on Jabalpur? Read a little.
Incidents of rape has increased 873% since the independence . Female infanticide and Dowry is rampant today. And you think you would’ve eradicated Sati all by yourself? I don’t even know what to say … truly bizarre.
I have asked above – and repeat now.
Do you, or the British who you admire so much, have any data on the prevalence of Sati.
Or are you talking of some random, isolated incidents which were used for propaganda purposes –
Would you or your British overlords have data on how many Sati incidents before the ban – and after the ban?
How many prosecutions launched by the British Famine Raj against these Yindoos who practised Sati?
Probably my disbelief in this Sati rigmarole has stopped me from searching for this data more intensely.
There … you have my admission.
Now, are your beliefs based on data or British propagandist’s say-so?
PS – Further response from my side will depend on fewer adjectives and more data from your side.
Please read my long reply to Maand Buddhi. It will help in understanding my original post. To answer your question, I don’t have any data I’m afraid. You’ll have to get that from the Indian Government or search the national archives. I gather from various sources – Indian and Western and it is well known that Sati was prevalent in India. Whether you believe in Sati or not makes no difference to me but I do care when a narrative is built to discredit all the good that was done in the colonial era. Have a good evening.
Actually, not just you – but everyone must be afraid.
When you make assertions without data.
The idea and practice of Sati that was prevalent in India was far different from what the British purportedly banned and eradicated.
So don’t try and fit a dog’s leg’s onto a cow – and expect the cow to bark. When you have no data, the simple rule is get data.
For exactly the same reasons that you wish to make assertions without facts or data, many of the readers here wish to dispute your data-less theories.
Come back with some facts. Some data. Some credible hypotheses. Don’t do a GIGO act here.
They did ban Sati right? That counts as a positive. What’s your point? I’m not here to debate what form of Sati or the percentage of Sati in India. That may be your job not mine.
I guess you are mad because I pointed out positives of the colonial era which you so tried to dishonestly disguise in your rant.
End of discussion.
Tell me Prash ….If i were to burn down your house.. Hurt/Injure most of your family members and Mostly leave you bankrupt but while I am doing this I bring in a bulldozer … kerosene and some tools… And when I am done plundering your house I leave these equipment there…
Now tell me if your brother now stands up and condemns what happened with your family but you call him mad and point out all the heavy duty equipment I left and because of that I should be regarded highly …
Something is wrong somewhere In all this dude .. Hope you can see my point
Absolutely, the finest analogy about the British Raj that I have come across!
What a load of garbage right wing nationalism your blog is. You can’t even see how Britain created India and transformed a land of spice and textile manufacturer to the force it is today. How stupid do you have to be to realize that? India was a collection of 600 princely states war torn and kings were fighting against each other. Mughals (which you are fond of I guess), apart from Akbar, persecuted non muslims. What did they contribute apart from some buildings? Do you think the uneducated, illiterate and bullock cart filled country could’ve bought the technology? Industrial revolution was transforming Great Britain and it rubbed off on India. How ungrateful do you have to be? You did not know how to build dams, bridges, roads, railways etc. before the British occupation. If it were not for the British, French or Dutch or someone else would’ve occupied it. You very well know how that would’ve turned out looking at former french colonies. Here’s small list of good things done by British in India:
Laws against Sati (Remember William Bentinck)
Laws against burying of lepers alive
Laws against female infanticide
Capture and eradicated thuggees responsible for 2 million+ murders (Remember the great William Henry Sleeman still revered in Jabalpur??)
Built roads
Dams (of technological feat were created which you’ve now used to create more dams. Go to some of them you’ll still see Made in England sign)
Brigdes
Railways
Canals (75000 miles of canals during the British India period was contructed by them)
Modern irrigation
Nuts and bolts of modern government
Democracy
Created Civil service (Despite knowing that these educated Indians would demand freedom later in life)
Sanitation
Forestry (Remember Jim Corbett? Forest Research Institute?)
Modern medicine and vaccinations for Malaria, Small pox etc. (remember Ronald Ross? Edward Jenner?)
Created New Delhi as capital
Universities and University system
Education for males and females
Parliament
President’s building (Lutyens), India Gate, Gateway of India, Victoria Terminus, Forest Research Institute etc.
Created India
Promoted Indian scientists like Ramanujan
English as common language without which you would not have the population thrive in call centres, software and emigration to the US.
50 out of 80 Hill stations were created by the British (even if it were to escape summer heat)
Created Asiatic Society (where millions of manuscripts have been preserved. Your Gita, Upanishads, Kalidas literature have been translated by William Jones. Have you ever visited?)
There are so many that I cannot list here. Your right wing nationalism denying all these benefits stinks! Maybe you prefer the axis – Japanese and Germans (Hitler) who were defeated in world war by Britain. I suggest you ask China what the Japanese did to them or the Jews who were persecuted by Hitler.
Yes the rule was messy and sometimes atrocious. But that does not mean you should frame a dishonest argument. Don’t just sit in your cave and pass judgments. Explore a little and then write some.
LOL at your ignorance man. I will deal with a few points since most of the others are bogus.
1) Massive Dams are advised only in certain locations and for certain geographies. Big dams in unsuitable locations cause environmental problems. Best solution is to construct a series of small dams/reservoirs. Good example of such multiple lake building is in Telangana. Network of canals have existed since ancient times.
2) Building of modern Railway and Road network and airways is mostly due to Indians. Most of the state and national highways that we have have existed since time immemorial.
3) Jim Corbett needs a more detailed discussion, but English came to destroy and loot the forests. They cut down tress, decimated wildlife just to grow Tea, Coffee. Indians have always had sacred groves, and they considered it a ‘paapa’ to cut forests or trees like banyan, etc. Forests should be protected because they give us water in the form of rivers and medicines in the form of herbs. Protecting forests in turn saves wildlife.
4) Most of modern allopathic medicine is garbage. It consists of synthetic medicines stolen from traditional knowledge throughout the world, but converted into synthetic form to cash in patents. The only place modern medicine has advanced is surgery because of the engineering boom in the past 100 years. Modern medicine is good when it comes to engineering(i.e surgery), but most modern medicine drugs and medicines and vaccines are garbage and even dangerous to health.
5) If New Delhi was founded by british, where was Indraprastha??
6) English happens to be the language of the world because the british got money from India and were able to colonize the world. If Spanish, Portuguese or French conquered India, these languages could have become lingua franca of the world.
India already has a common language. It is called sanskrit, provided you take the pains to study it just like you do for english today. Studying sanskrit for reading and writing is quite easy as it is an artificial language like latin, but sanskrit for talking is tough.
Hats off Prash…I would like to get your email ID, pls send a test mail to anwarncci@yahoo.com
“Gorey Gorey oh bakey chorey kabhi Prash bhai ki gali aaya karo”….
Sir Prash what about the great Bengal famine of 1770 and 1943 ….. In which 10 and 4 million people perished… Compared to the food surplus nation India is …. Other factors like massive drop in GDP /per capita income under British etc ….
All that was created was for their own benefit from trains to hill stations ….
Jor sey bolo gorey baba ki jai 🙂
Wow! You guys are so misinformed. I love India but I do recognize that modernization of India was done by the British. India would not be a force today had it not been for the British. NO record exists of famines before the British India. So you can’t even compare with the past. China experienced more than 1500 famines – who knows how many died in India because of famines prior to the empire. The research in malaria and small pox so many lives that you cannot even imagine.
Unlike you I’m not drunk with rabid nationalism. I’m pragmatic. There are plenty of good things and plenty of bad things done by the British. But I’m not dishonest (as the article) so that it frames an entirely negative argument.
You may not realize it but you are using British technology (WWW) when you post here.
English came to destroy the forests? The forestry department was set up by the British for god’s sake. I understand you are bitter about colonialism but a little objectivity would not hurt.
About Sanskrit, I’d like you to have a look at Asiatic society which was set up by William Jones in Calcutta. He translated Gita, Upanishads etc. Millions of manuscripts are preserved today because of the society.
You can have an intellectual discussion but looking at “LOL” I think you are not prepared for it.
Prash:
Our worldview is shaped by what we are told. And that narrative is controlled by the victors.
The British rant about sati, but at the same time tens of thousands of women were being burnt at the stake. According to one estimate about nine million women were burnt as witches! But you will not hear about that.
We are told that Churchill was such a great person while Hitler was evil. The same Churchill was responsible for 3 million deaths in Bengal. When asked to send food, his retort was “Is Gandhi dead yet” But look at how his deeds are white-washed?
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/575-the-bengali-famine
The say that since the supply from Burma was cut off there was no way to ship rice to Bengal. Did anyone remind them of the GT Road or the Ganga which could be used to transport food from other parts of the country?
BTW, the same Churchill went out of his way to support the lifting the food embargo against the Germans after WW-I. But the “beastly people with a beastly religion” who were dying in thousands to serve the empire, did not deserve the same courtesy as the Germans who had just killed millions of Allies during WW-I.
There is a lot of intellectual theft from India which drove the European age. Mathematicians in Kerala had written books forming the basis of calculus a few centuries before, Newton & Liebniz simultaneously discovered it. But you will rarely here about that. Same goes for botanical taxonomy system.
It is not just an amazing coincidence that the European Age of Discovery started after Europeans first came to India.
Fortunately we are living in an era where the control of the elite over media and information is weakening. We now have resources to dig into first person sources and discover for ourselves. If you want to learn more, read about the seminal work by Rajiv Malhotra .
Take some time to do that; you will be surprised at what you find.
Prash prash mate you are so wrong on so many accounts that…. Anyways
So if no records of famine prior to brits then its fault of the Indians for not recording them
If india has done well in the past 60 years in-spite of biggest transfer of wealth in human history from India to Britain in 1900s (check the graphs for world GDP from 1 BC to 2000 )…done well having being left with a bloody partition ..
All this because Brits left us with hill stations… oh sorry and modern education
So heads Brits win ..tails India looses …..
And dude not using Brit technology when I type this… Its american or for you All Goras are alike?
I maybe suffering from rabid nationalism but you my dear friend are a classic case of Inferiority complex….
ps:- Please spend more time on going through this blog …. Its called 2ndlook for a reason
@Manu
Most of Prash’s claims have merit – even if superficial.
So, let us not get chauvinistic or paranoid about the British.
I must admit to my own abiding and secret admiration for the British – which is camouflaged by my more explicit outrage at the uncivilized behaviour of the British.
But @Prash
Granted all your points!
But that raises a difficult question in my vernacular, desi mind.
If the British could do all this for India, why are they unable to stop their slide into insignificance – after the loss of India.
As the 2ndlook blog points out, after the last 65 years, India is on the verge of becoming a significant global power. And Britain is 500% in debt – and going down the tube
Now, is it becoz I cannot answer this simple question, people call me Mand Buddhi?
Since you’ve taken care to answer without a rabid bias unlike the others, I will answer your post. Look, you either very well know why Britain has slid into insignificance relatively or you really don’t know. World war 2 drained left Britain exhausted fighting Germany. US was happily sitting on the sidelines and making lots of money by selling to Japan and Germany but Britain was burning along with the Soviets. The economic impact meant the empire had to fold because it was not able to sustain it. You would probably be looking at Germany’s Hitler and Japan occuoying the world today had it not been for the British. I would encourage you to read more on Britain and its empire’s (including India) role in the war.
Look, I too am appalled by some of the atrocious stuff done by the British. But I’m well aware of the role played by the British in modernising India which was a collection of 600+ princely states fighting amongst each other with spices, textiles and stones as the economy. Mughal dynasty was dying. Apart from some architecture, I don’t think they contributed much. In fact they (except Akbar) persecuted non-muslims especially Aurangzeb. Sikhs were terrified of them.
Britain was years ahead of any country at that time. British were natural inventors and no country comes close to no of inventions (even today) and produced scientists. Americans do invent a lot these days. Einstein looked up to Newton and Faraday to inspire him. The industrial revolution in Britain rubbed off on India. It would not be economic force that it is today without the British. If you look at your institutions, you can trace all of them back to the colonial era. Some examples:
Democracy
Postal Service
Parliament
President’s Building
Municipal Corporation
Indian Civil Service (despite knowing that they will ultimately threaten their rule)
Forestry: Created Forestry department to preserve forests. The magnificent Forest Research Institute in Dehradoon and Jim Corbett’s tireless effort in saving tigers.
Modern Universities and Education
Created, Designed and Developed New Delhi
Indian national Congress : Founded by A O Hume joined by Annie Besant.
Created Indian Army
Created Indian Air force
Created Archaelogical Survey of India department
Created Geological Survey of India
Created Botanical Survey of India
Created Survey of India
Created Zoological Survey of India
Created Indian police Service and Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.)
Created Indian Medical association
Created the first hospital and many more
Electricity
Sanitation
Railways
…
The list goes on. I have many many many more. I could write a book. Your scientists Homi Bhabha (Father of Indian nuclear science), CV Raman, JC Bose, SN Bose, Father of space research etc. were all a product of colonial era. They were very intelligent but without the education what chance would they’ve had. It may be fashinable to bash Britain for all the negatives but you are only succeeding in building a narrative that does not reflect the reality.
Colonial era, despite its flaws, was like a tsunami that united, modernised and brought India into this century. Indians would not be going to NASA or developing software all around the world or providing call centre services today. It would be a collection of multiple countries or the French/Spanish/Portuguese would’ve colonised it. The British empire was the most benevolent of all these empires. You can compare it with the other nations that have been colonised by French or Portuguese or Belgians or Spain. I must add that it is also a credit to the Indians that they did not fall apart because of poverty or religious differences after the independence.
I would like to wrap up by urging posters to be a little objective in assessing why you are where you are right now. Building a negative narrative dishonestly does not help anyone. Have a nice evening.
I am Mand Buddhi. Dont worry about what I know or don’t know. Tell us what you know. Tell us what you think we don’t know.
1. Looking at the devastation of USSR, Germany and Japan due to WWII, was far greater than to Britain – and see where they are today. Look at the condition of India after WWII – and see where it is now. Look at France after WWII. A country conquered and devastated.
Now see Britain. It was the most comfortably placed after WWII. Where is it now.
You have no argument. No legs to stand on. Yet you shower patronizing advise all round.
1. Again my Mand Buddhi tells me that the colonies sustained the Empire – and not the Empire that sustained the colonies, as you imply.
1.. You assume that a world dominated by the Japanese or the Germans would have been worse . Looking at the British record in barbarism, you are forcing a choice at the thin edge of the wedge. And I am not sure if I liked the British victory any more than than German and the Japanese defeat.
Maybe instead of advising everyone to shed their anti-British viewpoints, you should look at the British record more objectively.
Go on. Take a 2ndlook, as Manu advises you to.
“Look at France after WWII. A country conquered and devastated. ” Please read wwI2 history. France was conquered very early in the war and there was not much devastation happened thereafter. Even now the french has guilt about the way they surrendered so soon. Britain fought the German valiantly. at least give some credit to that.
“Now see Britain. It was the most comfortably placed after WWII. Where is it now.” whats wrong with Britain. they are a strong economy even now. the EU financial capital is still London. In fact on the debt front they are better than France. Of course you can’t compare with Germany. but then Germany was technically superior even before the war.
I really don’t understand why you people are claiming that Britain is down ,”Now see Britain” etc. they are still a developed economy and second stable economy in EU after Germany.
The British economy has a gross debt of 500% of its GDP (Total British production and income).
This includes State, Business and Household debt.
If you were: –
– In debt for 500% of our income
– Your income is growing between (-)2%-+2.5% per annum,
How long would it take for you to repay that debt?
That is where Britain is today. Now you decide how stable, strong, and dynamic Britain is.
Look.. how many illegal immigrants are trying to go to Britain, even from India. you can look in youtube for Border Security. Who is going where??? indians are going to britain 🙂
I shouldn’t have bothered really. Britain was well placed after the World War II? Really? She paid off the in 2006 for crying out loud.
And you think a world dominated by Germany’s Hitler and Japan would be good? God help you. I suggest you ask the chinese about Nanking Massacre or Rape of Nanking and the jews who suffered during the holocaust.
You are entitled to your opinion. Let’s leave it at that. Accusing someone of patronising when I took pains to write a detailed post in a civil manner is pathetic.
A world dominated by British wiped out entire native population of America and Australia …. Wiped out entire culture …..find me one other country that has that dubious distinction
I forgot one thing. If you are referring to British barbarism at Jallianwaala Bagh then I would like to remind you that Indians were no saints either – Massacre of Cawnpore (Satichaura Ghat and Bibighar Ghat).
Anyway that’s the end of discussion. I can’t discuss with someone who thinks German’s Hitler and Japan would’ve been good. Good luck to you.
Even as you stretch your thin logic and extend your weak case, when you talk of benefits from the British, your ignorance and amorality shine through when you try justifying British barbarism in their misrule of 190 years.
1. What we Indians do to illegal aliens, trespassers, invaders in our country is our business. We have full rights to self-defence.
2. The British administration on the other hand has to conform to a civilized code of conduct, norms for governance.
3. I was not referring to Jallianwala Bagh – but since you are, let me remind you that Cawnpore was during War, on enemy combatants. Jallianwala Bagh was on unarmed civilian population.
4. You must again check on your facts. Like the so-called Black Hole of Calcutta, Cawnpore was a rallying cry by the British war-propagandists to inspire bestial fury among the British soldiers. Based less on facts and more on propaganda.
I don’t know why I keep coming back here but I really have to answer the duplicity in your post. You talk of morality and then in the same breath justify the killing of unarmed women, children and babies at Bibighar with meat cleavers as self defence. A little less bias would be good. I condemn Jallian Waala and Cawnpore massacre equally and it is evident all my post but your duplicity shines through. You even spin it to say women, children and babies were armed. So everything in favour of the British is propaganda? Unfortunately for you, I know too much about the history for your own good.
Our views couldn’t be poles apart. I’m a liberal. I have a clear view on what is wrong and what is right. I have stated earlier that I have no interest in continuing this debate with you as you insist on attacking as opposed to debating in a civil manner. Please do not reply to my post.
An ‘objective’ reading would show: –
1. Start your discussion with the hanging of sepoys – instead of Cawnpore. The sequence changes.
2. Old British trick – Start justification for British barbarism with an exaggerated account of an event – like Black Hole of Calcutta, Remember Cawnpore, etc.
3. At ‘Cawnpore’, British soldiers were clearly using women & children as human shields. Secondly, Indian estimates are coming to a conclusion that British mercenaries killed Indian civilians in millions.
Anyway, what were the British doing here anyway. Indians have full right to deal with looter-barbarians in a manner they deem fit. It is called self-defence.
If British have illusions of being civilized administrators, there can be no justification for Jallianwala Bagh.
Your cheap liberalism is like cheap the coloring & covering of a street walker, lit up by ‘free’ street light.
You mean British propaganda is right – and Indian attempts to clean the Augean stables of colonial propaganda is wrong.
If British rule in Kenya, Malaysia or South Africa was benign – and if British barbarity was limited to India, your arguments would hold.
What about the millions (many hundreds-of-thousands were children) that died in the Boer War? Or the 1 million during the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya? Are we forgetting British brutality in Malaysia?
In each of these places, the British invented a justification for their barbarity!
A open-and-shut case – unless you choose to wear rose-tinted colonial glasses.
1) First of all all the modern technologies you are enjoying are because of US and not necessarily Britain.
2) Hitler’s Germany and the Bolshevik revolution were funded by wall street. In other words communism and fascism were funded by ‘capitalist’ US. Or in some more words the US funded their own enemy, which has been their national policy for almost 100 years now. For more info on these issues you can read books written by Antony C.Sutton or watch his videos on youtube.
3) Besides Hitler and the bolsheviks, the americans covertly funded the technological development of USSR during cold war. US installed the corrupt shah in Iran, installed Saddam and various dictators in the middle east, and when Saddam, Gaddafi stopped obeying US orders they killed them.
4) US funded the Al-Qaida and other extremist islamic groups like Taliban with the help of their ally sunni Saudi Arabia, and are now about to embark on a war with shia Iran. All this for sweet crude oil and other minerals.
5) There is no denying that the genius scientists of europe created many of the technologies we enjoy today, but they were able to do so because they migrated to the US(they did not create these technologies in europe) which had a free market/entrepreneurial economy and vast resources.
6) India’s contribution to technological development in the past 20 years cannot be overlooked. Of course China’s contribution is even larger. Most of the electronic items are now manufactured in China, not in the west, and why is the US outsourcing tech jobs to India?? because Indian engineers are good. India struggled because of socialist policies of congress government from 1950 to 1990.
7) British/Spanish/potuguese colonization had resulted in mass extermination/loss of indigenous cultures in North America,South America and Australia.
8)Western countries have run out of gold because of their lavish lifestyles and incessant war programs. All western paper currencies are collapsing because there is very little gold to back up the paper in the west. Most of the gold/silver is with countries like India/China and eastern countries. Western economies are kept alive by the US dollar which is the world reserve currency and can be printed in any quantity by the US. If countries stop using the US Dollar and switch to gold/silver and other real commodities the Dollar and other western currencies will soon collapse.
9) The only solution left with western countries now to continue living a lavish lifestyle is more war and more of stealing resources. Get ready for more wars to be waged by your favourite british/american empires.
10) Oh and I forgot to add that Pakistan is mainly funded by the US. Pakistan is on life support from the US. Without US funding Pak army will close down and India will not have a threat.
Bengal Famine, Jallianwallah Bagh, numerous forced riots and man-made famines were a part of the glorious british empire… read the article again
You guys need to visit England to see the treatment of people of Indian origin. They seemed to be under this false impression that they were instrumental in civilizing the uncivilized bunch. I wish I can hand a history books to these guys!
Remember we were paying a heavy tax for living in our own country and buying our own goods- that to me is day light robbery! The Jallianwala Bagh massacre is a classic example of their regard for Indian citizens. The coup that was launched against peaceful protesters was unfair and if you were to read a little bit of History you would know that General Dyer was amply rewarded for his senseless actions when he moved back to England and was hailed as the “Man who saved India”. I would like to see their reaction if I were to massacre the citizens in their own country. I am sure I would be treated as a criminal. Sadly great figures such as Radyat Kipling (who was born and raised in India mind you) was applauding the despicable act! Which makes me wonder, what was the difference between the British rule and the Nazi rule? Of course the Nazi’s did more damage compared to British rule that spanned over 200 years but that does not justify the cruel act. And my question then would be who knows the accurate figures of the damage caused by the British? We don’t have a head count of the number of people massacred during the British Raj over the span of 200 years to justify the statement that Nazi’s were more cruel. And quoting and anonymous writer of the article titled “British Rule in India and Nazi rule. What is the difference?”. The author states the following:
“But who has calculated the damage that Britain did? Are there any records of the number of Indians killed and enslaved by the British during the British Raj? Are there any records of ill-treatment meted out on a regular basis to the Indians? Has anyone calculated the economic damage caused to India because of the East India Company and British rule? Ofcourse not”.
This reminds me of a story that my friend (who currently resides in Michigan) shared with me. While she was innocently travelling on a bus early one morning, a stranger walked up to her and rudely asked her to get out of the country while the rest of the riders did nothing but quietly watched the show. This by the way is just one of the many incidences that provoked her to immigrate to the United States. I wish I was on the bus with this lady who was complaining about immigrants plundering her “country”. I would have liked to gently remind her that my ancestors would have shared her sentiments for over 200 years. Imagine how they would have felt if we were to raid their country and caused a similar incident like the Amritsar march all in the name of civilizing the people! Secondly immigrants are honest tax paying citizens. Who wants the roads and rail roads above respect and freedom? And thanks to the globalization- I am sure we would have learned a lot from the West and if not for the invasion contributed a lot more in the field of science and technology, after all we created the numbers!!!!!!
So what did Britain gain from India? Britain gained cotton, spices, silk, tea and indigo from India and they also gained wealth as they forced India to buy back their goods for a much higher price. And if they built roads (which they learned from the Romans), it was for their own benefit they had no intentions of helping people like you and me.
I don’t think the British eradicated “Sati” due to their altruistic and benevolent nature. And if you think Raja Ramohan Roy was enlightened and influenced by the freedom of women in the west, think again….to tell you the truth Indian women enjoyed ample freedom before the Persian invasion. It was the invasion that deteriorated the conditions and caused a major setback in the role of a woman- thanks to the invaders who raped them! In spite of these conditions, some women excelled in the fields such as literature, education and religion and enjoyed a spot light in the world of politics, which was unheard of in the other parts world during that era. Even before the British rule, the women figures who participated in the Bhakti movement tried to restore women’s status and questioned some of the forms of oppression. Mirabai was one of the most important Bhakti movement figure. Some other female poets from this period includes Akka Mahadevi, Rami Janabai and Lal Ded. Bhakti sects within Hinduism such as the Mahanubhav, Varkari and many others were principle movements within the Hindu fold to openly advocate social oppression and were instrumental in restoring the image of women after the Persian invasion.
Women in the west did not enjoy equal status in the West during the medieval times. Although not identical, they also suffered from oppression, and being a professional women n the United States I am appalled at the treatment of American woman in this country. Many of them are subjected to abuse and we still seem to have problems with equal wages in this century!!!!! There are more abused women in the US of A than India. To quote a prominent republican senator who famously said, since we cannot get pregnant during a rape why not lie down and enjoy the event!!!!
And let us not forget that while Europe was submerged in the dark ages, India was at the zenith of cultural and social revolution with great figures like Saint Adi Shankarachrya representing the country. Medieval India was far more advanced than any European country. And if were divided during the medieval era Europe was also fragmented under the feudal lords. If anything the British and the Persians caused a bigger rift.
And if British people brought technological advancements, India has also made a fair contribution to this world so it is a mutual advantage. And we are thankful for it- are they? Unfortunately not!
Yes we have only our past glories to dwell on but that is because of the repeated invasions and looting of the land. I see a bright future for India, it is still young and there is room for growth.
And talking about rape, do you know how many women are raped here in the United States of America on a daily basis? The treatment of women in the Western country is far more dismal compared to the treatment of women in India. And for those who believe that India is the only country that doesn’t treat its women right here is a shocking revelation of the treatment of women all across the globe, so obviously it is not a India centric problem!
http://www.wanttoknow.info/a-sexual-violence-not-cultural-phenomenon-india–it-endemic-everywhere
And also I found this article rather amusing.
http://www.hastingspress.co.uk/history/19/overview.htm
As an after thought- It was after the Persians invasion that the role of women deteriorated. There is no record of the ill treatment of women before the Persian era. Women were well respected a mother shared a similar status with the Gods- that is how we treated our women in the past!
And also England borrowed scientific and technological ideas from the Romans and other parts of Europe before the Industrial revolution began. Not every idea was original and stimulating. Although I do give them the badge for their marketing skills which most of us lacked. And they claimed absolutely on these ideas without passing on the due credit to the deserving candidates. You got to read the book about Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis the Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. A British doctor read his book and implemented the methodology for which he won the Nobel price. This is only one example of many other similar examples!!!! And no where did he mention Dr. Ignaz’s name while celebrating his win. And I am certain that we would have learned how to build roads and bridges from somebody else in a more sane manner.
I wonder how they would have felt if they were oppressed, suppressed, enslaved, massacred, and treated as third class citizens in their own country, would they have tolerated it and shown gratitude to the imperialists who enslaved them in return for the introduction to the scientific advancements? Honestly I doubt it!
Without Great Britain, there is no ‘East India Company’ and no India after all. Without East India Company, it would still be 1000’s of tiny kingdoms fighting each other and Mughal rule and by beginning of 21st century, most of the hindu’s would have forcefully converted to Islam.. Indians have not let learned to understand what Britain has given India that worry about what was looted from India. I don’t want to start low caste, low tribe and Sati (By the way, it is still happening at villages in Northern India. Last case was reported in 2005, not very far)..
If you are caucasian…. On behalf of native Indians, native Americans , native Australians and all and everyone whose lands your great ancestors bothered to occupy… I extend my sincere thanks… Its sad that not many of the native americans, australians, canadians etc have survived to appreciate all that your ancestors have done to their lands and them …. I am glad to see that you are still on with the great work in Iraq afghanistan etc …. BTW if India was not an entity before british why was half of europe desperately trying to find a route to India … I am yet to read history book that speaks of finding sea route to bengal , gujrat , tamil nadu etc
India had achieved centuries ago what europe is trying to achieve with euro
If you are a brown sahab try as much you want brown will remain brown cant be white…. fair n lovely might help
This comments section has an unreal level of inaccuracy. I don’t understand how Anuraag Sanghi can write with so much flair in the comments and have produced that article – it doesn’t flow well and the ideas seem somewhat disjointed.
I’d have to disagree with this statement: “Britain today, a shell of its former self – with its manufacturing hollowed out, its agriculture in shambles, its economy on the verge of being relegated to the Third World is a huge descent.”
I don’t know where you are getting this information. Britain’s manufacturing has declined, yes, but not only has this been balanced by the rapid increase in the service sector, it has also seen a resurgence in recent years, with investment from China and the Middle East boosting productivity. Britain’s agriculture is one of the most mechanised and efficient industries and production statistics compare favourably with Europe, with 2% of the population meeting 60% of the food supply needs. Sure, Britain is not self-sufficient, but it has a tiny landmass compared to its population of 65 million people, and comparatively, it does well.
Britain’s economy is nowhere near a third world status. This just doesn’t even make sense. It has the 6th largest economy in the world. I have no idea why you think this. I don’t know where you get the figure of 500% of GDP as debt either, the graph below quite clearly and accurately shows Britain’s debt as less than 100% of GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt.svg
This would render the argument that Britain’s “decline” in the present day justifies that British control in India was wrong invalid, which is anachronistic anyway.
[Sorry, for some reason I can’t edit my above post.]
Wow, so much anti-British, anti-white racist hatred. You should be ashamed of yourself.
whites who killed and looted so many innocent countries and people should be ashamed of themselves.. bloody pale bastards
It is a lie that the West “exploits” the world. The West offers INTEGRITY and OPPORTUNITY – two things that India does not offer. That is not exploitation.
The history of trade over the past 200 years will also conclusively set right the falsehood about the West “exploiting” the developing world. Most Western nations lost big money in their colonies, but most importantly, most of their trade was WITHIN the developed world, since there was literally nothing of value that the developing countries offered. Look at the flow of world trade in the past and you’ll be amazed how little came from the colonies.
These Marxist ideas of “exploitation” – that you are referring to – were introduced by people like Nehru – and he has successfully converted the whole of India into unthinking parrots who chant this mantra of “exploitation”.
As if there was this huge pile of money in India which the West “took”. Well, the fact is that the West has created its wealth almost ENTIRELY (99.99 per cent) through its own innovation and creativity and scientific progress.
Yes, there is some merit in Dadabhai Naoroji’s theory, but very soon thereafter the situation was to reverse badly, leaving England with a big financial drain called India. The fact, though, is that when you grow SIXTY times in 200 years, you don’t do by stealing from another poor man.
Let’s say there are two poor men A and B. Poor man A steals from poor man B. Can A become 60 times richer than B by stealing?
And note that Indians were SLIGHTLY RICHER at the end of British rule than before British rule – by virtue of ordinary osmosis of technology. So the truth is that it was INTERNAL INNOVATION and freedom of the West that created their wealth. And yes, many (not all) were racists, and otherwise contemptible. Just like many Indians today with their deep casteism and religious bigotry are contemptible. Disgusting people have existed (and exist) in all societies. We should pin down individuals and not entire societies. There was ENORMOUS good in the West and there were extremely fine people in the West (and are), just as there are – some – excellent people in India in the midst of the most disgusting corrupt, ignorant and bigots.
If you look at the trade between British India (including Ceylon i.e Sri Lanka) and Great Britain in 1900, Great Britain had a surplus of only 3 million pound sterlings with India.
http://www.friesian.com/british.htm
While the USA had a trade surplus of 119 million pound sterlings with the UK. That means if Britain was looting India of 3 million pound sterlings by your logic, the USA was looting Britain of 119 million pound sterlings!!! So why had Britain not turn poor. ALL this because most of you here who blame the Brits for looting India have a very poor understanding of economics and history.
Secondly can anyone explain why places like Hongkong under British rule was and is so prosperous (Hongkong Chinese had more millionaires per capita than Englishmen in London during British Hongkong era) and also why European countries who never had any colonies like Finland, Norway, Iceland etc… have such prosperity in their populations (for many decades now) when they did not have any empire?
Besides England’s per capita income was already higher than India’s when the British first came to India, we overtook their 1600 per capita income only in 1981!!! India was richer overall but we also had a bigger population, so the average Indian was much poorer than the average Englishman even before the British merchants first came to India.
I know that it has been a cliché that India was a superpower before the invaders and after British left us, what was left behind was a confused, half-killed, culture polluted millions of people and corrupt politicians.
Indeed, India was a super power. Unlike the west, India was a super power for almost 2000 years and it shared the dais with China. India can not take the credit completely for its wealth because, the wealth was already here in the form of natural resources. What India can be prod of is its rich knowledge of everything – science, technology, agriculture and most importantly philosophy. There were no religion except philosophies and that’s why though the kings had wars, mostly they never breached ethics, which is not seen in imperialism. And all the treasures were polluted by invaders, which is a fact. Muslim rulers invaded and forced the natives to convert by raping the women and killing the men. Wow! So much for a religion which means peace. And that is not specific to the kings. That is what taught to them by their prophet – Kill others.
Unlike the countries like turkey, which was a Christian world and became an Islamic country, India could not be made an Islamic country since there were greater power than the arms and muslims’ penis – philosophy and culture. Despite a 300 year rule, except for a few provinces, muslims could not achieve what they were ordered by their prophet!.
Bang! Came the Westerners. They did loot! And the most important thing they did was to shaken the education system. India’s education system is stronger than any part of the world. Simply because we were the fore-runners in terms of early civilization, which we can’t take credit of. And someone posted “Brits gave Indians dams”. Boy! Ever heard of the great king Raja Raja Chozhan who built the grand dam, thousand years ago. Guess what, it is still functional! I don’t remember any Brits coming down here 1000s of years ago. Funniest thing is, Brits could not figer out the route to India! However, Indian astronomers figured out that there are 9 planets. You know when? Before even Christ were born and in pre-historic times. And we still worship them as navagrahas! So much for a country which travels in bullock carts and charming snakes.
The west ravages India, just like Africa and other eastern continents. And they did give us what we thrive on today – railways, education system, English, etc. But we lost a great deal – A great philosophycal land which was happy. So much of religious tolerance. The land which showed the world the way to live is now lost – because of Brits and Muslims. But we will thrive!
From 0 – 1500 A.D. India had the largest GDP in the entire world (slightly lesser than China in 1500), while entire Europe’s GDP was much lesser than either India’s or China’s GDP. In 1600 China overtook India, but in 1700 India regained its position again. For almost 1700 years, entire Europe could not match India in GDP.
The share of world GDP also shows the same trend for India and China. Asia commanded two thirds of the world GDP for almost 1600 years. India’s share starts declining from 1700 while the British share increases. After the Britishers finally left in 1947, India’s share was merely 4.2% in 1950. Why is it that the world still thinks India was a poor country ? If India was really that poor why were all Europeans ship sailing to Asia.
The British destroyed indigeneous Indian education system and replaced it with a government controlled system that bred babus and servile brown sahibs.
British passed laws so that the indigenous textile and steel industry could be banned, levied heavy taxes on manufacturers, shipped the entire industry to Europe, made India an importer of textiles and steel from a manufacturer and exporter. They even went to the extent of killing traders and owners of textile firms.
Caste comes from the Portuguese word, there was no fixed caste system in India before the British, but they passed laws, giving caste system a rigid, unchangeable, framework.
British doctored the Aryan-Dravidian theory by funding indologists and this theory is still the reason for Dravidian politics in south India. This divided India ethnically.
British only hired Muslims in cow-slaughter houses, therby created a Hindu-Muslim divide, which still our nation is suffering from.
While leaving, they divided India into ~650 individual kingdoms, which Sardar Patel had to annex into the sovereign Indian state.
British exploited India economically, culturally, historically, ethnically, scientifically while cashing in on a windfall of treasures. They broke the backbone of Indian civilization as proposed by Macaulay in British Parliament in 1800s. I fail to understand what positive effect there is. Even Saddam Hussein built a multilane, high-speed highway in Iraq, which is useful today, so is that a positive effect.
There are many more negative effects.
Statistics of Sati System.
The statistics of 1821-27 period of Bombay region is interesting to describe the nature of early 19th century Sati system over Maharashtra. The numbers chart suggests that South Konkan registered more number of Sati cases (249). Pune and Ahmednagar collectorate reported least number of Sati cases. This suggests that the clans and families having military traditions were more prone to Sati system. Only Marathas and Chitpavan Brahmins were observing Sati system. The pressure of abolition of Sati was stepped up when official statistics suggested that the regulation of sati introduced from 1813 onwards had actually led to an increase, rather than a decline, in widow immolation. (Ref: SATI SYSTEM IN MAHARASHTRA (1800-1829) A. K. Manjulkar Historicity Research Journal Volume 1 Issue 5 Jan 2015).
A local indication of the numbers is given in the records kept by the Bengal Presidency of the British East India Company, the only authority in the Indian subcontinent provably known for having sought to keep statistics of the phenomenon of sati. An 1829 reported statistics for the period 1815-1824 yields a total of 5997 instances of sati for the Bengal presidency in that period, i.e., in average 600 per year. In the same statistics, it is said that the numbers for the same time period in the Madras and Bombay presidencies totaled 635 instances of sati. Raja Ram Mohan Roy estimated that there were ten times as many cases of sati in Bengal compared to the rest of the country. Bentinck, in his 1829 report, states that 420 occurrences took place in one (unspecified) year in the “Lower Provinces” of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and 44 in the “Upper Provinces” (the upper Gangetic plain). Given a population of over 50 million at the time for the Presidency, this suggests a maximum frequency of immolation among widows of well under 1%. (Ref: “Burning of Widows in India”. The Missionary Herald (Boston: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions) 25,4: 130–131. April 1829)
The exact number of widows who committed sati is difficult to calculate throughout, however, estimates based on known figures suggest a frequency of less that one percent. There are no reliable figures for the numbers who died by sati across the country. Commentators suggest that the response to suttee was quite out of proportion to its prevalence (see Keay 429). Figures for the year 1823, for example, when Peggs was active in his ministry, indicate that 234 Brahmin women performed the ritual, and a further 331 of other castes (see Doniger 611). In the years 1815-24, when the British were concerned enough to collect statistics, and when the number is thought to have “reached an all time high,” there were 6,632 cases in Bengal, Bombay, and Madras — that is, about 737 a year (Fludernik n.2, 432). Even allowing for under-reportage and the selection of particular areas, this is not a huge number in the context of a total population already probably in excess of 200 million (see Raychaudhuri et al. 465-66). Yet the individual cases, graphically relayed to the home audience by people like the Rev. Campbell and Captain Kemp, were harrowing and haunting. The subject therefore became central to discussions about how the British should deal with Indian customs, often featuring in newspaper reports and parliamentary proceedings at home (see Lewis 73). Between 1823 and 1830 a grand total of 107 petitions protesting against it were presented to the House of Commons. This was largely due to Peggs’ own activities. In 1828, for example, he set up a society in Coventry for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India, and toured the country, successfully urging women as well as men to lend their voices to the British protest. Women began to send in their own petitions in the following year (see Midgley 79-81). Also refer to Mukherjee, p. 25l. Walter Hamilton provides statistics on age for the year l823: Of 575 women who performed suttee in Bengal, 32 were below the age of 20; 208 between 20 and 40; 266 between 40 and 60; and l09 over 60. East India Gazetteer, 2nd ed. (London: Parbury, Allen & Co., l828), Vol. I, pp. 205-06 and Yang, Anand A.; Sarkar, Sumit (ed.); Sarkar, Tanika (ed.) (2008). “Whose Sati?Widow-Burning in early Nineteenth Century India”. Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader. Bloomington, Indiana for 6632 number.
The issue clearly caught the public imagination. The plight of beautiful and exotic women made a greater impact than, say, that of the even more helpless victims of female infanticide. No doubt it brought out the knight errant spirit, graphically reinforcing a sense of mission, a belief in spiritual, moral and cultural superiority that handily justified the colonization of a distant land. But the involvement of women brings in another factor. More subtly, one critic sees British concern with suttee as partly, at any rate, a displacement activity. So 1% of population was actually killed by Sati. Sati still occurs occasionally, mostly in rural areas in the 20th century. About 40 cases have occurred in India since independence in 1947, the majority in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. The last clearly documented case was that of Roop Kanwar. Guess we need more of Charles Napiers who was the then British Army’s Commander-in-Chief in India, when faced with local complaints about the abolition of Suttee (Sati), replied: ‘You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And we will follow ours’.
Why did such an advanced, wealthy, successful country allow itself to be colonized?
You poor Indians, really makes me LOL that you had to post your vitriol against the British on your pathetic blog – in – guess what, the English language. You speak our language, Gunga Din, despite the fact that you butcher it completely with your horrible call centre accents. But anyways, it’s a sign of civilisation that you curry niggers speak our language rather than me having to learn your monkeyspeak. The English language will always remind you inferior Indian dogs that you got owned by Brits in the past – thus – keep you in your inferior places where you belong.
As an Englishman, who enjoys visiting this country that my forbearers tried their best to civilise but really, they should’ve known better than to interfere in the evil practices of barbarian natives like you who still like to eat each other up for entertainment.
Before the Brits came, you Indians were a barbarian people with cruel customs and religions. It was the Brits who tried to bring a semblance of civilsation into your Godforsaken lands. Abolishing slavery, sutte – the practice of chucking widows into the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, child marriage, polygamy, untouchability – does it ring a bell, you dirty wog? After the Brits took away the whip and left for good in 1947, you Indian animals reverted to your cannibalistic ways. Face it, you bloody Indians and your inferior genetics don’t really stand a chance at grasping the basics of civilisation.
British introduced the telegraph, railways, postal offices, modern sewage systems and many other modern marvels of technology that you ingrates probably forget to mention in your history books. India is a dumphole, 60% of you Indians still defecate in the open, just like wild animals.
haha another little pathetic white joker talks shit from his mother’s basement… your time will too you little pig skinned briturd, muslims are taking over your shithole of an island anyway, you’ll enjoy the karma of your piggish ancestors soon enough
Love this.
If the British would not have come, we would still be ridding horses and bullock carts and using Vaids for our treatment while the British would be driving cars and travelling in trains and aircrafts and using modern MRI scanners for treatment. We would be a rabale of nations fighting against each other and there would be no United India. Heck if the British did not come, we might have become a French colony and would have got technology from the French. Islamic rulers (some of them if not all of them) would be treating Hindus like second class citizens as Dhimmi under Sharia. Lower caste Hindus would be treated like pigs by upper caste Hindus. Thugees would be runnign loose killing merchants. Does not look like a good picture to me?
Iran, Thailand were never colonised and they both were rich nations, so what? They have a better standard of living than India but still are not first world countries. Ethiopea was not colonised and was the only black people with a rich civilisation (Queen Sheeba) but even without colonisation they are hell hole worse than India. On the other hand HongKong became a colony with one of the highest standard of living in the world. European nations without colonies like Finland, Norway are technologically adavanced countries. This whole colonial looting theory is nonsense.
What a bunch of bullshit, Great Britain was a backwards worthless cesspool before their colonial ventures and it was a land that no one cared about. The Saxons were an illiterate barbaric brutish people who did not build cities and civilizations and did not practice formal farming; all of the modern White European languages are based on the Phoenician+Egyptian+Assyrian writing systems and scripts and that’s because barbaric peoples like the Saxons never created an authentic one of their own. Even the Ottoman Turks said that the British Isles was a worthless place that wasn’t worth anything at all. There is no way that an illiterate barbaric brutish people without a civilization of their own, and whom didn’t have proper toilets or practice proper hygiene could have “civilized” anyone, and the truth is that they didn’t!
And no, Britain’s entire industrial revolution was a black swan event that could or could not have happened; and it was completely based on stolen ideas and technologies and industries they acquired from Ancient India and Egypt and perhaps Ancient China and Persia and other parts of Europe. And no the British would not be driving cars or using electricity or any of that crap, because those started appearing ONLY AFTER THEY TOOK OVER OLDER AND MORE ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS IN AFRICA AND ASIA AND NOT BEFORE! Is that a coincidence? NO IT IS NOT! The steam engine and wind mill, was a technology that the Brits stole and looted from Egypt and India respectively. Sorry but your post is full of head binding idiocy!
yawn another briturd with a Indian name pretends to preach to the Indians, India is a richer more powerful state than briturdistan despite the looting and pillage of briturds of this great country… this happened just within 60 years..
India was, is and will soon become an economic and technological pioneer that it always has been while pigskinned briturds will sink lower and lower into their shithole of an island