The British in India

Originally posted by Jallaludin Akbar I am just curious, Poverty in India is widely accepted to have its origins to British colonialism. Is this information correct. Does Indian poverty have its origins to the British? How so?

Edited by MarcoPolo - 06-Apr-2009 at 20:47

Originally posted by Sparten The British were not the first ones to unite S Asia. The Mauryans, the Khiljis, the Mughals etc. ANd BTW there is still no India, it has what 17 insurgencies going on right now. The only thing new S Asia got out of British rule were railroads and syphallis. And I suspect it would have gotten both anyhow.

When and why did this separation take place?

As the steamship allowed faster transportation to India, British families started coming out. Single men, months from home, tended to intermix and join indian society, but married men with families - who sent their children back to England for education - didn't.
Basically, blame British women

Originally posted by Chintaram British by far were better tha Mughals and other Rulers. Today there are lot of people who criticize British for Communal Riots in India as in their Divide and Rule Policy. But I honestly think they were quite lenient in their ruling approach. Imagine India under Portuguese wouldnt have had communal riots as the entire population would have been Roman Catholic with surnames like Rodrigues, Ronaldo, Pinto...........

Muslims in India would not convert to Roman Catholicism and Hindu's who resisted Muslim conversion for a 1000 years would not either. India/Hindustan is not comparable to Philippines or South America. Credit to the Hindu's who still retain their thousands of years old civilization after getting mauled for more than a 1000 years. India as the spiritual leader of Asia has always exported religion, the people who became Muslims are descended from foreign immigrants (a small minority) and Dalit/Shudra/Adivasi from lower strata and margins of society to escape oppression and improve their social standing. Mughals were not saints, but they did not transport wealth and capital to their homeland like the British and created a wealthy functioning society with wonderful architecture, but their biggest failure was letting in European traders and let them establish trading out-posts. The corrupt sycophant middle class that the British created, is responsible for the partition and much of underdevelopment of the subcontinent.

Originally posted by MarcoPolo Thanks to the British, India has immense infrastructure, government and educational institutions, railways connecting the vast land mass, Army/Police training grounds, Industrial facilities that it would never have established on its own, post offices, a newly established ''Common Indian'' Identity...which prior to their arrival, never existed in South Asia..  South Asia was a collection of several states.  For all intents and purpose, Indian's should be very thankful to the british! for if it wasnt for them, there would be no india today!

Edited by eventhorizon - 05-Sep-2008 at 02:09

WW I started in 1914.

The British destroyed the top tier management structure of the sub-continent and developed a 2nd tier structure to help them exploit the resources as all Mercantile empires do. The interest of the people of the sub-continent was the last thing in their list of goals, that is why the world share of GDP of Hindustan went from 25% at 1700 to 5% in 1947. This was done with an active policy of discouraging industrial development and making British India a source of raw material and a market for British goods, lets remember Gandhi's swadesi andolon. Also, after 1857, they had an active policy of divide and rule which helped polarize Hindu and Muslim communities and resulted in partition. They also lost Afghanistan which was a part of Mughal Hindustan. It is because of British policies and also the lack of foresight of the indigenous political leadership (2nd tier to 1st tier transition takes time) we now have 4 different countries called India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan instead of one, which could help keep Tibet and Xinjiang independent. Now all 4 countries have their own dynamics and are moving further apart despite efforts like SAARC, humpty dumpty has already broken.

Does this mean we should blame the British, no, if it was not the British, it would be French or somebody else, the fault always lies with indigenous leaders and population, if sovereignty cannot be maintained and protected at all costs then this is the expected result. If we have to blame anyone we should blame late Mughal rulers and strategists, how they could not pacify rebellious populations and how they could not foresee the result of giving trading privilege to European companies.

The Mughals made Hindustan the richest country in the world. As for the British, it is true that industrialisation was discouraged, as was British policy till at least 1914, when for the first time India rail was allowed to make its own carriages. Otherwise the carriages were made...........................in Swindon.

Originally posted by HaloChanter Sorry, just realised I posted in this thread. Will catch up this weekend but just wanted to reply to one particular post:   'No, anti-British feelings border on the fact Britain financially abused India, so it fell from 20% of world economy to roughly 3% at Independence. '   - That had far more to do with rising industrialisation in Europe from 1800-1900 than British 'plundering' of India. Had it been left to its own devices, its too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe India would have become an industrial giant and maintained its 20% pre-industrial position. As I'll post this weekend, the so called British 'plundering' of India was not to such a decisive extent, and was of a very brief period.

Please give evidence. Britain's (and earlier mughal) rule wrecked India economically. Please read the thread carefully on how farming was stifled and what happened to GDP. Their is also the currency crisis of late 19th century.

Originally posted by gcle2003   Originally posted by Mughaal I think what hes saying is that Hindic Philosophy adopted Buddhist principles into its system.   That might be true to some degree. However what he said was Hinduism however in its adaptation to Bhuddism banned the eating of meat.     That's what I was challenging. Banning eating meat couldn't have been an adaptation to Buddhism, since Buddhism doesn't ban eating meat (though 'for the purpose of training' it exhorts not to kill l�ving creatures).   And I'm pretty sure the Hindu attitude to it predates Buddhism, as does Jainism.

Originally posted by HaloChanter Before British rule the Punjab was an under-cultivated, dry land. After its annexation it became the granary of the empire.