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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The British in India
    Posted: 27-Feb-2008 at 23:17
The anti-British sentiments here border on pathology.  Some people in India condemning Britain for things that have contributed to their success, and blaming the British for much of what has made that success possible.
 
I am impressed with HaloChanter's last post.
 
 
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  Quote ruffian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Feb-2008 at 05:34
Originally posted by HaloChanter

The thing that bugs me most about this thread, is the use of "Indian".
 
You may refer to this from the Congressional movements of the 1880's onwards, but to unify the sub-continent under the British, particularly the Company, as 'India' or 'Indians' is far too simplistic to make any kind of moral judgements (if you really have to, I personally think its a waste of time).
 
British rule was so successful in the sub-continent as it was so ethnically, culturally and religiously divided. After the break-down of Mogul authority India was far too factional to resemble a unified entity. Under the British it was kept predominantly that way. Indeed, as John Malcolm pointed out, Company policy was to retain Princely states as a tool for authority and continuity. There could be no 'India' while it remained a fractured and seperated entity.

Not quite. This "fractured" notion is a creation of british. India was one entity with a common culture, religion and political ethos from kashmir to kanykumari and  afghanistan to  bangladesh. If british had not come, mughals were already puppets in the hands of marathas and princely states of rajasthan. India would have gone back to various monarchies ruled by different clans but would have politically behaved as a single entity.


 


So Wilson Hanter has succesfully argued that india under various princes was a politically conherent entity. And had British not arrived would have continued to be one.

Originally posted by HaloChanter


So to say "Britain was mean to Indians because so and so, and Britain did this to India so its bad, etc etc" is really far too general and discriminative.
 
British policy in the Indian states, for example, was far from 'careless about Indian beliefs'.  Ritual, display and ceremony were upheld and respected in the majority of cases. Residency kitchens, for example, were kept stiffly along religious and cultural caste lines. As were military cantonments and regimental camps in the field. As well as messes in British Presidencies.

Yes  but we have to figure out why this was done. Brits understood two things :
a) Not hurt religious sentiments of the majority in India, as in breakeing temples and converting people (as was done by sultanate and mughals consequent of which mughals were *always* treated as foreign invaders by locals in India)
b) They realised indians fought well when organised on caste lines. So a sikh army would not do well if led by a dogra general and vice versa. This caused being sensitive to these groups in terms of eating habit etc.

So vested interest at work.

Originally posted by HaloChanter


The causes of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 were not directly the result of disrespect for Indian religions or customs, but more the perceived threat to those factors. There was never a strong Christian missionary force at work, there was no great plan to introduce forced use of pig or cow fat in the cartridges of guns, and the enforcement of certain anti-religious or caste regulations in the military were quickly repealed.

No. The primary reason for 1857 revolt was economic exploitation by the british.  Indian kings  in bad monsoon or draught would act humanely and not collect taxes or reduce the rate. But british collectors on the other hand were not sensitive to failure of crops. Secondly brits tried to re-organize the land holdings which caused further  resntment in the landed class.  Rebellion actually started in present Madhya Pradesh in 1830's and was the pre-cursor of 1857. Reasons were purely economic.

Originally posted by HaloChanter


Furthermore, the accusation that Britons were brutal is so general and unsupportable as to be laughable. Remember, at any one point in the British Raj there were very few Britons at all. In a population of some hundred millions, there were only ever about 150,000-200,000 British souls in the sub-continent, half of those soldiers. If you mean brutality in war, the British were benign in comparison to the Marathas, the Pathans, the Moguls, or Mysore. Outrages committed by the military of a power is a universal phenomenon, and you must remember in the case of Britisih power in India, it was predominantly composed of Indians.

Economic exploitation of India and large scale uprooting of indigenous business to augment the industries of England was done very brutally. In Bengal alone because of this millions died. Only crops which industries in england needed were allowed to be sold. This led to aritificially created oversupply which resulted in cheap prices for the brits of such crops e.g. indigo in bengal and local population could not even get two square meals! (because if the farmer sowed anything else brit collectors would not allow that produce to be sold). So it was subtle but very devastating.

Originally posted by HaloChanter


In the cases of industrialisation or general economic trends, indeed during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century there was a trend to enrich Britain over India. Indeed that is the pattern of every earthly empire in history. The reason it flowed out of India, however, is because the central authority of the British empire did not reside in India, but in Britain. However, from the mid-nineteenth century onward a vast amount of investment, unknown before in the history of the subcontinent, poured in through the medium of canals, irrigation, roads, bridges, telegraphs, tanks, schools, civic institutions, medicine and communication. Before British rule the Punjab was an under-cultivated, dry land. After its annexation it became the granary of the empire.

Nope. Irrigation canals were being built in India hundreds of years before Brits first stepped in India. And there is no reason to believe that if India remained in the hands of Indians Industrialization would not have taken place. What you are saying seems to be an apologists view.
 
Originally posted by HaloChanter


Anyway, I promised myself I would not get dragged in to this kind of argument. But to assume one action offended all Indians under British rule is to assume a uniform, common Indian society. What the banning of Sutti meant in Awadh is not the same as it meant in Nagpur. What the Mutiny of 1857 meant in the Delhi territories is not the same as what it meant in the Punjab.

Well you can guess the dichotomy by the fact that Indians call 1857 first war of independence whether in Punjab or Nagpur while Brits call it Sepoy revolt.

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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 06:29
Originally posted by pikeshot1600

The anti-British sentiments here border on pathology.  Some people in India condemning Britain for things that have contributed to their success, and blaming the British for much of what has made that success possible.
 
I am impressed with HaloChanter's last 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.
 
And before you criticize or "repudiate" understand that the general idea and general trend is the Indians were better off without the British. Turkey industrialized, China industrialized in 20 years, so when you mention in in Washington, all the Senators tinkle in their pants. Japan industrialized, Thailand, Ethiopia, Iran, you name it.
 
The only thing, and this is the only thing, the British gave India (that they never meant to) that India could not have achieved with its own hands is Hinduist Nationalism. Because the idea of nationalism sprang from Western Europe, and was set into the minds of the elite.
 
Hinduistic Nationalism because of British treatment to the Hindus. The British left India because they couldnt maintain Bharat from Pakistan to Myanmar, anymore.


Edited by Mughaal - 01-Mar-2008 at 06:34
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 07:13
Britain united India, ironically India united due to Britain, for the sake of fighting Britain.
 
Without the British, India wouldnt be united as it is today.
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  Quote bilal_ali_2000 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 07:36
Originally posted by HaloChanter

The thing that bugs me most about this thread, is the use of "Indian".
 
 
         Ok when we were discussing Alexander's invasion into the Punjab, the westerners were "bugged" by the use of the word Pakistan rather than India, and now when the word India is used as opposed to Pakistan or Gujrat it "bugs" westerners. The way a westerner's mind works only a westerner can understand. 
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  Quote bilal_ali_2000 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 07:42
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.
 
 
           Even with being an "under cultivated" "dry land" it was probably among the 5 richest lands in the world, at all times through out its history.
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  Quote bilal_ali_2000 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 08:00
Originally posted by Omar al HashimThat's just wrong basically. The buddhist population converted to islam. Haven't you noticed that the areas with large buddhist populations now have large muslim ones? [/QUOTE

 
              I am pretty sure that most of Punjab at the time of Muhammad Bin Qasim was&nbs
 
              I am pretty sure that most of Punjab at the time of Muhammad Bin Qasim was  Hindu. Sindh may have had a large Bhuddist population and Kashmir was pre-dominentely Bhuddist.
 
           Most people think that by the time of arrival of Islam here Bhuddist was on its way out, Islam may only have hastened its demise i.e Bhuddist who were about to adopt Hindusim adopted Islam instead.
 
            However south east asia is predominently Bhuddist, despite the fact that Islam went as far as Indonesia.
 
          So there you can never generalize.
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  Quote bilal_ali_2000 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2008 at 08:25
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 lving creatures).
 
And I'm pretty sure the Hindu attitude to it predates Buddhism, as does Jainism.
 
 

I am pretty sure that pre-Bhuddism meat eating was allowed in Hinduism. Animal sacrifice was practiced in Hinduism and i am pretty sure that the meat of the sacrificed animal was eaten. And although i am not sure but i think that in Rig veda the meat of the horse after it was sacrificed was eaten. The people of this region domesticated the pea fowl, why would they do that if thye did not eat meat (egg is a non-vegetarain food). Megasenethes in his Indika talks about an animal which the subcontinentals hunted for its hide and then after its skiining they would discard the coprse. Megasnethes said that thye didn't eat the meat of that particular animal but they did eat the meat of some other certain animals.

And about Bhuddism not banning the eating of meat because it was banned in Hinduism. Well it is quite unlike Bhuddism, it is not a completely reactionary repsonse to Hinduism, in fact it incorporates much philosphies from Hinduism like yogism is the basis of mediation in Bhuddism, Bhuddism argues within the cycle of birth and rebirth and so on.

And recently i was reading an article by an Indian in which he was criticizing an Indian film for appealing to modenr sensibilities by having the Rajputs all eat vegeterain dishes when at the time they savoured many meat dishes.

So there you ahev it not eating meat seem to have been orignally a voluntary act like sati and then only later became a compulsion.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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  Quote HaloChanter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Apr-2008 at 19:21
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.
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  Quote ruffian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Apr-2008 at 05:14
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.


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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 06:29
Halo Chanter,

Yes, it had to do with industrialization, however keep in mind the British ruled India. Why were they negligent in bringing industrialization to India?

The motive may have been pure economics (that they needed India as a breadbasket and not as a industrial powerhouse) so they kept it such. However, even this motive has repercussions. Im sure you agree.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 06:42
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.
 
And we all know what happened in 1914.
 
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 06:58
What happened in 1914?
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  Quote eventhorizon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Aug-2008 at 06:33
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.
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  Quote MarcoPolo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Sep-2008 at 00:02
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!
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  Quote eventhorizon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Sep-2008 at 02:04
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!
 
As if India could not do any of the above without the British, this is the first time I have heard that a colonizer and mercantilist imperial power that sucked a country dry and destroyed its social fabric was good for the country. In 1700 Mughal Hindustan's GDP was 25% of worlds GDP and in 1913 British India's GDP was 7.6% of world GDP.
 
 
Once India lost its sovereignty, it could no longer take measures to industrialize and compete in the world market, local industries were not encouraged, instead it was made into a raw material source and a market for mainly British and other European industrial goods.
 
I am curious to know what you think of Ghaffar Khan and his movement.


Edited by eventhorizon - 05-Sep-2008 at 02:09
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  Quote Chintaram Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Sep-2008 at 15:53
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...........
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  Quote eventhorizon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Sep-2008 at 21:42
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.
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  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Oct-2008 at 13:36
I heard that in the 1600s and the 1700s, during the early phases of the colonization, the British actually extensively intermarried with the Indians, and many British merchants of the East India company even adopted Indian customs.
 
By the 1800s, much of the mixing seem to have stopped, with the White British colonists living as a separate caste to the locals, who were also divided among castes and religions.
 
When and why did this separation take place?
Were the mix-blooded descendants of the early British colonists in Indian perceived as more "native" or more "British"?
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Nov-2008 at 10:06
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
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