Thread 17900742

What's your take on the way Brits treated India? Is it commonly acknowledged that they sacked and plundered most of India's riches, destroyed their industry and farming structures? Because I see some relevant youtube figures still banging on about "The White Man's Burden", how the empire civilized backward cultures, brought them technology and all that.
Almost the same could be said about british influence in China, they basically got a whole nation hooked on opium and sacked their riches.

Any books on these processes?

>>17900742 (OP)
India didn’t exist prior to British rule. You could say the Mughal Empire was indeed wealthy and industrious but from a genetic and cultural view it was not a shitjeet empire nor were they limited only to India and encompassed most of the subcontinent and parts of modern-day Afghanistan as well. But they had pretty much collapsed by the time Brits had established a foothold in India so jeets had already reverted to their state of a dozen warring kingdoms.

"India" was not a "nation" when Britain first formed contact with the subcontinent. Much of what is now India was ruled by a Muslim empire, but that empire stretched from what is now Bangladesh to what is now Pakistan. Britain's presence on the continent was kept small the by existence of this powerful empire, and it was only when the emperor died and the entire subcontinent descended into bloody civil war that Britain was able to expand its influence. For the record, Britain had no hand in the emperor's death nor fomenting civil war, the whole empire was a powder keg waiting to go up. Britain first saw to securing its own assets, then expanded its control gradually, bringing peace and order to the regions it added to its domain. Initially they encountered bitter resistance from local warlords fighting for power but as the civil war continued the local population saw the imposed peace of the foreign British as preferable to the petty violence of the warlords.

>what westerners say colonization is

>what it actually is

>>17900839
>India didn’t exist prior to British rule.
>>17900872
>"India" was not a "nation" when Britain first formed contact with the subcontinent.

Yeah, so what? I'm trying to argue facts here, not semantics. Did they sack and plunder the riches of the people living there, taxing them out of their own lands, destroying their industries (shipyards and textile industries) to benefit their own? Or did they genuinely try to improve their living conditions?

>>17900986
You can't sack someone who invited you.

britain is overrated
its rule was little different from the series of steppe empires that conquered and ruled the north for 1500s years if not more.
only real difference is it conquered the south too

>>17900986
Britain didn't just show up with armies and march over the subcontinent. Britain set up trading posts in the 1600s, and due to political instability on the subcontinent (there were three different major empires warring for control over it at the time: the Mughals, the Marathas, and the Vijayanagara) they had to fortify these trading posts which brought them into conflict with local magnates and princes. They also had to contend with other European powers, because Britain was not the only or even the first European power to set up shop in India. Their major rivals at first were the Dutch and the Portuguese, but eventually France became their arch nemesis in India.

At one point the East India Company won a war against the Mughal governor of Bengal, and the response from the Mughal Emperor was to simply appoint the Company as his tax collector and administrator of the province of Bengal. This was in the mid 1700s, by this point the Company had been a presence in the Mughal Empire for like 150 years. They were a long-standing institution in the eyes of the Indian people there, and had had so many conflicts with the local administration in Bengal that the emperors tired of mediating those disputes and dealing with the headache, so simply allowed the Company unimpeded activity there. This gave the EIC precedence as a legitimate authority in the Mughal Empire that would give it a lot of credibility when the Empire eventually dissolved and the ensuing civil wars saw India descend into chaos. The EIC would expand its influence and consolidate holdings, but its presence was often welcomed by people as a peacemaker and familiar, long-standing institution from back when the country was (relatively) more peaceful.

>>17900742 (OP)
>destroyed their industry
What industry? They had no modern industry.
farming structures
Not sure about that, what do you mean specifically?

As far as China tho, yeah, opium trade was certainly bad, but they also traded in other things.

India got a lot more modernized because of Britain and the industrial change that the Earl of Dalhousie brought in. I'm not defending them, I'm just saying they modernized the place, grew both the economy and the population, and built roads and hospitals. I'm aware that the British colonization of India caused famine, slavery, and overall a lot of deaths as well.

>>17902781
Britain experimented with planned economy in India and it ended the same way planned economies usually do (famine).

>>17900742 (OP)
>India is an invention of Britain
>The area currently known as India (post British management) was an economic black hole for centuries before Britain's arrival
>Indian nationalists, and those using them as sources, are not credible sources for research into Indian history - they're on the same level as Yakub/Wakanda obsessed black nationalists, and 'muh Hyperborean Aryan Wizard Supermen' white nationalists.
Come back when you can understand the above OP.

>>17903228
>an economic black hole for centuries before Britain's arrival
Before the british arrived, India's GDP was 25% of the whole world, more than all of Europe combined. Why do you think the silk road was a thing? Because the West wanted the riches of India and China.

>Estimates of Indian GDP are constructed from the output side for 1600–1871, and combined with population data. Indian per capita GDP declined steadily during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before stabilising during the nineteenth century. As British growth increased from the mid-seventeenth century, India fell increasingly behind. Whereas in 1600, Indian per capita GDP was over 60% of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15%. These estimates place the origins of the Great Divergence firmly in the early modern period, but also suggest a relatively prosperous India at the height of the Mughal Empire. They also suggest a period of “strong” deindustrialisation during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, with a small decline of industrial output rather than just a declining share of industry in economic activity.

source: https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/publication/571419/ora-hyrax

>>17902781
>British colonization of India caused famine, slavery, and overall a lot of deaths as well
India's population doubled under British rule
Famines were a consequence of modern medicine allowing the population growth to outpace the agricultural developments they accompanied.

>>17900882
So what riches did Britian grab from Yemen? Kenya?

>>17900742 (OP)
Not quite how I'd describe it, but I'd say their policy in India did have that effect, yes.
With China, they didn't rule it, but they did take the chance to pummel a nearly-dead government, indebt it to them, then revive it so it could serve their interests.
And yes, they knowingly did so by opposing the Christian-run faction that wanted to modernize China, so make of that what you will.
>>17900839
>But they had pretty much collapsed by the time Brits had established a foothold in India
They only collapsed during the British conquest of India, long after they set up their tax farming operation in Bengal.

>>17903623
>Kenya?
Effectively nothing. I know you want to make a point with that, but it actually underscores what the other anon was saying: European powers weren't able (or willing) to build their colonies up from scratch.
The story of African colonization is always funny because Europeans went in, expecting to turn the continent over with modern systems, believing Africans were just too dumb to run anything, only to find that the African continent is mostly barren because of its climates, and that they'd need oceans of investment funds (which they spent, hoping to take whatever was already there) to make it even half as useful as they'd predicted.
Kenya's best soil is all either too arid or too acidic to utilize; taking any of the fertile land meant pushing much of the population into swamps, which soon resulted in rebellion. Had British expectations and budgets been tempered, they could've instead identified and developed marginal lands for white and indian use, but in the absence of moderation, they sought immediate returns from an area that could provide little for even the population it already hosted.
That, before the elites could be properly integrated into the empire.
The result was a joke of a colony, where the world's premier power fought cattle herders (in the most crude fashion) for a small patch of farmland in the middle of nowhere, conceding after 8 years, having gained nothing from the venture.

>>17903379
>India's GDP was 25% of the whole world, more than all of Europe combined
Oh yes Sah! If you're happy to pick and choose your stats to desperately try to misrepresent things then I'm sure you could make a claim like that - probably best to use less retardedly huge numbers when you do though.
>1600
So at the point where Europe was still recovering from multiple centuries of Islamic invasion, and several centuries of wars between different factions of Christianity (and the associated political factions). If you artificially rig the data by measuring from a low point you can prove anything you want!

>that link
>fails to mention the Indian author and researchers who worked on the paper
You just can't stop the lies of omission, can you? At this point I think it might actually be a medical problem you're suffering from rather than just the usual dishonesty you see from unhappy ideologues.

>>17903996
>So at the point where Europe was still recovering from multiple centuries of Islamic invasion
What do you want him to do, call from the early proto-industrial period?
What point do you think that would even make? Using balanced resource production and extraction systems, you can make a more sensible comparison. And yes, India was recovering from invasions and internal wars also. Everyone had things to deal with during that time.
Europe wasn't uniquely impaired. It would actually be boosted by the economy of the Americas and their connections abroad, so the best time to choose would be 1500 AD, before the price revolution, but after the Reconquista, unless you want Moorish blood tainting your perfectly-fair-economic-data-points.

Europe didn't have as large a population as India during this time. The soil is harder to work, they didn't use seed drills, and they had a winter season to contend with.
Even in the 18th century, Bengal would obviously dwarf any European counterpart (going by land area) just because it's high quality real estate. The Indus river valley is naturally fertile. Get over it.

>>17900742 (OP)
They didn't sack India at all, the only reason there are over a billion poos today is the tech and infrastructure Britain generously gave them. We should have genocided them, the planet would be a better place without those curry reeking rape rats on it.

>>17904016
Please learn the history of the area in question before commenting.
Your post is trash. Here's your (You).

>>17904010
So how did India lose, and to a single European company (not even a coalition of these dirt poor barbarian nations from the eternally destitute north)?

>>17900742 (OP)
It is a little more nuanced than the white man's burden and the civilizing mission versus India being Wakanda until the British stole $45 trillion. It is in fact a highly complex topic spanning changes in warfare, economics and technology through the 18th, 19th and 20th century, social change, geography and I'm sure a myriad of other things I have not considered. India itself was a huge country even by modern standards. Ideologues however don't care about any of this and are quick to reduce it to a handful of memes they feel prove their point.

For example the East India Company cutting off workers' thumbs and tariffs on cotton, a common meme claiming Britain "deindustrialized" India. It is debatable if the thumb cutting even occurred, the British were certainly capable of it, but if true it was never on a scale to cripple India's cotton industry. The tariffs were in response to the EIC bringing cotton calicos to Britain in the first place, which contradicts the idea it was a detriment to Indian cotton shifting manufacturing to Britain, the Indian economy never depended on selling cotton to Europe specifically, if you understand economics you can see how absurd this is yet people believe it. Likewise you have people citing widow burning and thugees as examples of Indian backwardness, yet these 2 were limited in scope and not representative of the whole, again it is truly absurd if you take the time to develop your background knowledge.

I find it fascinating, but alas it is highly politicized so we don't get clear answers from historians or on reddit or anywhere. We just have to sort of take everything with a pinch of salt.

>>17904028
>So how did India lose
Read the thread. The EIC established itself as a legitimate arm of the Mughal government before their collapse began, allowing them to connect with other institutions within the empire to reassemble it when it fell, counting on the conflict between the Mughals and Marathas to burn both sides out as the minor states removed themselves from the fight.
They essentially allied with Indian government figures to make a Nominally-British-but-mostly-Indian compromise state that could benefit both parties at once and take advantage of the growing power vacuum.
Once they snuffed out the Mughals, Marathas, and Punjabs, they were just the only ones left.
That's when the alliance broke.
Indians mutinied and Britain took over the whole thing, only to find they couldn't administrate it or break even on the costs, so it slowly bled them out until WW2 brought them to their limit and they let the empire break up.

>>17904050
>The tariffs were in response to the EIC bringing cotton calicos to Britain in the first place, which contradicts the idea it was a detriment to Indian cotton shifting manufacturing to Britain
That resulted in Indian cotton processors and weavers being put out of business. Prohibitive export tariffs actually do have the effect of de-industrializing countries, and that's exactly what that policy would've done, had India (really Bengal) been in the process of industrialization.
Since it wasn't, it didn't have that effect, but their trade and monetary policy was designed to let British merchants and bankers buy up Indian land and property, and there was a fair amount of looting involved in the process of conquest, even if it was a byproduct of the entire peninsula being at war with itself and mercenary warfare being the order of the day.

>>17904063
Do you think that if you repeat the Indian Nationalist line hard enough reality will reshape itself to suit your bias?

>>17904070
Indian nationalists would play up their suffering and either deny any Indian involvement in the consolidation of the EIC or blame the whole thing on Bangladesh.
Granted, almost every part of this is Bangladesh's fault to begin with, but no.
The simple truth is this: Brits played a good game. They understood the rules and made things work in their favor.

>>17904063
>they couldn't administrate it or break even on the costs
I find this very dubious. The EIC and the British crown later on only had at best 10k british agents there, and they hardly build any infrastructure. Some railways, no hospitals, no universities (which is why all the indians wanted to go study in Britain), no religious temples.

Compare that to the spanish rule in Latin America: the spanish build monumental cathedrals, hospitals, universities. There's a hospital and university still functioning to this day in Mexico, founded in the 1540s.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_de_Jes%C3%BAs_Nazareno
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_and_Pontifical_University_of_Mexico

>>17900742 (OP)

Timmy doesn't know what's coming to him. Anglo-Saxon women are perfect breeding sows for BIG INDIAN COCK.

>>17904085
The reason they couldn't break even was because they had to maintain a functional policing arm and couldn't loot the territories they now controlled, but also couldn't nationalize its resources or extract full value from it.
It became a burden on the state that only private interests could adequately exploit, and many of those interests were Indian. In defeating their former co-conspirators, they'd left themselves with the unmitigated burden and responsibility of having to rule a completely foreign country.
They'd essentially created a (de facto) self-ruling unit that nominally paid tribute to the British crown. The moment corporate actors no longer had to foot the bill for the empire, its days were numbered. Every attempt at expansion outside India was designed to let them leverage the Indian economy to achieve growth elsewhere for the sake or economic expansion, but it didn't solve their premier issue.

>>17904087
That doesn't sound very Christian of you.

Indians voted for british rule

Timmy doesn't know what's coming to him. Anglo-Saxon women are perfect breeding sows for BIG INDIAN COCK.

Lol. Everyone knows Indian men have the smallest dick sizes per capita compared to say, the Scots.

>>17904105
some of them would still be happy to see it come back

>>17904068
>That resulted in Indian cotton processors and weavers being put out of business.
And how many went out of business? Was this really some cataclysmic event that crippled Indian industry? India produced a large amount of calicos to begin with, the EIC began buying calicos to sell in Britain, then bought less calicos due to the tariff.

It is like selling 100 cars a year, selling 150 years the next year then selling 110 cars the next.

>trade and monetary policy was designed to let British merchants and bankers buy up Indian land and property
Of course British policy favored Britain and the wealthy who influenced politics, but then who is debating this? There is little real analysis, sources will say something like "Britain hired zamindars to collect taxes and rents who extorted small farmers driving them into debt and poverty, isn't that just awful", but then the Mughals, Marathas and pretty much all rulers in India since time immemorial were effectively a protection racket, it doesn't really explained what changed.

The only history is this "handful of memes" which teaches us little about India. However noble your agenda you are not doing it a service like this.

>>17904114
Lmao took the trip off

>>17900742 (OP)
>commonly acknowledged
hivan moment

>>17904142
>And how many went out of business? Was this really some cataclysmic event that crippled Indian industry?
It's hard to say, because this came right at the same time as a major famine, resulting from misapplication of a Mughal land assessment policy. In trying to direct cultivators to produce only the highest-grossing crops, they left little viable land for food production, and many died.
>It is like selling 100 cars a year, selling 150 years the next year then selling 110 cars the next.
As I understand it, the East India Company sold to British merchants, who then exported to other parts of Europe and the Americas, meaning the tariff applied to every part of the EIC's trade with Non-Asians.
>Of course British policy favored Britain and the wealthy who influenced politics, but then who is debating this?
I'm not saying this to jerk tears. The point I'm making is that it wasn't some investment in India production capability or prosperity. They sought to capture large parts of an existing economy and extract what they could from it, not grow it.
>The only history is this "handful of memes" which teaches us little about India. However noble your agenda you are not doing it a service like this.
I have no idea what agenda you think I'm pushing here.