English is only useful because rest of the world speaks it or atleast understands it, english in itself would have meant feck all if it wasn't internationally popular. btw chinese seem to be doing well without knowing much of english.
Colonialism in the subcontinent thread
- Thread starter crappycraperson
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
English is only useful because rest of the world speaks it or atleast understands it, english in itself would have meant feck all if it wasn't internationally popular. btw chinese seem to be doing well without knowing much of english.
Coincidentally there is a program about the East India Company on BBC2 tonight at 8.00pm. I shall watch it for tips.
I think the Regulator isn't very knowledgeable about colonialism, but was willing to humor him. Now, however, I think this thread will destroy him. Let's give him a chance..
1) Well, after the Mughals Empire collapsed the continent of India got pretty much divided. Nations such as Hyderabad, Mysore, Bengal, Sikh Empire, Durani's, etc etc etc
To say they were amiable to each other is very much at a stretch. There were local conflicts every other day.
2) Divide and conquer. The British civil servants basically pitted the individual princes against each other and then reigned in the control over them.
3) Poor has nothing to do nothing with state monetary resources. Qing China prior to the opium war contributed to over 30% of the world's GDP. But you'd be silly to suggest it was anything other than a poor country.
Err, that's not the point as been reiterated 1000 times. Yes, sure, the colonialists did it for their own interests, but there were many positive byproducts.
What a load of gibberish.
For one no was an entity back then like it is today. was uk a country back then like it is now ?
secondly India's natural border has always been the indus river beyond which it was known as hindustan by the empires of that period even though there may have been separate kingdoms which the culture of the subcontinent was distinct than west asia and south east asia and thus it is a single entity. And India has been ruled by a central administration multiple times before the west stepped in. So feck off with your patronizing tone that uk created the entity known as India, infact you partitioned it along religious lines so that you had a base of operation in pakistan to counter the soviets in west asia and managed to murder more than the nazis whilst here.
Why the need to get personally offended? Christ, if I reacted like this everytime I saw a negative article or piece about China...
Sorry but after the Mughal Empire the Indian subcontinent was about as unified and singular as Germany prior to The Confederation of the Rhine and Bismark.
I'm not arguing behind the intentions of the British, just the actual outcome.
Alright then, so why don't the current Indian government or the ones of yesteryear revert back to the pre-British ones?
And the second statement is absolutely terrible and such a cliche. It's like saying, " You can't credit Britain for railways because if they didn't invent it, someone else will!" "Can't credit Wright brothers for flight because if not them someone else will!"
I'll respond only to the post you made to me.
For context, here is your original post, and I asked questions in that context. Your responses make no sense.
Your original post:
India did not exist as an entity before the western powers came. It was a huge bunch of squabbling warlords each with individual wealth. Oh come on if these subcontinental were not 'poor' (I'm using poor as more than a monetary definition here, ie technology, laws, governing education etc) then they would not have been subjugated by an army of civil servants.
1. You didn't answer the question I asked. Is India any more united? Stating that there were multiple kingdoms doesn't answer that.
2. How does being poor have any relation to being subjugated by a so called "army of civil servants". The two are independent. That statement makes no sense.
3. What is your proof India was 1. Poor 2. Is in a better state now?
So far what I have gathered is you are talking off the top of your head with no facts. Don't bother researching them now - I want to know what made you think this way originally.
Yes thank you for that, I was completely unaware that World war 2 didn't just spontaneously start in 1939 without any historical context!
Right......but those 2 countries were fighting each other. Each other. As far as I'm aware, they didn't mobilise their various colonies as the British did, whether voluntarily or not so voluntarily.
I'm not really sure what relevance that has to do with their actual impact on the war? We're not talking about the moral war here, who was the most benevolent or disgusting power. We're talking about a purely historical analysis, on who did the most to sap the German war effort. And that was the Soviets.
So the mughal empire collapsed and successor kingdoms were formed, they would have fought each other till one of them defeated the others and replaced the mughals. Enlighten me about how there were no wars fought in other parts of the world whenever an empire disintegrated to replace it (before the advent of the modern nation state). Clearly ancient historians like Herodotus,Arrian, Megasthenes, Al Biruini etc were talking out there arse regarding India beginning from 5th century bc since there was nothing known as India till the 18th century ad
Yes there was no education system, no laws, no governing system, no democracy, no infrastructure (cant forget them trains!) it was filled with wild barbarians who were waiting to be civilized . India's world gdp fell from 25% to 1% and the opposite happened with britain so we know who benefited.
Nobody said that. Stop putting words into my mouth.
What is the topic of this proposed new thread ?
I'd suggest, "You're Welcome for the Colonization, Act Grateful".
Right cnutos. I've moved all the off topic stuff into this thread. Have at it.
I just realized it was my reference that started all of this
Hence I am the thread starter too. Love it.
Hence I am the thread starter too. Love it.
We so grateful you for colonising us. We fools before, but now we smart smart.
Seriously though to all of you who justifying imperialism ,you are just as bad as racists in my opinion. Especially with their -'well they were not united as a nation'. Neither were Germany pre 1871, I suppose if Vietnam had set up a colonial empire there and committed atrocities you would have defended Vietnam and said if was ok cause they brought ?
Imperialism is pure greed in it's ugliest form. Yes there were bad practices in the other Nations like the sati (widow burning). But it's hardly like Europe was a bastion of tolerance. Napoleon had some of the most regressive laws for women around the same time. And plenty of Indian reformers fought hard against the sati (Rammohan Roy for instance). That does not justify Imperialism one bit. You talk of development that the foreign powers brought - that negates the millions they slaughtered? Take King Leopold II , a man worse than Hitler , who turned Congo into his personal playground for 30 fecking years. I mean shit got so bad Conan Doyle even wrote a book on it. The atrocities he committed put that whipping scene in 12 years to shame and the Belgians didn't get out of that country till 15 years after the UN was set up. The Congo is still reeling from the after effects of that Nearly every nation that was colonised still has massive inequality to this day. Very few like Singapore (and they are a tiny nation) have turned it around. The recent good fortune some South American nations have had was best summed up by Chomsky - he said the best thing that happened there was Bush forgetting about them.
Meanwhile a British newspaper (the guardian) can still moan about the crime of "the Indian invasion of Goa" (where the Portuguese were finally kicked out) in 2014. The patronising tone people take when they talk about third world nations is nauseating. It will take centuries to repair the damage done to our countries. Just look at South Africa - you think that country was better off with the poisonous Afrikaner legacy and Apartheid? And Imperialism wasn't even that great for your own people who weren't upper class.
As for "the regulator" who says the British provided good things to people , you mean the upper middle class and the rich few at the top. That's a regular statement people make - it was all 'wight cause they got cricket 'n English lit 'n Rail roads innit'. No it's not, what about the farmers in south east who were starved to death because they were forced to grow one type of crop and if that failed they were fecked.
I've seen the letters my great grandfather wrote to his wife. He was a lawyer and a friend of Gandhi who went to jail in the 'quit India movement'. He was tortured, stripped and abused - and he was one of the more respected ones with political clout. I can't even imagine what the other protesters from humble backgrounds went through. I understand Foreign Policy well enough, I studied Political science. But there better ways to go about achieving things.
I'm deeply grateful to the likes of the Irish who helped India gain independence and people like Bertrand Russell, Orwell and Chomsky and co today. I'm sure all we'd be hearing about would be pro establishment propaganda otherwise. For the record I am completely against China's current policy of buying up African farmland and exploiting it, I hope the African Goverments can put up a few legal roadblocks. And for the person who mentioned Japan as a developed nation, well they were imperialists for some time too.
Seriously though to all of you who justifying imperialism ,you are just as bad as racists in my opinion. Especially with their -'well they were not united as a nation'. Neither were Germany pre 1871, I suppose if Vietnam had set up a colonial empire there and committed atrocities you would have defended Vietnam and said if was ok cause they brought ?
Imperialism is pure greed in it's ugliest form. Yes there were bad practices in the other Nations like the sati (widow burning). But it's hardly like Europe was a bastion of tolerance. Napoleon had some of the most regressive laws for women around the same time. And plenty of Indian reformers fought hard against the sati (Rammohan Roy for instance). That does not justify Imperialism one bit. You talk of development that the foreign powers brought - that negates the millions they slaughtered? Take King Leopold II , a man worse than Hitler , who turned Congo into his personal playground for 30 fecking years. I mean shit got so bad Conan Doyle even wrote a book on it. The atrocities he committed put that whipping scene in 12 years to shame and the Belgians didn't get out of that country till 15 years after the UN was set up. The Congo is still reeling from the after effects of that Nearly every nation that was colonised still has massive inequality to this day. Very few like Singapore (and they are a tiny nation) have turned it around. The recent good fortune some South American nations have had was best summed up by Chomsky - he said the best thing that happened there was Bush forgetting about them.
Meanwhile a British newspaper (the guardian) can still moan about the crime of "the Indian invasion of Goa" (where the Portuguese were finally kicked out) in 2014. The patronising tone people take when they talk about third world nations is nauseating. It will take centuries to repair the damage done to our countries. Just look at South Africa - you think that country was better off with the poisonous Afrikaner legacy and Apartheid? And Imperialism wasn't even that great for your own people who weren't upper class.
As for "the regulator" who says the British provided good things to people , you mean the upper middle class and the rich few at the top. That's a regular statement people make - it was all 'wight cause they got cricket 'n English lit 'n Rail roads innit'. No it's not, what about the farmers in south east who were starved to death because they were forced to grow one type of crop and if that failed they were fecked.
I've seen the letters my great grandfather wrote to his wife. He was a lawyer and a friend of Gandhi who went to jail in the 'quit India movement'. He was tortured, stripped and abused - and he was one of the more respected ones with political clout. I can't even imagine what the other protesters from humble backgrounds went through. I understand Foreign Policy well enough, I studied Political science. But there better ways to go about achieving things.
I'm deeply grateful to the likes of the Irish who helped India gain independence and people like Bertrand Russell, Orwell and Chomsky and co today. I'm sure all we'd be hearing about would be pro establishment propaganda otherwise. For the record I am completely against China's current policy of buying up African farmland and exploiting it, I hope the African Goverments can put up a few legal roadblocks. And for the person who mentioned Japan as a developed nation, well they were imperialists for some time too.
Who in this thread has actually justified Imperialism though?
This thread is because the regulator thought colonialism had more benfits than drawbacks in India. He is wrong, and is being called out on it.
To be fair I don't think he ever actually said that.
I did not once, ever, explicitly or implicitly, say that.
Stop putting words into my mouth.
I said, for all the bad things that the British there did, there were positives to take out of it.
I actually can't tell if this is faux outrage or are people genuinely incensed that there is a suggestion that the colonists brought some good with them.
My understanding of initial European colonialism in India and elsewhere isn't that they swanned in and were just so superior to the natives that they crushed them mercilessly underfoot, but instead that they used their well-worn tactic -- perfected over many centuries of European political intrigue -- of playing the local peoples off against each other. Kingdom A helps Britain / France / Spain defeat Kingdom B because Kingdoms A and B have been enemies for five hundred years. And then when Kingdom B is defeated, Kingdom A become willing pawns for the colonial overlords. That, or they're similarly defeated. The colonial powers virtually never faced a united resistance.
What are you disputing there?
Ancient Rome did the same, and I doubt they were the first.
So much moral outrage
Unless we leave our emotional quotient from this thread, we are only going to indulge in mud slinging. To me, it sounds like The Regulator is arguing that while Colonialism was 'indisputably' harmful on the colonized countries, but were there any good that came out of it? I fecking hope so, there are about a million people who could afford education, medicine, improvements in infrastructure etc.
Who knows? If it weren't for the British, I'd still be stitching chappals for my Brahmin overlord who could recite Sanskrit.
Unless we leave our emotional quotient from this thread, we are only going to indulge in mud slinging. To me, it sounds like The Regulator is arguing that while Colonialism was 'indisputably' harmful on the colonized countries, but were there any good that came out of it? I fecking hope so, there are about a million people who could afford education, medicine, improvements in infrastructure etc.
Who knows? If it weren't for the British, I'd still be stitching chappals for my Brahmin overlord who could recite Sanskrit.
This was stated by regulator.
Inference being that without colonial interference, these countries would be worse off.
Oh come on.
Introduction of mechanized industry and collective workforce hugely raising economic output.
Introduction to a proper governing system when there previously was none adding with the benefits of a judical system as well as a system of laws.
Hugely improved infrastructure in most colonies. The British built the largest rail network in India at the time.
Unifying states when previously deemed impossible. Ie the subcontinent.
Giving primitive undeveloped nations access to Western technology and medicine, saving many lives. The British tried to implement sewers in India but ultimately failed due to the whole scope and size.
Schools and leaving behind education systems. You know the best schools in India, Singapore, China etc are all called things like "St Stephens College", "British school of Commerce" etc etc
Entire new markets opened for colonial regions. British textiles, Steel, Furniture etc could be quickly and efficiently distributed to all of its colonies at a undercut price.
You look at the economies of the former British/French colonies that were actually properly governed and a system implemented and they have all flourished. China bases it's whole Economic model on Hong Kong, a former colony of Britain.
India, Singapore, Canada, Australia, China, Japan etc are solely where they are now because, not in spite of, colonial investment.
Someone clearly has no idea what implicitly stated means.
Saving many lives - what a load of coddleswap. It was the British Empire which caused the Bengal famine.http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2031992,00.html - here educate yourself.
As for uniting states, not in India mate -That was Vallabhbhai Patel, an Indian who actually did that. I'm not even going to go into the best educational institutions debate on this thread.
But I see it's no point arguing. Much as I hate to admit it and use that Ogre's name in a discussion, I wish Hitler had taken Britain so we could hear your lot wax lyrical about the goodies he left you like Authobhans, decent Beer, anti tobacco movements and such like.
Moonbat has something to say on the topic. PS: Read the comments, you will find kindred spirits on Cif.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities
I agree that this is a valid debate to be had but @Haddock's post is a very good one. There is a tendency to overlook all the atrocities committed by the British to gain control of India, not to mention their role in worsening the Hindu-Muslim relation in the subcontinent. They practically gave birth to the partition movement by doing the same to Bengal.
Discuss all the good British did in India, all you want but it is important to note the human cost of the same. Human cost which Haddock rightly pointed out was mostly paid by the lower classes. The uppers ones did fine and the worst they had to bear was discrimination based on their skin color.
A lot of consequences of colonial encroachment in India are not even highlighted anymore. I don't have the link now but I read an excellent article about indentured labor from India being transported to other countries and how they were cheated into a exploitative contract. You can also find a few books on how the railways were actually built by British and the conditions of labor during the same. There were several instances where thousands died at once due to poor working conditions.
Not to invoke the Goodwins law but even the Nazis reinvigorated the German economy, but that's not their legacy and rightly so. British Govt has led a systematic campaign to make sure that history forgets all the atrocities committed by them during the imperial era. To be fair to them, it has worked as well.
Really the best thing about British colonialism in India was that they were not as bad as the French or the Belgians.
Discuss all the good British did in India, all you want but it is important to note the human cost of the same. Human cost which Haddock rightly pointed out was mostly paid by the lower classes. The uppers ones did fine and the worst they had to bear was discrimination based on their skin color.
A lot of consequences of colonial encroachment in India are not even highlighted anymore. I don't have the link now but I read an excellent article about indentured labor from India being transported to other countries and how they were cheated into a exploitative contract. You can also find a few books on how the railways were actually built by British and the conditions of labor during the same. There were several instances where thousands died at once due to poor working conditions.
Not to invoke the Goodwins law but even the Nazis reinvigorated the German economy, but that's not their legacy and rightly so. British Govt has led a systematic campaign to make sure that history forgets all the atrocities committed by them during the imperial era. To be fair to them, it has worked as well.
Really the best thing about British colonialism in India was that they were not as bad as the French or the Belgians.
Look I'm not someone to dwell on the past and cry racism at everything. I don't believe ordinary British folk knew what the empire was doing abroad. I don't want to sit and blame Britain for India's problems today even though it has a LOT to do with the current situation, we should remember that but focus on bringing the current ruling kleptocracy to book.
That said I don't get annoyed easily but I hate it when people start about the benefits of the empire. Most of the time I think people making those points feel like they are being attacked personally as though they are being accused of benefiting personally. I know enough to realise that the miner's son from Newcastle got as much out of colonialism as the Indigo farmer's son in rural India.
PS:
If any one is interested ,there was a controversy between Niall Ferguson and Pankaj Mishra sometime back on the subject. Ferguson's book "civilization" with a white man dressed like Mads Mikkelsen from Hannibal on the cover is just begging for attention. It's about how and why the west beat the rest and it's excellent. He highlights what he calls 'killer apps' and makes great points. Unfortunately the tone of the book can get really triumphalist and ultimately most of the criticism focuses on that. Especially when he talks about "work ethic" - like no one apart from westerners ever worked hard or invented anything.
Mishra's book "From the Ruins of Empire" takes a less patronising approach and it's much more readable, largely due to Mishra being a better writer. It's about Asian Intellectuals, sheds light on some little known figures. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Quichao and Rabindranath Tagore (although he's well known and has a Nobel). Mishra also makes great points about the mistakes Asia made and will make in the future. I won't give away too much but they are both worth your time.
@The regulator I am from Calcutta, West Bengal, the same city that was British Indias capital for a century
I will read up on the thread later but seeing as your post was on the first page, I am responding to you
Do you know about the great Bengal famine which claimed approximately 5 million lives and which was ENTIRELY man-made?
Btw I do not think British rule was the Satan's work or something as drastic.
But if you put in the tiniest bit of effort to read up on it's effects on India - you would know that it was the worst thing to happen to the region in the last 300 years
To put it simply, India as it is today geographically would not have existed without the Raj
Unfortunately the major problems that plague India today would also not have existed without British rule
Edit West Bengal being WEST Bengal is also entirely due to the British policy of dividing Bengal and Punjab on artificially created religious fault lines - something that kills people even today
I will read up on the thread later but seeing as your post was on the first page, I am responding to you
Do you know about the great Bengal famine which claimed approximately 5 million lives and which was ENTIRELY man-made?
Btw I do not think British rule was the Satan's work or something as drastic.
But if you put in the tiniest bit of effort to read up on it's effects on India - you would know that it was the worst thing to happen to the region in the last 300 years
To put it simply, India as it is today geographically would not have existed without the Raj
Unfortunately the major problems that plague India today would also not have existed without British rule
Edit West Bengal being WEST Bengal is also entirely due to the British policy of dividing Bengal and Punjab on artificially created religious fault lines - something that kills people even today
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British India also fundamentally differs from something like British Hong Kong for example, which you do not recognise when clubbing India together with the other countries
India was hugely rich and provided significant amount of resources to the East India company, and the EIC and later the Crown drained off these resources putting an enormous strain on the region in every way (pre and post independence)
Places like HK were built from the ground up by the British and they pumped IN resources there
Massive difference - there was a reason why India was the Crown Jewel of the Empire - because it was the richest
You talk about Indian Railways but conveniently forget it was in response to the 1857 mutiny and only to facilitate faster movement of troops and raw materials from the hinterlands to the ports
You talk about education and law and ignore the class divide of White vs Brown where the natives remained second class citizens and that natives and dogs were treated with equal contempt
You ignore the fact that over 200 years the EIC/Crown drained India's exchequer to such an extent that post independence India was nearly bankrupt
You forget that plans for India's partition were drawn up in a MONTH and till today border disputes plague the subcontinent because of this. There are villages in the East and West of India with borders running through the middle of a house
You forget major riots and famines created in India that killed a population equivalent in numbers to England
You do not know that the one lasting legacy of the British rule has been to fan religious acrimony that has continued to dominate the subcontinent's geopolitics for 60 years and will claim lives in the future too
Yes the British built modern cities, yes the British gave birth to the idea of India
But no we did not become as industrialized as Britain (we remained a source of raw materials), no there was no universal health care or education, no the caste divisions were not removed in 200 years, no Hindu Muslims no longer coexisted like they did earlier, no wealth did not trickle down, no natives did not have basic rights, no the British would not agree to greater autonomy, no the Empire would not have left if they were not bankrupt after the war
The cons outweigh the pros
India was hugely rich and provided significant amount of resources to the East India company, and the EIC and later the Crown drained off these resources putting an enormous strain on the region in every way (pre and post independence)
Places like HK were built from the ground up by the British and they pumped IN resources there
Massive difference - there was a reason why India was the Crown Jewel of the Empire - because it was the richest
You talk about Indian Railways but conveniently forget it was in response to the 1857 mutiny and only to facilitate faster movement of troops and raw materials from the hinterlands to the ports
You talk about education and law and ignore the class divide of White vs Brown where the natives remained second class citizens and that natives and dogs were treated with equal contempt
You ignore the fact that over 200 years the EIC/Crown drained India's exchequer to such an extent that post independence India was nearly bankrupt
You forget that plans for India's partition were drawn up in a MONTH and till today border disputes plague the subcontinent because of this. There are villages in the East and West of India with borders running through the middle of a house
You forget major riots and famines created in India that killed a population equivalent in numbers to England
You do not know that the one lasting legacy of the British rule has been to fan religious acrimony that has continued to dominate the subcontinent's geopolitics for 60 years and will claim lives in the future too
Yes the British built modern cities, yes the British gave birth to the idea of India
But no we did not become as industrialized as Britain (we remained a source of raw materials), no there was no universal health care or education, no the caste divisions were not removed in 200 years, no Hindu Muslims no longer coexisted like they did earlier, no wealth did not trickle down, no natives did not have basic rights, no the British would not agree to greater autonomy, no the Empire would not have left if they were not bankrupt after the war
The cons outweigh the pros
All that said, I love how the British built Calcutta from a fishing village to the second City of the Empire, and I still get amazed when visiting the old parts of the city or reading up on it
For example Lord Canning's failed experiment in building a river port at Canning is fascinating
I just wish Indian history from the 1890s-1947 was better managed - so many lives lost, so many opportunities wasted
Anyway, am done with this thread
For example Lord Canning's failed experiment in building a river port at Canning is fascinating
I just wish Indian history from the 1890s-1947 was better managed - so many lives lost, so many opportunities wasted
Anyway, am done with this thread
What's so great about Union of India anyway? Would Indian sub-continent be really worse off if we were a collection of small countries like Europe instead?
You can not be sure either way. There is a good chance we would have a similar union like Europe and some countries would be more liberal than others while some could be as backwards as Saudi Arabia. There would have been some regional conflicts but doubt anyone as big as Indo-Pak.
You can not be sure either way. There is a good chance we would have a similar union like Europe and some countries would be more liberal than others while some could be as backwards as Saudi Arabia. There would have been some regional conflicts but doubt anyone as big as Indo-Pak.
Seriouly?
The sheer amount of social, political and moral subjugation is no comaprison the the 'good' that they did. Even the 'development' was not to improve the locals, but a better way to strip the economic resources.
Or one kingdom would have conquered the others, maraths and sikhs were on the rise with the latter ruling till afghanistan. Or it would be different kingdoms but we wouldn't be at war now as it was in those times. But what im sure of is that economically the people would have been better off. Anyone who thinks India wouldn't have trains right now in India if not for the british is retared, the native kingdoms would have imported them. During independence the british claimed that India would break apart soon afterwards so clearly the union is because of the people of India.
I'm on a line waiting to get inside a club. I'm bored. I know much more about Colonialism and it's impact/legacy in Africa than in India.
Prior to the mid 1800s, European powers interacted with African peoples at the coast. The slave trade that prospered for 300 years prior, decimated the continent. Wars were fought inland just to source captives for the slave ships. The wars splintered otherwise stable kingdoms and created tensions Europeans would exploit years later. To their credit, the British outlawed the slave trade and enforced this. Ironically this made matters worse, as African tribes that enslaved rival nations collapsed internally after profits dried up.
With this turmoil, Africa was divided amongst the European powers at the Berlin Conference. Arbitrary lines were drawn with no respect for natural borders set by indigenous peoples. Vaccines for malaria, and the Maxim gun allowed Europeans to penetrate the interior. The British used relatively few of it's soldiers to conquer it's given territory; a favorite method was to equip a tribe with guns, and use them to conquer other tribes, with minimal supervision needed. By 1900 the entire continent, bar Liberia and Ethiopia was under European rule.
OK I'm inside this club. More on this later
Prior to the mid 1800s, European powers interacted with African peoples at the coast. The slave trade that prospered for 300 years prior, decimated the continent. Wars were fought inland just to source captives for the slave ships. The wars splintered otherwise stable kingdoms and created tensions Europeans would exploit years later. To their credit, the British outlawed the slave trade and enforced this. Ironically this made matters worse, as African tribes that enslaved rival nations collapsed internally after profits dried up.
With this turmoil, Africa was divided amongst the European powers at the Berlin Conference. Arbitrary lines were drawn with no respect for natural borders set by indigenous peoples. Vaccines for malaria, and the Maxim gun allowed Europeans to penetrate the interior. The British used relatively few of it's soldiers to conquer it's given territory; a favorite method was to equip a tribe with guns, and use them to conquer other tribes, with minimal supervision needed. By 1900 the entire continent, bar Liberia and Ethiopia was under European rule.
OK I'm inside this club. More on this later
Your indian friend is a retard then.
The negatives far outweighes the positives, there's no comparison. The British Raj wasn't that worse than the Nazis and Churchill(atleast when you look from India's POV) wasn't a lesser cnut than Hitler.
I reckon kids these days see India as being where it is due to British influence. Couldn't be further from the truth.
It's revisionism at it's finest. Kinda ironic that the British People who despise Hitler treat Churchill as their hero but who cares about millions of deaths in other country as long as that the person leads a country well in the world war.
You really are friends with morons then and that is hampering your thought process too.
Even if putting emotional aspect aside, Britain was rich handsome, arrogant and India poor village girl? Feck off. India was the richest country in the world before British invasion and British looted it. The age old problem of Indians fighting among themselves provided British opportunity to take control step by step otherwise they would have found it hell lot tougher to fight Indians had we been united across country.
....and using rape as analogy? Really sick. Especially the bolded part.
They don't want to be held accountable, so they spin a revision story, and the brilliant Indian government lets them.