Comparing the Bengal famine and the partition to the Holocaust. Just no. Hitler intentionally and directly killed millions, with vengeful purpose. That was not the case with the famine/partition. Those tragedies occured due to misinformation, poor administration, poor planning and tragic human error, not intentionally out of hatred.
Colonialism in the subcontinent thread
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Oh well that is alright then! A few million died but as long as it was only due to poor administration and planning (some of the things the British were apparently supposed to be giving to us savages across the world), we shouldn't be all that upset.
I'd need to have a more in depth look but I'm pretty sure some historians argue that the famine was down to more to just a little bit more than 'poor administration' , especially with Churchill in power. Perhaps some of the Indians on the board could provide some more insight into this.
About the best thing we can say about the British for many of their colonies is that they weren't the French or especially the Belgians.
Unless you're Australia, NZ, US or Canada, in which case you now have an incredibly robust economy after knocking out the majority of the natives and literally colonising the space left behind. That is pretty good I guess.
The rape analogy is one of the silliest and stupidest things I've ever read. In one sentence, encompasses many of the original colonisers' attitudes at the time.
I'd need to have a more in depth look but I'm pretty sure some historians argue that the famine was down to more to just a little bit more than 'poor administration' , especially with Churchill in power. Perhaps some of the Indians on the board could provide some more insight into this.
About the best thing we can say about the British for many of their colonies is that they weren't the French or especially the Belgians.
Unless you're Australia, NZ, US or Canada, in which case you now have an incredibly robust economy after knocking out the majority of the natives and literally colonising the space left behind. That is pretty good I guess.
The rape analogy is one of the silliest and stupidest things I've ever read. In one sentence, encompasses many of the original colonisers' attitudes at the time.
We should absolutely be upset. And the British government should have publicly apologised. No question. But that doesn't make it the same as the planned murder of an entire race and those deemed genetically inferior, like the disabled, gay people, etc. They are not similar at all.
We should be absolutely upset at the British for... colonialism? That's taking things a bit far, I'm sure that before the evil Europeans came, the peoples of Asia and Africa weren't sitting around fireplaces singing Kumbaya... there was strife, war, and a struggle for natural resources, peoples, land... The British were just very efficient at conquering lands due to their world class navy at the time.
Of course there are several incidents that happened during British rule in India and elsewhere (Armitrar massacre, punitive expeditions in Africa) that they deserve censure for.
Upset at the British government for their terrible handing of the situation in Bengal which led to the famine, is what I was referring to.
Yes they did what they did because they were good at it, empires tend to be built on wars and massacres and the British one was no exception
How about the Romans though, eh? They really helped us all along nicely.
I'm not sure why everyone is getting so much stick for purely suggesting that the British Empire did some good to it's colonies and clients. Anyone saying that on balance it did more good or anywhere near as much good as bad is obviously a nutter and/or BNP voter, that's true. A couple of people in this thread have only expressed the entirely sound view that the British actually did some good around the world and have been laid into. It's not wrong to say that at all. Denying any of the atrocities the Empire carried out is a different matter obviously but it's not fair to lay into anyone pointing out a positive or two. We know global, exploitative empires are bad, I hope.
I'm not sure why everyone is getting so much stick for purely suggesting that the British Empire did some good to it's colonies and clients. Anyone saying that on balance it did more good or anywhere near as much good as bad is obviously a nutter and/or BNP voter, that's true. A couple of people in this thread have only expressed the entirely sound view that the British actually did some good around the world and have been laid into. It's not wrong to say that at all. Denying any of the atrocities the Empire carried out is a different matter obviously but it's not fair to lay into anyone pointing out a positive or two. We know global, exploitative empires are bad, I hope.
The positives are ireevelant and purely incidental. This conversation specifically referred to India, they did feck all. The only plus I would give them is the rail network. And anyway, the amount they stole easily made up the cost.
Rail networks established by the British weren't the most efficient: their main purpose was to move troops inland or raw material to the port. Japan and Ethiopia are 2 nations that modernized in an organic matter without extended periods of colonization by foreign powers, so I'm loathe to credit Britain for infrastructural relics they left behind. If they didnt lay down roads and pipes and tracks, Indians would have done it themselves.
Finals just ended, been meaning to get back in this thread for a while.
I'm quite struck by the fact that many of the things brought up in criticism of colonialism - and they are extremely salient points, to be clear - tend to be from centuries ago (the Potato Famine being the best example, not raised in this thread I know but absolutely appalling nonetheless), or at the very least from the pre-WWII context (Amritsar, salt tax), back in the days when the Brits talked about King and Empire and actually meant it. In contrast, a lot of the examples being brought up by the other "side" - the economic success stories of Hong Kong, Japan, and the relatively benign treatment of the Philippines by the US, etc - are much more modern, 20th century examples. Colonialism in Singapore was a recent enough phenomenon, and I'm a young enough dude, that my dad spent the first 20 years of his life a subject of the Crown, for instance.
Could it be that what a lot of people decry about colonialism is simply premodern people doing premodern things to each other?
With all due respect, that's a completely ridiculous thing to say, and I'd apologize if I were you. That's completely out of line in any semi-serious debate, to call someone else a racist on very thin justification.
I'm quite struck by the fact that many of the things brought up in criticism of colonialism - and they are extremely salient points, to be clear - tend to be from centuries ago (the Potato Famine being the best example, not raised in this thread I know but absolutely appalling nonetheless), or at the very least from the pre-WWII context (Amritsar, salt tax), back in the days when the Brits talked about King and Empire and actually meant it. In contrast, a lot of the examples being brought up by the other "side" - the economic success stories of Hong Kong, Japan, and the relatively benign treatment of the Philippines by the US, etc - are much more modern, 20th century examples. Colonialism in Singapore was a recent enough phenomenon, and I'm a young enough dude, that my dad spent the first 20 years of his life a subject of the Crown, for instance.
Could it be that what a lot of people decry about colonialism is simply premodern people doing premodern things to each other?
With all due respect, that's a completely ridiculous thing to say, and I'd apologize if I were you. That's completely out of line in any semi-serious debate, to call someone else a racist on very thin justification.
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This has come up several times in this thread and I'm quite curious what timeframe this is referring to, because as I understand it you could be referring to (and I think you are) anything as early as the first days of the East India Company, way back in the 17th century? If so, that's a very misleading way to put it, because the British weren't in any substantial way able to project power on the subcontinent until Robert Clive - not coincidentally, just as their industrial revolution was starting. It's a little bit counter-intuitive for me that the richest and most productive country in the world could be conquered and ruled by upstart foreigners half a globe away. , in an era when travel and communications had to be done by sail.
My schoolboy history could be letting me down, of course. Do let me know if so.
Mindblowingly ignorant post.
The partition was not due to misinformation, poor administration or tragic human. It was just a result of the famous british policy of "Divide and Rule". I'm not going to say that the relation b/w Hindus and Muslims were always very good but there's no doubt that Britishers took advantage of that and greatly increased the divide between the two religions with their tactics.
As for the famine, read this link here: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2031992,00.html
As I said earlier Churchill wasn't that worse than Hitler but yet his atrocities have been hidden to the fact that he's the crown jewel of British history.
Staggering arrogance and ignorance being displayed in this thread. There are few things certain in social science but the economic and social damage of colonialism is considered irrefutable.
@naturalized and other colonial apologists, read this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/4123, arguably the most important social science paper in the last two decade.
@naturalized and other colonial apologists, read this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/4123, arguably the most important social science paper in the last two decade.
That's why I said step by step they took control. It didn't happen immediately with East India Company arriving here. Also note the point of me saying that India wasn't as such united across the land and different Kings controlled regions. The mughals were here too when East India company arrived initially who themselves were invaders. So, basically there were lots of factions with the natives fighting these mughal and similar invaders first and then East India company came in as another force. Also there were multiple rulers who had come from outside like mughals and some natives again had taken sides with them for their petty interests except few true warriors. I am a bit digressing here but the point is that it wasn't 'India' as a united country then for outsider to find it that tough. British were cunning enough to do it systematically, over a period of time and of course were much advanced in everything due to scientific discoveries and applications.
How could the partition occur due to "Divide and Rule" when the entire intent of the partition was not to rule, but to get the feck out of the region?
Plus you make out that it was only the British who wanted the partition. Hint: It wasn't. If India and Pakistan are such good mates, and should never have been partitioned, why not just undo what the silly "Britishers" did and make up and get back together? I wonder why that would not work, eh. The partition's tragedies were entirely due to poor planning and administration.How could the partition occur due to "Divide and Rule" when the entire intent of the partition was not to rule, but to get the feck out of the region?
Can't be arsed to bother with that drivel, but than that was expected from someone who thought that Famine was due to misinformation and poor administration. Reading too much Daily Mail does that to your brains.
I'm not at all surprised by this kind of shit. Is there any possibility at all of discussing this without the need for personal insults? I appreciate it's an emotive topic for you, but as I've pointed out before, the colonial experience is not something you have a monopoly on.
And why exactly is it the most "important social science paper in the last two decades"? On what objective basis are you making that kind of statement? Because it agrees with you?
How could the partition occur due to "Divide and Rule" when the entire intent of the partition was not to rule, but to get the feck out of the region?
Because creating partitions and playing on already existing animosity was basically the patented and perfected method of the British Empire. The divide between Mughals and more native empires, Muslims and Hindus etc obviously existed before the British turned up, but proxy warring and amplifying these tensions was almost entirely how the Empire managed to take control of the subcontinent. They hated each other beforehand and were warring beforehand, but the British drew them nice neat battle lines to get all WW 1 over, and the problems persist.
So you think Churchill and the British administration were just there, twiddling their comically evil moustaches saying "Yes, it'll be hilarious to let millions die, bloody fantastic old chap, let's get a cup of tea and wait for all this to blow over". You're the laughably ignorant one, if we're throwing personal insults about.Nehru et al not agree to the divisions of the partition...or are all the historical documents wrong? I suppose his agreement, and the agreement of other key figures in the partition was all due to evil Britishers manipulation.
You're wasting your time explaining things to him.
whoa whoa! We might be seeing start of modern war, the internet forum war between British and Indians. GET IN! wooohooooooo. I declare myself the General of Indian online army right away before anyone lays claim. First task boys, hunt down The regulator and his Indian friend who is clearly a traitor.
I completely accept that divide and rule was a tried and tested tactic of the British empire, yet it doesn't apply to the partition since the entire second half of the intent of divide and rule - the ruling - is entirely absent. Indian and the leaders of what would later be Pakistan agreed to the partition. I feel that Nehru, Jinnah et al are stripped of their own minds and opinions when all the blame is laid at the feel of these make-believe Littlefinger-esque British supervillains. The fact is Indian and Pakistani leaders agreed to it, along with the British.
If you genuinely believe the strategy of the British Raj did not in any way contribute to the modern day division of the sub continent let alone being nigh on directly responsible for it, you're helpless.
Nehru et al not agree to the divisions of the partition...or are all the historical documents wrong? I suppose his agreement, and the agreement of other key figures in the partition was all due to evil Britishers manipulation.
Seriously just read the link I posted above, perhaps it'll remove the misconceptions you've. I doubt that though.
Saying that british famine was due to the poor administration and poor decisions is the most retarded and pathetic thing I've read in this thread which is all the more remarkable considering it contained Regulator's rape analogy.
It contributed but it wasn't the decisive factor. You think the British would have gone ahead with implementing the partition if it wasn't for the say-so of India's political leaders? If so, did these leaders have their own minds, or were they manipulated by the Britishers into ineptitude?
In the study of history it's prudent to evaluate more than one source. There was a war going on, mistakes were make. Stupid decisions were made. The British did not intentionally create the Bengal famine - who's interest would it serve? Also please address my second point. Did Nehru et al not agree to the partition, did they have their own minds or were they manipulated by the famous British jedi mind tricks?
No malice at all. None.
Of course we would have gone ahead with it. We practically needed the Indians to be at war with eachother. We needed them to have enemies and we needed them the care more about something else than us. We also needed to be able to be seen to be behaving helpfully and also install a situation whereby we could pick a side and aid them against their new enemies. Do you honestly think the Empire gave a shit what the Indian people actually wanted beyond not offending them enough to kick off a revolution? And yes, of course the Indian leaders were manipulated by the British. They were subjects of an empire.
Consider literally every global Empire you know of (realistically this might not be many...). The British Empire was no different. It behaved in exactly the same way as every empire before it. All acquisitions were entirely selfish and any consideration to locals extended only far enough to make owning their land as efficient as possible. Proxy wars, client states and puppet leaders were regularly exploited and all sorts of levels of corruption and manipulation were employed. The British Empire behaved exactly how you would expect any empire that big to behave.
tbf to Lu Tze, I will agree that both Nehru and Jinnah were ubercnuts and deserve lot of blame. These so called leaders were only interested in their personal interests and caused great loss to the nation or the two nations as of now. As I said above, British were just cunning and throughout theirs they took full advantage of such 'leaders.' Right from Kings earlier to political leaders later.
Fair enough, TMH, and thanks for that - my knowledge of precolonial Indian history is admittedly extremely sketchy. But my point was, to attempt to draw conclusions on the basis of before-and-after GDP percentage is therefore extremely disingenuous. I know it wasn't you, but someone else said something to the effect of "India was the richest country in the world, with 25% of the world's GDP, when the British, who had 1% of GDP, came... and after a few years it was the inverse" - the logical implication being that the British literally showed up, stole your stuff, put it in their own country, and became the richest country in the world through pure self-aggrandization. I have no doubt that statistic legitimately exists somewhere, but I'm sure you can see why calculating that statistic on the basis of the very first days of EIC rule would be extremely misleading. The more pertinent question is what the relative percentages of global GDP were around the time of Clive of India - and even I know that most certainly was not 25% India and 1% UK.
In other words, the cause and the effect are a little bit mixed up here, I think? Were you the richest country in the world before the British began to call the shots, or had the rot set in - as you say, Mughal invasions and what not - prior to that, allowing the British (whose military and economic power, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, was most definitely not 1% of global GDP) the opportunity to call the shots in the first place? Because as I understand it, the former is being argued in this thread at least by some (not necessarily you), when it's an extremely counter-intuitive argument to say the least.
Churchill was a dick. Did he personally order the famine to be created, or was it a mass of human errors on behalf of the local and transnational administration, poor communication and poor logistics during the biggest war and most logistically complex operation in human history. I suppose the famine which was averted in 1940-41 by quick action from the government(Tauger, 2009, p.187) was done with malice, too.
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The British were attempting to scale down their unsustainable empire post WW2. Not expand it through divide and rule. During the 20 year period from 45-65 the number of British 'subjects' abroad fell from 700m to 5m. While there were the last sputterings of empire during this period, the clear narrative is one of decolonisation and the implementation of self-governance.
Good God man. Have you ever heard of an "exit strategy"? Dividing makes an entire people or situation more manageable, not just to rule, but to control the entire situation.
What should the British have done then, throughout the empire? Just upped and left without a moment's notice? How would that have gone? It was a no-win situation. I'm not even a fan of the empire, blimmin heck. I know it was a mostly negative. I was just arguing that the Partition and Bengal Famine are not at all comparable to the Holocaust.
Edit: And BTW Ryan's Beard. Among global empires - the Romans, Alexander, the Mongols - I'd suggest the British's exit strategy of the implementation of Parliamentary government and national boundaries, while flawed, was likely better than the other alternatives.
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Well I too am not expert on history but on the point of GDP etc, if I have to guess in that calculation they would have considered the wealth with Mughals etc residing in India as part of India's wealth when British came. I don't know. Fact is, from mughals to British, everyone took their share away from this country and I will blame Indian kings equally for it, again as said above, because of no unity. It has been age old problem for India and still persists.
Anyway, we are digressing a bit. My objection to that part of Reg's post was only on account of analogy depicting India as poor village girl which it was anything but and of course the awful comparison with rape.
btw, ya, the rot was probably set in already with Mughals etc shipping lots of wealth to their respective native regions.
You were saying that the partition of the subcontinent wasn't our fault. It was. Directly.
From a strategic, imperialist standpoint, Britain did the "right thing". That is exactly how you manage an empire. It ruins your subject countries and results in the death of millions but if you want to be a big, imperialist arsehole, that is how you have to behave. So, what "should" we have done? Probably not set off colonising the entire planet in the first place, but obviously we, and every other industrial nation, did. Just upping and leaving fecks your colonies up too, look at what it did to Africa.
Any logical person can see that the myriad issues caused in India were the empire's doing. We set up to kill, subjugate, divide and control that land and ended up doing so with frightening efficiency so much so that they're still having problems with it. Whether or not they're comparable to the systematic extermination of people Hitler didn't like is a different debate and it isn't the one I was having with you. You were saying the atrocities that happened in India weren't our fault, or weren't planned and executed Britain, which is just not true.
That's not really fair. Look at the size of "India". Why should there be unity there? Why not many, smaller nations much like Europe who are free to hate each other and fight amongst themselves? It is no fault of the people living on that continent that surrounding Empires looked to own that land. Over history there have been plenty of "nations" that inhabit what is now considered one country. Greece was made up of a fair few city states with little or no unity, they got dicked on a fair few times by expanding empires (and did their own fair share of fighting back, to be fair). The notion of a unified India is only so familiar because we decided there should be one. If it was three or four reasonably sized nations that would be no different. Blaming rulers of peoples on a continent for not being united just isn't a realistic blame to lay on someone. Why weren't all the British tribes united when the Romans turned up and took them over one by one because there was no unity? I mean, England's one country today, innit.
When did I say they weren't our fault? Please, quote me. Both sides contributed. I lay part of the blame at the feet of the British, and part of the blame at the feel of Nehru, Jinnah and other Indian political leaders who personally supported the partition. And the atrocities of the Bengal famine/Partition certainly were not pre-planned by the British and Indians with the intent of becoming atrocities, they became so due to human error, poor planning and poor logistics. Which is very different to the Holocaust.
Tell that to the countries of Africa and the Middle East.