Can only whites be racists and is Africa no place for whites?

[Senethro]

I was referring to the colonial administration.
India didn't really get colonized and it's used a lot of Indians in the administration.

It funded the UKs army, and large amounts of Indians served in the army as well. A few went back to the UK and apparently the first Indian restaurant opened before the first fish and chip shop.

When the British left they had built a nation in effect with an army, infrastructure and adminstration.

The British built exactly as much of a nation as was required for maximum resource and value extraction.

 

[Zardnaar]

The British built exactly as much of a nation as was required for maximum resource and value extraction.

Not really they didn't strip India.

Unlike other empires that acted like strip mines the British one was more about taxing trade.

Dutch and Spanish were a lot more exploitive. Plunder type economy's.

India was the crown jewel, once they left the empire folded as most of the empire was taken to keep India safe.

Suez canal, Cape Town, Aden/Yemen, misadventures in Afghanistan were because of India.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not really they didn't strip India.

Unlike other empires that acted like strip mines the British one was more about taxing trade.

Dutch and Spanish were a lot more exploitive. Plunder type economy's.

India was the crown jewel, once they left the empire folded as most of the empire was taken to keep India safe.

Suez canal, Cape Town, Aden/Yemen, misadventures in Afghanistan were because of India.

True. They certainly weren't rosy to India, at the same time it was less bad than most African colonies + most in western hemisphere. I think India's (relatively) better treatment was a combination of distance, population/strength of Indian territories, and that India's value wasn't as concentrated in extraction of a particular resource. Countries with the latter in particular have had some of the more brutal dictatorships in modern times.

 

[Patine]

The British built exactly as much of a nation as was required for maximum resource and value extraction.

True. They certainly weren't rosy to India, at the same time it was less bad than most African colonies + most in western hemisphere. I think India's (relatively) better treatment was a combination of distance, population/strength of Indian territories, and that India's value wasn't as concentrated in extraction of a particular resource. Countries with the latter in particular have had some of the more brutal dictatorships in modern times.

Would you say justice, equity, opportunity, prosperity (on mean per capita), and any sort of government participation and rights of any meaningful form are better in the Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and People's Republic of Bangladesh (the post-Raj nations and governments which wouldn't exist without the previous British presence), or the Mughal and Maratha Empires (the main, largest, and most powerful Indian nations upon the beginning of the entrenchment of British power)? Please consider carefully before answering.

 

[MaryKB]

Would you say justice, equity, opportunity, prosperity (on mean per capita), and any sort of government participation and rights of any meaningful form are better in the Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and People's Republic of Bangladesh (the post-Raj nations and governments which wouldn't exist without the previous British presence), or the Mughal and Maratha Empires (the main, largest, and most powerful Indian nations upon the beginning of the entrenchment of British power)? Please consider carefully before answering.

What point are you hoping to make?

 

[Lexicus]

What point are you hoping to make?

"The British Empire was good"

these people are genocidal fascist clowns, British rule in India killed millions through deliberately-engineered and purposely-exacerbated famines. Anyone who thinks Stalin was a horrible murderer but British rule in India was "ultimately good for Indians" is probably a racist

 

[Patine]

What point are you hoping to make?

If you think it's a blatant, shameless justification of imperialism, it's not. It's moreso to point out the human history is very complex, and it's not just made up of "good events" to celebrate and cherish, and "bad events," to condemn, scour, and demand redress for, and that something that is bad and negative, and even unjustified, horrific and atrocious, even, can lead to a mixed bag of good and bad in it's wake, with the bad not always outweighing the good, that would not otherwise be there - and the alternative may have very likely been worse at the end had the tragedy not occurred, and the same in reverse for many good events. And, yes, I now realize this reads like a @Farm Boy post, but bear with me here.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Bring back the Umayyad Caliphate to Europe.

 

[Senethro]

Would you say justice, equity, opportunity, prosperity (on mean per capita), and any sort of government participation and rights of any meaningful form are better in the Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and People's Republic of Bangladesh (the post-Raj nations and governments which wouldn't exist without the previous British presence), or the Mughal and Maratha Empires (the main, largest, and most powerful Indian nations upon the beginning of the entrenchment of British power)? Please consider carefully before answering.

You sound like an apologist for empire, that you believe the subjugated should be grateful to be exploited.

Your question makes the unsaid assumption that an India or Indias that formed out of an uncolonized subcontinent would not have been better. This is of course unprovable by any reasonable standard, but you offer a few railways as compensation for $45 trillion extracted and India falling from perhaps as much as 20% of global trade to 5% over the course of its colonial period.

And, yes, I now realize this reads like a @Farm Boy post, but bear with me here.

This is a slander upon Farmboy who I do not doubt the compassion of.

 

[Patine]

You sound like an apologist for empire, that you believe the subjugated should be grateful to be exploited.

Your question makes the unsaid assumption that an India or Indias that formed out of an uncolonized subcontinent would not have been better. This is of course unprovable by any reasonable standard, but you offer a few railways as compensation for $45 trillion extracted and India falling from perhaps as much as 20% of global trade to 5% over the course of its colonial period.



This is a slander upon Farmboy who I do not doubt the compassion of.

I am compassionate. Very much so. You just don't like that I won't agree with you're flawed and uninformed point of view on this thread, and then demonize me as tantamount to a sociopathic Fascist. That IS slander, and that's exactly what you seem to be doing. ESPECIALLY as you just don't seem to understand - or refuse to - what I'm actually saying, and you're responses to be are completely unrealistic, and even baiting, looking them back over.

 

[Lexicus]

and then demonize me as tantamount to a sociopathic Fascist.

Uh yeah hi that's actually me doing that thanks

Moderator Action: Stop trolling other members. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Would you say justice, equity, opportunity, prosperity (on mean per capita), and any sort of government participation and rights of any meaningful form are better in the Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and People's Republic of Bangladesh (the post-Raj nations and governments which wouldn't exist without the previous British presence), or the Mughal and Maratha Empires (the main, largest, and most powerful Indian nations upon the beginning of the entrenchment of British power)? Please consider carefully before answering.

Are we talking height of Mughal empire or what was left of it when Britain showed up? India's situation at the time was the reason conquest of the subcontinent was even possible. Though it's interesting you bring up Mughals, because they were foreign invaders also, the remnants of the Iranian Timurid empire. Some of the same patterns you imply with Britain match pretty closely.

Even before Mughals, India often had sultanate minorities ruling massive Hindu majorities, with differing degrees of care.

I don't know a great deal about modern India's real situation since I haven't been there or experienced it. I would imagine standard of living is better now than in the early 1900's. Less so for its smaller neighbors.

Though I'd hesitate to make objective evaluations of "justice", "equity", and "opportunity" because defining these terms has been questionable even within the bounds of the US.

~~~

This discussion aside, the notion that India was always unified is itself asinine. Lots of conquest/"colonizing" there even > 1000 years ago. Good luck drawing a line where "land was originally X people's" there, even if Britain never put ships in the water.

You sound like an apologist for empire, that you believe the subjugated should be grateful to be exploited.

Your question makes the unsaid assumption that an India or Indias that formed out of an uncolonized subcontinent would not have been better. This is of course unprovable by any reasonable standard, but you offer a few railways as compensation for $45 trillion extracted and India falling from perhaps as much as 20% of global trade to 5% over the course of its colonial period.

Historical conquerors are not nice, but it does seem arbitrary to claim Britain significantly worse than comparatively local populations that did the same things.

And let's not play pretend here. India was not "colonized" like USA or most of this hemisphere. Its pattern is more consistent with "conquered". Is that better? Not really, though they did get to skip disease wiping out much of their population so in that sense sure.

Trade% in India was going to fall no matter what. Colonies in western hemisphere got more populated and the world as a whole became less dependent on the silk road. I would argue the improvement of naval craft and the awful opium wars to be large contributors to that also. Much fewer Chinese goods passing through India rather than shipped.

"India for Indians" is a gross oversimplification. That place is massive and the populations there are different from each other. The basic concept of India doesn't happen without SOMEONE pulling a Britain on them, local or otherwise.

 

[Patine]

Uh yeah hi that's actually me doing that thanks

By the way that you and @Cloud_Strife use the words all the time, constantly, so for a ridiculous number of people, I highly doubt either of you have ever met a real, died-in-the-wool Fascist or Nazi. Just like I doubt Glenn Beck or Joe McCarthy ever met a real Communist. The abuse and overuse of words where they're utterly inappropriate is another of the main point deterioration of modern debate and discourse.

 

[Lexicus]

By the way that you and @Cloud_Strife use the words all the time, constantly, so for a ridiculous number of people, I highly doubt either of you have ever met a real, died-in-the-wool Fascist or Nazi. Just like I doubt Glenn Beck or Joe McCarthy ever met a real Communist. The abuse and overuse of words where they're utterly inappropriate is another of the main point deterioration of modern debate and discourse.

Fine, you're not a fascist you're just a guy who justifies mass murder on the internet

 

[Cloud_Strife]

By the way that you and @Cloud_Strife use the words all the time, constantly, so for a ridiculous number of people, I highly doubt either of you have ever met a real, died-in-the-wool Fascist or Nazi. Just like I doubt Glenn Beck or Joe McCarthy ever met a real Communist. The abuse and overuse of words where they're utterly inappropriate is another of the main point deterioration of modern debate and discourse.

Are you okay?

 

[Patine]

Fine, you're not a fascist you're just a guy who justifies mass murder on the internet

Quote a post of mine where I unquivacably, blatantly, and obviously do so, please?

Are you okay?

Sometimes I would think to ask you the same question.

 

[Senethro]

I think nazis are overused in the excusing of guys who are not nazis. Let me finish - I think people who are half as bad as the nazis are getting compared favourably to nazis, whereas actually the lower end of acceptability would be about 10%. Maybe less.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"Anybody I disagree with is a Nazi or partial Nazi and we don't tolerate those, so I don't have to tolerate or event interact with argumentative positions with which I don't agree".

Seems to be the message, and it's not a very useful message. Not for constraining anticipation to reality, and not for actually talking about anything useful.

 

[Lexicus]

Quote a post of mine where I unquivacably, blatantly, and obviously do so, please?

The qualifying adjectives show you're smart enough to couch your words in plausible deniability, which makes fulfilling this request a waste of time.

but it does seem arbitrary to claim Britain significantly worse than comparatively local populations that did the same things.

The British inflicted even worse suffering on the population than previous conquerors and dynasties. They broke up the traditional systems of village assistance that had ensured most people got fed most of the time. And they used the same drill as in Ireland and Egypt, forcing the production of cash crops for export ("free trade" doncha know) rather than food to feed starving people.

 

[Senethro]

"Anybody I disagree with is a Nazi or partial Nazi and we don't tolerate those, so I don't have to tolerate or event interact with argumentative positions with which I don't agree".

Seems to be the message, and it's not a very useful message. Not for constraining anticipation to reality, and not for actually talking about anything useful.

Naw I'm saying the British Empire was bad m8