Reddit reviews Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

India was far ahead of Europe in terms of education and development before the industrial revolution kicked in.

That's one of the most ignorant comments I've ever seen to be honest. You should probably try and educated yourself a bit. This might be a good place to start:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/dp/1849048088

Have a read of

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/dp/1849048088

It's utterly immense. Best book on it

I don't think I need to say anything. Just read the comments below. If the Brits were so good, why did you think George Washington led a bunch of poorly equipped militia made up by farmers and artisans to rebel against the British rule.

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Read this and understand the damage the British did to India...

https://www.amazon.com/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/dp/1849048088

Where have you been? Haiti perhaps? Maybe the Congo? How about Indonesia or the Philippines? I was born in India and grew up in 4 once-colonized countries in Asia, I spend a great deal of time across Africa for work. Comparing Australia and Canada, settler colonies, to India, Nigeria, Haiti, or Vietnam is, well, asinine and demonstrates a lack of understanding of different types of colonial conquest that took place and the resulting global economy/division of labor that was born. Does one really need to explain why countries like Canada and Australia developed while Belize and Guyana didn’t? I would assume you believe it’s because Europeans just know how to develop successful societies better than 4/5s of humanity.

A defining mark of civility? Let’s talk about civility. Shall we discuss the massacres or the many genocides? Or the fact that Britain considered Indians as such vermin that they shipped all produce abroad during the Second World War, resulting in the starvation of 3 million in the 1943 Bengal Famine. The caloric intake of Indians in Bengal during this famine was less than that of Buchenwald. Definitely the mark of civility to starve people to death more than once and then have Britain's celebrated mass murdering PM Churchill say: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.” 3 million. This was not the only British manufactured famine (a British imperial speciality, conducted in more than one dominated region), and the persistent malnutrition and starvation we see in India today is a legacy of Britain's use of food as a weapon of domination.

This idea that we were a bunch of poor backward scoundrels that were saved by the British is such a tired, vacuous delusion that I can't believe it's been resuscitated in 2017.

“And India, the world's largest democracy, and a huge, growing economy.” Have you ever been to India? Such tripe is a indicator that you have not. Home to the vast majority of the world's extreme poor. But surely the deindustrialization of India by British rule had no impact on India’s abject poverty. Surely the destruction of India’s most profitable exports by the forced imposition of tariffs and duties and the transformation of India’s market into a net importer of overpriced British manufactured goods (made from Indian raw materials) rather than a leading exporter of fine products had no impact on India’s poverty. India is growing despite Britain, not because of it. You really think this financialized system of capitalism with the metal exchange based in London and commodity trading floors in New York was built to benefit Indians or Indonesians? I suppose you're going to tell me the huge favor Britain did by building railroads.

Actually, no, before the British arrived it was not “South Asia”, the very concept of geographic designations like South Asia, the Middle East, are created from a European standpoint. The subcontinent was indeed a mosaic of various principalities and kingdoms, but saying that “so what you were rich? you were not unified” is, well, asinine. Britain’s industrialization was prefaced on the deindustrialization of what you call South Asia.

Here’s Britain’s leading India historian, William Dalrymple:

“If you take the long view of history, the simple fact remains that for 95% of world history, India and China, between them, have dominated the world economy. As early as the time of Strabo and Nero, you had emissaries from the west pleading with the spice exporters of Tamil Nadu and Kerala about their balance of payment problems. The gold of the Roman Empire hemorrhaged towards India. In Milton's 17th-century England, when he was writing 'Paradise Lost', trying to picture what the future achievements, what the wonders of mankind would be, Milton has Adam taken by god on a tour of the cities of Mughal India - Lahore, Agra, and Delhi. So far ahead was sultanate, Mughal India over anything in the west, that it's impossible to consider this seriously without realizing just how far behind the west was for 95% of our history. The Mughal Empire, then, was immeasurably richer than anything -- London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Milan put together.

Antonio Montserrat, a Jesuit arriving for the first time in Agra said 'This city is second to none in Asia or Europe, with regards to size, population, or wealth. It is crowded with merchants who gather there from all over Asia.'

This was the pattern through nine-tenths of world history. It ends, quite simply, with the advent of European colonialism. And we drained India and the money came back to Europe. Alone, one man, Clive, brings the largest personal fortune made in Europe in the 18th century back to England on the back of one battle. The entire wealth of Bengal, then the richest country in the world, drains back to Shropshire.

Alexander Dow, a contemporary, says: 'The balance of trade was against all nations in the favor of Bengal. It was the sink where gold and silver disappeared, without the least prospect of return.' "

I’d also recommend this book, but before I do, where are my manners? I should be thanking the British governments and armies of yesteryear for civilizing and uplifting my family and people from our oh-so-backward ways. Our ancient ways and sophisticated culture can’t really stand toe to toe with the might civilization of Cornwall. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/dp/1849048088