[Football] A genuine question - what did the UK gain from Indian occupation?

[Crawley Dingo]

I replied to YOUR post:
India had the stongest economy in the world prior to Brtitish occupation. It's safe to say it did not by the time we left.

This is not true. The industrial revolution was the game changer this began in the 1720s, India was not united untill 1799. All arguments tend to ignore this as well as western technology especially medicine. As others have stated it is way more complicated than simplistic ideological chest beating.

 

[Bakero]

I have a lot more sources than that. My point was about the complexity of the question, was British Colonial rule bad for India. I’d had a simple ‘colonial rule was always bad’ mentality but in actual fact, it’s incredibly difficult to make that judgement, perhaps the judgement can only be made on an individual basis to each Indian?

What is clear to me is that the wealth in India has never been shared, no matter who was ruling. I visited a number of Indian palaces in and around the golden triangle and it was clear that the Indians who ‘gave’ power to Britain lived equally rich, entitled, powerful and luxurious lives. Many visited England and wined and dined with the British aristocracy in what seemed like equal and respectful partnerships.

Of course it's not as simple as British bad, Indians good. But to the question did the empire exploit the subcontinent, there's only one answer.

 

[GT49er]

Please refer back to the OP and my response, they both referred to British OCCUPATION, not Empire. And in a grown-up world it's not about hating your own country's history, it's about not wearing rose-tinted spectacles and accepting a pretend version of history in which our ancestors were always the good guys...

OK, just carry on. Free speech and all that.

 

[Comrade Sam]

The British Empire was not dissolved as part of a humanitarian project. The subject people of the empire rose up and reclaimed their countries. Iraq is a great example, we decided it had a king. The people rose up and overthrew him. We put the guy back on the throne, so they overthrew him again. We promptly returned him. So the next time the people stormed the palace they chopped the king up into little pieces. It was the end of the short lived Iraqi monarchy. The British Empire grew on the back of the slave trade and the genocide of many endogenous people. Through the power of the gun and growing economic strength it grabbed half the world. Pillaged it of resources, developed emnity between people that had known little. Contrary to what Michael Gove and the Daily Mail claim British Empire bad.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Interesting position to take. Which countries would you put in that category? And how did they benefit?

The North African campaign of the 2nd world war.

This from wiki:

“The North Africa campaign was often labeled a "war without hate," a pure military clash in the desert without the partisan roundups and ethnic cleansing happening in Europe. This view has been challenged by recent historians, given that there were indeed many civilians who lived in the region,[14] and the campaign was marked by numerous atrocities and abuses by both German and Italian forces towards prisoners of war and local Jewish, Berber, and Arab populations.[15] They were often motivated by racism, including antisemitism.”

If the allies lost that campaign and Nazi’s and Italian troops were allowed to take North Africa and maybe the middle east. Imagine how many more concentration camps would have been built and what the subsequent genocide would have looked like.

The countries that were at risk are in red:

Yes, this is the classic ‘lesser of two evils’ argument but it’s valid.

 

[Bakero]

The British Empire was not dissolved as part of a humanitarian project. The subject people of the empire rose up and reclaimed their countries. Iraq is a great example, we decided it had a king. The people rose up and overthrew him. We put the guy back on the throne, so they overthrew him again. We promptly returned him. So the next time the people stormed the palace they chopped the king up into little pieces. It was the end of the short lived Iraqi monarchy. The British Empire grew on the back of the slave trade and the genocide of many endogenous people. Through the power of the gun and growing economic strength it grabbed half the world. Pillaged it of resources, developed emnity between people that had known little. Contrary to what Michael Gove and the Daily Mail claim British Empire bad.

It's almost as if British schools neglect to give pupils even the faintest idea of the history of Empire.

 

[knocky1]

And given they've been independent for 75 years, memories may be a little blurry, for an imagined better past.

Exactly. I presume they would also be high caste, having met a white Brightonian at the same wedding.

 

[1066familyman]

Palestine was a British Mandate from end of WW1 until 1948. Wonder what happened in 1948?

Careful now. You know what the next accusation will be.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I wonder if the French, Dutch, Belgium, Portuguese and more especially the Spanish have chest beatings regularly over their former colonies.

The Indian sub continent always had poverty and a vast gap between very rich and very poor. The caste system is appalling. Yes, there was corruption, but there is in every country in the world.

 

[Bakero]

I wonder if the French, Dutch, Belgium, Portuguese and more especially the Spanish have chest beatings regularly over their former colonies.

The Indian sub continent always had poverty and a vast gap between very rich and very poor. The caste system is appalling. Yes, there was corruption, but there is in every country in the world.

The Spanish also pretend their empire was overwhelmingly a force for good and neglect to teach their citizens the basic facts. Not so sure about the others.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

The Spanish also pretend their empire was overwhelmingly a force for good and neglect to teach their citizens the basic facts. Not so sure about the others.

I once met some French PhD students who were completely unaware that Algeria had been a part of France.

Historical ignorance doesn't respect national boundaries.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The Spanish also pretend their empire was overwhelmingly a force for good and neglect to teach their citizens the basic facts. Not so sure about the others.

French Indo China - Vietnam, Dutch East Indies, Belgian and French Congo with Biafra. Just to name several awful conflicts.

 

[drew]

The British Empire was not dissolved as part of a humanitarian project. The subject people of the empire rose up and reclaimed their countries. Iraq is a great example, we decided it had a king. The people rose up and overthrew him. We put the guy back on the throne, so they overthrew him again. We promptly returned him. So the next time the people stormed the palace they chopped the king up into little pieces. It was the end of the short lived Iraqi monarchy. The British Empire grew on the back of the slave trade and the genocide of many endogenous people. Through the power of the gun and growing economic strength it grabbed half the world. Pillaged it of resources, developed emnity between people that had known little. Contrary to what Michael Gove and the Daily Mail claim British Empire bad.

Really? I appreciate it wasn't the humanitarian project you refer to by how many bloody uprisings were that you seem to imply? Surely there was a realisation that in the 20th Century an empires were no longer acceptable. I'm not saying there weren't any but weren't most of those transitions relatively peaceful?

Also, there doesn't seem to be any recognition that 'conquering' was the way of the world back in the day. To the victors the spoils. The French, Spanish, Dutch etc all had empires. Even Italy had the Roman empire at one point. I suspect many of the countries that we did 'colonize' had previously had 'issues' with their neighbours. It just seems we were better at coming out on top.

I always get the impression that we in the 21st Century are being held accountable for the actions of our ancestors.

 

[beorhthelm]

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India – as horrible as it may have been – was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain.

So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long – the story goes – was a gesture of Britain’s benevolence.

New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik – just published by Columbia University Press – deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.

It’s a staggering sum. For perspective, $45 trillion is 17 times more than the total annual gross domestic product of the United Kingdom today.

the trouble with this is its more than the GDP of India over those years. works out about 260bn on average, while typical GDP was 90-200bn in that period. in fact its more than UK GDP for half the period. some interesting re-indexing of $ being applied.

 

[Bakero]

French Indo China - Vietnam, Dutch East Indies, Belgian and French Congo with Biafra. Just to name several awful conflicts.

No one's disputing that other countries have their own historical issues to come to terms with. What's that got to do with the question of whether the British Empire exploited the subcontinent though?

 

[dangull]

Just a mention of the great Irish famine which caused about 1 million deaths and a quarter of the population to emigrate to the new world and because of minor crimes prison ships to Australia.
The good potatoes were still being sent to Great Britain though
The partition of the 6 northern counties has also caused no problems as well.

 

[Swansman]

Also worth remembering that companies from all over the West continue to exploit poor countries, stealing their natural resources and causing conflicts for business purposes.

 

[theboybilly]

I genuinely can't think of a single country which can be considered to have benefited from British occupation, and I'm happy to be challenged on that. One of my beloved grandads was in the army helping to destroy the Turkish Empire during WW1 in Iraq and Palestine and look at the mess that Britain left behind them there...

Good God, almost every country that gained Independence applied to join the British Commonwealth, and further it is often stated that Britain never lost out on any country gaining its independence. They couldn't quite cut the apron strings - funny that seeing as the British were so awful

 

[theboybilly]

Just a mention of the great Irish famine which caused about 1 million deaths and a quarter of the population to emigrate to the new world and because of minor crimes prison ships to Australia.
The good potatoes were still being sent to Great Britain though
The partition of the 6 northern counties has also caused no problems as well.

Judging standards of today by standards of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Righto

 

[Bakero]

Judging standards of today by standards of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Righto

The great famine was in the 19th Century.

Numerous famines in India were in the 20th Century. As was the Amritsar massacre. And the Boer concentration camps.