A little thank you note!
So where do i begin. Well since i have joined this forum i have become used to my posts on threads being mostly ignored. I am not indicating any malevolent intent on the part of my fellow forum members. I believe its mostly so because that most of my posts are long and rambling, a bit lecture-like. As a medical student a year away from getting my medical license i am very familiar with the effects lectures have on a human attention span.
So yes
@Kvasir Thank you for your kind words and even more so for your interest in what i had to say. I am no authority in Indian history but I like to believe i am observant enough to make my share of insightful observations.
As for foot-note [6] in the previous post it was about the crises in East Asia like the rise of the Japanese and the turmoil in China. Britain obviously was in no state, i.e., post-World War 1, to carve out a second, much larger Jewel of the British crown, let alone intervene on the side or against the Japanese in China. Interventions tend to be costly both economically and politically, especially when you are recovering from a war, let alone a World War! Edited! And thanks!
@Machiavelli Jr. I must admit that I truly feel honored that you would consider using material from this post in your classes- no sarcasm here either, scout's honor!
Whoever said history is written by the victors was probably one of the smartest men alive, because that more often than not is what history is fashioned into-a tool of propaganda. More often than not biased, unverified, out-of-context and down-right ludicrous interpretations of human history have been used, or abused rather, as the crack-cocaine of the masses, to stir them into fruitless fits of nationalistic fervor and to perpetrate unimaginable horrors.
Whether it was the Nazis using the Indo-European migration theory for the cold-blooded murder of millions or the White slave-owners using the biblical history of the people of Ham as justification for chattel slavery. History is as much as a victim of our greed and avarice, as are science and religion.
Coming back to your query there actually isn't any study i can think of which can specify the exact extent of decline in living standard of the locals, post-European colonization, of Asia and Africa. However, i guess this is where i can help you out. Let's give making such a study in brief a try, shall we?
In Western Europe the European kings and nobles began encouraging trade starting from the later part of the 16th century, in the form of financing trade expeditions to the New World and Old World, promoting colonization and using income from colonies to bump up the treasury, building transportation infrastructure like canals and roads from those extra funds, financing and/or chartering trade companies (i.e., the East India Company and its ilk) . The Indian kings, however, as far as I am aware of, never really pursued such avenues for profit.
Now the following paragraphs, under the {*} are mostly how i derived my conclusions using statistics for population and GDP. If you are like most people and are allergic to numbers then please skip straight to the next {*} to my conclusions. Historians seem to have it worse than most. I know how bad a case of the number-fever can be, it is after all one of the reasons why I chose medicine.
{*}
India, or should we say the sub-continent as a whole is said to be at its peak during the reign of Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor c.1600s. The GDP back then has been estimated to be around $74,250 million (1990 US Dollars) [8] While the world GDP was $331,562 million (1990 US$) And the population was around a 100 million (give or take a few million) [9] So the share of world GDP for the subcontinent was around 22.4%. GDP per-capita was around $742.5 per-capita (US$1990). By 1870 the GDP of the subcontinent had actually grown to over $134,882 million (US$1990) while population was around 190 million. The GDP per-capita in this case was almost $710. And the share of the GDP of the sub-continent vis-a-vis the world was 12.05%! By 1913, the population was 257.06 million and the GDP was $204,242 million (US$1990). The GDP per-capita was $794.5 per-capita. The share in world GDP was 13.38%!
The numbers are tabulated below for better comprehension
:-
1600s Indian subcontinent
GDP: $74,250 million
Pop.: 100million (approx)
GDP per-capita: $742.5
World GDP share- 22.4%
1870s Indian subcontinent
GDP: $134,882 million
Pop.:190 million
GDP per-capita: $710
World GDP share- 12.05%
1913 Indian subcontinent
GDP: $204,242 million
Pop.: 257.06 million
GDP per-capita: $794.5
World GDP share- 13.38%
To put it into perspective, our current stats are:
India+Pakistan+Sri Lanka+Burma:-
GDP (combined) : $2,518,435 million (2014 US Dollars)
Population (combined): 1,638.2 million
GDP per-Capita [10]: $1537.32 (2014 US Dollars)
%of World GDP: 3.4%
{*}
End of statistics...
In short, the Indian sub-continent, as a whole, got marginally poorer between the laying of the foundation of Taj and the establishment of the British Raj, but the economy recovered and actually improved measurably by the time Kaiser Willy threw his tantrum!
The decline in prosperity between 1600s and 1870s is attributed by my sub-continental compatriots to the
Goras robbing us poor, help-less sub-continentals blind. But if the economic parameters are anything to go by most of the GDP growth of the UK between 1600 and 1870 is quite moderate by standards of pre-industrial Western European economies [11] and past 1830s the rapid growth of the UK economy can be more like due to the availability of cheap raw materials from the colonies than to direct taxation and down-right economic banditry of the British in the sub-continent. The decline could very well be attributed to the change in administrative and economic structure of the sub-continent with the arrival of the British, their industrial goods and their new rules. But does it necessarily have their greasy finger prints of thieves all over them? That is a question to ponder.
While world GDP did increase significantly between 1870 and 1913, i.e., during the 'moderate' phase of the INC, the share of India in world GDP actually grew! I cannot believe that is possible without improvement in the living standards of some of the people in the sub-continent. It is possible that economic inequality might have flourished in that phase of growth but there would still be some tangible benefits to the poor in the sub-continent. I mean just look at modern economic data. Today we form a much smaller share at 3.4%, for the subcontinent as a whole, of world GDP and our GDP per capita is only about $90 better than it was back in 1913 and only about $180 better than what it was in the 1600s. For India proper the stats are marginally better with an actual GDP per-capita being only a $100 more than what it was in 1913. Wow! A hundred years to raise the GDP per-capita by a 100 dollars!
So wait India hasn't really gotten richer but rather has gotten kinda poorer since independence?[12]
Holy f***! How did that happen? *Double checks numbers!... *Triple checks numbers!.. *sit around *scratch head *blank stare at ceiling *etc.
WARNING!: If you care for my safety just a tiny wee bit please don't reveal the contents of this post to the ultra-nationalists of my country. They will murder me and then my family and my friends and their families and my pets and even the friends of my pets!
Jokes apart...
Considering the economic inequality that exists today in India (among other forms of inequality) and in our modern world in general, I highly doubt the inequality a hundred years back in 1913 would be any worse. Agreed there may be British industrialists owning almost all the factories, but there would also be the filthy rich and somewhat redundant native sub-continental aristocracy. There were literally hundreds of petty kingdoms. Enough to make the Holy Roman Empire look sane. There must have been thousands of sub-continental aristocrats. Many of whom also were fledgling businessmen in their own right.
Maybe if we just had a statistic of Rolls-Royce cars sold to Indian Nawabs Vs Mercedes S-class cars sold to businessmen in India today to compare...
But i digress, yet again! (Oops!
)
Where was i? Ah yes! Avenues of profit. So the western monarchs and nobles spent a good deal of sum on making their lands better (improving infrastructure, facilitating trade, etc.) I can't hazard a guess at their motives but it might be because the wanted money to fight wars. Then there also the improved agricultural practices, and the rise of a literate middle-class to support trade and administration, thanks in no small measure to the Universities and the Enlightenment.
There was no widespread literacy in the sub-continent and the literate few engaged in administration and trade had no means of communicating with their counterparts in Europe. So there was a lack of significant exchange of ideas. That could be in turn due to the differences in language of communication.
Meanwhile the Mughal Empire on the other hand had a habit of not letting Subedars and and other provincial administrators linger around their assigned administrative divisions for too long, lest they get comfy and rebel. So they had little incentive to develop the local infrastructure (indicated by the lack of major infrastructural works undertaken by them in their respective administrated zones in the same vein as the ornate forts, mosques and mausoleums) and were more concerned with draining the provinces for revenue to maintain the Mughal war machine. The Empire was pretty centralized under the reign of Akbar, who inherited most of its administration from the uber-centralizing control-freaks of the Sur dynasty and Hem Chandra. But by the time Aurangzeb murdered his way to the Peacock Throne he system had started to fall apart.
In other words a strong centralized state never really emerged. And as history proves strong centralized states are pretty much the ones who became the Great Powers when the Industrial Revolution came knocking. It could be possible that the regency of Bairam Khan combined with unruly Afghan nobles early in Akbar's reign prevented him from pursuing the centralization policies followed by Sher Shah Suri and his descendants. Who knows?
But that is not the point.
The question that the OP posited is that what would have been the consequences of Britain staying out of the World War 1 on the Indian Independence movement.
I will answer that in my next post if you kindly allow me too. My head cold isn't better and i might just give myself a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all the hammering on keyboard for the past 3 hours. Sorry!
So i hope this post answers your query about the study @Machiavelli Jr and as for @Kvasir please allow me a break before i resume answering.
Hope you guys enjoy this post.
[8] source: Angus Maddison. World Economics. Vol 9. No.4. October-December, 2008. -Thank you, Google!
[9] I know its bit of a guesstimate on my side but bear with me please. source:
http://www.populstat.info/Asia/indiac.htm - Thank you again, Google!
[10] Whole sub-continent combined: India+Pakistan+Burma+Sri Lanka+Maldives.
[11] UK GDP growth in
1600s is
0.76%.p.a.,
1700s is
0.58%.p.a.,
1820s is
1.021%,
1870s is
2.055%. Values for Western Europe for
1600s, 1700s, 1820s,1870s, are,
+0.396%.p.a, +0.214 %.p.a., +0.566 %.p.a., +1.679.p.a., +2.111.p.a, respectively. For Western offshoots (USA, Canada, Australia, etc.,) for
1820s and
1870s are
+2.348 %.p.a.,
+4.313 %.p.a., respectively.
[12] Is it just me or isn't decolonization supposed to have benefited the former colony more?