What if India was never colonized?

[Sol Zagato]

Britain did not create famines in Bengal and did not manage them worse than the previous rulers of Bengal did

Britain did sort of create the '43 famine. Winning the war was their highest priority. British scorched earth policy in Bengal (the Japanese were Right There) implemented through local intermediaries tipped it into chaos. It only took relatively minor harvest failures to get famine out of that.

They still could have managed it with local resources and by doing things themselves, but, again, they just didn't focus on the problem until it got bad. Shipping shortages (battle of the Atlantic, operation Torch) and Japanese interdiction also factors.

 

[octoberman]

I'll have to point out here that this is not really the case. The problem Britain had was simply that later innovations were more advantageous to their competitors than to themselves. The German steel industry overtook that of the UK because the Thomas-Gilchrist process, invented by a Brit, made it possible to work with iron that had a high-phosphorus content, and it just so happened to be that the Germans were sitting on top of the single largest then known deposit of such iron in the world (in Lorraine). According to what was known at the time there was more iron in Lorraine than in the entirety of Britain. It's only then that the German industry really took off.

After WW1 the Germans fell behind the British again because they lost that region and in the 1920s the French, now in control of those same iron deposits, overtook them until they were hit by the Great Depression.​

Oh thank you for bringing up the Leblanc process, I was hoping for that one.
Leblanc Process:
2NaCl + H2SO4 → Na2SO4 + 2HCl
Na2SO4 + 2C → Na2S + 2CO2
Na2S + CaCO3 → Na2CO3 + CaS
"you spend a ton of coal"

Now mention the part where the the Solvay process was invented in the mid-19th century...
NaCl + NH3 + CO2 + H2O → NaHCO3 + NH4Cl
2NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2
(2NH4Cl + CaO → 2NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O)

...in which coal was not used at any moment in the chemical reaction and it served no purpose other than as a potential source of heat, for which it could easily be replaced by any other source. The Solvay method was first used in the UK in the 1870s and the British made several adjustments in the original process to make it more efficient. By 1900 pretty much the entire world supply of soda was being made by the Solvay process, and the LeBlanc method had almost completely fallen out of use.​

Coal tar dyes? Discovered by Willian Henry Perkin, a Brit. The only reason why its production didn't kick off in the UK was because early on a bunch of German factories sprung up and immediately started mass producing it, the industry never got a proper chance to even develop in the UK. Ammonia from coal? That was a byproduct of the coking process. Just so happened the UK was both one of the largest producers and exporters of coked coal in the world, so I believe they had plenty of ammonia actually. Coal gas, yet again largely developed by the British and widely implemented. Also produced as a byproduct of the coking process.
Furthermore, every single thing you just mentioned is all directly related to each other, the same processes create all of these products. This is the basics. So I ask you, again, what more should the British have done with coal? What did others do that they didn't?

"All synthetic ammonia which was used to make house hold cleaning products to fertilizers was derived from coal prior to WW1"
If you ignore all of the ammonia that was made from ammonium salts, nitrous acids, or nitrites this would have been true. Don't forget about the part where most of the ammonia used in anything at all wasn't synthetically produced to begin with but came from animal products.

“Although differences in labour force participation and annual hours worked per employee make some difference to the details, by and the large the overall picture remains the same whether we are considering GDP per head of the population, GDP per employee, or GDP per hour worked. German labour productivity in 1870 was about 60% of the British level and had risen to a little over three quarters of the British levels by the First World War. German Labour productivity remained at about this same level until the Second World War, when there was a significant temporary setback.”
-Broadberry, Anglo-German productivity differences 1870-1990: A sectoral analysis (1997)​

So please, do tell us again about how British workers were less productive than their German counterparts. German workers did not become more productive than British ones until after WW2.

just admit you want to nitpick on a single word lol

You're gonna have to be more specific than that because I have no idea what connection you're trying to make here.

William Sturgeon, Edward Davy, Faraday, James Maxwell, Francis Roland, etc. were all English scientists who had a massive impact on both our theoretical understanding of electrical engineering and/or developed practical implementations of it during the early-to-mid 19th century. The first university departments for electrical engineering in the USA, UK, and Germany were all made within a timespan 5 years in the early 1880s. Brits continued to make major developments thereafter, including the steam turbine which is easily one of the most important ones considering they are what produce the majority of electricity we consume today.

And the second industrial revolution wasn't just about electricity and chemicals, the development of new machinery and processes for producing materials, and the widespread implementation thereof was as just as much a part of it. That includes the Thomas-Gilchrist process I mentioned earlier, which is a basic chemical process in the production of steel.

Oh thank you for bringing up the Leblanc process, I was hoping for that one.
Leblanc Process:
2NaCl + H2SO4 → Na2SO4 + 2HCl
Na2SO4 + 2C → Na2S + 2CO2
Na2S + CaCO3 → Na2CO3 + CaS
"you spend a ton of coal"

Now mention the part where the the Solvay process was invented in the mid-19th century...
NaCl + NH3 + CO2 + H2O → NaHCO3 + NH4Cl
2NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2
(2NH4Cl + CaO → 2NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O)

...in which coal was not used at any moment in the chemical reaction and it served no purpose other than as a potential source of heat, for which it could easily be replaced by any other source. The Solvay method was first used in the UK in the 1870s and the British made several adjustments in the original process to make it more efficient. By 1900 pretty much the entire world supply of soda was being made by the Solvay process, and the LeBlanc method had almost completely fallen out of use.​

Coal tar dyes? Discovered by Willian Henry Perkin, a Brit. The only reason why its production didn't kick off in the UK was because early on a bunch of German factories sprung up and immediately started mass producing it, the industry never got a proper chance to even develop in the UK. Ammonia from coal? That was a byproduct of the coking process. Just so happened the UK was both one of the largest producers and exporters of coked coal in the world, so I believe they had plenty of ammonia actually. Coal gas, yet again largely developed by the British and widely implemented. Also produced as a byproduct of the coking process.
Furthermore, every single thing you just mentioned is all directly related to each other, the same processes create all of these products. This is the basics. So I ask you, again, what more should the British have done with coal? What did others do that they didn't?

"All synthetic ammonia which was used to make house hold cleaning products to fertilizers was derived from coal prior to WW1"
If you ignore all of the ammonia that was made from ammonium salts, nitrous acids, or nitrites this would have been true. Don't forget about the part where most of the ammonia used in anything at all wasn't synthetically produced to begin with but came from animal products.

“Although differences in labour force participation and annual hours worked per employee make some difference to the details, by and the large the overall picture remains the same whether we are considering GDP per head of the population, GDP per employee, or GDP per hour worked. German labour productivity in 1870 was about 60% of the British level and had risen to a little over three quarters of the British levels by the First World War. German Labour productivity remained at about this same level until the Second World War, when there was a significant temporary setback.”
-Broadberry, Anglo-German productivity differences 1870-1990: A sectoral analysis (1997)​

So please, do tell us again about how British workers were less productive than their German counterparts. German workers did not become more productive than British ones until after WW2.

just admit you want to nitpick on a single word lol

What kind of troll are you? Tells coal is not important then goes on to tell how coal was important, as raw material or as source of heat in industrial processes in the industrial processes back before crude or natural gas.


Look ! You admitted it and you contradicted your self!!!!!!!! Just few posts ago you said

Really now? You just listed out the most important industrial chemicals of 2nd wave industrial revolution made which is derived from coal while rest used coal as source of heating for the reaction to take place.

Yeah that was my point begin with, you just restated it now, before you said coal wasn't important. Like why couldn't the British develop their chemical industries on par with the Germans as the British had sufficient coal reserves within UK. Which is where i said the human capital part comes into the picture.


Yeah that's before 1870s, from then onwards synthetic ammonia replaced ammonia from natural sources.

Quotes a random study, i too can do that but I'm pretty sure how this will go on and on with you getting more and more abusive towards me, I'm not going to encourage a troll cause GDP is a terrible measure of industrial productivity cause it also includes services and agriculture, my dispute with you was, British industrial workers were less productive than German industrial workers.

Besides you contradicted yourself enough, took arguments to ridiculous extent.

Anyway my arguments are based on research conducted by University of Warwick into the area of topic that we are arguing over and i quote:

"Labor productivity in manufacturing was about the same in Germany and Britain from the late nineteenth century to World War II, supporting the earlier findings of Broadberry. Benchmark estimates for 1907 and 1935 show Germany ahead in heavy industry (chemicals, metals), whereas Britain had higher productivity in the light industries, especially in textiles, and food, drink, and tobacco. Our new 1907 benchmark estimate thus offers qualified support to the traditional view of Williams, Gerschenkron, and Landes, who saw Germany as modernizing before World War I on the basis of heavy industry.
However, it also encompasses the newer historical national accounting viewpoint, which notes that the high-productivity modernized parts of the German economy co-existed with low-productivity traditional parts, so that whole-economy productivity was substantially higher in Britain than in Germany. Starting from Broadberry and Fremdling’s 1935 benchmark estimate of comparative labor productivity in manufacturing, we project backwards to 1871 and forwards to 1938 using new time series data of Germany’s manufacturing output. The two benchmark estimates are broadly consistent with the Hoffmann and Burhop and Wolff indices of industrial output. However, Burhop and Wolff’s industrial output data suggest a German labor productivity lead in manufacturing already during the 1870s"
Which proves my argument, that Britain was ahead in 1st wave industrial revolution products but didn't really industrialize in the second wave industrial revolution. Germany rode the wave in second wave industrial revolution products and the United States in 3rd wave industrial revolution products, the British education system was simply unable to train it's workforce to compete in the 2nd and 3rd wave industrial revolution, in the same manner as the German educational institutions were unable to train their workforce to the third wave of industrial revolution.

In a way we are both wrong, there was some one before who said there is a disadvantage for a early mover/ entrant/head start and that Britain did not have the resources, including human, to participate effectively as the Germans or the Americans in the second wave industrial revolution in the same manner as the Germans could not participate in the 3rd wave industrial revolution which started off in the US before moving to Asia.


This! Explains a lot! You sir, are correct! And it is this reason why Indian economy began to suffer from 1870s as second wave industrial revolution was taking off. The reason being Britain and Indian economies are closely connected.

both of you are missing the actual reason Britain couldn't keep up US which is that Britain and Europe in general did innovate but fell behind America because their industries were conservative and reluctant to adopt new technology and methods. For example Britain and the rest of Europe were slow adopt the American system of manufacturing

https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10887-021-09186-x

 

[octoberman]

Britain did sort of create the '43 famine. Winning the war was their highest priority. British scorched earth policy in Bengal (the Japanese were Right There) implemented through local intermediaries tipped it into chaos. It only took relatively minor harvest failures to get famine out of that.

They still could have managed it with local resources and by doing things themselves, but, again, they just didn't focus on the problem until it got bad. Shipping shortages (battle of the Atlantic, operation Torch) and Japanese interdiction also factors.

All of them only exasperated the famine but didn't create because their numbers don't add up to create the famine casualties and they aren't even close to that

 

[Titanium49]

Yet Mysore king's Army was no way near as modernised as its western counterparts who equipped all of their soldiers with gums

They considered their principle enemy to be halitosis.

 

[octoberman]

They considered their principle enemy to be halitosis.

what halitosis ?

 

[Jord839]

what halitosis ?

Halitosis is a made-up disease for bad breath, hence mouth-related.

They were making a joke since you wrote "gums" instead of "guns".

 

[octoberman]

And where has it actually been disproved really ? Even as liberal as one could be with tge interpretation, it did meant swaraj of Hindavi, which could be seen as Indian or Hindus against foreign military occupation, especially what Mughals were seen at the time.

Marathas didn't fight the Mughals because they were seen as foreigners. But because Aurangzeb oppressed their fellow Hindus with the religiously discriminatory jizya tax

And no, Marathas actually had amazing staying power, infact they outlasted the Mughals in gey areas across Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and their decendants are still powerful politically across the Country. They would no doubt stay and prosper once they are able to take out Afgans

Actaully Mughals had much more staying power because Mughal dynasty stayed for more than 300 years while none of the maratha dynasties did and Mughal empire remained centralised for more than a century and a half where as the Maratha empire couldn't .

Most southern client states owe more to Deccani Sultanate traditions than any Mughal ones, Mughals never were able to control the south like they did most of Northern, Eastern and Western India. It show Mughal weakness rather than strength here

Evidence? Nizam just used the Mughal administration that already existed in Deccan

Yet, even this ignores the basic fact that India's economy did decrease from 25% to 3%, even if you account for 30% inflated account, It would still have fallen from 16% to 3% during british rule. Why did it happen if not for the fact the systemic economic destruction of India by Britain

You keep ignoring my corrections to your mistake that reasoning from the share of the global economy without first adjusting for population is just an elementary mistake. India's per capita did not decline significantly in anytime during the modern so Britain did not destroy India's economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)#1–2008_(Maddison)

Cannot read the pages, but you are infact wrong about this, This even related to Al Biruni because literally says that Caste is not a unique phenomenon to India and even compares to to Persia

Not really, Even the Al Biruni you quoted literally said this was not infact something Unique to India but present in every society.

That's a baseless claim because Al Biruni never mentions anything like the caste system in places outside India

None, Communal awards were meant to divide the society in classic british sense than any sort of representation as you intended it to be

You are mistaking outdated propaganda used by upper Caste composite Nationalists used to deny representations to lower castes when the laws will passedEurope was infact not much better and was much worse for most of Middle, That's so wrong. Most of Europe abolished forced labour century and is before industrialisation which was caused by that abolition. Whereas servants in the rest of the world what treated like slaves especially in India where most communities were eternally bound to the professions nobody wanted.it is only through Industrialization that it was able to pull itself forward in in general Indian states were as good economically if not better than European statesEurope was much more advanced economically then Indian states centuries before industrialisationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)#1–2008_(Maddison)Its not like they did not try to convert the populace, they just failed and settled to Taxation, thats it. It is not due to goodness of heart or Greed of Tax that made them not convert, they just could not convert the populace

Its not like they did not try to convert the populace, they just failed and settled to Taxation, thats it. It is not due to goodness of heart or Greed of Tax that made them not convert, they just could not convert the populace

Your contradicting yourself because If they were zealous enough to convert the populace they would not have settled to taxation

India was going through Proto Industrialization before British destroyed it in Bengal.

You are incorrectly equating proto industrialisation to actual industrialisation because the latter has machinery whereas the former doesn't. India had no signs of inventing machinery before colonisation and did not adopt it even during colonization which took around the century to be complete

But Bengal industrialization

Bengal had no industrialisation.

efforts by Sikhs, Marathas and Mysore, especially in their military literally prove you and your arguments wrong

Evidence ? Like Anglo Sikh wars where despite just waging a Brutal was with Afghans, Sikhs were able to modernize and fight British effectively,

Those are baseless claims because Sikhs, Marathas and Mysore modernized their military only in a limited manner and incapable of going further
From Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740-1849 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3397114):

The military confrontations with the European powers convinced the Indian princes that a radical transformation of their armies was necessary for survival. However, they were unwilling to completely imitate the European military system. They attempted to graft some components of the imported Western art of war on to the indigenous elements of warfare. The Indian rulers' objective was thorough Westernization of a significant portion of their militaries. This I will call Partial Europeanization/Westernization. The Westernized contingents were drilled and equipped on European patterns and administered by the emerging military bureaucracies. The Indian chiefs retained the traditional style infantry and cavalry. Those infantry and cavalry were equipped with indigenous weapons and neither disciplined in the Western style nor paid in cash. They were raised by the jagirdars and can be categorized as irregulars. In addition to Partial Europeanization and retention of certain traditional elements of warfare, the Indian rulers also attempted innovation by introducing new elements of warfare, which were totally unrelated to the Western way of warfare. The net result was that the Indian rulers' attempt to mix the Indian and European elements of warfare did not gel into a coherent military system. At the tactical level, the Indian princes not only failed to assimilate certain crucial European techniques but also retained certain indigenous components of war making that were either less effective than their Western counterparts or found no suitable application in the emerging new method of warfare. At the strategic level, the rulers dilly-dallied regarding the kind of war they would wage. Finally, at the grand strategic level, economic, administrative and cultural deficiencies further muddled their reforms.

Or Mysorean wars, where the First ever Metal rockets were used in a fight and gave British some of its toughest fights

That still failed to prevent Mysore from being conquered by Britain

even the Maratha wars, where the shell of Maratha empire still posed a threat to British in India,

Maratha empire posed no threat to be Britian and it's feudal system slipped it into civil war which was used by Britain to conquer it yet it made no attempts to curtail that system

all while only the start of Industrailization and modernisation of military occuring in India.

There was no start of industrialisation in India and its military modernisation was lack luster

Seems like you are intentionally ignoring everything

No everything you said is baseless because of your intention to prove what cannot be

Indian Caste sytem was no different to Feudalism entrenched in religion

Still wrong. European Feudalism is nothing like the Indian Caste system which bound most communities were eternally to the professions nobody wanted.Already shown you wrong, with your own Al Biruni Example. Untouchability might be the only aspect unique to India but at its core it was discrimination against people or lower economic and social status, something that did exist in Europe as well.

Industrialization would have lessened it just like in Europe and Japan,

That's not possible because Industrialization was caused by the abolition of forced not the other way around

something British made sure to never happen in India

That's not true it was Indian rulers who made sure industrialisation never happened in India by creating their feudal structures and not abolishing them even when their region was being colonized none of them even tried to curtail their feudal system despite it creating civil wars that were being used by Britain to conquer them and even that colonization to took century to complete

Again, false. Indian National Identity is more cultural and geographical based and has existed for a long time.

It is not a national identity if it did not call for political unification and then it is just like the European cultural identity in the middle ages

Let me quote the Author Al Bruni, who literally states East of Hindu Kush is where India begans or even earlier where where it is mentioned in Vishnu Puran itself.

You are misinterpreting them because both are is referring to India just as a region not a nation

Delhi Sultanate and Mughals especially during and Post Akbar did consider themselves as Indian or Hindustani Muslims and it is one of the reason why Mughals wanted to conquer all of India rather than say Iran or Central Asia.

You are just ignoring the evidence i gave of them having a distinct national identity in opposition to Hindus in India and making baseless claims

Its also the reason why Mughals retained the Throne in Delhi till 1857 despite Maratha, Iranian and British conquests earlier on

No that's because of the prestige of Mughals among the feudal lords of India.

Already shown you wrong, with your own Al Biruni Example. Untouchability might be the only aspect unique to India but at its core it was discrimination against people or lower economic and social status, something that did exist in Europe as well.

You failed to show any of my points to be wrong. Most communities of India were eternally condemned to the occupations that nobody wanted. That was rare to happen for communities in Europe or anywhere in the world

Overall, seems to parrot the same colonial justifier route done many times in this thread-

1. British Did good for India
2. British did not harm India significantly
3. India would have been terrible even without British

So that's what you resort to. Slander

 

[octoberman]

That is because the Mughals were much more centralized and did not allow their nobles to establish client kingdoms. In the South where the did their staying power was also strong.

You got it reverse Centralisation makes dynasty survive longer while nobles establishing client kingdoms makes them fall apart Quicker

I don't think you understand. Even if the Raj did that, being a colonial construction it would only do such things for the benefit of the the mother country. And yes, I do understand it makes such discussion whether the Raj was "good" or not moot, because frankly it should be. Modern colonial rule is fundamentally worse than any native polity, simply based on the core ethos of how they approach the whole manner of governance.

Baseless assertions

That doesn't mean some native polities weren't worse than the Raj, but it does mean the average native state will be significantly better than it colonial counterpart.

Which you haven't proven

In the subcontinent you will find a pretty big consensus that British rule was bad, regardless of out-of-context economic data says.

Handwaving data

And considering that their are still people alive who lived through the Raj I will take their word for it over yours.

Anecdotes rather than evidence

But by what metric do you say they were worse? The Mughals were a pre-modern dynasty, the Raj a modern colonial construction, both in at their height in economic eras that couldn't have been more different. I feel the correct metric to judge them with would be whether Indians are ruling themselves and building their own country for themselves, not being ruled for the benefit of the British, through an administration which calcifies the worst parts of the pre-colonial era.

Why ? Being a oppressed by the people born in the same place does not make it better. A tiny Elite in India taking all it's surplus is not any better than a tiny elite in London taking a portion of India's surplus(India even under Britain was mostly administered by Indians). There is absolutely no reason to think that non democratic native rule is any better than non democratic foreign rule. Elites aren't the same as the public they oppress

It's in the same vein as saying the Japanese would be better off should they company have taken over Japan in the Sengoku Period, and in that TL claiming something only marginally better awaited the Japanese should they have escaped colonization.

Self refuting

I'm not saying Indian states had the capability for a Meiji Restoration (they didn't)

 

[WhatSantayanaSaid]

Why ? Being a oppressed by the people born in the same place does not make it better. A tiny Elite in India taking all it's surplus is not any better than a tiny elite in London taking a portion of India's surplus(India even under Britain was mostly administered by Indians). There is absolutely no reason to think that non democratic native rule is any better than non democratic foreign rule. Elites aren't the same as the public they oppress

At the very least, it might be perceived that local elites might be more inclined towards understanding the local populace's desires and needs and accommodating them, both from having more cultural, social, and economic awareness from being from the area and knowing what's going on more intimately and from the fact that they're infinitely more likely to be replaced or overthrown (sometimes violently) than a ruler across the sea/the continent who won't prioritize the region, has their mandate to rule from a different population, and likely has far more resources to throw at attempts to replace them due to having a vaster domain.

Same reason why there's plenty of people so hostile towards far away capitals and their elites, like U.S. Midwesterners and Southerners towards D.C., South Indians towards New Delhi, Albertans towards Ottawa, etc. They see the far away elites as disconnected from their cultures, wants, and needs and less likely to be replaced based on their desires efforts than their own local elites.

Non-democratic traditions might not have elections, but they do have rebellions and new dynasties rising if the rulers fail to meet the populace's demands. Much harder to have a successful rebellion if the empire spans oceans and the rebels can't even reach the leaders they want to replace/force to do something.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm not saying that that's that's reality, just that might be the way people perceive the situation.

 

[octoberman]

At the very least, it might be perceived that local elites might be more inclined towards understanding the local populace's desires and needs and accommodating them, both from having more cultural, social, and economic awareness from being from the area and knowing what's going on more intimately and from the fact that they're infinitely more likely to be replaced or overthrown (sometimes violently) than a ruler across the sea/the continent who won't prioritize the region, has their mandate to rule from a different population, and likely has far more resources to throw at attempts to replace them due to having a vaster domain.

Same reason why there's plenty of people so hostile towards far away capitals and their elites, like U.S. Midwesterners and Southerners towards D.C., South Indians towards New Delhi, Albertans towards Ottawa, etc. They see the far away elites as disconnected from their cultures, wants, and needs and less likely to be replaced based on their desires efforts than their own local elites.

Non-democratic traditions might not have elections, but they do have rebellions and new dynasties rising if the rulers fail to meet the populace's demands. Much harder to have a successful rebellion if the empire spans oceans and the rebels can't even reach the leaders they want to replace/force to do something.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm not saying that that's that's reality, just that might be the way people perceive the situation.

you're right that was not the reality as i already proved

 

[Brahman]

Marathas didn't fight the Mughals because they were seen as foreigners. But because Aurangzeb oppressed their fellow Hindus with the religiously discriminatory jizya tax

And they had Muslim Soldiers in their army along administrators, generals etc with the word Hindavi meaning Indian and not the the religion. Religion was a big part of it but not the only part

Actaully Mughals had much more staying power because Mughal dynasty stayed for more than 300 years while none of the maratha dynasties did and Mughal empire remained centralised for more than a century and a half where as the Maratha empire couldn't .

Mughals pretty much vanished in 1857 whereas various Maratha states did stay till 1947 Indian Independence. Marathas for a short time were shown to be competent enough to stay long enough

Evidence? Nizam just used the Mughal administration that already existed in Deccan

And Mughals themselves just used the pre existing Bahamani Sultantes structures

You keep ignoring my corrections to your mistake that reasoning from the share of the global economy without first adjusting for population is just an elementary mistake. India's per capita did not decline significantly in anytime during the modern so Britain did not destroy India's economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)#1–2008_(Maddison)

If in 200 years, Per Capita of a Region does not increase but the a good chunk of the world's does, especially the one colonizing the region, it show economic stagnancy and downfall. Something caused explicitly by the colonizer

That's a baseless claim because Al Biruni never mentions anything like the caste system in places outside India

He literally does, He literally compared it to Iranian four caste division that existed in Zoroastrian Iran

You are mistaking outdated propaganda used by upper Caste composite Nationalists used to deny representations to lower castes when the laws will passedEurope was infact not much better and was much worse for most of Middle, That's so wrong. Most of Europe abolished forced labour century and is before industrialisation which was caused by that abolition. Whereas servants in the rest of the world what treated like slaves especially in India where most communities were eternally bound to the professions nobody wanted.it is only through Industrialization that it was able to pull itself forward in in general Indian states were as good economically if not better than European statesEurope was much more advanced economically then Indian states centuries before industrialisationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)#1–2008_(Maddison)Its not like they did not try to convert the populace, they just failed and settled to Taxation, thats it. It is not due to goodness of heart or Greed of Tax that made them not convert, they just could not convert the populace

Not really, only reason most people would seem to be bound to their profession due to their familiarity with it due to their family history, nothing to do with being forced into it and no, Europe was not some enlightened state that abolished slave labour, infact it continuted in all its colonies. what happened essentially cause Industrialization reduced the Manpower needed to do a lot of traditional work and as such led to a breakdown of traditional profession that was practiced for centuries

Bengal had no industrialisation.

Ofcourse how could it, British came and killed and destroyed every aspect of burgeoning Proto Industrialization, going as far as to cut the thumbs of weavers in order to destroy their local industries so that they do no compete with British Markets

You are incorrectly equating proto industrialisation to actual industrialisation because the latter has machinery whereas the former doesn't. India had no signs of inventing machinery before colonisation and did not adopt it even during colonization which took around the century to be complete

But Proto Industrialization leads to Industrialization, something that British make never happened

Those are baseless claims because Sikhs, Marathas and Mysore modernized their military only in a limited manner and incapable of going further
From Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740-1849 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3397114):

Yet they did modernize to some extent despite extreme pressures from outside compared to Britain

That still failed to prevent Mysore from being conquered by Britain

That does not really prove Mysore did not have a great military. It proves British, A globe spanning empire beat a small kingdom

Maratha empire posed no threat to be Britian and it's feudal system slipped it into civil war which was used by Britain to conquer it yet it made no attempts to curtail that system

yet Marathas fought British and gave them their toughest fights for Subcontinent

There was no start of industrialisation in India and its military modernisation was lack luster

No everything you said is baseless because of your intention to prove what cannot be

Already refuted above as you cannot destroy a region and then claim Industrialization did not occur

Still wrong. European Feudalism is nothing like the Indian Caste system which bound most communities were eternally to the professions nobody wanted.Already shown you wrong, with your own Al Biruni Example. Untouchability might be the only aspect unique to India but at its core it was discrimination against people or lower economic and social status, something that did exist in Europe as well.

Finally something you agree upon. European Feudalism required a literal Plague for it to be lessened, compared to India which was already moving towards Industrialization without any mass disaster. Industrialization would mean most of old professions being gone and new ones replacing them, essentially destroying the class/Caste system

That's not possible because Industrialization was caused by the abolition of forced not the other way around

That's not true it was Indian rulers who made sure industrialisation never happened in India by creating their feudal structures and not abolishing them even when their region was being colonized none of them even tried to curtail their feudal system despite it creating civil wars that were being used by Britain to conquer them and even that colonization to took century to complete

But I literally provided you with examples you Marathas, Punjab, Mysore, infact even you acknowledged that there was some modernizing done in the army atleast in this very post -

Those are baseless claims because Sikhs, Marathas and Mysore modernized their military only in a limited manner and incapable of going further
From Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740-1849 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3397114):

It is not a national identity if it did not call for political unification and then it is just like the European cultural identity in the middle ages

But unlike Europe, India was united periodically and had cultural and geographic sense of being a separate entity

You are misinterpreting them because both are is referring to India just as a region not a nation

A Separate Region with its own diverse but interconnected culture

You failed to show any of my points to be wrong. Most communities of India were eternally condemned to the occupations that nobody wanted. That was rare to happen for communities in Europe or anywhere in the world

Like where, even if you say its as horrible as it is with Europe being more enlightened, why did India contribute over 25% of GDP of the world ? and why did British go out of their way destroy any progress of Industrialization ?

So that's what you resort to. Slander

Slanderous statements are to be responded with Slander, especially Colonial apologists.

From the entire thread, one thing that seems obvious is that it is a very difficult to accept for a alot of European that their wealth is a result of mass murders, famines and destruction across the world and not because of their "Enlightenment" or other bullshit like that

 

[CalBear]

Yet, even this ignores the basic fact that India's economy did decrease from 25% to 3%, even if you account for 30% inflated account, It would still have fallen from 16% to 3% during british rule. Why did it happen if not for the fact the systemic economic destruction of India by Britain

Cannot read the pages, but you are infact wrong about this, This even related to Al Biruni because literally says that Caste is not a unique phenomenon to India and even compares to to Persia

None, Communal awards were meant to divide the society in classic british sense than any sort of representation as you intended it to be

Europe was infact not much better and was much worse for most of Middle, it is only through Industrialization that it was able to pull itself forward in in general Indian states were as good economically if not better than European states

Its not like they did not try to convert the populace, they just failed and settled to Taxation, thats it. It is not due to goodness of heart or Greed of Tax that made them not convert, they just could not convert the populace

India was going through Proto Industrialization before British destroyed it in Bengal.

But Bengal industrialization and efforts by Sikhs, Marathas and Mysore, especially in their military literally prove you and your arguments wrong


Not really, Even the Al Biruni you quoted literally said this was not infact something Unique to India but present in every society. Indian Caste sytem was no different to Feudalism entrenched in religion and Industrialization would have lessened it just like in Europe and Japan, something British made sure to never happen in India

Again, false. Indian National Identity is more cultural and geographical based and has existed for a long time. Let me quote the Author Al Bruni, who literally states East of Hindu Kush is where India begans or even earlier where where it is mentioned in Vishnu Puran itself.

Delhi Sultanate and Mughals especially during and Post Akbar did consider themselves as Indian or Hindustani Muslims and it is one of the reason why Mughals wanted to conquer all of India rather than say Iran or Central Asia. Its also the reason why Mughals retained the Throne in Delhi till 1857 despite Maratha, Iranian and British conquests earlier on

Evidence ? Like Anglo Sikh wars where despite just waging a Brutal was with Afghans, Sikhs were able to modernize and fight British effectively, Or Mysorean wars, where the First ever Metal rockets were used in a fight and gave British some of its toughest fights or even the Maratha wars, where the shell of Maratha empire still posed a threat to British in India, all while only the start of Industrailization and modernisation of military occuring in India. Seems like you are intentionally ignoring everything


Already shown you wrong, with your own Al Biruni Example. Untouchability might be the only aspect unique to India but at its core it was discrimination against people or lower economic and social status, something that did exist in Europe as well.


Overall, seems to parrot the same colonial justifier route done many times in this thread-

1. British Did good for India
2. British did not harm India significantly
3. India would have been terrible even without British

Play the Ball. Don't attack people.

 

[Brahman]

Play the Ball. Don't attack people.

I would not attack people as you wish, but will not allow for colonial justification and apologism myths to perpetrate

 

[CalBear]

I would not attack people as you wish, but will not allow for colonial justification and apologism myths to perpetrate

You have an issue, report it.

In this case it is rather moot because I tossed the member who you feel was justifying colonialism for a week in a different thread a few hours ago.

 

[Brahman]

You have an issue, report it.

In this case it is rather moot because I tossed the member who you feel was justifying colonialism for a week in a different thread a few hours ago.

Yeah I saw that but point noted