All indications point to India staying more backward without the British rule.
The Mughals probably would have made India what the Muslim-ruled countries of the world look like today - deduct the oil-wealth. The little Hindu kings probably would have either gotten extinct, or kept licking the boots of the Mughal kings while feeling superior to their desperately poor low-caste co-religionists. The mass population of all religions would probably be quite miserable today. There is no reason to believe that without the British the Hindus would be as good today in terms of their caste-system and treatment of the women.
Having said all this, I would not jump into the praise-squad for the British. The British certainly did not do anything out of their love for the Indians.
I think this topic should be more about our own soul-searching. Shouldn't we feel ashamed to think that we are better today because of a foreign rule? Shouldn't we feel embarrassed to think that our loving forefathers were of too poor quality to advance us as much as what a sucking foreign ruling class did?
More later,
Sukhamaya Bain
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2011 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Would India be better off without British rule?
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2011 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Would India be better off without British rule?
Pre-British history of India is not well-known. That is a blind-spot in the Indian history. We know intricate details about British era, but not much about Mughal era. It could be due to lack of documentation or resources at the time. British ruled many other parts of the world, including part of North America, which fought a full-fledged battle against British. How come they do not have such strong resentment against British? How come other parts of the world, ruled by British, also do not possess such sentiment against them as Indians do? Indians tend to blame everything on British rule. We blame British for our thinking, we blame British for our administrative bureaucracy, we blame British for our education system, judicial system, communication system, etc. etc. I know what happened in 1919 during the Jallianwallabag massacre, in which British troops opened fire on unarmed civilians in a mass gathering, protesting British rule. This was the time when Gandhi started his anti-British movement, and that's the price we paid to force British out of India. How much price Indians paid during Mughal rule, especially during Babar and Awrangzeb? Anybody has a clue? That is not my point of discussion. My point is - would India be better off without British rule? Let's extrapolate continued Moghal rule for another 200 years and contrast it with the India left behind by British rulers, and analyze the situation. I will appreciate your inputs on this point. Jiten Roy --- On Wed, 10/5/11, subimal chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com> wrote:
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