You are giving your opinion on history as you see it. However you asked an important question at the end
Most importantly we need to ask ourselves where do we stand today? Ask anyone in Bangladesh if our parents are happier if we work for a Bangladeshi company or a mufti-national corporation lead by Europeans. I am pretty sure over 95% will settle for "Foreign" boss over "Desi boss". Because we have not master the skills needed to lead for the most part ( There are some fine exceptions but they are not the norm). For couple of generations we taught ourselves to be modern and learn about "International" customs. However in the process we lost eagerness to love our own customs, culture or language. We love our political parties more than our country.
Rarely we get leaders than inspires our nations but when we see inspirational personalities, we crush them to promote our narrow views. Just look and see what happened to Dr. Yunus.
Recent Wikileaks exposed our politicians and how they are so "Attached" to foreign ambassadors. Our forefathers fought for hundreds of years for freedom. Thanks God that they did not have to watch their sons and daughters running to foreign embassies for policy directions.
Let us wait and see where we go from here. Hopefully we adopt a more balanced way to deal with modernity.
From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Oct 8, 2011 7:39 am
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?
From: subimal chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Tagore wrote Jana Gana Mana For Lord Krishna - Logically Proved.
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 7:37 PM
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Saturday, October 8, 2011
Re: [mukto-mona] Would India be better off without British rule?
Dear member,
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?
Actually we should but there are areas where we gained new knowledge and we had to learn to live without dignity for couple of hundreds of years. During Mughal period communal harmony was there and during the British "Raj" the "Harmony" was missing to a point our forefathers had to divide the country to buy "Peace".
-----Original Message-----
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>
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:
JitenDa
When you believe that "I am thankful to British for their help in rebuilding India with their modern amenities, education systems, and judiciaries. Yes, they took some wealth back to England. Why not? You do not expect everything for free. Do you? After all, they came to India for business and occupied India for 200 years. They could have taken everything without investing a penny in India", I must say that Singh is right when he/she says that "our (please read 'your') thoughts are still controlled by British."
They did not do any thing out of love for the Indians. Every thing good we got was spillovers. Colonial exploitation was endless. Please reflect on what you have read from a typical history book. Think about indigo and poppy cultivation. Think how they put Tajmahal on auction to sell expensive stones after robbing all the gold and other precious metals and stones. Think about Jalianwalabag massacre, the way they retalitaed the sepoy mutiny, and countless other mischiefs. They did only that much as was necessay to carry out their business. Think about in what conditions they left India before running away.
Your comment or love for British rule is not surprising as many among us cherish the same view. That's why it is really thought provoking and as such can be a good topic for debate.
Think about a scenario: British did not colonize India. Where would India stand today? Did India really need a colonial master to be what she is today? Could she be better?
Please, everybody, put ypour inputs.
Regards.
-Subimal
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