Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "Is India So Poor Because of the United Kingdom?" video.

This video is clearly trying to play the same 'both sides' style here made famous by media reporting on climate change. It even misreports in order to do so. For instance, the video claims the British prevented famines in their later years, such that they stopped being a thing. Literally one of the biggest famines in Indian history - the Bengal Famine - happened close to the end of British rule. The unalive count is comparable to the atrocities committed by the very enemies they were fighting in Europe. The chart that Indian manufacturing wages went up in the last few decades exactly coincides with the end of the first world war - when the Indian govt. was given a little more devolution due to their freedom struggle making the most of the war to extract concessions. In other words, that was India taking back some power over their own administration, and benefiting therein. And so on. There isn't actually much debate over the deleterious effects of British colonialism among either historians or economists, there's just a holdout of mainly conservative British and American historians (most famously Niall Ferguson) who like to argue that it was good. There are unalive count estimates that make even world war 2 seem small - like upto 165 MILLION between just 1880 and 1920. There are calculations of how much wealth was extracted of over 45 TRILLION dollars. Etc. It is well accepted in the field, just as it is with scientists on climate change, that colonialism did a lot of harm. Not just in absolute terms, but even compared to the standards at the time or the times that came before it. Via taxes, tariffs, trade restrictions and much else India fell from a QUARTER of the world economy to a hundredth of it. And no, that wasn't just the west going ahead, it was India falling apart.
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India has been independent for less 100 years. It's already the fourth largest economy in the world, soon to be third. India was left poor by the British, and it's important to recognize that. Not as an excuse, and it's not even about the past. India is growing, but many in the west still believes their empires were great services they did for the world. That ego isn't the past, but the present. It's important to puncture that ego. India is and will grow on its own, and hopefully the stereotypes the west built (including for Latin Americans) break down as more and more of the people they ruined rise up once more, as they stagnate.
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India was poorer BEFORE socialism, cos it was left incredibly poor by the British. Nehru and his socialism may have run its course by 1991, but India DID recover under it. Education and health improved greatly, food self-sufficiency was achieved and the country even built its own heavy industrial base. Even the IITs and IIMs powering its post-91 explosion into the global service sector were established by Nehru i.e. the socialists. Oh and contradicting this video India had one of its biggest famines AFTER the period during which they claim the British worked to prevent famines - the Bengal Famine of 1943. But it hasn't had any major famines since independence, despite being desperately poor at the time.
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@elmunecohumano4609 It had one of the largest populations on the planet even during British rule. Didn't stop them from reducing it to a nearly insignificant portion of the world economy. So either its population discounts the size of its economy now, or it accentuates how incredibly harmful the Europeans were. You can't have it both ways. If the size of the population matters so much, then it only increases the scale of the damage the Europeans must've done.
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Amazing how much westerners react angrily on being told how horrible they were. As the other guy said, we did turn around. We're not asking for reparations, apart from maybe symbolically. All we're doing is telling you guys that your colonial regime was horrible. But apparently even that is too much for you. You have to do anything to protect that fragile ego of yours. This isn't about excuses, it's about setting the record straight. About not letting you write the history. It's not even about the past, but the present - about the ego that you still carry with you, based on your interpretation of that past as glorious and magnanimous.
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India was poorer BEFORE socialism, cos it was left incredibly poor by the British. Nehru and his socialism may have run its course by 1991, but India DID recover under it. Education and health improved greatly, food self-sufficiency was achieved and the country even built its own heavy industrial base. Even the IITs and IIMs powering its post-91 explosion into the global service sector were established by Nehru i.e. the socialists. Oh and contradicting this video India had one of its biggest famines AFTER the period during which they claim the British worked to prevent famines - the Bengal Famine of 1943. But it hasn't had any major famines since independence, despite being desperately poor at the time.
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As for Singapore, it's a city-state. It's also so 'capitalist' that the govt. controls most of the housing market and allocates it according to ethnic distribution rules lol. India is already a MUCH bigger economy than Singapore. Oh but India is also a much bigger country than Singapore I hear you say? Yeah no shit. Your own comparison makes just as little sense.
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This channel primarily caters to western viewers. If it can help puncture the self-congratulatory bubble they put themselves in by constantly giving people like Niall Ferguson a platform to tell them how great they are, so be it. It benefits the channel, but also benefits the global south by making said viewership hear more of the other side. Now hopefully they do one on the Congo Free State sometime...
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Look up the Congo Free State as an example of how bad that got...
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@LaVidayElTristeFinal 'culture' ah the new dog whistle for racists, gotta love it!
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@bristoled93 Yes it did. Not only did it get poorer than the WEST - you mentioning the rest of the world only shows how small your worldview is, as most of the world got worse too due to colonialism - but it even got poorer than it ITSELF had been prior to being colonized. Life expectancy even went down. Famines were more common and worse. Etc. Bruh we literally have estimates of how much wealth was drained, and the figure is astronomical.
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@bristoled93 Just between 1880 - 1920 excess unaliving in India is estimated at upto 160 million. The bengal famine alone unalived over 3 million, while the west was 'horrified' by similar numbers unalived by Germany at the time. As for that extraction amount, it north of 45 TRILLION dollars.
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Ah yes, the caste system held India back so much that it was a quarter of the world economy and one of the richest regions on earth for most of human history, all of which was true while the caste system was in place (which was also the case under the British lol - they didn't abolish it). Ditto for women. You clearly neither watched this video or any other historian on the topic lol. 'It is their culture' - ironically this is why people like Tharoor suggested a purely symbolic reparation of 1 pound a year for India - it makes no difference to either country, but it sends a message to cultural chauvinists like you who still imagine you're better.
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@hermanquintelier6784 That's cos the British have their own historians (the most well known being Niall Ferguson) who argue it wasn't their fault. Or others who give the excuse of the war. So they probably just left it out as 'controversial'
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'alleviation of suffering' lol. How about over twice the unalive count of the second world war, and that's just over the period of 1880 - 1920? Nothing during that 'feudal' period, which is in itself an unsubstantiated claim that nothing would have changed had the europeans not come, compares to that. Try telling all their ghosts it was all worth it, for a CHANCE at today's world.
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@ulikemyname6744 'India's economic growth is largely due to the vacuum created by the exodus of companies from China' - false. India's growth precedes that by literal decades. Did you think India was stagnant while China rose lol? Not even close, it was just the second fastest growing major economy to China's first. Now they've just switched places. Those companies aren't all marching to India either, nor have that many companies actually exited China, most just diversified.
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@LaVidayElTristeFinal Using 'culture' as an explanation, especially with nothing to back it up, is equally devoid of all meaning. You want to stop being called racist? Fine. Then stop trying to bring up 'culture', or any equivalent of it, all the time. You didn't have an argument for me debunk to begin with.
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@ais1076 Yes that's a much better comparison. Still doesn't make India look good, but not as laughable as comparing it, or any large nation, to Singapore lol.
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@Mortarion-xt9wp He's referring to the Bengal Famine of 1943. It has its own wikipedia page if you're interested.
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@abhisheksamriwal5932 Agreed. In economic terms this is known as the infant industry concept. It's been used successfully by many nations, like South Korea or China for instance. And for those wanting to see an example of the disaster that open markets wreak on underdeveloped nations, look at the multiple victims of the IMF's infamous Structural Adjustment Programs in Africa. Even the IMF admits they failed.
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@suryakantabosechowdhury5018 I didn't say otherwise, merely that even capitalist Singapore has a strong state presence. It was more of an aside than anything. My main issue is the same as everyone else here - the comparison is stupid to begin with, not just for India but for any large nation. China is a much better comparison.
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@vasilisconstantinides4476 It isn't a 'way out' in the first place. It's just knocking the west down from their moralist perches and making it clear to all how bad they were. Does that offer a 'way out'? No, it was never meant to. It's merely revealing hypocrisy and egoism for all to see. That is worthwhile for its own sake, to change public perceptions based on real history.
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@eirikbelisarius1100 No, they also fell relative to their OWN prior economic performance. Plus there's more tangible signs of the devastation caused. For instance the estimated 100 MILLION excess unalives in just a fifth of the colonial period (1880-1920). Or the fall in life expectancy from before. This argument has only ever really caught on in the west, who were the colonisers.
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@zurielsss Singapore is a city-state lol. India is already a MUCH bigger economy than Singapore. Oh but India is also a bigger country than Singapore you say? Yeah no shit. Your own comparison makes just as little sense.
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