ThisisBigBrother.com - UK TV Forums - Jeremy Corbyn: Children Should Be Taught About Suffering Under British Empire

Quote:

Originally Posted by Niamh. (Post 8630323)

Sorry Matt, i usually agree with your opinions but that's such a maddening statement. You were better off being invaded by us? whhhhaaattt. Would you feel the same if it were England having been taken over by the Germans or whatever? I doubt it very much. How could you possibly know what India would be like now if Britain had never gone near them in the first place? And regardless, that "you're better off" reasoning is just so offensive

I don't think its offensive because the Indians themselves played a huge part in how their country was run under the Empire. This is a good article by a British-Indian which gives a fair assessment: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...a-Empire-.html

A few of its points:

Quote:

Of course, Empire was not a purely altruistic enterprise. Britain reaped enormous profits from India at the expense of its growth.

It prohibited industrialisation and kept the vast bulk of Indians in a state of abject poverty, growing cotton or mining metals that would then be sent to the factories and mills of northern England...

But these bleak facts should not obscure the fact that British rule in India was a joint effort, impossible without the widespread co- operation of Indians themselves...

Indians assisted with Empire because it brought them unprecedented order and civility. Indians were no strangers to outside rulers; for eight centuries before the Raj, the sub-continent had been subjected to the plunder and depravity of the Mughals - Muslim rulers who came from as far west as Turkey.
...

In 1846, the British commissioner, John Lawrence, told the local elite that Punjabis could no longer burn their widows, commit female infanticide, nor bury their lepers alive...

In addition to combating these barbaric practices, the British also outlawed slavery in 1843 at a time when an estimated 10 million Indians were slaves - up to 15 per cent of the population in some regions.
...

Yes, British rule was exploitative and took away more than it provided, but compared to what Indians had known previously, there was much to be thankful for.

This gratitude expressed itself in 1939 when, at the height of the independence movement led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, two million Indians nonetheless enlisted in the fight against fascism - the largest volunteer army in history.

It's no overstatement to say that, without the British, Indians would not even know what it is to be Indian.

After 800 years of Mughal rule, Hindu culture was in terminal decline and it was the likes of Warren Hastings and William Jones, the founders of the Asiatic Society, who began the collection and renewed study of India's ancient texts, educating Indians about their own rich and unique past...

For all they extracted from India, the British left behind a practical network of transportation, governance and values without which India would not be the dynamic democracy it is today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...a-Empire-.html