Well, I just spent about an hour reading up on the history of India, and you're right on a lot of counts. Let me ask, since you seem quite knowledgeable - do you think the British meant well in India, or not? It's fashionable these days to bash colonialism, but my understanding is that the British generally tried to do right by the people they governed. (With some exceptions - Oliver Cromwell, for instance)
Take education:
Wikipedia:
"Between 1867 and 1941 the British increased the percentage of the population in Primary and Secondary Education from around 0.6% of the population in 1867 to over 3.5% of the population in 1941. However this was much lower than the equivalent figures for Europe where in 1911 between 8 and 18% of the population were in Primary and Secondary education.[18] Additionally literacy was also improved. In 1901 the literacy rate in India was only about 5% though by Independence it was nearly 20%.[19]"
So things improved, but slower than Europe. India also de-industrialized through British rule, but then, the Industrial Revolution in England absolutely wrecked all pre-Industrial workforces everywhere, not just India.
It looks to me like there was an initial surge of chaos after the British pulling out, but that can be explained by inadequate police, safety, and emergency response personnel which the Indian government did try to remedy quickly.
Nehruvian Socialism looks like it was a disaster - per capita GDP looks like it shrunk from 1950 to 1995:
But I'd just chalk that up to socialism, no? Socialism historically has slow rates of growth, more poverty, quality of life lagging.
Since the free market liberalization, India's growth rates have been crazy fast. From '99 to '07 the lowest per capita GDP growth rate was 7%, the average somewhere around 12%. Which is fantastic.
Beyond that - what's your take if you have a free minute? I don't want to be ignorant on global affairs and you're obviously quite studied in Indian history. What's your take on the British, the socialism afterwards, and the liberalization? My previous thinking was that the British were trying, but upon reflection the improvements they made did lag the rest of the world. Mixed socialism was probably the worst thing India could've jumped into after that (me: not a fan of socialism at all...) but the liberalization in the 90's was really good.
But what's your take, and can you recommend anything to read? I try to overcome my ignorance when it's there.
And yeah - I'll wind up in India for some reason sooner or later, and I'll look you up. I'd say do likewise if you're in the same place as me, but I'm not sure where that's going to be! I'm in Kowloon, Hong Kong if you're here in the next week or two, most likely Beijing after that. I'll do some more reading on Akbar - I'm familiar with the name but haven't spent so much time checking him out. Thanks for the recommendation, and thanks for the discussion.
I've found "Thy Hand, Great Anarch!" by Nirad Chaudhuri to be a very interesting source. He was an Indian civil servant who lived through the independence movement. He has unkind words for both the British and the nationalists alike.
Let me ask, since you seem quite knowledgeable - do you think the British meant well in India, or not? It's fashionable these days to bash colonialism, but my understanding is that the British generally tried to do right by the people they governed.
Chaudhuri's take is pretty interesting. He found most administrators to be generally capable and well meaning. The ex-patriots living in India he found to be quite patronizing and racist. They may have been well meaning, but in that "Bauno cares about Africa" sort of way.
GDP stats are created in a political sausage factory, you cannot take claims of "12% growth" or of shrinking GDP at anything like face value.
It's not fair to compare India to Japan, because Japan had a lot of human and cultural capital that India did not have. Japan's low GDP in 1945 was a result of war time destruction, before the war it was an industrialized country that already was way ahead of India.
But it's also not fair to compare present India to colonial India, and claim that the current government is better because certain indicators are better now. Life expectancy went up because of medical advances in other nations (penicillin, etc) that India imported. We have no definitive way of knowing how a 2010 British ruled India would compare to the actual India. But we do know that the change in government produced immediate political change that generally resulted in policies that slowed growth.
"it's also not fair to compare present India to colonial India, and claim that the current government is better because certain indicators are better now. "
Huh? If indicators are used to prove life is worse off now in Africa say, then of course indicators can be used to prove life is better now in India. Besides, I used "indicators" for life 9 years after the British left. Penicillin doesn't account for dams and roads and schools and hospitals and no more famines (for example).
Besides, I was explicitly countering lionhearted's (original) claim that India had devolved from colonial rule, an assertion for which there was (and can be) zero evidence provided, but a lot of people here accepted and voted it up. So it seems "colonialism was a good thing" is a popular idea among people who were never colonized. Sometimes HN surprises me.
On a lighter note, when I was living in America, a co worker wanted to know if we still used elephants for transport, like they used cars! Well I preferrd the flying carpets but we had a spare elephant or two in the stables for when it rained :-P
Ok now I am done with all this historical discussion. Back to hacking!
>Huh? If indicators are used to prove life is worse off now in Africa say, then of course indicators can be used to prove life is better now in India.
But technology in general has been improving, so things should be better, all other things being equal. Things may even be better if government is somewhat worse.
But if things have gotten worse, you're really screwing up, so much that technology can't make up for it.
I have no idea how this applies to India, just making a general point.
"Let me ask, since you seem quite knowledgeable - do you think the British meant well in India, or not?"
This is one of those meaningless questions imo. I'll just say that the British were probably better than the other colonizing powers. (The french had a presence in some parts of India for a while and were no worse than the British, but Germans or Belgians would have been worse I guess. So in that very narrow sense we got lucky).
As for books, Try "The Lotus Throne" By Abraham Eraly for the Mughal period and "India After Nehru" for Indian hiatory from 1965 or so.
Take education:
Wikipedia:
"Between 1867 and 1941 the British increased the percentage of the population in Primary and Secondary Education from around 0.6% of the population in 1867 to over 3.5% of the population in 1941. However this was much lower than the equivalent figures for Europe where in 1911 between 8 and 18% of the population were in Primary and Secondary education.[18] Additionally literacy was also improved. In 1901 the literacy rate in India was only about 5% though by Independence it was nearly 20%.[19]"
So things improved, but slower than Europe. India also de-industrialized through British rule, but then, the Industrial Revolution in England absolutely wrecked all pre-Industrial workforces everywhere, not just India.
It looks to me like there was an initial surge of chaos after the British pulling out, but that can be explained by inadequate police, safety, and emergency response personnel which the Indian government did try to remedy quickly.
Nehruvian Socialism looks like it was a disaster - per capita GDP looks like it shrunk from 1950 to 1995:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Per_capita_GDP_of_South_As...
But I'd just chalk that up to socialism, no? Socialism historically has slow rates of growth, more poverty, quality of life lagging.
Since the free market liberalization, India's growth rates have been crazy fast. From '99 to '07 the lowest per capita GDP growth rate was 7%, the average somewhere around 12%. Which is fantastic.
Beyond that - what's your take if you have a free minute? I don't want to be ignorant on global affairs and you're obviously quite studied in Indian history. What's your take on the British, the socialism afterwards, and the liberalization? My previous thinking was that the British were trying, but upon reflection the improvements they made did lag the rest of the world. Mixed socialism was probably the worst thing India could've jumped into after that (me: not a fan of socialism at all...) but the liberalization in the 90's was really good.
But what's your take, and can you recommend anything to read? I try to overcome my ignorance when it's there.
And yeah - I'll wind up in India for some reason sooner or later, and I'll look you up. I'd say do likewise if you're in the same place as me, but I'm not sure where that's going to be! I'm in Kowloon, Hong Kong if you're here in the next week or two, most likely Beijing after that. I'll do some more reading on Akbar - I'm familiar with the name but haven't spent so much time checking him out. Thanks for the recommendation, and thanks for the discussion.