91–100 of 130 posts
If Indian history is up your alley, I heartily recommend William Dalrymple's set of three impressively researched and written books: 1. The White Mughals 2. The Last Mughal 3. Kohinoor I began reading The Last Mughal just as I had left Delhi and Agra and I regretted not starting it before my visit. Dalrymple knows his onions.
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Interesting, do you have sources for that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus Scroll down to Akbar and you'll find some interesting things. Also of interest is Allauddin Khilji.
It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…
AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…
1. The British Raj is still in living memory. All 3 of my surviving grandparents were born before independence and were adults and married by 1947 (when India gained independence). They remember British rule. Comparing the criticism that an evil empire from living memory receives with empires that came before it is pretty disingenuous.
2. As an Indian, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth when tyrants like Winston Churchill are celebrated in modern Britain. His thoughts on the Bengal famine of 1943 and his inaction during that time which caused the death of an estimated 2 million people due to starvation is a matter of public record.
It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…
> It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries To add to this, it's not just the British. The Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish (among others) colonized parts of India long before the British did, and the Portuguese an…
You mean in those parts of recorded history when everyone was dirt-poor, only Bengal had more people? I've read my Maddison, India was no better than anyone else at the time.
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Indeed, or at least the dissolution of imperial legacy culture through domination by the populations and cultures of ex-colonies. Independence was a mistake. It only cemented global apartheid. There is still time to demand democracy instead, starting with imperial states granting the residents of former colonies the full rights of citizens unconditionally.
If you hate our culture so much why do you want citizenship?
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Indeed, or at least the dissolution of imperial legacy culture through domination by the populations and cultures of ex-colonies. Independence was a mistake. It only cemented global apartheid. There is still time to demand democracy instead, starting with imperial states granting the residents of former colonies the full rights of citizens unconditionally.
If you hate our culture so much why do you want citizenship?
Also, just logically speaking, the parent wasn't talking about assimilation into a culture they despise, but rather about subordination. I don't agree with their perspective, but I'm more sympathetic to it than I am to yours.
The number of apologists for colonialism on this thread is depressing.
It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…
AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…
Also, the scale of the British empire was much vaster than the ottomans or the Belgians, and we’re still dealing with the repercussions of it the empire and it’s collapse all over the world.
I fondly hope for a reverse wealth drain from UK to India at the same scale or more.
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Indeed, or at least the dissolution of imperial legacy culture through domination by the populations and cultures of ex-colonies. Independence was a mistake. It only cemented global apartheid. There is still time to demand democracy instead, starting with imperial states granting the residents of former colonies the full rights of citizens unconditionally.
If you hate our culture so much why do you want citizenship?
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I'm not an apologist for the former British Empire, but India's collection of tiny fiefdoms were basically lawless until the British showed up.
The Indian subcontinent had already experienced the Mauryan and the Mughal empires (both bringing immense prosperity to the region) before the British showed up and looted the place clean.