The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

And you inferred that from...?

"Absolutely, unequivocally disagree with this statement, and this view is exactly what defines an apologist for colonialism btw. I haven't read the book that you mention, there is a treatise which details the specifics of how Mughal administration was responsible for making Bengal the prosperous region that it became [0]. Those are objective facts. Mughal administration resulted in the preponderance of better administrative practices leading to a period of great prosperity."

I don't get it. Disagree with what statement that "defines an apologist of colonialism"? With the statement that Madison enumerates various wrongs, both colonial or non-colonial, or with the statement that I didn't dispute colonial wrongs? You haven't read my book and I haven't read yours. I will gladly read yours once I get the chance. Perhaps you could read mine and inform the heirs of Maddison where they went wrong. Especially in regards to claims of Mughal's bad or good administrative practices, which he clearly wasn't quantitatively impressed with - unlike you, apparently

"Without colonialism, the trajectory of prosperity would have continued into modern times, just as it did for Japan, Germany etc."

That is a pure speculation that can't be verified in any way. Historians have no way of conducting experiments on populations, nor of predicting the unpredictable outside events. (That is a different issue from me rejecting colonialism for isolationist reasons, though.)

"Please don't throw these handwavy arguments. We have historical records detailing exactly the kinds of brutal policies carried out by the East India company (and later the British Raj) with the sole intention of maximizing their profits at the expense of local institutions and peoples. Again, this is an objective fact. I am telling you exactly what caused the demise of those institutions and you are saying, hmm, you know what its probably something else. Stop being so fucking dishonest."

Of course we have. Again, I haven't disputed that and I feel like westerners could have done much better, although I'm not exactly sure that this isn't an anachronistic argument to morals of our own era of the kind that is often shunned by historians (which I admit I am not). Not many leaders had qualms whenever they had power back then. But any of those events are very far from the topic of claims of a shiny Mughal empire preceding it, and by virtue of succeeding it, they're causally incapable of impacting the former.

"What is your fucking point?"

My point was that 25% of world's GDP share for Bengal is a claim hard to reconcile with the documented data of roughly 25% of world's GDP share for the whole of India. One of those claims has to be wrong. Wikipedia asserts Bengal supporting up to one half of India's GDP share at one time and a 12% of world's share, so it would seem that the former rather than the latter is wrong.

"Yes more people == more wealth. Left alone, all those people would have used their wealth for progress. For education, for investment. Once that capital left India, so did its productive capacity."

That is exactly the thing I answered in my very first response. See "negligible levels of productive investment". See the book for more arguments if you're interested in it. It doesn't specifically focus on any particular place in India though, mentioning summary figures, so it may very well not apply to some local developments. That is a caveat I will happily admit.

"Like I said, you don't seem to be interested in an honest debate. You read one fucking book and are convinced, absolutely firm, that pre-colonial India was oh such a wretched place. I'm sorry to inform you that it was probably a little more prosperous than the west. And were it not for certain very narrow instances of extremely good timing, the subcontinent would have had a very different history, and likely a much better one."

I'm not - and haven't even been - convinced, much less "absolutely firm", that it was more wretched than many other places, but pre-modern life in general isn't to be romanticized. Perhaps India was a little more prosperous, as you say, than the west in the pre-modern period or at least some parts of it. Many variations in time and space existed on top of the general levels of pre-modern subsistence economies that could allow for it, depending of natural conditions, political situation etc. But nobody was that better off before modern machinery. Call me a Marxist all you like but means of production matter and the playing field used to be quite level in this respect.

The interesting thing is that the Norman mark probably never wore off: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8424...

So much for "assimilation" of the conquerors! I feel like it really works the same everywhere, every time. They won't really let you in even after centuries. Don't get deceived.

It is in a rather unmaintained state (minimal reinforcement), with relevant information displayed next to and on it and is freely accessible to all.

Not knowing about Mughal is ignorance, while not learning about the bad sides of our own history is (often: culturally imposed) revisionism.