Happy Birthday, India. (She turns 58 today)

Sify News ^ | 8/15/05 | Sify news service

[voletti]

On midnight 14th August 1947, Great Britain ceded soverignity over the Indian subcontinent to its native people. The struggle for Independence was led by Mohandas K Gandhi and boasted stalwarts like Nehru. The day also marked the birth in blood of 2 new nations - India and Pakistan - in one ancient land .

[razoroccam]

"India is a third-world backwater joke and always will be"

Weren't serious about that, were you?

[familyop]

The phrase, "gunboat diplomacy" originated with the actions of the British in one of their colonies. British gunboats cruised up and down a river, blasting villages as a punitive measure.

Ghandi raised an impressive amount of support in India by peaceful means, and Britain was facing the impending support aroused there. India has come far since her independence but not before.

My ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War would also have disagreed with your comments.

France didn't do any worse than Britain with her many Muslim colonies. In fact, in at least one British colony in a Muslim territory, the Arabs beheaded a who city of British men, women and children. Their heads were piked all around the city.

Western Europe is western Europe--not one of those countries much better than another.

[familyop]

Happy Birthday to India, though! It's quickly becoming a great country without the help of any "empire!"

[familyop]

"India's (and Pakistan's)present problems can be traced to the incompetent manner in which independence came about."

India did manage to put an "Empire" out on its rear end, just as our USA and Israel did.

And India's getting better as a result. It's a powerful country now--in resourcefulness and attitude, far more powerful than Britain is. And I would much more rather work for Indians than Britons.

[isom35]

happy birthday India, now can someone there please reset my netscape email password?

[Srirangan]

Photo Essay: Independence Day Celebrations Prime Minister's Independence Day Speech

[MadIvan]

So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to apologise for. Britain's takeover of India was due to a vacuum of power after the Mughal Empire collapsed.

And you neatly sidestepped, gobshite, the whole Democracy issue - it's not just a matter of actually voting, but its the education and laws your leaders received. Gandhi was a solicitor, remember? Without British laws and traditions, there was no philosophical basis in the Indian tradition to have come up with the democratic system India now enjoys.

As for suttee - don't lie about that either. As this shows::

British governors generally taxed fairly and improved their holdings, often building roads in the region. Eventually, though, the British also began to impose their own ideas of culture on the people they governed in South Asia. For instance, they forbade the religious practice of suttee, in which, where women threw themselves on the burning funeral pyres of their husbands.

Never, ever lie to my face. Just don't try it.

Ivan

[Srirangan]

True the British did a few good things. But they only did it for their profit, not with the motive to govern the people fairly.

[MadIvan]

True the British did a few good things. But they only did it for their profit, not with the motive to govern the people fairly.

What possible directly deriveable economic benefit was there in educating the likes of Nehru and Gandhi? What benefit was there from killing the Thugee?

Answer: none.

Try again.

Ivan

[Srirangan]

Gandhi - You solely asked for economic benefits. Well, under Gandhi India started producing -salt- something that the British Raj forced India to import from UK.

Nehru - Hundreds of Dams, Schools, Universities, and othe rinsitutions under his govt. You ask "what benefit?".

Try you? No thanks, you seem to be pretty ill informed. I'm all to happy to leave it at that.

[MadIvan]

You're being stupid on purpose. Why would Britain offer the opportunity to educate Gandhi and Nehru. It served no economic purpose that one could see.

Second, there was no economic purpose in killing the Thugee.

Try again. And don't be a complete, blithering idiot this time.

Ivan

[BullDog108]

Then again talking about arse, had it not been for the Indians fighting and dying for the British pansies in World war I and World war II the Pommie arse would have been disfigured beyond recognition by the Jerries and the Japs. The effeminate and upscale British mama's boys (or mama's pantywaist rather) would have had their (spineless) necks shoved through their tiny anal apertures by the Germans and Japanese had it not been the Indians and other colonial armies coming to their aid.

Worth repeating!

[Srirangan]

Yes ofcourse! The queen paid for their education didn't she.
Bah! Rest of your posts, you resorted to flaming. Obviosuly you have no arguments against the facts I quoted. Britain did somethings to develope India. But those were primarily done so that the East India Company earned a huge profit, and the wealth kept on draining to UK. Most of the jewels on the Queen's crown, from India. You'll still spew your anti India hate campaign, for the likes of you I have no time.

[swarthyguy]

Couple of good reads on India.....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/677105/posts

We also explored the many burned houses. How were they burned? I would ask the locals. Back would come the casual reply. 'They belonged to Hindus and Sikhs. Our fathers and uncles burned them.' Why? 'So they could never come back, of course.' Why? 'Because we are now Pakistan. Their home is India.' Why, I persisted, when they had lived here for centuries, just like your families, and spoke the same language, even if they worshipped different gods? The only reply was a shrug. It was strange to think that Hindus and Sikhs had been here, had been killed in the villages in the valleys below. In the tribal areas - the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan - quite a few Hindus stayed on, protected by tribal codes. The same was true in Afghanistan itself (till the mujahedin and the Taliban arrived).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/773340/posts

But Javed, a high school student here, says his parents might as well be describing life on the moon. He was 3 when a violent insurgency against Indian control tore apart the state, causing Hindus to flee by the hundreds of thousands. He has never had a Hindu teacher or friend, never tasted Hindu food.

[swarthyguy]

>>Why would Britain offer the opportunity to educate Gandhi and Nehru. It served no economic purpose that one could see.

The British understood they needed local administrators to help govern the country.

With the British Govt taking over administration of the East India Co after the Indian Rebellion, some local color was needed to alleviate the administrative burdens.

Of course, education can be dangerous.

[swarthyguy]

Ping to Post #54. Links to informative articles if interested.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to apologise for.

I don't see what use an apology would be to anyone, but the British took over India for their own economic benefit. To pretend otherwise is silly.

George Monbiot writes:

Britain’s industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain’s manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products. We are rich because the Indians are poor.

There are many other sources - British sources - that go into the fact that exploitation of India helped fuel Britian's industrial revolution.

And you neatly sidestepped, gobshite, the whole Democracy issue - it's not just a matter of actually voting, but its the education and laws your leaders received. Gandhi was a solicitor, remember? Without British laws and traditions, there was no philosophical basis in the Indian tradition to have come up with the democratic system India now enjoys.

India did gain quite a few things from the British. The widespread adoption of English as both a link language within India and as a bridge to the rest of the world has been a huge plus. The British legal system has been carried on since Independence to India's benefit. But there's nothing about being a former British colony and inheriting their imposed legal system that automatically conveys democracy on a nation, as Pakistanis and Egyptians could tell you. Indian democracy is something that undoubtedly took it's inspiration from Britain, but it's something that Indians have made work for themselves.

[DM1]

"SO THAT INDIANS CAN KICK THEIR DIRTY ASS"
good and you