Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site psuvax1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!burdvax!psuvax1!varikoot
From: varikoot@psuvax1.UUCP (Ashok P. Varikooty)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Plunder by the British
Message-ID: <1909@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Dec-85 16:23:34 EST
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1909
Posted: Sun Dec  1 16:23:34 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Dec-85 06:35:55 EST
References: <11@sbcs.UUCP> <101800012@uiucdcs> <1907@psuvax1.UUCP>
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 91


  More reply on the following by Mr. Reddy


> > The plunder of India & its impoverishment by British colonizers was
> > no boon to Indians, Muslim or non-muslim.
> > /* End of text from uiucdcs:net.nlang.india */
> > 
> Changing the topic, has it ever been established that the British plundered
> India?  Does anybody have figures representing the rate of growth in India
> for a substantial period before the British arrived in India, and the rate
> of growth during the British rule?  If the British did plunder India, what
> did they plunder and howmuch?
> I have'nt seen a detailed study of these issues, but what I have seen
> suggests that India progressed faster during the British rule than before it.

  Mr. Reddy's statements above are so asinine and misinformed that  I am 
  compelled to make further statements on the subject.

  PLUNDER
  The plunder of India was so enormous that even the Secretary of State
  for India in 1875 said that 
   "as India must be bled, the bleeding should be done judiciously."
   (from Digby. Williams ' "Prosperous" British India.' )
   
  The following comments from Macaulay's Lord Clive describing Clives' gains
  are also illustrative
  " We may safely affirm that no Englishman who started with nothing has ever
  in any line of life created such a fortune at the early age of 34 !
  But the takings of Clive either for himself or for the government were 
  trifling compared to the wholesale robbery and spoilation, following his
  departure when Bengal was surrendered a hapless prey to a myriad of greedy
  officials. These officials were absolute, irresponsible and rapacious and 
  they emptied the private hoards. 
    Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta while thirty
  million human beings were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. The 
  Roman proconsul ... the Spanish viceroy ... were now outdone."
  

  EXTENT OF PLUNDER 

  Digby noted estimates made of the extent of plunder between the Battle 
  of Plassey and Waterloo was between 500,000,000 - 1,000,000,000 pounds.
   
  K.T. Shah and K.J.Khambatta  (from R. Dutt 'India Today' ) have estimated
  that in the 20th century the British had appropriated annually under one
  title or another over 10% of India's gross national income.
  This when India was under the rule of the crown and the British had 
  started developing some "conscience". The rapacity of a privately held
  East India Company before the crown rule can only be higher.    


  BEFORE THE BRITISH

  The following quote from Vera Anstey's 'The Economic Development of India'
  " .. up to the eighteenth century the economic condition of India was 
  relatively advanced and Indian methods of production and of idustrial and    
  commercial organization could stand comparision with those in vogue in any 
  other part of the world...... A country which has manufactured and exported
  the finest muslins.. at a time when the ancestors of the British were living
  an extremely primitive life, has failed to take part in the economic          
  revolution initiated by the descendants of those same wild barbarians."
   
  THE PERFIDIOUS INDIRECT EFFECT 

  There was a systematic neglect of education, health and welfare of the 
  subjects. The literacy rate, the average life expectancy and the level 
  of starvation deaths have significantly changed for better (though not
  sufficiently) after the independence. These are the figures as I recall
		     Pre independence          Post independence
  Literacy                10%                          30%
  Life Expectancy         32 years                     52 years 


  WHO WERE BETTER OFF UNDER THE BRITISH?

  To quote J.Nehru  from his 'The Discovery of India'  
  "British rule thus consolidated itself by creating new classes and vested 
  interests who were tied up with that rule and whose priveleges depended on
  it's continuance. There were the zamindars and the princes...."

  J.Dass in his 'Maharaja' gives an instance of a Raja who spent more on the
  "wedding" of his dog in a single day than he annually spent on his subjects
  and he could go unquestioned for this unconscionable act.

  While the existing rulers are not exactly a paragon of virtue they atleast
  donot have a "judicious" bleeding  of India as their objective. They are 
  at least partially responsive to the ruled. 

  The days of extravagant "weddings" for dogs are over.
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***