Cultural reform aside the British did tax without representation. Social change has been part of Indian society with or without British even some of the laws today are updated aggressively like womens rights and bringing moslems under common law. Well the Kohinoor is whose now??

Taxation without representation... what savage brutes we were! Even Manchester was being taxed without representation... eesh.
The fact is, India was a divided, frankly savage in many ways, backwards set of countries. Britain unified them, eliminated many of the savage custums, and gave them industry, that Common Law you mentioned, infrastructure, a postal system, rail networks, and a whole lot more.

Did pleanty of nasty things too... but no worse than what they were doing to eachother... and they certianly wern't getting anywhere the way they were going.

 

B.L.

You are utterly wrong, Britain ruined the country pre 1750 China India and Japan had 60% of the GDP in the world. The reality was British created an empire that rebelled against it eventually. Our family was well into Textiles etc for a longtime and had no need for the Bristiah to be there. British have a certain myth about any Indian origin person appreciating their empire for English, postal systems and reforming the religous practices--they are all being done better than ever under the British--what do u want credit for now Indian aviation--growing leaps and bounds?? Education system--was always farly good. Coming from a rich historical textile family frankly, brutally frankly -goodbye and we part as friends. I think Indians knew how to make shirts, salt, mine diamonds without the British, the green revolution happened after independence-before the people went through brutal famines- so ur contributions maybe that everyone disliked British rule so much that they united and created a non-existent entity called India, and as far as ur contributions in the Middle East go--well need I elaborate-watch TV everday.

Wow, I mean, wow... do have sorces for any of those claims? For one, I would LOVE to see where you got that 60% of the world GDP from. As for Britain ruining the country, you're implying there was anything to ruin. Yes India had bits and pieces of industries, and some kingdoms faired better than others, but nothing comparing to what the U.K. gave them. The various wars each kingdom fought against eachother were far worse than anything the Brits did.

It's all too easy to look back in history and judge from a 21st century standpoint. The fact is, it was an age of empires. You either had an empire, or you were part of an empire. Doesn't make it right, but that's the way it was. You can bitch and moan all day long about how evil the British Empire was, but would you have rathered French, Dutch, Russian, or Belgium rule? Very few of that era would have.

 

B.L.

Now before the British there were the Mughals and Persians--they were worse in INdia and actually destroyed 1000s of temples and actually looted the land. No the British were better than that and the current crop of Indian politicos even better. Testimony the worlds 5th richest man Mr. Mittal lives in UK and is the richest European holds and Indian passport. SO before u go on emoting there were no hard feelings. Neither did I say British were evil -so lets stop right there as it was some historical facts. But how UK treated Iran was something u judge for urself. Also I must say the British empire perhaps was more civilized in INdia as opposed to all its older colonies perhaps except Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

Anyway ur ex rulers conduct in Iran....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Iranian_Oil_Company

 

And relax India has setup a great mechanism to recover its lost revenue--the tea u drink is now all Indian. Have fun the Indians get it back a cup at a time. I guess they are equally civilzed in collecting damages-if any.

I think you will be interested in figures produced by Professor Angus
Maddison estimating India's wealth relative to world GDP for the years
1000, 1500, 1600, 1700. His work, published by the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), shows that India and
China used to be front runners for the title of "richest country".
India's share of world GDP is given as slightly more than a quarter in
the year 1000, and slightly less than a quarter between 1500 and 1700.


                    GDP in millions of dollars
                    --------------------------

Year                1000      1500      1600      1700


India             33 750    60 500    74 250    90 750

China             26 550    61 800    96 000    82 800

Western Europe    10 165    44 345    65 955    83 395

 

Also the Golconda mines in India were the largest known source of Diamonds upto 1890s. I guess the British invaded there to ...what was the excuse here... maybe WMDS and democracy?? Relatively Asia was developed until the dark ages since 1750 directly correlates with British colonialism. There are far better experts than me. So I shall cease at this point.

[quote]And for centuries the irish do not think so[/quote]

 

Who the hell cares what the Irish think?  They are just like an annoying little Yorkshire terrier who keeps biting and snapping at our heels which doesn't stop until you give it a kick up the arse.

Didn't the British unite India? Was not India a series of warring kingdoms before the Raj?

And of course Britain is a great nation, anyone who says otherwise is seriously deluded - not only for her history, which is hard for any other nation to match, but also her contribution in the modern world:

Britain is the 5th richest nation in the world and second richest in Europe - in fact Britain is amidst its largest period of economic growth in its long history; its capital, London, is the largest and richest city in Europe, it is also the world financial capital; Britain's cultural - both popular and high culture - contribution is world-wide( how many nations can boast that?); its language is the lingua franca of planet earth; its military is world class...

I could go on ad infinitum.

I got a bunch of Irish and Scottish in my neighbourhood. We meet at the bars for drinks, I actually said I had no problems with the British and they said I needn't visit Ireland or I would get whacked. They really do not like u do they. The Scots are fairly ambivalent.

Beside perhaps Australia I do not think a single ex colony would like to see the British back--now how great is that. In the sales business we call it no customer loyalty.