Was British rule in India a net neutral or even a net positive?
Oh boi, I'm sure this is gonna be a very respectful discussion where ppl won't get emotional and begin to insult me or others in the comments /s
Ok let me start by saying I'm actually center right in my political inclination and voted for BJP. Don't like them much actually but compared to the Congress or other options , BJP is the best. Hadta choose the best of the bad options.
Will also state that I'm pro hinduism and believe that Hinduism and Indian civilization used to be great, 2000 yrs ago , during the Upanishadic epochs and that they will great again in the future.
I'm also pro hindu nationalism. I think it's the only way we can break the tribalism of Indians and ensure greater meritocracy instead of nepotism and clientelism.
Ok so yeah I'm of the firm belief that British rule in India was at worse a net neutral to our society or even possibly a net positive.
Here's the good things the British did:
1). They unified us. I really doubt we would have ever politically unified if it weren't for the Brits. Even today , English is the defacto national language of India. It's the only language national administration can occur in since using hindi instead would piss off south Indians and using say tamil would piss off north Indians and so on.
2). They ended the famines India was prone to for millenia by completing the railway system in 1901 or so. After that India has remained free from famines cause of the aid that can be rapidly mobilised and distributed through the railway systems.
1943 was an exception yes but only because the japanese were at the Bengal border then and the Brits were afraid any aid they sent to Bengal might be hijacked by the Japs in the event of a Japanese invasion of Bengal.
There's also the fact that India's population exploded from around 100-150 million in 1750 to around 250-300 million in 1850, which i believe contributed a lot to the famines that occured before 1900 too.
Here's the bad things they did:
1). They worsened the drougt based famines sometimes. Yes it's true that they worsened famines by denying aid and continuing to export food a lot of times before the 1890s.
But here's the thing , they weren't a rigid hivemind. Some of the Brits were cruel and racist and wanted millions of Indians to die from starvation but many more were good ppl who lobbies for that policy to be changed in the British parliament and they won and hanged that policy in the 1890s and began to offer aid to famine victems , even building and using the aforementioned railways to mitigate famines.
In fact we still use those same railway tracks to mitigate famines in drought affected areas even today.
Some 40% of the railway tracks in India even today date back to British times, tho obviously they have been modified and improved over time by the independent Indian government.
India has faced famines that killed millions for millenia from Mauryan or even IVC times till the British times.
The British weren't unique in ruling over or even exacerbating famines.
They were however unique in actually managing to engineer the infrastructure and government policies required to end the famines completely.
2). The Brits destroyed the traditional indigenous schooling systems in India. That is true and that has no excuse. I won't try to defend this act by the British. It was definitely a net negative.
3). The Brits did great damage by destroying the traditional communal rights over land in rural areas and replacing them rapidly with individual deeds over the lands This allowed rapacious zamindars and such to quickly amass wealth and power and impoverished millions of ppl. We suffer from that even today. I won't defend this either.
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I still believe however that British rule in India was mostly favorable or atleast a net neutral because they brought to us a level of political unity unseen before.
Let's consider what would have happened if the Brits hadn't united us.
If the Brits hadn't conquered us , the French would have and you need only see the status of ex British colonies vs ex French colonies to how bad that would have been.
Even if somehow no euros ever took interest in conquering us , then we would have likely fallen to another Muslim dynasty from Afghanistan since the Maratha confederation was already collapsing into crippling infighting by then and the Afghans had already beaten them soundly in the 3rd battle of Panipat
India in the modern age would have been a collection of warring states.
A stage for proxy wars by the Americans, the Chinese and the Soviets.
Any economic advantages we would have had would have been most likely made nil by warfare.
And pls , remember: There are no good options in life, there are only bad options and worse options. We just have to choose the bad to eschew the worse options.
British rule was indeed a bad option. But the lack of British rule would have been a worse option.
So yea that's my argument. Pls do debate this with me and i know this is gonna be emotional for most of you but I do plead to you guys to keep it respectful and not insult me too much.
Attack my arguments. Not me.
Hopefully you will change my mind :)
Oh man , this is gonna do a number on my karma reserve but oh well what can one do?
u/time-weekend-8611