Will Britain say sorry to India asks Tharoor in this viral video

[vgane]

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https://www.facebook.com/IndiaToday/videos/vb.23230437118/10153941290462119/?type=2&theater

 

[mskmoorthy]

Here is a youtube version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcWc7WqcS5M&feature=youtu.be

 

[sangom]

Why should Britain say sorry? We Indians were uncivilized and without any military worth the name, and so the British conquered the entire country. They colonized and made as much profit as they could, from that colony. When the going became tough, they granted Independence. Has our record after Independence proved that we "deserve" independence? We are as poor and undeveloped as we were.

 

[mskmoorthy]

Please read these articles. We do not have to worry that Britain will ever say "sorry for its atrocities" (Where has Germany, Japan have done for their WW 2 inhumane treatment).

Britain (and Oxford University Union) continues to be defiant.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/e...during-debate-on-british-empire-10284369.html
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/01/oxford-union-racist-colonial-cocktail-poster

 

[prasad1]

It is hard hitting and factual data filled speech.
I applaud Tharoor for the speech, and Vgeneji for posting it.
I am not sure about the reparation. I do not see it.

 

[Brahmanyan]

Mr Sashi Tharoor has started another storm in the tea-cup. Nothing more than that. I wish he reads Gandhij's famous book "Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule" published in 1908, a collection of articles published serially in the columns of the Indian Opinion, edited by Gandhiji.

Here is what Gandhiji says on English rule in that book:


The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositions can be sustained. They came to our country originally for purposes of trade. Recall the Company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the Company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver?

Who bought their goods? History testifies that we did all this. In order to become rich all at once we welcomed the Company's officers with open arms. We assisted them. If I am in the habit of drinking bhang and a seller thereof sells it to me, am I to blame him or myself? By blaming the seller shall I be able to avoid the habit? And, if a particular retailer is driven away will not another take his place? A true servant of India will have to go to the root of the matter. If an excess of food has caused me indigestion, I shall certainly not avoid it by blaming water. He is a true physician who probes the cause of disease, and if you pose as a physician for the disease of India, you will have to find out its true cause. (Pp35)"

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[tbs]

hi

see the latest.....

http://www.dinamani.com/india/2015/07/23/சசி-தரூரின்-ஆக்ஸ்போர்டு-பல்/article2936459.ece

 

[prasad1]

Apparently in a spot of bother over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's effusive praise of his speech at Oxford University, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tonight sought to downplay it and said his party's demands on the resignation of BJP ministers remain.

"Absolutely gracious of @narendramodi ji but yes, @INCIndia's demands remain: Standards of integrity must be upheld," Tharoor tweeted, as Modi's praise of him, a day after he got an earful from his party chief Sonia Gandhi, left political tongues wagging on the timing of the appreciation.

Tharoor's party colleague Sachin Pilot said it was very kind of Modi to praise Tharoor but there is no let up in the demand for resignations of Union Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh--Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chauhan for alleged irregularities.

"Very kind of @narendramodi Ji to praise @ShashiTharoor in Parliament but let's move on to real issues now. We still call for resignations!," Pilot tweeted.

Tharoor later said he hoped that no one should read anything else into Modi's praise beyond the prime minister's act of showing graciousness.

Tharoor said politicians can respect each other across party lines but that does not mean they have to abandon values of their parties.

Modi showered praise on Tharoor, the only Congress MP present at a function organised by the Lok Sabha Speaker for MPs, while talking about the need for free airing of views on national issues irrespective of the party affiliations.

"Oxford debate has a huge significance. It is good that Shashi ji was there.... What he spoke there reflected the sentiments of the citizens of India," he said while inaugurating a workshop on the Speaker's Research Initiative (SRI) to train MPs on various subjects of global importance.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/491062/after-modis-praise-tharoor-says.html

 

[vgane]

Let us confine our bickerings within India but when we have to confront the outside world let us be united in calling spade a spade

 

[sarang]

First Indian to say that the british looted us, and discusses in detail in his book 'Poverty and Unbritish rule in India' It seems 30 to 40 million pounds of indian tax revenue was transferred to england every year. Money transferred cannot be recovered, but artifacts and goods can be demanded for return.

*****

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) a Bombay Parsi who sat in the British House of Commons, also called the The Grand Old Man of India, presented to the British people the "Drain Theory", which put before them the facts and figures illustrating systematic bleeding of the wealth and resources of India.
His ideas were put into a volume called "Poverty and UnBritish rule in India". He wrote in 1901:
"I need only say that the people of India have not the slightest voice in the expenditure of the revenue, and therefore in the good government of the country. The powers of the Government being absolutely arbitrary and despotic, and the Government being alien and bleeding, the effect is very exhausting and destructive indeed."
Naoroji said this on the Debate on the Indian famine that took place at Kennington , UK :
“When the British people first obtained territorial power in India , bad seeds were unfortunately sown. The Company went there solely for the sake of profit, greed was at the bottom of everything they did, and the result was that corruption, oppression and rapacity became rampant.
One result was that there was a heavy drain of wealth from India , and the Europeans who went there were so anxious to acquire riches that they did not wait until they had earned or deserved them, but they seized them in defiance of all economic principles. That was one cause of India ’s trouble.
Everything expended upon the formation of the British Empire in India had been extracted from the Indian people, and, in addition to that, the Natives had shed their blood freely – and to a much greater extent than Englishmen – in order to insure the maintenance of the British supremacy."

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/European_Imperialism13.htm

 

[sangom]

Let us confine our bickerings within India but when we have to confront the outside world let us be united in calling spade a spade

Where are we "confronting the outside world" in this discussion?

Is not Sasi Tharoor trying to cosy up to BJP, by hook or by crook? Do you believe he is so much motivated by concern for India and its "cattle Class" people?

 

[mkrishna100]

Is not Sasi Tharoor trying to cosy up to BJP, by hook or by crook?

Sunanda Pushkar's Murder mystery is making him cosy up to the BJP as he knows that they can give him sleepnights nights if he tries to bad mouth them .

 

[vgane]

Where are we "confronting the outside world" in this discussion?

Is not Sasi Tharoor trying to cosy up to BJP, by hook or by crook? Do you believe he is so much motivated by concern for India and its "cattle Class" people?

Where has BJP or Modi come in the picture...Do you mean to say as a true Congresswalah he should have praised British rule, showered it with encomiums and sung paeans of praise for swindling the country dry?

 

[prasad1]

Aakar Patel

For me, whether the Raj was good or bad is not as important as whether it was better than what went before it. Of course it was. The British didn’t come to conquer India; it was a creeping takeover facilitated and encouraged by Indians. Gujarat was relieved when the British finally protected them from the excesses of the Marathas (who still squat on Baroda) and the incompetence of the Mughal rump. It was the Oswal Jains who financed and executed Robert Clive’s win at Plassey. They did so because the Mughal governors there were in power but incapable of leading them, even if they were not foreign.

Tharoor says that Clive looted India. True. But he also stabbed himself (with his pen-knife I understand) in the throat because of his guilt. I wish that fate for not a few of those who looted us after him. But forget that.

The fact is that the Indian army has historically been an army of mercenaries that became a national army overnight on August 15, 1947. It has zero history of fighting for national causes, only ever for money. Herodotus describes the clothing and weaponry of an Indian contingent in Greece hired by the Persians against the Athenians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. A century later Alexander fought and massacred mercenaries in Punjab, according to Arrian.

The Jats and Marathas rode to battle for whoever paid them, as did the Rajputs. And why go back that far? General Dyer only ordered the firing at Jallianwala Bagh. Aim was taken and triggers pulled by the Gurkha Rifles and the Baloch Regiment.
If the British failed to govern India well it is because India is ungovernable. They did as good a job as might be expected of colonialists and have little to apologize for. Under the British, India’s population quadrupled for the first time in the 19th century (having only doubled each century before that according to the economist Angus Maddison). That is in my opinion purely down to Pax Britannica, the peace ensured by the Raj’s monopoly over violence. All Indians should be forced to read Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s four-volume history of the century between Aurangzeb’s death and the final defeat of the Marathas. Mother India was weeping and wounded when she went into the arms of Victoria.

The fault is not in our stars, dear Shashi, but in ourselves.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...&utm_campaign=TOInewHP&utm_medium=Widget_Stry

 

[sangom]

Aakar Patel






The fault is not in our stars, dear Shashi, but in ourselves.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...&utm_campaign=TOInewHP&utm_medium=Widget_Stry

Shri Aakar Patel has written the truth, imo, but many will not be able to digest the truth!

 

[zebra16]

Shri Aakar Patel has written the truth, imo, but many will not be able to digest the truth!

It is amazing that at times you would choose to keep the vast repository of your knowledge and reading in suspended animation and would pen a subtle prejudice and bias in your posts.

Your single line response that Sri A P has written the truth but many will not be able to digest the truth is no different from the ploys that you said were being adopted by the religious scholars to confuse the ordinary people and pretend that they are repositories of true wisdom.

Now coming to the *truths* that Sri Aakar Patel expounded which in your opinion many will not be able to digest:

(i) Battle of Plassey which was the first stepping stone of establishment of British Empire, was a **creeping takeover** a battle which lasted at least 7 years between Siraj-ud-daulah and East India Company. I wonder why historians term it as a "battle" and not a creeping acquisition.

(ii) Robert Clive did not fight the battle in the straight forward manner, did he? Did you forget to search for the truth that Clive bribed Mir Jaffer, the demoted commander of Siraj's army and promised to make him nawab?

(iii) When you believe the profound **truth** of Aakar Patel that the Gujaratis were relieved to be protected from the Marathas, does not one recall the repeated incursions by Mohamed Ghazni ransacking the Somnath temple?

(iv) Do you really believe in Aakar Patel's statement that the Mughal Governors in power, were not foreign and were native Indians?

(v) Does his statement that India's quadrupling of population in 19th century is attributable to "purely down to Pax Briittanica" sound credible, given the fact that India's population since 1947 has quadruped once again in about 65 years?

(v) Is the decline in India's share in world trade solely due to reduction in reliance on agrarian economy, and not in any way caused by deliberate chocking of Indian arts and crafts and industries by the British to make Indian market available for British production?

(vi) Do you find Sri Aakar Patel assigning any cause to the Mughal era before the British for any of India's failings?

(vii) If one were dilligent and had known that Sri Aakar Patel's full name is Sri Aakar Ahmed Patel, who is fond of wearing secular hat to bash anything Indian or Hindu, may be his article would not pass the truth serum. He is a current busybody who has not shown to be a history buff in any of his writings or tel'talks.

The very fact that it is a blog post, which necessary fails the exacting standards of history writing or news worthiness should alert one to dig a bit deeper before telling that others cannot digest the so called truth.

 

[prasad1]

Let us get our History properly.
There was never a unified India before the British came.

The last empire to span all of the land called present day India was the Mauryan Empire.
Most of the subcontinent was conquered by the Maurya Empire during the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. From the 3rd century BC onwards Prakrit and Pali literature in the north and the Sangam literature in southern India started to flourish.

Various parts of India were ruled by numerous Middle kingdoms for the next 1,500 years, among which the Gupta Empire stands out. This period, witnessing a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence, is known as the classical or "Golden Age of India". During this period, aspects of Indian civilization, administration, culture, and religion (Hinduism and Buddhism) spread to much of Asia, while kingdoms in southern India had maritime business links with the Roman Empire from around 77 CE. Indian cultural influence spread over many parts of Southeast Asia which led to the establishment of Indianized kingdoms in Southeast Asia (Greater India).

The most significant event between the 7th and 11th century was the Tripartite struggle centered on Kannauj that lasted for more than two centuries between the Pala Empire, Rashtrakuta Empire, and Gurjara Pratihara Empire. Southern India was ruled by the Chalukya, Chola, Pallava, Pandyan, and Western Chalukya Empires. The seventh century also saw the advent of Islam as a political power, though as a fringe, in the western part of the subcontinent, in modern day Pakistan. The Chola dynasty conquered southern India and successfully invaded parts of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka in the 11th century.


From the late 18th century to mid 19th century, large areas of India were annexed by the British East India Company. Dissatisfaction with Company rule led to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, after which the British provinces of India were directly administered by the British Crown and witnessed a period of both rapid development of infrastructure and economic stagnation. During the first half of the 20th century, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched with the leading party involved being the Indian National Congress which was later joined by other organizations.
The subcontinent gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, after the British provinces were partitioned into the dominions of India and Pakistan and the princely states all acceded to one of the new states.

India as a country was born on 15th August 1947. So technically there was no country called India before that date.

None of the princely states cared about Indians. They were constantly at war with their neighbors the other kingdoms. I know it is great to talk of the wealth of India before British, but the truth remains that for people of the subcontinent of India it was no different. The Rajas, then the various Muslim rulers, the East India Company, then the british sucked them. And Then Congress, UPA, and NDA are doing it. At least it is democracy after independence. So we need to blame ourselves.

“You Can’t Handle The Truth” is a memorable quote from the 1992 military court drama film A Few Good Men.
The English invaded and ruled Indian subcontinent for their own selfish interest. They were not motivated by any great cause.

Inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India

 

[prasad1]

Robert Clive did not fight the battle in the straight forward manner, did he?

It is war, in war there is no honorable way. It is the victory that counts. In every war there is covert activity, Even in Mahabharat war there were innumerable act, not considered strait forward.
Trojan war was not fought in Strait forward manner.
Only fools charge in modern warfare.
If the English took advantage of Mir Jaffer's greed, who should you blame?
Amazing argument.

If one were dilligent and had known that Sri Aakar Patel's full name is Sri Aakar Ahmed Patel, who is fond of wearing secular hat to bash anything Indian or Hindu, may be his article would not pass the truth serum.

Does this statement represent India? or it is bigoted version of India presented by a fringe element in India.
It is like the "right wing republican" portraying Obama as "Barrak Hussain Obama: as Kenyan and Muslim". It just goes to show the depth which a depraved mind will take you to.

India's "missile Man" Abdul Kalam too was Muslim? Should we have trusted him with that and the subsequent research in nuclear weapons programme?
He was a "MUSLIM", but he was Indian.

Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid, PVC (1 July 1933 – 10 September 1965) was a soldier in the 4th Battalion, The Grenadiers of the Indian Army, who died in the Khem Karan sector during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 in the Battle of Asal Uttar, and was the posthumous recipient of the Republic of India's highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra.

Does any of us have any right to judge another person, purely on the basis of their religion?
Yes there are bad apples in every community, including Muslims.

 

[sangom]

It is amazing that at times you would choose to keep the vast repository of your knowledge and reading in suspended animation and would pen a subtle prejudice and bias in your posts.

Your single line response that Sri A P has written the truth but many will not be able to digest the truth is no different from the ploys that you said were being adopted by the religious scholars to confuse the ordinary people and pretend that they are repositories of true wisdom.

Now coming to the *truths* that Sri Aakar Patel expounded which in your opinion many will not be able to digest:

(i) Battle of Plassey which was the first stepping stone of establishment of British Empire, was a **creeping takeover** a battle which lasted at least 7 years between Siraj-ud-daulah and East India Company. I wonder why historians term it as a "battle" and not a creeping acquisition.

(ii) Robert Clive did not fight the battle in the straight forward manner, did he? Did you forget to search for the truth that Clive bribed Mir Jaffer, the demoted commander of Siraj's army and promised to make him nawab?

(iii) When you believe the profound **truth** of Aakar Patel that the Gujaratis were relieved to be protected from the Marathas, does not one recall the repeated incursions by Mohamed Ghazni ransacking the Somnath temple?

(iv) Do you really believe in Aakar Patel's statement that the Mughal Governors in power, were not foreign and were native Indians?

(v) Does his statement that India's quadrupling of population in 19th century is attributable to "purely down to Pax Briittanica" sound credible, given the fact that India's population since 1947 has quadruped once again in about 65 years?

(v) Is the decline in India's share in world trade solely due to reduction in reliance on agrarian economy, and not in any way caused by deliberate chocking of Indian arts and crafts and industries by the British to make Indian market available for British production?

(vi) Do you find Sri Aakar Patel assigning any cause to the Mughal era before the British for any of India's failings?

(vii) If one were dilligent and had known that Sri Aakar Patel's full name is Sri Aakar Ahmed Patel, who is fond of wearing secular hat to bash anything Indian or Hindu, may be his article would not pass the truth serum. He is a current busybody who has not shown to be a history buff in any of his writings or tel'talks.

The very fact that it is a blog post, which necessary fails the exacting standards of history writing or news worthiness should alert one to dig a bit deeper before telling that others cannot digest the so called truth.

Dear Shri (zebra) Narayanan,

I agree that you have a far more accurate and extremely deeper knowledge (and the clearest understanding) of history. Even so, let me submit the following points in reply to your questions, seriatim.

(i) & (ii) Does it make any difference to us, Hindus (and India as a nation today) Sir, whether the Battle of Plassey was a ** creeping takeover** or a straight forward blitzkreig-type attack & win? The result AFA we are concerned today is that the British East India Company won a war against Siraj-ud-Daula and the French East India Company which was also nudging the Nawab to war. BTW, not only Mir Jaffer, but also some other honourable Indian nobles - hindus to be specific - sided with the British ( for a consideration); so, how do we explain this? Even Mir Jaffer may be reckoned today, by us, as un-Indian or non-Hindu and therefore an aggressor against the great Hindu empire, but what about the Jagat

Seths and Rai Durlabh who also let down the Nawab trecherously? If we go by a purely Hindu- non-Hindu classification, it becomes Nawab Siraj-ud -Daulah, an illegal occupant of our dear Hindu land, being dfeated (and killed, subsequently) by Robert Clive, another non-Hindu and so equally detestable; so was Clive a friend of this country who helped us defeat and kill a Moslem ruler who had occupied our very dear Banga Bhumi in an entirely adharmic manner? Or, was Siraj-ud-Daulah "our friend " who was killed by Clive in an adharma yuddha?

Talking of adharma in yuddha, my feeling is that our great Mahabharata war contains so much more serious adharmas perpetrated by that venerable cowherd prince Krishna, that we hindus can have no great arguments about someone else trying the same lessons in another war!

(iii) Mahmud of Ghazni ransacked the Somnath temple and our accepted history says that he broke the original linga into pieces with his own hands. But then the same temple was attacked by many more aggressors like Allah-ud-Din Khilji, Muzaffar Shah, Mahmud
Begada and Aurangazeb. Why are you omitting these, I don't understand?!

Indian subcontinent was never one unified country, in known history, until the British colonized the entire India, Burma, Malaya and Ceylon. Even the great Mauryan empire of Asoka did not cover the entire present day India. We had more than a thousand of native kingdoms, each ruled in its own fashion by its rulers and each such native state was almost always at loggerheads with most (if not all) of its bordering neighbours. The ancient Thamizh land with its Chera, Chozha and Pandya kingdoms was also not an exception to this symptom and the Cangam literature itself gives enough evidence of one king attacking another's territory (his neighbour's) and returning with cattle, women, etc., belonging to the vanquished neighbour, as war booty. Naturally, no native was comfortable with people from his neighbouring state ruling one's own state and our history will have enough instances to prove this. Even after Independence, why did Bombay Presidency have to be bifurcated into Gujarat and Maharashtra? To bring the wealthy and industrialized Bombay city into a completely Maharashtrian social and linguistic framework!
What do you think was the cause for the Shiv Sena, the Kannada Chaluvaligar, the Lachchit Sena, etc?

(iv) It is a moot point whether the Mughal Governors in power had only indigenous indian/hindu genetic structure, etc. But as expressed above, if we say that those governors were alien Turuks illegally occupying our great hindu land, then how will you count the British who got rid of them? Were they our saviours or our enemies, or one aggressor who takes away the land from another aggressor because those who claimed to be the true owners of the land (viz., the Hindus) had long lost any kind of control over their land and were only living as serfs and second class citizens under the rule of one aggressor or another?

(v) If the population quadrupled in the 19th. century and if this had not happened before, then it is definitely a point to be noted. My view is that deaths due to constant internecine wars and battles amongst the various 'native states' could be avoided under the unified British regime and this had resulted in the increase in the number of living people.

India after Independence is not the India of the British. If independent India has quadrupled its population in 65 years, that too is an achievement, but that does not take away any part of AP's claim since there was no record of such quadrupling before the
19th. century. (In fact none of our very great Indian Emperors or ekacchatrādhipatis did not ever get an idea (nor ever dream in which god came and told him, etc.) of counting the heads of his unfortunate prajā !).

BTW, why was it that we could not quadruple our economic standards in the same period?

(v) Do we have reliable data for India's share in world trade for those old dates? Are we not blindly believing some Angus Madison's "guesswork"? Even granting that, the British came here to trade but our own incapacity opened for them, step by step, a chance to colonize the entire country, which they did. As a colonial power the British exploited the land to their best ability and took away all that they could. Why is it that we could not quadruple our share in world trade in the 65 years after Independence (just as we could perform in the population front) if we hindus were intrinsically capable of great trading abilities?

There is no point in playing the victim card now for getting some cheap publicity. If at all we should discuss why no hindu could think of something like the Indian National Congress of A.O. Hume, for nearly 200 years, and even then, we had to wait until one man from our colonial rulers themselves was moved to create a "national gathering" of "at least fifty men, good and true". History, therefore, shows that either there were not even fifty such good and true men, or that the men could not/would not come together.

(vi) Why should we want to go on assigning the blame to the Mughals, the British, etc., when the real cause was our own failings and weaknesses and our sheer inability to defend our hindu land?

If we are able to keep aside our age-long prejudices and think "out of the box", so to say, does it not appear that the vedic, hindu India consisted of an upper class comprising the brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and vaiśyas, who had all the freedom to exploit, in any whichever way, the vast majority comprising the śūdras, pañcamas, etc. The very glorious period (A.D. 1 to A.D. 1000) which Angus Madison talks of (when India's economy was the world's largest) had this arrangement.

This exploitative system could produce a lot and trade the produce also at competitive prices. Hence the praise for share of world trade, etc. But the above social system was pitiably inadequate for defending the very many small states which composed the then India, and so, naturally every foreign conqueror right from Alexander the Great had no difficulty in attacking (and trying to subjugate) such a sitting-duck kind of country (actually not one country, but an agglomeration of principalities). The Mughals were also conquerors and they established their dynastic rule here. (It is highly possible that the Mughals, meaning Mongolian in the Persian language, had some contacts with the "hindu" country/countries east of the river Sindhu, from long time past, at least from the time of Timur Lang.)

(vii) I was aware of AP's full name, Sir. Also, I was following his pro-Modi write-ups before the 2014 elections. I did not find anyone at that time finding fault with AP's middle name! Therefore, your observations do not seem to reflect the truth. Moreover, I personally feel that if only our very able brāhmaṇas of those ancient days had stopped performing their useless yagas and, instead, utilized their brains to actually build and keep ready the mighty weapons like brahmāstras, nāgāstras, varunāstras, āgneyāstras, etc., about which they were wont to wax eloquent in the itihāsas and purāṇas, the history of India would definitely have been very different and may be the whole world would have been ours today! But what to do? Those fellows were good at bluffing the ignorant brahmins only and, they simply did not bother to know what was happening in the world outside of their āryāvartta and their vedic studies and so naturally, the more capable people conquered. That seems to be the truth of the matter.

To conclude, it does not matter whether AP's write-up was a blog or something else; even history is what the historians want us to know, and none of us can actually know exactly what happened at any point of time in history. AP tells his views and I find his telling to be truthful. That is my submission.

 

[kunjuppu]

an interesting article on the british getting ownership of india...

The East India Company limped on in its amputated form for another 15 years, finally shutting down in 1874. Its brand name is now owned by a Gujarati businessman who uses it to sell “condiments and fine foods” from a showroom in London’s West End. Meanwhile, in a nice piece of historical and karmic symmetry, the current occupant of Powis Castle is married to a Bengali woman and photographs of a very Indian wedding were proudly on show in the Powis tearoom. This means that Clive’s descendants and inheritors will be half-Indian.

robert clive descendent married to indian

 

[zebra16]

Sri Sangom Sir,

Dear Shri (zebra) Narayanan,

I agree that you have a far more accurate and extremely deeper knowledge (and the clearest understanding) of history.

Do I detect a note of disdain to my post when you say “ you have a far more accurate and extremely deeper knowledge (and the clearest understanding) of history”..? I am not sure. But that was not the claim in my post. It merely asked one to be beware of factual inaccuracies and falsehoods in the post of the blogger and why it (the blog post) is not the truth.

Why is it that we could not quadruple our share in world trade in the 65 years after Independence (just as we could perform in the population front) if we hindus were intrinsically capable of great trading abilities? BTW, why was it that we could not quadruple our economic standards in the same period?

I would have to say that the blog post of AK has clouded your mind to miss the obvious thing. The obvious thing being, you have forgotten the power of compounding and even the derisively called “Hindu rate of growth” of 2% would almost quadruple in 67 years. The value of Re 1.00 compounded annually at 2% would amount to Rs. 3.77 after 67 years and you know that India has clocked better than a conservative 5% growth since 1991.

The economy has grown by more than 4 times since 1971 itself, and yes, the GDP is at constant prices taking out the effect of inflation. Here is the link for verification : http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp

(v) If the population quadrupled in the 19th. century and if this had not happened before, then it is definitely a point to be noted. My view is that deaths due to constant internecine wars and battles amongst the various 'native states' could be avoided under the unified British regime and this had resulted in the increase in the number of living people.

But the statement of the blog poster is simply untrue!!!

How is it possible for the population to quadruple when there were two large scale famines in one of the biggest provinces of the “colonized friendly” British, both engineered by the good Samaritan colonizer? The great Bengal famine of 1770 AD under the administration of Robert Clive wiped out about 10 million people and the Bengal famine of 1943 wiped out about 5 million people.

Both were caused by the British, the first one to grow opium instead of food crops so that the opium can be exported to China for profits and the second starvation deaths caused by keeping the food grains available for the British soldiers of World War II. The minutes of the meeting attended by none other than Winston Churchill is reported also to contain the notings to the effect that in case Japanese win the war in Asia the famine would be a good for propaganda against the Japanese. And of course there is the peevish noting of Churchill in the note itself as to Why Gandhi has not died in the famine?

Did you find these major events in AK Patel’s blogpost. Of course, you wouldn’t. That should cause a serious introspection to the so called **truths** as seen by him !

Now coming to the original piece of the blogpost on population quadrupling itself in 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century, that is also untrue. The Wikipedia says the population which was around 100 million in 1600 grew to 255 million as per 1881 census. That is just 2.5 times and not 4 times. Here is the link for verification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

Does it make any difference to us, Hindus (and India as a nation today) Sir, whether the Battle of Plassey was a ** creeping takeover** or a straight forward blitzkreig-type attack & win? The result AFA we are concerned today is that the British East India Company won a war against Siraj-ud-Daula and the French East India Company which was also nudging the Nawab to war. BTW, not only Mir Jaffer, but also some other honourable Indian nobles - hindus to be specific - sided with the British ( for a consideration); so, how do we explain this? Even Mir Jaffer may be reckoned today, by us, as un-Indian or non-Hindu and therefore an aggressor against the great Hindu empire, but what about the Jagat Seths and Rai Durlabh who also let down the Nawab trecherously? If we go by a purely Hindu- non-Hindu classification, it becomes Nawab Siraj-ud -Daulah, an illegal occupant of our dear Hindu land, being dfeated (and killed, subsequently) by Robert Clive, another non-Hindu and so equally detestable; so was Clive a friend of this country who helped us defeat and kill a Moslem ruler who had occupied our very dear Banga Bhumi in an entirely adharmic manner? Or, was Siraj-ud-Daulah "our friend " who was killed by Clive in an adharma yuddha?

It does not make any difference to us whether Rai & Seth betrayed or whether Mir Jaffer betrayed. But obviously it matters to AK for his slanted way of writing. When one can write about the financing of the battle by Oswal Jains, it is only being childish to deliberately omit the betrayal of Mir Jaffer and pretend to be the cat closing its eyes.

Did you fail to notice that AK wants only to talk about the period after the decay of Mughal empire? Any historian worth his salt would not artificially hyphenate a period from inclusion on a particular and specific topic.

(vii) I was aware of AP's full name, Sir. Also, I was following his pro-Modi write-ups before the 2014 elections. I did not find anyone at that time finding fault with AP's middle name! Therefore, your observations do not seem to reflect the truth.

I haven’t said anything about pro-Modi or anti-Modi write ups. I only mentioned about anti-Hindu and anti-Indian rantings. It is your imagination that is leading to that conclusion. But I do note that you are at times equating Modi = BJP, BJP = Hindus, etc.

In this very thread when a mention of Dr. Shashi Tharoor’s Oxford Union speech was said to have been applauded by Modi, you said this :

Where are we "confronting the outside world" in this discussion?

Is not Sasi Tharoor trying to cosy up to BJP, by hook or by crook? Do you believe he is so much motivated by concern for India and its "cattle Class" people?

The congratulatory note by Modi is not a cause for Tharoor’s speech at Oxford Union.

Proximity to the cause need not be the cause itself.

I would personally view your postings in this thread as a negativity filled one when you start your posting in this thread with

Why should Britain say sorry? We Indians were uncivilized and without any military worth the name, and so the British conquered the entire country. They colonized and made as much profit as they could, from that colony. When the going became tough, they granted Independence. Has our record after Independence proved that we "deserve" independence? We are as poor and undeveloped as we were.

It would take a lot of negativity to dismiss the oldest civilization in the world as being uncivilized, thereby giving a spin on the word civilization itself.

Rest of the points I believe we have discussed many times in this forum and it would be a daLelA lOtt.

 

[sarang]

If the indian council of historical research just writes or sponsors a project to only list out historical events and organize a conference to thrash out versions of history in an open forum, a credible version will surface; this will definitely happen.

 

[sangom]

Sri Sangom Sir,


Do I detect a note of disdain to my post when you say “ you have a far more accurate and extremely deeper knowledge (and the clearest understanding) of history”..? I am not sure. But that was not the claim in my post. It merely asked one to be beware of factual inaccuracies and falsehoods in the post of the blogger and why it (the blog post) is not the truth.

Dear Shri Narayanan,

I wrote the above lines with all sincerity because, though you talked about my vast reading, etc., I know my limitations as also about your erudition. But my English does not always cooperate with me in getting my ideas out clearly. So, if my words look like disdain, I can now only apologize to you.

BTW, your present post itself shows your erudition. Though my arguments (against yours) may not be that convincing, still it benefits me to interact with you.

I would have to say that the blog post of AK has clouded your mind to miss the obvious thing. The obvious thing being, you have forgotten the power of compounding and even the derisively called “Hindu rate of growth” of 2% would almost quadruple in 67 years. The value of Re 1.00 compounded annually at 2% would amount to Rs. 3.77 after 67 years and you know that India has clocked better than a conservative 5% growth since 1991.

The economy has grown by more than 4 times since 1971 itself, and yes, the GDP is at constant prices taking out the effect of inflation. Here is the link for verification : http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp

The point at issue is the quadrupling of the economy in the period since Independence. You are beating around the bush but have not given the figures for 1947 and one of the recent years; taking the "record low" of 1970 will be fooling ourselves. May be it is because the figures for 1947 and 2014 will demolish your argument. I don't know.

But the statement of the blog poster is simply untrue!!!

How is it possible for the population to quadruple when there were two large scale famines in one of the biggest provinces of the “colonized friendly” British, both engineered by the good Samaritan colonizer? The great Bengal famine of 1770 AD under the administration of Robert Clive wiped out about 10 million people and the Bengal famine of 1943 wiped out about 5 million people.

Both were caused by the British, the first one to grow opium instead of food crops so that the opium can be exported to China for profits and the second starvation deaths caused by keeping the food grains available for the British soldiers of World War II. The minutes of the meeting attended by none other than Winston Churchill is reported also to contain the notings to the effect that in case Japanese win the war in Asia the famine would be a good for propaganda against the Japanese. And of course there is the peevish noting of Churchill in the note itself as to Why Gandhi has not died in the famine?

Did you find these major events in AK Patel’s blogpost. Of course, you wouldn’t. That should cause a serious introspection to the so called **truths** as seen by him !

Now coming to the original piece of the blogpost on population quadrupling itself in 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century, that is also untrue. The Wikipedia says the population which was around 100 million in 1600 grew to 255 million as per 1881 census. That is just 2.5 times and not 4 times. Here is the link for verification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

Aakar Patel (AP) talked about the 19th. century, but you are bringing in the famines of 1770 and 1943 which, in my view, have no relevance to the issue. The point to be considered is whether the population of the sub-continent had quadrupled in any other previous century.

It does not make any difference to us whether Rai & Seth betrayed or whether Mir Jaffer betrayed. But obviously it matters to AK for his slanted way of writing. When one can write about the financing of the battle by Oswal Jains, it is only being childish to deliberately omit the betrayal of Mir Jaffer and pretend to be the cat closing its eyes.

Did you fail to notice that AK wants only to talk about the period after the decay of Mughal empire? Any historian worth his salt would not artificially hyphenate a period from inclusion on a particular and specific topic.

I am not saying that Mir Jaffer's betrayal of the Nawab was not there. I am trying to say that even the Oswal Jains, Jagat Seths, Rai Durlabh, etc., betrayed the Nawab in the same way as Mir Jaffer did. Can we, at this distance of time completely rule out the possibility of these betrayers who were Hindus, being motivated by their (patriotic) desire to see the end of the Nawab of the Mughal empire being uprooted?

AP is not claiming to be a historian nor is he writing history. Now, if you go by your own dogma (that anything historical cannot hyphenate any period from inclusion, etc.) what do we say about Muhammad Bin Kasim's invasion of Sindh and the role of the western jats siding with him?

While you charge me with negativity, and AP for his so-called anti-Indian (and hence, I suppose, anti-hindu; or is it the other way?) "rantings", what I find is that AP is just highlighting some of the benefits or results of a unified administrative control of the whole of the sub-continent under the British.

I detect a great penchant in you for blaming the British, the Mughals and anyone else whom we can find anywhere near, for all the failings of our own country and our countrymen. May be you think such an attitude will pass off for true patriotism!

I haven’t said anything about pro-Modi or anti-Modi write ups. I only mentioned about anti-Hindu and anti-Indian rantings. It is your imagination that is leading to that conclusion. But I do note that you are at times equating Modi = BJP, BJP = Hindus, etc.

You are right, but partly only; I do go by the equations Modi = BJP, BJP = hindutva and hindutva forces consider that they are the only authorized spokespersons for all hindus.

In this very thread when a mention of Dr. Shashi Tharoor’s Oxford Union speech was said to have been applauded by Modi, you said this :



The congratulatory note by Modi is not a cause for Tharoor’s speech at Oxford Union.

Proximity to the cause need not be the cause itself.

I feel that Tharoor who had the temerity to call the common people of India as "Cattle Class" can never be a friend of those very same common people and hence his Oxford Speech must have been a carefully planned attempt to bring himself to the notice (favourable, of course) of Modi, the BJP big-wigs, etc. Nobody usually goes to Oxford and gives such prepared speeches without first preparing the ground etc.

I would personally view your postings in this thread as a negativity filled one when you start your posting in this thread with



It would take a lot of negativity to dismiss the oldest civilization in the world as being uncivilized, thereby giving a spin on the word civilization itself.

Rest of the points I believe we have discussed many times in this forum and it would be a daLelA lOtt.

I consider that Hindu India was completely pre-occupied with its own brahminical and religion-oriented world view (if at all they had any idea of the very wide world around them!) and were a completely sitting-duck expanse of land for any conqueror to come, conquer and see (veni, vici, vidi in that order). Having thus been ruled and let ourselves be looted for centuries, there is absolutely no merit or credit in playing the "victim card" now. This only shows our incapacity to "rise from the ashes" and become the No.1 world power which we claim we were in some long ago past. Let our future generations not copy this "crying" but let them resolve to make this country mighty and strong both militarily and economically. That is my desire. I do not want to go on blaming the British, Mughals and so on, but instead, do self-analysis, identify our own deficiencies and strive to rise up with renewed force and energy. May be this looks like negativity to the hindutva pov which merely croaks about a "glorious past" and has no idea about the way forward!

There were many civilizations before what you call as the "oldest civilization of the world", the Egyptian, the Indus Valley, Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Babylonian, etc. We Indians today do not, in my opinion, carry any trace of the Indus Valley or even the Vedic civilizations. If, in your (erroneous) perception, we should be considered as still carrying the torch of any of these civilizations, it is only misguided and misplaced sense of 'something to boast about our past' though there is nothing really to boast about.

 

[zebra16]

Sri Sangom Sir,

Dear Shri Narayanan,

The point at issue is the quadrupling of the economy in the period since Independence. You are beating around the bush but have not given the figures for 1947 and one of the recent years; taking the "record low" of 1970 will be fooling ourselves. May be it is because the figures for 1947 and 2014 will demolish your argument. I don't know.

There is no beating around the bush here. I gave two clear cut reasons and indicators as to why GDP has more than quadrupled since our independence.

1. The derisively defined Hindu Growth rate of 2% itself will ensure that GDP is nearly quadrupled in 67 years, without bothering to read any charts or doing any calculations.

2. GDP for any year can never be zero, let alone being negative, though growth rate could be positive or negative for a particular year. Taking 1970 as Base year with GDP having been more than quadrupled GDP in 2014, I thought it was proof enough without belabouring the point. When simple arithmetic would do the job, I could not find reason for reproducing another's job here.


There was yet another reason for not giving the data since 1947. (Please note that most of the publicly available data is from 1950 onwards) I did not want to shock you by stating that there is more than 20 times increase in the size of the economy since 1947, without giving you the resources to verify. But as you have asked for it, I am giving it.

The data is compiled from two sources. For the period from 1950-2006, I am using the key note address by Dr. Rakesh Mohan, the then Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India at the Conference on “Growth and Macroeconomic Issues and Challenges in India” organised by the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi on February 14, 2008. Please refer to page 12 therein, which is available here : http://aboutcorporateindia.com/devOld/files/growth_record_indian_economy.pdf.

For the period 2007-14, I have used World Bank data to tabulate, which is available here : http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...pi_data_value wbapi_data_value-first&sort=asc.

I can vouch for the data and calculation integrity, but in case you require, I am in a position to post the same. To be precise, the size of the economy or GDP (real GDP inflation adjusted) in 2014, is 20.323 times than that was in 1950.

Surely Dr. Rakesh Mohan ex-DG of RBI and World Bank statistics are more reliable than the rumblings of AaKar Patel.

I could not find a single source for sourcing the GDP data for the entire period

As regards your sneaking suspicion that I probably did not give the data from 1947 to 2014, because it would demolish my argument, it is a totally unwarranted premise.

For your info, please see the wiki link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India.

The GDP of the country which stood at Rs. 10036 crores in 1950-51 increased to Rs. 1,04,72,807 crores in 2014, a whopping 1043 times increase, which is available from the simplest of simple google searches. Of course that figure is correct too, but it is at current prices and is not comparable.

I do not believe in posting gibberish like Sri Aakar Patel.

The "record low" is possibly misunderstood by you. It just gives the Highest and the Lowest figure in tabulation chart. As the chart commences from the year 1971 onwards and as in no year the GDP has fallen below 1971, it is shown as lowest. It is not an attempted mischief by me to distort the statistics to show a favourable data convenient to me.

Aakar Patel (AP) talked about the 19th. century, but you are bringing in the famines of 1770 and 1943 which, in my view, have no relevance to the issue. The point to be considered is whether the population of the sub-continent had quadrupled in any other previous century.

Ok. I will confine only to the point of population quadrupling as stated by Sri Aakar Patel. It is simply a falsehood not backed by any evidence. Why would you choose to ignore the wiki link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India) I gave which incontrovertibly mentions that the population of 100 million in circa 1600 increased to 255 million in 1871 census? Where do you find quadruplication? It is just about a little over double that too in 270 years !!!!


For your satisfaction, I give the link to the extracts of the article published in Book form entitled “The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. 2, C-1751 to C-1970, which I read online through google books. I found it to be scholarly, but your opinion may differ. Here is the google book link : https://books.google.co.in/books?id...opulation growth in india before 1900&f=false. Please refer to pages 480 onwards.

The postings on famine had relevance because there is a direct co-relation between famine and population. 1770 famine has a direct bearing because it reduced the population in the 18th century considerably. For Sri Aakar Patel to say that population quadruped in 19th century, the base should be 18th century naturally and 1770 famine did have an impact on the population figure of 1800 circa.

Secondly, I forgot to give the link of famines witnessed and mortalities caused therefrom during the period 1800-1900, which makes the claim of Sri Aakar Patel totally bogus. In case you are interested, here is the link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule

I am not saying that Mir Jaffer's betrayal of the Nawab was not there. I am trying to say that even the Oswal Jains, Jagat Seths, Rai Durlabh, etc., betrayed the Nawab in the same way as Mir Jaffer did. Can we, at this distance of time completely rule out the possibility of these betrayers who were Hindus, being motivated by their (patriotic) desire to see the end of the Nawab of the Mughal empire being uprooted?

I am confining myself to the omissions (which I believe to be deliberate and partisan) of the incidence of Battle of Plassey quoted by him in his blog post.

AP is not claiming to be a historian nor is he writing history.

AP should not distort history is in my contention. If his account of history varies, and does not match with the main stream history, he should quote the sources rather than attempting to blog an article with distortions.

Now, if you go by your own dogma (that anything historical cannot hyphenate any period from inclusion, etc.) what do we say about Muhammad Bin Kasim's invasion of Sindh and the role of the western jats siding with him?

As I said earlier, when AP does not want to talk about history prior to disintegration of Mughal empire, why are we venturing to that area?

The remaining points, I will address in my next post.

 

[sarang]

JNU historians are now known as distorians.
Guha has been exposed several times in the last two months for blatant twisting and selective use of facts. Anyway history has to be rewritten, without hiding facts and events. Of course interpretation of facts is open to all.