British India

[Dinner]

The fish would just sit around eating munchies and talking about conspiracy theories.

[Zkribbler]

WTF, Fisha?!?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The fish would just sit around eating munchies and talking about conspiracy theories.

So, like... Slaughtermeyer?

[Heraclitus]

WTF, Fisha?!? could be a good meme if properly implimented.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And tea .

Before the Brits, tea production wasn't that great in India.

Before the Brits, the production of textiles was great in India. Good and bad.

[Dinner]

Isn't it second in the world only to China right now?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva
A good and bad thing

Pretty much sums it up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Before the Brits, the production of textiles was great in India. Good and bad.

Tea > textiles

[TheStinger]

Like most things the Uk did historicaly there are both good and bad aspects

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Oh, I don't know. I good share of the new listings on the London Stock Exchange have been from India lately. That's helped power it back to the number one spot among world financial centers. In 2003 or 2004 it once again passed for the first time since 1917 or something like that.

On what measure? I only ask as from what I recall the LSE is not what potentially makes London the biggest market in the world (it is the largest exchange in Europe, but not globally for example).

[East Street Trader]

I suspect one of the lasting effects of the Raj is simply that of unifying what had been a patchwork quilt of smaller states into a single entity.

Of course it was the Indian people who turned that entity into a nation state after the Brits were driven out. But nevertheless the actions of the East India Company and then the UK plainly acted as a catalyst in the overall process.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by East Street Trader

I suspect one of the lasting effects of the Raj is simply that of unifying what had been a patchwork quilt of smaller states into a single entity.

That's not really true.

India has been politically unified before, and the cultural unification of the subcontinent was achieved millennia ago. The idea of the subcontinent being one entity - Akhand Bharat, of BharatVarsh, or even AryaVarta - is extremely old. The references to the idea that all these states are fundamentally one goes back at least two and a half thousand years.

That is, the "nation" always existed. A person from Gandhar (now Kandahar, Afghanistan) could travel all the way to the southernmost tip of the country, and even beyond (into Sri Lanka and Indonesia), and if he knew Sanskrit, he would be understood. Brahmins, for example, never had any trouble travelling anywhere, because all Brahmins everywhere knew Sanskrit (I exaggerate wildly here - not literally every Brahmin actually knew the language - but in general, you could always find at least a bunch of Sanskrit speakers wherever you went). Of course, so did everyone else, at one time, but the use of Sanskrit as a liturgical and contact language allowed this network to persist long after the language of the common man split into many mutually unintelligible languages in different regions of the country.

Originally posted by East Street Trader

Of course it was the Indian people who turned that entity into a nation state after the Brits were driven out. But nevertheless the actions of the East India Company and then the UK plainly acted as a catalyst in the overall process.

Well, as I said, the ancient concept of the Indian "nation" is what was one of the biggest motivating forces in driving the British out in the first place. "Nation" is the wrong word to use, though. It's more like a cultural entity than anything else. More like, say, the concept of a subcontinent - the way Europe is now.

[aneeshm]

In general, I think the effect was more harmful than beneficial.

[C0ckney]

i think what EST is saying is but for britian, there would be no india.

i think this is for two main reasons. firstly; that the subcontinent was divided between mostly muslim states in the north, gujarat and bengal, and mostly hindu states in the south. it was a real patchwork quilt of states and foreign enclaves. secondly; following on from the first point, it's far easier for a people to forge themselves a national identity when they are living under one occupying power (i know that's a vast oversimplification, but what can you do ), as opposed to living in many competing states with differing religious, social and cultural values.

[Provost Harrison]

I disagree, it did wonders for us...