India could not have been better because India was in a horrible position already before British colonization. Or else how would 20,000 troops from a tiny island nation colonize a subcontinent with a population 1,000x it's size?
lol..
Take empirical evidence...
Countries who were not colonized are way better off today than those who were. Take an example of Turkey in Middle-East..while all surrounding nations are suffering...Turks are doing relatively better.
indians could've "learned" from European advance and could have built infrastructure, railway lines and what not? But European colonization destroyed india's chance to get industrialized during 19th, 20th century.
Colonization = destruction.
Just like barbarians destroyed rome...Brits destroyed india..
Please don't argue against the obvious.
1. The "East" was never more powerful than the West because they never exerted power over us in the way we do them. The West is so powerful that we are routinely conspiracized as controlling the entire world through military and political force, even when there is no evidence for this.
lol..Rome never "exerted" its power over tribes in sub saharan africa or in jungles of indonesia...does it mean it wasn't really powerful?
Every civilization is judged in relevance to its own era...that is basic common sense.
Rome was superpower of its time...Ottoman Empire was a superpower of its time..Abbasid-Ummayad Empire was the superpower of its era..and so on.
If you look at history..there were far more superpowers arising from "East" than "west" ....thats a fact, unless offcourse you don't want to believe the obvious.
2. There is no coherent "Eastern" entity like there is a Western entity.
Very true.
Same is true for so-called "west" too. Western powers were fighting, butchering, and murdering each other throughout history...Its only after they killed 60 million of their own that europe become a "union" because it had no choice left
3. The West rarely ever drew any ideas from Islamic civilizations.
"Rarely"?
Well, leaving aside all the cultural, political, and scientific influence that Islamic World had on Europe for centuries...lets play a little game.
Go to Google and type "The founding father of modern European secular thought" ...and guess who comes up? An Islamic Scholar from Muslim-Spain.
Tib Bid: He was
banned by Catholic Church and Catholic Churches used to "curse" him during their religious services.
Just one Islamic Scholar has had more influence on Europe's behavior, worldview, and history than
entire European civilization has had on Islamosphere.
Remember, influence is judged by
behavioral transformation....not by superficial things.
Using English doesn't necessarily mean influence..it just means convenience...Koreans learn English..so do many in Islamic World....but whats the difference?
Korea is completely "westernized"...its
behavior as a people..as a culture..is to completely adapt "west" and lose its own identity...while Islamic World as a whole is an entity of its own..it did not adapt west in its behavior..it did not change its religion to the one that west wants it to have...it did not change its worldview...this is true specially for the masses of majority parts of Islamic World...Heck, the problem is, that people from Islamic World don't even get 'westernized' while living IN west...thats why Europeans have a problem with many Muslims..
Listening to music, watching films, eating western food, wearing jeans etc etc doesn't account to anything. Human civilizations are judged by their "behavior" and ideological take on the world..not by petty things like above. I listen to Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi music too...I eat Korean food too...does that make me "Israelized" and "Koreanized" lol...No, it doesn't.
4. The West, before the 1700's, led the colonization of the New World and dominated the spheres of political and economic influence through much of the Middle East. The Roman Empire for example existed thousands of years before the dawn of the Western superiority you attest to. The Vandals, Franks, Goths, etc. after them.
What? West domination spheres of political and economic influences throughout middle-east before 18th century? Are you serious?
By mid-17th century, the dominating power in Europe itself was Ottoman Empire...lol
And yes, Rome in one power from West...so were Greeks..
Now look from historical superpowers from East: Egypt, India, China, Persia, Turks, Islamic World etc etc...
All of above entities remained dominant political and economic powers in different time eras...while Rome and Greece are from West.
Clearly, way more superpowers arose from East than West.
5. India is less relevant economically than Canada (with a smaller GDP) and politically and militarily is probably less relevant than a Ukraine or a Syria.
Dream on...
india is a market of 1 billion+...
india is in "developing" stage...it hasn't "arrived" yet with her true potential...
Oh, and GDP counts for shiite (not that you even have much of it anyway), because India had a larger GDP than the Brits (by a factor of two or three) when you were getting your asses handed to you by a force of 20,000 company men.
Learn something...brits didn't colonize india though military invasion. They colonized india by exploiting the space that was created due to infighting and civil strive in india...
Lastly: GDP of india alone was larger than entire western europe combined for most of the history.
west was nothing for the most part. it only became dominant after industrialization in 18th century...