The Indian subcontinent had already experienced the Mauryan and the Mughal empires (both bringing immense prosperity to the region) before the British showed up and looted the place clean.
It's fascinating how one can read claims such as "Mauryan and the Mughal empires bringing immense prosperity to the region" with no substantiation here and then read a scholarly work on the topic of history of world's economy that in connection with India talks about "wasteful use of resources and negligible levels of productive investment" or "little motive to improve landed property" or "[raising] so much in tax revenue ... [because] the rural population [was] very docile" or "long term stagnation and negligible levels of productive investment" or "no agricultural handbooks or governmental attempts to bolster agricultural productivity" or "crop yields ... stagnant over the long run" or ...
"Bullshit?" Do you offer a better overview material for world's economic history? Your "very detailed rebuttal" appears neither particularly detailed nor does it touch my response to the particular claim of "pre-British Indian empires bringing immense prosperity to the region" which (not the claim, the response to it) you can find for yourself in Maddison.
But now that you mention it, in your "very detailed rebuttal", you find claims about destroying infrastructure. Setting aside the counterintuitive nature of even an exploitative regime destroying productive capital (to rob itself of profits?), Maddison outright claims that the colonial government increased irrigated area in India by a factor of eight. I'm not sure what else counts as infrastructure in a predominantly agricultural society but irrigation infrastructure has to rank pretty high on the list. So that sole claim of destruction can't possibly be the whole truth.
I'd rather prefer a more reasonable response that your visceral knee-jerk reaction. "Absolutely, completely bullshit" is hardly a valuable feedback. I'm going to stick with Maddison for now until he gets surpassed.
The view that you expound upon involve hardly any original thinking, just repeating things you heard somewhere. If you want a detailed rebuttal, provide sources and links, as the commenter I linked to has.
But I will humor your delusion. The colonial govt. did increase area under irrigation: to force farmers to grow cotton and Indigo, bought from them at exploitative prices, shipped to England and then exported back to India. Does Maddison talk about that?
> predominantly agricultural society
Again, bullshit. Yes, agriculture was an important sector, but it was so in every economy at that time. In addition, there was a substantial middle class of weavers, craftsmen,a rtisans etc. which made the Bengal region alone responsible for 25% of the worlds GDP.
Along with the textile weavers, there were also sophisticated financial system. In fact, Omichund financed Clive's expedition against the Nawab of Bengal.
All these systems, destroyed, ruined by Colonial policies.
"The view that you expound upon involve hardly any original thinking, just repeating things you heard somewhere. If you want a detailed rebuttal, provide sources and links, as the commenter I linked to has."
That sounds awfully like "don't repeat things you heard elsewhere, show things you heard elsewhere instead"! I'm sourcing from Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD, FYI. It hooked me to the notion of quantitatively studying pre-modern economies.
"The colonial govt. did increase area under irrigation: to force farmers to grow cotton and Indigo, bought from them at exploitative prices, shipped to England and then exported back to India. Does Maddison talk about that?"
Of course he does! But he also doesn't pine for Mughals with claims of them "bringing immense prosperity to the region", which is why he actually enumerates the deleterious impacts of pre-colonial policies as well as of the colonial ones. Of course, the deleterious effects of colonial policies I didn't dispute, but you've already known that since you've read my comment you were responding to.
"All these systems, destroyed, ruined by Colonial policies."
Yes. And also by shifting demand, partly by emulating foreigners by the middle/upper classes who were formerly serviced by those craftsmen. And by quality improvements of novel goods. And probably for another number of reasons. There's usually a number of causes for things in complex systems.
"Yes, agriculture was an important sector, but it was so in every economy at that time. In addition, there was a substantial middle class of weavers, craftsmen,a rtisans etc. which made the Bengal region alone responsible for 25% of the worlds GDP."
In other words, India was no different from anyone else. Lots of people = lots of GDP in the pre-modern period. And even the Ancient Rome had a concentration of +60% GDP per capita in the region of Italy so it's entirely plausible that some parts (such as Bengal in India) were better off than others, no surprise there. But reconciling the claim of 25% of world's GDP coming from India with the claim of 25% of world's GDP coming from Bengal necessitates the productivity of India\Bengal being zero. That claim seems problematic. You can't have both unless the non-Bengal India was devoid of population.