[jogjayr]

That's an ad-hominem argument. And Shashi Tharoor is pretty far in my mind from Hindu nationalism. He's a member of the party that Hindu nationalists oppose.

Additionally, the linked article itself is guilty of lots of omissions. For example

> Europe went to a different level in that period, particularly England after the Restoration and the forming of the Royal Society and the genius of Boyle, Hooke, Newton and all the rest of it. We remained where we were

Fails to mention that the Industrial Revolution didn't reach India for a long time because colonial government taxes on domestically produced goods stunted the growth of Indian industry.

In fact the only substantive argument the article makes is that various armed forces in India and the colonial Indian army was a professional fighting force that went to battle for whoever paid them. And that the British took over India by playing one rival faction against the other and ultimately screwing over both. Which has very little to do with the reasons for India's relative lack of development.

On balance I'll still admit that the British were responsible for making India a united nation. And India after independence adopted less-than-ideal economic policies, and suffers from lots of corruption that hobbles growth. But to pretend that looting isn't a legacy of colonial rule is wilful blindness.

[detritus]

+1

I view constructs like the EIC or The Empire much like waves on an ocean - functions of their time, circumstance and fortune - so don't see much point in specifically apportioning blame or contemporarily-ascribed guilt. For sure these were not entirely saintly enterprises and did indeed result in misery and misfortune for untold millions of otherwise-deserving people. But as much abroad, as at home.

As much as the wave that was Empire screwed over natives in subjugated colonies, it screwed its own at home - Britain's underclasses sacrificed at the altar of industrialism and history.

If it weren't England tramping over the various bits of Asia, it would've been its imperical antecessor. If it was not to be England's time, then their descendant. America took over from England, China might in turn America. Each Imperium is an evolution of that to which it was at first mere reaction.

These are functions of reality, and everything and everryone plays its part.

I don't see the point in creating monolithic scapegoats, because in apportioning specific blame to abstractions, we ignore the underlying causes and diminish what should be learnt.