[tintin12]

Yeah its not fair is it?

British went to India (on what visa?) and looted the country shipping everything valuable to Britain. And now British can't let Indians into their country because of visa restrictions? That is fair right?

[excuse-me]

Or Britain liberated India from a Mughal conqueror and put the Hindus back in charge.

American's also don't let Brits in because of Visa issues - and after we, almost successfully, taught them to speak English

[tintin12]

India is a secular country. Hindus are not in charge (Prime minister is sikh - minority, Head of ruling party is a christian, President whose position is large ceremonial is hindu, Vice President whose position is also ceremonial is muslim - Find a country with diversity at the top in entire world).

>>Britain liberated India from a Mughal conqueror So called Mughal conqueror also thought he is a liberator.

Edit: Typo.

[realrocker]

All you people are a joke. Still discussing religion and historical shit and whom to blame. What's wrong with you people? Seriously, what's done is done. Wake the fck up.

[accountswu]

>India is a secular country. Hindus are not in charge

Tell that to the Christians of Orissa or Muslims of Ahmedabad or Kashmir.

50,000 Christians fled in Orissa in 2008, thousands of homes destroyed and dozens of Churches burnt. http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/01mob.htm

Thousands were still unable to return because of Hindu extremists more than 1 year later: http://www.christianpost.com/news/orissa-christians-are-pris...

Remember when Hindu-dominated BJP kicked Jaswant Singh out of the party for saying the truth?

Jaswant Singh: "Look into the eyes of the muslims that live in india and if you truly see through the pain that they live of which land do they belong to? we treat them as aliens! because somewhere, inside we continue to ask that 'even after pakistan you still want something?' these are citizens of india now. that was jinnah's failure, because jinnah never left and never really advised the muslims that stayed back."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachar_Committee_Report#Main_fi...

-Muslim parents are not averse to mainstream education or to send their children to affordable Government schools. The access to government schools for children of Muslim parents is limited.

-The average amount of bank loan disbursed to the Muslims is 2/3 of the amount disbursed to other minorities. In some cases it is half. The Reserve Bank of India’s efforts to extend banking and credit facilities under the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme of 1983 has mainly benefited other minorities marginalizing Muslims.

-There is a clear and significant inverse association between the proportion of the Muslim population and the availability of educational infrastructure in small villages. Muslim concentration villages are not well served with pucca approach roads and local bus stops.

-Most of the variables indicate that Muslim-OBCs (Other Backward Class) are significantly deprived in comparison to Hindu-OBCs. The work participation rate (WPR) shows the presence of a sharp difference between Hindu-OBCs (67%) and the Muslims. The share of Muslim-OBCs in government/ PSU jobs is much lower than Hindu-OBCs.

[kamaal]

>>Or Britain liberated India from a Mughal conqueror and put the Hindus back in charge.

Joke?

Firstly Muslims participated and contributed equally to Indian 'Freedom' Struggle. Notice the word 'Freedom' there! Indians consider it Freedom, being an Indian I've never read anything in our history books, which considers the post mughal period as a the period of 'Freedom'.

Secondly British stole a lot from India, took it back to England to make itself rich. Mughals as far as I know did nothing like that. The conqueror never went back, In fact he united India and contributed to India's rich cultural heritage in music, poetry, science, wealth and in nearly every aspect of life.

After all that India was never a nation ruled by single ideological power. Mainland India has been ruled by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists(Asoka was a Buddhist), atheists. And there have been no defined borders of Mainland India throughout history. Which has been area from the north starting from southern tips of Russia, the whole of Afghanistan and then extending on the east till Iran.

India has been ruled by people speaking various languages, cultures, skin color and ethnicity for thousands of years.

[rdl]

What did Britain steal from India? Some diamonds, but most of the other stuff was renewable resources (and time/opportunity cost), right?

[Symmetry]

The British banned several industries in India to encourage the development of those industries in Britain. One of Gandhi's famous acts of disobedience was leading people down to the sea to make their own salt, an industry that was forbidden in India at the time.[1] The British did do a few good things for India, but they did some really bad things too.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

[movingahead]

What do you mean by 'renewable resources'?

The British rule in India was full of continuous exploitation of the Indian masses, both politically and economically. The value of freedom can't be measured in diamonds.

To learn more, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement

[accountswu]

>What did Britain steal from India? Some diamonds, but most of the other stuff was renewable resources (and time/opportunity cost), right?

That's a sad, sick peace of imperial mentality. Would you rather be butchered by an army of some foreign people who consider people of their skin to be superior to yours, and then say it's only some diamonds?

What did the British steal from Native Americans? Only some gold?

What did the British steal from European colonists of America? Only some tea?

[accountswu]

Put the Hindus back in charge? The British just used divide and conquer to rule (and the people were stupid enough to fall for that). The division of India was because of insecurity of Muslims and due to rigidness of the Hindu leaders who weren't willing to compromise on power, they wanted to be "in charge" and that's why Jinnah insisted on a separate country.

http://arjunpuri.wordpress.com/the-economist-attacks-india-i...

Even 60+ years after independence India and Pakistan are still virtually at red alert because of the lack of trust and because of the Kashmir dispute and both countries spend billions of dollars to arm their military while 75.6% of Indians and some 60% of Pakistanis live under poverty (live under $2 a day according to HDI). It works out well for the weapons manufacturers of the world, the taxpayers of India and Pakistan are helping the economy of US, UK, France, Germany etc by buying billions of dollars worth of killing machines.

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/103.html

[intended]

Not really.

Thats, well I don't know how to categorize that.

The brits - the East India Company to start - destroyed several different kingdoms starting with Bengal. They also demolished the Rajputs, the Sikhs, the Marathas - all Hindu Kingdoms. They demolished the Sultanate that ruled from Delhi, and several other princely states.

You could even say they were equal opportunity in that - no matter what religion you were, you would be cowed, because, well - they knew how. Divide and conquer worked.

They also didn't put Hindus back in charge. They realized that they needed a new class of people to work for them and then worked to create a peon/intelligent worker class. They didn't choose those people based on religion.

[axomhacker]

> we, almost successfully, taught them to speak English

Ummm, no you did not teach them to speak English.

Rather, "you" eradicated the parts of the population that did not speak English.