[javert]

> British policies were explicitly designed to stifle the same changes happening in India

How so? I'm genuinely curious.

I know the British brought a system of law and education and a massive train system to India, and I don't know much else about what they may have done. None of that seems like it would serve to stifle the Industrial Revolution.

It seems to me like promoting the Industrial Revolution to the maximal extent possible in India would have been the rational thing for the British to do. You don't produce wealth by holding other people down. And the three examples I gave above would support the idea that that's what they were aiming for---development. But maybe there's something I don't know.