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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (237390)	7/21/2007 2:01:58 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

the article u posted is typical of "anti Empire" beliefs. Fact is the Brits, whilst they occupied India, they also built very good infrastructure - like railways and a Postal system. On the flip side, in those days, it was not uncommon to see a sign at a restaurant saying "dogs and Indians not allowed". Don't you know that it's "Orientalist" to say a word in praise of oppressive colonialist empire-builders? You seem to have missed the memo. Gotta shape up or you'll soon be accused of being a running dog for the imperialists.

To: kumar who wrote (237390)	7/21/2007 2:20:46 AM
From: c.hinton	Respond to of 281500

Its not so much anti empire as anti empire devolving.....perhaps a period of strife and large movements of population is difficult to avoid during the process of decolonialization.

To: kumar who wrote (237390)	7/21/2007 7:34:16 AM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

Just as a matter of curiosity, how to you see the Economist article as "anti Empire"? Saying that a decolonization effort was not well handled doesn't imply much of anything about how the colony was run before that. Do people in India actually think the partition operation was handled well? My naive believe would be that the effects of the partition still echo even now in the problematic nature of Pakistan, and certainly had a role in the '71 war and the creation of Bangladesh, which was also quite bloody and messy.

To: kumar who wrote (237390)	7/21/2007 6:02:30 PM
From: arun gera	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Kumar, You are missing the point. The British were in power in India for 100-200 years. And they decided to partition and leave India within 3 months. Large companies don't shift offices with that kind of notice period , unless they are in a deep financial hole. And the British probably were in financial problems after the World War II. The general impression is that Hindus and Muslims hate each other and that is why the violence happened. However, in post-independence India the Hindu Muslim riots never got to that scale. Therefore, the partition violence was more likely the result of the bad organization and the vaccuum in law and order during the quick withdrawal by the British. Another example of neglect was the Bengal famine in 1943 where millions died. India has not had a major famine in its post-independence history. en.wikipedia.org Regarding the contribution of British in building the indian railways and postal service, the British did collect taxes from Indians. This Indian Administrative Services guy seems to think that the British did a good job with those taxes. timesofindia.indiatimes.com -Arun