Sometimes I wonder what India would be today had we not been colonized by the British!Being August, the month of Independence this thought comes to me even more.
Would we be better off than we are?
I doubt it. Pardon me but I feel that the British in spite of all their misdeeds did one thing for sure.
'United the Indians - To fight against them'.
I have a strong feeling that India would have been broken up into pieces but for the British.
I mean several small countries, North, South, East, West !
Not sure what you think!
43 comments:
Yeah very tru, for that matter, even today there are quite a few elements in our diverse country who wanna move away.
absolutely true...British did many good things to india...the most good thing is they taught us English ;)
There was never a India to begin with, well... we were united by our culture though. If not for the British we would have been a Saudi Arabia by now :-), they put an end to the Moghal rule.
And Narayanan, i was thinking about this, this morning, evening i see it in your blog, you got some divine powers :-)
I agree with Surya. Since India was full of separate kingdoms, it would have been under some other bigger rule. Chronologically speaking, the mughal rule would have continued.
i concour, british created india out of a dispariate bunch of princely states who were more interested in territorial wars rather than governence.
the britishs gr8test achievemtn in india is the indian railways (we wud have screwed it up, esp wit guys like lalu at the helm)
Narayanan!
I know that thinking about our glorious past is a good beginning to a glorious future, but considering our terrible present, I just do not care. I wish we progress from the state we are! thats all!
United States of India !!
the point you said is debatable, sir. It could have gone either ways.
That is true..We are united when Britshers were there..Now they are gone there is a difference between north and south..
In south there is a conflict between Karnataka and TN
in TN there is a conflict between two communities'
in a single community there is a conflict between two sects...
It is never ending man...
(Sorry for being too cynical but thatz exactly how I feel ) !
Yes, administratively British created the India that we all know today.. but, I am not sure if the Indians have bonded together towards a 'nationhood'..
There are too many simmering divisions that have not been addressed comprehensively: 1) Language 2) Water sharing.. just to name a couple..
and the british left behind english, which is feeding us today..the chinese dont know english....
:)
and i guess some infrastructure too...despite plundering us...funny..that independence day just made me think that i would have a long weekend...how un-patriotic of me.......
Geethopadesam seiyanumnu thonudhu.. Aanaa type panna porumai illa
Sir,
Nice post and nice thoughts...
But I remember reading some Tamil prose in school which mentions that even much before the British rule, India was always seen as "Imayam mudhal Kumari varai..."
Am not too sure about the poet or whichever kavidhai it was, but there was something that binded all of us together....:)
Happy Independence Day!!!
Swapna
Definitely, there would have been many countries like the Eastern Mediteranean / Asian countires viz., Bosnia, Armenia, Serbia, Uzbekistan, Khazakshtan etc.,
Some states might have prospered and some might not. Need to appreciate British for pushing our forefathers.... to the corner, to get united.
A good thought, behind the nation building, Mr.Narayanan.
Irony is that Britishers are known for their 'Divide & Rule' policy. But its fact that it happened the other way round in our case.
Now British live hear our country will be developed live London, U.S. they give us railways and some forts. After they came to our country we all speak the common language English. Before that we knows only our state language. So British rules is good for our India.
We got freedom without shedding blood; through non-violent ways. That
itself was a near miracle. And in the last 58 years, we have protected
it and have remained independent.
Narayanan sir - we would not have got films such as Veerapandiya Kattaboman, The Rising, Lagaan :)) - Moreover our poor Kamal would not have lost his money producing Marudhanayagam :))..
So nama film industry-yai vala vaithathum british colonization-aalthaan :)
Btw jattiyai kandu pidithavarkal yaar - was it by british? Else we would be all wearing Komanam :))..Am i right?
Nice post. I suppose there would have never been an India as we know it. As to whether it would have been for the better or for the worse is a different matter.
I agree, there are both positives and negatives on that aspect of british Raj, Even b4 british colonisation india there were pockets of small countries. It was after the East India Company that there were changes. though british brought India together Geographically, they still followed the divide and rule isnt it??
I've thought a lot number of times, how good it would have been if there had not been an partition after independence!
I think the same bro. I think most of the people would agree with you on this. Nice thought.
I saw a bridge in our district built by british still in use, while a newly built one fell down just before the inaugration! Yes!! Also the railways and many other things...
Not sot good in history !! If the Moghuls had continued to rule, it would still have been a single entity - India.
Now, ure right, They already milked half of Asia dry, and most probably they would have split it.
Somehow i think the japanese invading my country was a good thing...
yeah, thats a right point... The British Colonilisim was a bleassing in disguise for us. Eventhough they looted a lot from us, we all got united to fight them back...
advance happy independence day narayanan sir.. :)
I disagree...wrong thought....
india was united not just to fight the british....
all the mughals are not that bad - they had a just tax system, had respect for other religions...Birbal an hindu flourished in the court of akbar and readily accepted akbar's Din-Elahi..
Patel did not unite India just to fight the british but for the notion that a sovereign state cannot exist in fragmented pieces....
Bottom line - read amar chitra katha...
Its well known that Moghals raped Hindu women and Massacred Hindus because of Idol Worship.[http://hinduwebsite.com/history/holocaust.htm][http://hindutva.org/holocaust2.html] Ghazni pundered the wealth of Somanth temple. And some wise crack director Cidambaram aplogizes to Muslims and retracts a song from his movie since it had reference to Ghazni and aplogized to the Muslims. What about the movies where Hindu gods are ridiculed and Gurus defamed. No one cares. Hail Secularism. I dont want this Secularism (sorry for digressing)
Narayanan
Why give the Britishers that credit? I think the credit goes to the freedom movement and more importantly to Gandhiji. Before 191, there were calls for freedom here and there. But only after 1919, we came together as one unit under one man to fight the British.
Surya
" Moghals raped Hindu women" yeah true... But in what way were the Hindus even respecting their women. Satis, Child marriage etc was rampant. Even we were not respecting our women and giving them equal rights. Hail Nationalism. I don't want this Nationalism [ sorry for digressing]
--A fundamental Human
we are now a nation a democratic one. We have to move forward with unity.
We need to implement a true secular govt. people can have their religion inside their house.
Once they step out they should be Indians period.
@ fun.human-Today fundies of every religion pose threat to integrity and peace all over the world. Can't put the blame simply on one community all the time. That won't work.
May be! If so, would we have been prosperous like Western Europe or troubled like Eastern Europe?? IMO, sometimes 'divide and rule' works better especially in a country like ours where most of the time and energy is spent in keeping us together!!
Anonymous - Thanks for backing up the fact, Moghols were indeed bad :-)
Did the british do any good to India? I do not know. I strongly feel that the british should apologize, for many of their misdeeds.
India is what it is becoz of all the good and bad that happened over the years.
The progress on various aspects in the country and the present global presence of India would have probably been a long way off if not for the colonization.
At the same time, the unfortunate complex that Indians have developed towards the "goras" and many are trying hard to get out of, would never have developed if we had been an independent self reliant country.
JMHO.
Of course british united India but when they left they segregated into Pakistan and India. Both the countries are spending huge money just to maintain the LOC. We are made to fight among us. Thanks for all the developments by the Britishers. Cunning.... sorry clever fellows.
ram
IISc
I back what CB said. English, Railways.. there are too many examples. And there were those native kings fighting each other, wasting money of the common man. What happened was for good, I believe. There is no meaning in being over patriotic by ignoring the facts.
And as someone else said its Gandhiji more than british who played a role to unite India against the british. There was no one else with Gandhi's charisma to attract a normal Indian to the freedom fight. But for that too British was the cause.
Every one of u guys must be kidding. You'll are thanking the british, I wish that each one of you people should have born in that age, bore all those pain that was endured by the people and lets see how many of you would say that it was for the better. Someone said that they english - we don't need english to prosper or to have international recognition - Japnese, French and Germans are doing fine with just their language.
Mughals came at an era wherein the entire world was in that phase, conquering and plundering, our kings did the same, so commenting about them doesn't make any sense.
What would have happened to India or the concept of india we will never know, history has its own knack, a single event changes the entire course. We could have been like USA, under a single name, or we could have been a group of seperate countries like Europe today.
Who knows !!!!
But please stop thanking the British, they didn't do anything for us, whatever they did they did for themselves --- And before any person starts talking think what we have gone through.
Nice post, Narayanan.. After reading 'Ponniyin Selvan', I was thinking along the same way.. Orissa was Kalingam, Kerala was Chera Naadu, etc. IMHO, in Indian history, there were two major turning points in the last 500 years.. one, during Moghul rule, they had conquered almost the entire INDIA.. from Akbar to Aurangazeb..
Though emperors from the subcontinent had conquered places like Srilanka, Indonesia and Afghanistan, they were not ruled by the above mentioned Moghul emperors.. When the East India company entered India, they occupied all of what the Moghul empire possessed, which was the second turning point..
Thanks to the wars going on amongst the Indian emperors, without the invasions of the Moghuls and British, we would have been like different countries of Europe.. (or even the middle East)
The huge downside was huge prosperity of 200 years which was looted to the Britain.. About partition, I think the Indian politicians post-partition screwed it more than the partition itself.
Thanks all of you for your comments.
Its worthwile to note here that a majority of us feel that British indeed did something good to our country. With every good comes some bad and vice-versa.
Hindsight is 20/20 as always, who knows..what could have happened.
We can only wish 'India' the very best for a bright future on her Independece day on Aug-15-2005.
Interesting - all the thoughts and comments - let's just say Japan is not really doing that well and that India is still growing and yes, the railways the Brits left behind were built for themselves - however, they could have destroyed it all before they left - but they did not - a well trained army - a postal system - I do not condone what the British did in any of their colonies - and yes, historically India was made up of several petty kingdoms and the Mughals were busy conspiring against each other and good old Sikander even invaded India and left his calling cards behind - whatever, hope you all enjoyed Independence Day and look to the future for heaven sake and stop bleating about the past.
Very true.
But even now, we have to fight b/w states to get water.
narayan ji,
one small request, Could you please replace the current map in the post (with LOC) with an official map as used by the Government of India.
thanks
I really doubt how big was the freedome movement. I dont know any freedom fighters in my or my frenz family. In fact I feel nobody really cared and were indifferent as always our indian public. For Bharathiyars funeral hardly a 10 or so ppl attented. The news paper which they published in 1906 did not reach even a readership of 500. He was arrested for that publication!. Indians always never took part in governance. The nalaiyira thivya prabhandham song says
"தான் நோக்காது எத்துயரம் செய்திடினும்
தார் வேந்தன் கோல் நோக்கி வாழும் குடி". This was written in 2nd century AD. Always it was the case.
I agree with ram v. An India more federal in nature would have been much preferable to the current state of affairs where the centre wields too much power. You have to remember that centre == more populous states (UP, MP). So smaller states (I am from Kerala, I know what I'm talking about) get left out in the allocation of resources, and other things. I don't think what we have is representative democracy in its finest form.
Gandhi wanted the real administrative power to be distributed to the villages (panchayati raj). As has happened with each of his wishes, this too was immediately forgotten as soon as the clock struck 12 on August 14, 1947.
ohhhhhh..i didnt kno abt this post ...
yeah ..yeah ...gr8 men think alike :)
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