• bystander@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    I find it telling that you don’t think India would have figured out some of the issues without the British’s “help” is pretty classic colonialist thinking. And without the British they would be back to “pre-colonial” times right now. That’s wild.

    And why do you keep going on about that one factor? It’s barely relevant in modern times. Many uncolonized countries are also doing fine with their infant mortality rate, with or without colonization. Why? Because global medical collaboration, change in poverty rates, and higher education rates. Raising infant mortality rates is also to the benefit of the British. More people alive means more labor and resources, it was not from the goodness of their heart. If you have statistics comparing infant mortality rates of previously colonized VS uncolonized countries and that shows something of statistical significance, then we can talk.

    Constant internal wars are part of a nation figuring it out. China had Warring States for hundreds of years before unifying. They did it without “help”. I’m sure India would have been fine too without interference. I’ve heard the same brain dead logic that Aboriginal tribes were fighting amongst themselves anyways, so the British did them a favor too.

    And I can tell you don’t know anything about India’s history because the British co-opted and greatly exacerbated the social effects of the caste system to their benefit. The rigidity made the people easier to exploit and govern, by dividing the people. Please read up on it.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48619734

    Anthropologist Susan Bayly writes that “until well into the colonial period, much of the subcontinent was still populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste were of only limited importance, even in parts of the so-called Hindu heartland… The institutions and beliefs which are now often described as the elements of traditional caste were only just taking shape as recently as the early 18th Century”.

    In fact, it is doubtful that caste had much significance or virulence in society before the British made it India’s defining social feature.

    This and the Hutus and Tutsis are prime examples of colonialists stirring the shit. That not only killed grandma, killed all her children, and grandchildren too.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      I find it telling that you don’t think India would have figured out some of the issues without the British’s “help” is pretty classic colonialist thinking.

      Sometimes things are invented multiple times. But, typically it’s hundreds of years between their invention. I find it telling that you somehow think that India, which was hundreds of years behind in technology, would have magically discovered that technology on their own without contact with more technologically advanced civilizations.

      And why do you keep going on about that one factor?

      Because it’s widely seen as one of the most important changes in human history.

      Constant internal wars are part of a nation figuring it out

      Ah, ok. Figuring it out is good if it’s your own people killing you. It’s only bad if the person has white skin.