Facts Every Anglo Indian Should Know 1

This is a quick post in what will become a “Facts Every Anglo-Indian Should Know” series.

1.  In AD 1757-1760 the English East India Company, the most powerful private-public partnership ever developed, extorted the right to collect taxes from the citizens of Bengal.  These taxes were  previously collected by the local Moghul king and spent in Bengal.

2.  Fifty years later almost the whole of India was controlled by this British Government- EEIC Corporate partnership, which depended on tax collectors, not traders, for its income.  Most of these monies were repatriated to Britain.

3.   Britain maintained her control of India for the next two hundred years — until 1947.

4.  In 1750 when Britain began her control of Bengal, the sub continent of India accounted for about 25-30% of world GDP and world manufacturing.   Bengal was acknowledged to be the richest segment of the entire world.

5.  When Britain ended her reign two hundred years later, the poverty stricken hulk of India lay devastated and vivisected.  Sectarian war raged and three countries had been formed from the wealthy country Britain had acquired by war and stealth two hundred previously.

6.  At the end of Britain’s reign over India, India accounted for just 5% of world GDP and about 3% of world manufacturing.  Bengal (now mostly Bangladesh) is now one of the poorest countries in the world.

7.  Despite these facts, British historians continue to write about the gifts the Empire brought to Indians, and “The English Speaking Peoples” — Churchill’s term — continue to believe them.

8.  Authors and columnists like Niall Ferguson, Max Boot, Irving Kristol and Robert Kagan have become apologists for Imperial policies and are calling for America to become more like the British Empire, and wage preemptive wars to  preserve “peace” and improve America’s strategic international position.