Was the Amritsar Massacre "soft power"?
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Queen Elizabeth II and the Davidic Line
- Thread starter Elihoenai
- Start date
Elihoenai
Well-Known Member
Isaiah 45:7
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
These alternative viewpoints are much appreciated.
On India, was there not an Indian Caste System before Britain arrived? Did Britain just manipulate the Evil that already existed in India? Do you think the Indian Caste System was/is a Good System?
Everything that happens is the Will of Elohim/God.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Lol. So since there was a caste system, it was perfectly justified for England to go and steal everything after murdering some number of people and call it "will of Elohim".
Greatest nonsense I have heard in my life.
So no evidence? I'll take it as wishful thinking then.
Where does it prophecise anything about that the British royal
And i provided several examples of wars lost by Britain.
That hrh is a Christian is not questioned, devoted is perhaps another matter.
I was Christian many years ago. Christians drove me away, yes om atheist which has nothing to do with my dislike of scroungers and paedophiles
Wrong, she has given 70 years of extremely well paid (including top notch accommodation) service while people children are starving.
I hope you enjoyed spending taxpayers money.
In that case what claim does one individual have over another to the throne of England?
I would agree, but technically it isn't an earthly throne to the Egyptians. I don't consider royalty to be anything, but the royalty does as do many people. When the scripture says that heaven is the throne and the earth is the footstool, that footstool is not any human throne. To reduce it to a human throne is probably not a good idea.
I must bring an argument to you that has some concepts which are probably alien to you.
I bring the Christian gospel scripture which has Jesus saying not to take oaths. He says let your yes simply be a yes. Matthew 5 I will admit that to me there remains some mystery surrounding this verse, so I'm not claiming perfect understanding of it. He does however say not to take oaths, while you are saying we must take them. I think oaths differ from a covenant.
Royalty makes a great show of oaths, as if God will punish them if they break their promises. So do presidents. It is a political act that helps assure their education deprived populations. From this comes a tradition in our courts to have people take oaths; but God is not required to back them. Oaths must always be taken in the presence of others, others who can hold the person to account. They differ from covenants, which are mutual. In a covenant all parties provide the same things, such as when drivers keep to our own side of the road. It simply keeps us from smashing into one another. There is wisdom, an emanation of God, within such a covenant.
Altfish
Veteran Member
I want the best for my country, that is being patriotic.
The Royal Family just flags up privilege and serfdom, this is 2022 the world has moved on
Augustus
…
Mughal India was taken over by a private corporation, largely funded by Indian bankers (who saw the EIC as a more reliable partner bet than the Mughals), and largely using Indian mercenaries who, for centuries, had been used to fighting for whoever paid them best.
The EIC/BEIC was indeed rapacious and immoral, but seeing it as "England" is quite myopic. It was a combination of many British and Indian people of various social classes acting in their own self-interest, and was very much dependent on the Indian component.
It was really one of the first modern examples of international elites and their paid lackeys coopting the resources of multiple 'states' to further their own interests: privatised profits and socialised costs.
(The Raj had its own problems too of course)
firedragon
Veteran Member
It was England. The British empire always either collaborated with the existing tyrant or went to a country and separated them into groups, or collaborated with some people who wanted to be richer and more powerful but are also afraid of losing their status or/and land. That does not make it "It's not England". That's what they did in India, and that's what they did in Sri Lanka. They stole. They are thieves. In India, some people called it Karuppu Nalgal or the dark age. In Ceylon they called them para suddha or the wild white man. When say wild here it's not like you would perceive it in English, it's a phrase used to denote a dirty vermin. A dirty animal. A cuss word.
Divide and conquer. The dirtiest political weapon they used that not only helped the so called bloody "British raj", but left the country to rot when the British ran away. Will Durant called it the Greatest Crime in History referring to the Indian occupation. The conscious and deliberate bleeding of India. The British took the opportunity because the empire was falling and there were several groups who would not mind coming into power. The English were Genius. They displaced and replaced nawabs and kings as they felt like doing, they took farmers land they had been living off for many generations, killed anyone who opposed them, called the freedom fighters terrorists, and ran the country to the dogs. Took a country that was rich with their fire power and turned them into animals withe leftover leaches. Your work shows in the land you tilled. The British took over a country that was contributing almost one fourth of the worlds gross domestic product and left them contributing left to nothing. That shows what they did. Before and after, do your thinking.
The so called EIC was trading spices and silk buying for cheap, selling for profit. huge profit. That's the legacy of the queen who's royal charter incorporated it in the 1600. Their so called "factories" were soon turned into outposts in the then Chennai, Calcutta and the east. Businesses were turned into conquered peasant workers who basically worked for a few peanuts. Business became a business of conquests. This, while they were looting from Kabool to Karnataka, Kashmir, etc etc.
It was England.
Augustus
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In the same way that Amazon, Apple and Google are "America".
Some people say the Muslims conducted "the greatest genocide in history" on the Hindu population of India. It's hyperbolic and ahistorical nonsense that bears little connection to reality, but some people say it, and some people believe it.
In a study of the colonial period 1858-1947 (i.e. after company rule to independence), the Indian economic historian Tirthankar Roy looked at the economic data and found:
In the most accepted view on inequality in colonial India, inequality increased between the propertied and the property-less because of capitalist exploitation and colonial institutional intervention, and between the colonists and the indigenes because of unequal political power. The paper rejects the thesis.. The extractive power of the state is overstated... Colonial economic policies were good for business, and had a weak effect on agriculture. To sum up, there was the emergence of a middle-class that gained from the open trading economy. There was no other pattern of much significance.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/90409/1/WP286.pdf
While no one is going to praise the EIC/Raj as being massively enlightened and altruistic regimes, and they certainly did many reprehensible things that shouldn't be whitewashed, this isn't exactly indicative of the "greatest crime in history"
If you did your thinking, you might realise why that is a very naive argument.
India had 25% of the world's GDP because it had a similar % of the world's population. Its per capita income was less than many places.
Europe's percentage of the world's GDP has dropped from 40% in the mid 20th C to around 19%. European income and quality of living are higher now than they were then. It would have been literally impossible for Europe to maintain this level due to economic and population growth elsewhere even if it had undergone some kind of economic miracle. That is how the world works and always has.
% of world's GDP is meaningless as it can drop massively even while a country gets richer. Changing patterns of global trade and the industrial revolution would have impacted India negatively regardless. As we see with the changing balance of global power now, being the best in one era doesn't mean you will be the best when the paradigm shifts.
India's GDP grew during the period of company and later colonial rule, not by much admittedly, and far less than in other places, but it was not collapsing as you seem to think. It was actually growing, unlike in the pre-colonial era when it was shrinking. So it's not like India was a harmonious paradise run by egalitarian philosopher kings prior to this. The Mughals extracted around 25% of the GDP for themselves, and GDP declined over the years of Mughal rule prior to the EIC arrival.
Spices and textiles, staples of the Indian economy, were doomed to collapse regardless due to industrialisation and globalisation.
Would India have industrialised more successfully under local Imperial elites and remained a major power would it have descended into internecine warfare or somewhere in between? Who knows? What is absolutely certain is that it wouldn't have had 25% of the world's GDP under any circumstance.
Empires rise and fall, and India's was declining prior to it's conquest by the EIC, hence it was massively looted by Nader Shah before company rule and there were many Indians who were happy to side with a foreign corporation over local emperors and princes who were equally rapacious.
Which is also what the Mughals had done. A foreign cultural elite getting rich off the country they conquered while most people remained poor.
Minority regimes only exist via the cooperation of local elites who operate in their own benefit.
Britain certainly conquered many countries by force where the locals had no chance to resist. India was not one of these countries though as it was conquered by a private corporation using Indian money and soldiers who chose to side with them.
It's nice to blame some all powerful and evil foreigners, without whom everything would have been wonderful and India would have become the global superpower like in a fairy tale, but the conquest of India was only possible because Indian bankers freely chose to finance the operations of a private corporation. For them it was just business, same as with the EIC.
India had a tradition of mercenary armies who freely chose to fight for this private corporation as it paid better. For them it was just business, same as it had been when they fought for another warlord or emperor.
In the period leading up to the Raj, the company directors even complained the Lord Wellesley was trying to turn India into an imperial possession rather than running it as a business and had him replaced.
It was a corporation (until 1858 that is)
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firedragon
Veteran Member
You are absolutely ignorant of any kind of history. If you think that the British were governed by God and are driven by the davidic bloodline with all of these monstrosities its your baby. Your Tu Quoque is just pathetic.
Augustus
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I said India was conquered by a private corporation largely paid for by Indians and conducted by Indian troops.
Nothing about God or bloodlines. Try reading more carefully next time.
Another person who doesn't understand fallacies and uses them to avoid rational, evidence based discussion.
Very good. Well done.
Stick to your fairy tale history...
firedragon
Veteran Member
Right. So try reading the context of the discussion prior to coming and trying to do apologetics.
).
Augustus
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The context was correcting your factual error, not supporting the OP.
Hence I quoted your factual error and explained it with evidence rather than quoting the OP and expressing my support.
But, unsurprisingly, you preferred to maintain your fairy tale in your reply and demonstrated you don't understand the difference between historical context and tu quoque rather than attempting to make a rational argument against scholarly evidence (which you dismiss as "apologetics" despite some of it being from a prominent Indian scholar, and the rest from a source you indirectly relied on to make your silly "world GDP" argument).
Below you can see "the greatest crime in history" coincided with increased wealth compared to the Mughal period in which it declined... But you can pretend they were good rulers just because they are Muslims if you like and it was the evil foreigners who caused all of the problems.
That's the highpoint of your last few posts as it was meaningless, but at least not actually wrong
firedragon
Veteran Member
The context was correcting your factual error, not supporting the OP.
Hence I quoted your factual error and explained it with evidence rather than quoting the OP and expressing my support.
But, unsurprisingly, you preferred to maintain your fairy tale in your reply and demonstrated you don't understand the difference between historical context and tu quoque rather than attempting to make a rational argument against scholarly evidence (which you dismiss as "apologetics" despite some of it being from a prominent Indian scholar, and the rest from a source you indirectly relied on to make your silly "world GDP" argument).
Below you can see "the greatest crime in history" coincided with increased wealth compared to the Mughal period in which it declined... But you can pretend they were good rulers just because they are Muslims if you like and it was the evil foreigners who caused all of the problems.
View attachment 63518
That's the highpoint of your last few posts as it was meaningless, but at least not actually wrong
Oh. You did some research to come and argue right? That's good effort. Prior to doing quick googling and like you said make "silly" arguments about the GDP, read what I said carefully prior to doing that quick googling and pretending you knew it all along.
Mate. Tell me. When the British took off, what was the GDP contribution "Percentage" of India? And what was it when the British left? What was the per capita growth in India during the British occupation? How did it grow for 100 years in India in comparison to the UK?
Read your own source well.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Your hypocrisy shows here. Maybe you want to bring up "Muslims" because you know that I am Muslim and bank on it repeatedly. Probably that's why you didn't respond to anything about Sri Lanka that I spoke of because "There is no Muslim for you to bank on".
Don't do cheap things. How cheap could you get? Don't make up lies. I didn't say "they were good rulers". You are bringing your bigotry here. That's it.
This is Tu Quoque, but you say it is not. Generally hypocrites are like that. Maybe when you grow up one day you will understand a little more.
Augustus
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Yes, it is a silly argument: "Before and after", but you didn't do your thinking.
Europe has seen a bigger decline in its share of global GDP than this already, and this will continue over the next century regardless of how well or badly Europe is governed. It is less likely to "show what they did", than show "what else happened in the world".
India's share of world GDP had been declining long before the EIC, as its economy had been pretty stagnant and it's population share of world was declining.
Before: India with around 25% of the world's population produced around 25% of the world's GDP (with a decreasing GDP per capita)
After: India with around 15% of the world's population produced around 5% (although with an increasing per capita GDP)
What happened in this time period?
Internal (before EIC): Empire was in decline. People rebelled against the parasitic, culturally foreign empire who had become increasingly oppressive. Power became decentralised and society became increasingly violent and militarised. Persia invaded and looted a quite enormous amount of wealth, etc.
Global:
a) Industrial revolution devastating traditional manufacturing (such as fabrics)
b) Crash in the value of spices due to diversified production
c) Diversified trading networks weakening the power of traditional trading networks
India's economic power was going to be massively decreased regardless due to the changing nature of the global economy due to its declining share of the world's population and the changing patterns of global trade and industry destroying many of its major sources of income.
The only way something similar would have been avoided was successful industrialisation, and even then it's share of global GDP would have declined significantly
Regardless of who was in charge, a militarised, violent, fragmented society with a declining economy is not the idea conditions for massive capital investments required for industrialisation.
Of course, some new Indian Empire could have arisen, stabilised the country and industrialised it successfully, but it wasn't the most likely outcome.
So your argument that it took something akin to "the greatest crime in history" to see such a decline in a comparative metric is silly.
Do your thinking.
See industrial revolution and changing patterns of global trade.
No one is saying the British were good rulers, no one is saying that they didn't take a lot of wealth out of the country, but, economically at least, of all the potential outcomes over the 200 year period, what happened was somewhere in the middle.
Again, historical context is not tu quoque.
Pointing out that historical regime X behaved in a manner that was pretty standard for its time, and was not really any better or worse than that which came before it, or what would likely have replaced it is not tu quoque.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Cute.
Nah that's not the topic.
trying your levels best to make it a Muslim thing, all about Muslims, Muslims were bad "too", is just Tu Quoque.
Try to study history before doing that.
When the British invaded, India was doing great. When they left, it was drained. They turned it into pulp.
Study a little .
Augustus
…
It might help you understand why your "global GDP share" argument was very silly, but you can lead a horse to water...
Again, just asserting you are right is not a rational argument.
How does a private corporation with a handful of foreign troops take over a mighty power that is "doing great"? Might want to think about that...
Centuries of economic stagnation under a parasitic and bigoted foreign elite who grew increasingly oppressive as they tried to wring ever more money from the population, decreasing per capita GDP, imperial collapse leading to loss of central control, militarisation of society, decades of warfare and rebellion against the Mughals, invasion by the Persian who carried off the equivalent of over $100 billion in loot, grasping warlords fighting each other and oppressing the people = "Doing great"
Here's 18th C historian Ghulam Hussein Khan's take on "doing fine" after the Persian sack of Delhi:
It is from those times must be dated the sinking of rents, the decrease of husbandry, the distress of the people and their detestation of their Rulers. Nor was anything else thought of, but how to bring money to hand by any means whatever. This and this alone became the utmost ambition of all ranks.
It was in such an enfeebled state of the Empire, that there arose a new sort of men, who so far from setting up patterns of piety and virtue, squandered away the lives and properties of the poor with so much barefacedness, that other men, on beholding their conduct, became bolder and bolder, and practised the worst and ugliest action, without fear or remorse. From those men sprung an infinity of evil-doers, who plague the Indian world, and grind the faces of its wretched inhabitants …
Evils are now arisen to such a height, as render a remedy impossible. It is a consequence of such wretched administrations that every part of India has gone to ruin. So that, comparing the present times with the past, one is apt to think that this world is overwhelmed with darkness