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Comment by keeptrying | Hacker News Reader

In every Indian history textbook, The East India company is listed as the initial vehicle which brought about the British rule in India.

Since I was brought up in India, I had a VERY -ve reaction just reading the story here on Hacker News. It was kind of built in.

I dont understand why this guy would pick this name for his company. Maybe he never intends to sell in India.

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Of course not. It's an upscale boutique store in London, selling colonial prestige to has-been ex-imperialists.

There's also an upscale clothing chain in Malaysia and Singapore called "British India," oddly enough.

I agree with you, but come on, as an Indian wouldn't you LOVE to own the Dutch East India company? I also think reverse colonialism played a huge part in Tata's purchase of Land Rover and Jaguar.

"Turnabout is fair play" as they say - I'm sure there are a bunch of Indians who would love to get a hold of "prized" British assets. It's an ego thing.

Like eating the bones of your defeated opponents kind-of-a-thing?

After considering my initial reaction I realise that the whole problem is that our emotions so stirred up by stupid stuff like this. It'd be better if we forget about the british and get on with building a great nation. Yes I admit I have the same problem. :)

For non indians some context - the media in Indian loves to use the British raj and the political correctness associated with it to gain viewers.

Yeah right. 'The holocaust also had a huge role to play in Jews getting their homeland'. What British colonialism did to Indians was nothing less than the holocaust on creating human misery and deaths. But of course, for people sitting on the other side of the planet reading history through the eyes of the plunderers, British colonialism was benevolent towards Indians in many ways. I can't blame you for that. Winners get to write history and sadly Indians are too busy subsisting, to get their history right at least within their borders.

Yup, to any non-Indians who want to understand the sentiment, it's like finding a brand with the name:

'The National Socialist Final Solution Coffee Company'.

What the hell is the guy thinking?

I'm happy to be downvoted on the parent because it looks like I've made the exact point I had tried to make.

That's true. It's very similar. In our history books we are taught graphic accounts of murder by the British raj and by this company. And that too throught our student lives. It's pretty repulsive.

But then again that's exactly what this guy wants. They say that there's no such thing as bad press. He got mentioned on the BBC with absolutley no marketting campaign.

Right, if he knows what he is doing then this is deeply unethical.

Sadly a lot of Indians actually pseudo-reminisce about the pre-independence era and make statements to the effect that we would have been better off if the British had never left. There's even a posh restaurant called 'The Days of the Raj' in New Delhi's Habitat Centre.

I have one word for the guy: mercenary Obviously he is using that name for publicity reasons.

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