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Comment by throwup238 | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a shitbird (with all respect to Mr Lahey) but it seems to be a moot point given that these collections can be digitized and indexed, opening them up to far more people than a few hundred thousand physical copies would have, especially for researchers who need to search vast collections.

Indian universities (and the American ones with the collections) should fund a full digitization program. It’s not like the collections are closed to researchers and all of the money for the purchases went right back to the Indian economy.

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I believe the term is appropriate. Not only would the books have mostly disappeared due to local conditions, they can indeed be, and often are, digitized.

Instead, we have a professor who seems to feel obligated to gaslight the US and portray it as “colonialist” even in the face of incredible outcomes of public policy.

Millions of Indians escaped starvation thanks to this policy and an astounding body of knowledge survived and was consequently studied, helping elevate Indian culture in academic circles. But no matter, this created “knowledge gaps”.

The conclusion that this "created knowledge gaps" seems particularly inapt. If American universities had not purchased these particular books, they would have most likely been lost just like the rest of their respective print runs. The "knowledge gap" would have been even worse, as no one at all would have had access to those books.

Also mind you, this is coming from an academic. Yet there’s no proof being brought to the argument that this gap does exist and they’re not saying “may or might”, they’re making what appears to be a purely ideological statement.

There's certainly a hypothetical universe where American universities didn't buy these books, and they were instead acquired by Indian libraries which managed to preserve them. But that isn't our universe, and there's no clear means by which the US could brought it about.

>Instead, we have a professor who seems to feel obligated to gaslight the US and portray it as “colonialist” even in the face of incredible outcomes of public policy.

I'm not talking about this particular case right now, although I may comment separately about it a little later, but the US did have a colonial past. See:

European_colonization_of_the_Americas:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the...

From that article, the 7th or so paragraph, highlighting is mine:

>Violent conflicts arose during the beginning of this period as indigenous peoples fought to preserve their territorial integrity from increasing European colonizers and from hostile indigenous neighbors who were equipped with Eurasian technology. Conflict between the various European empires and the indigenous peoples was a leading dynamic in the Americas into the 1800s, although some parts of the continent gained their independence from Europe by then, countries such as the United States continued to fight against Native Americans and practiced settler colonialism. The United States for example practiced a settler colonial policy of Manifest Destiny and the Trail of Tears.

And links from that paragraph:

Settler_colonialism:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism

The graphic after the first paragraph there (labelled "Graphic depicting the loss of Native American land to U.S. settlers in the 19th century"), is, well, graphic. See all that blue area disappearing?

Manifest destiny:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

Trail of Tears:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

Also see:

Banana republic:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

Also see:

Philippines:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines

Under the History section there, see this sub-section:

Spanish and American colonial rule (1565–1934).

A link from there:

Philippine–American War:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_...

We're perfectly aware of this, just as we're aware a large part of the starvation the US was saving Indians from was due to decades of the British forcing them to grow cash crops instead of food. An American collection of Indian works is no more a "colonial library" than an American collection of Irish works or of Canadian works.

I may reply more comprehensively later, but a few points for now:

>decades of the British forcing

JFC. A few centuries, is more like it. That's how long the Brits enslaved India(ns) for, which could happen at all, and then continue, due to multiple reasons on both sides, including, as one interesting reason, some Indian groups (think small "kingdoms") backstabbing others, and colluding with the British, which is why Alexander won over Porus, it is said in some history books.

Maybe check British colonial history and history of India, in obvious places such as Wikipedia and Britannica (ironically, for the latter).

Also read about Winston Churchill and the Bengal famine, in which millions died, but don't just limit yourself to Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhusree_Mukerjee#cite_note...

http://www.madhusree.com/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill%27s_Secret_War

There, did some of your homework for you.

And let's not forget:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

which you too seem to display in your comment, at least going by:

>the starvation the US was saving Indians from

Sure, they may have saved them from it (I was a kid at the time, too young to look it up in depth, but I vaguely remember reading / hearing something about it, including some newspaper scandals about the quality of some of the food supplied by the US - milo is one term I somewhat recollect, but I don't know the details), but they did not necessarily do it (only) for noble or altruistic intentions.

I would not be surprised if there was some quid pro quo demanded or made a condition for the help, as often is the case when the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund gave financial aid to developing countries in times of crisis.

In fact I just did a quick google or two, and this is one link I found:

Ghost of PL-480 Returns as India Avoids the Wheat Trap All Over Again:

https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/ghost-of-pl-480-returns-...

And one more for you, for the new year:

US Raising 'Human Rights in India' is Like the Pot Calling the Kettle Black

https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/us-raising-human-rights-...

And let's not forget that the wrecked state of many such countries was at least in "good" part one of the results of European colonialism. The United States itself was earlier one such colony, as you know. Heard of the Boston tea party?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

I have been to Boston, BTW, and have eaten at Legal Seafoods and other places in downtown Boston. Nice town. I liked the architecture of some of the historical public buildings. I think one of them was the Public Library.

And one final one for you:

History of the Central Intelligence Agency:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Central_Intel...

That is a long and very interesting article. It also has links to more detailed articles on many of the sub topics.

Apart from general background information, it has many paragraphs about the way the CIA interfered in the affairs of many countries, including some famous examples that many people outside the US are well aware of.

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