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Comment by throawaywpg | Hacker News Reader

Some Indians benefitted, but the vast majority suffered.

Th vast majority suffered under various Indian empires too. The lower castes suffered millennia of oppression (and still do) - imagine millennia of Jim Crow or apartheid. Some of them benefited hugely from British rule as a result, probably including my mother's ancestors.

The caste system itself is wildly considered to be exacerbated and promoted by British colonial rule in post colonial studies, not unlike the US empire promoting sectarianism in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

The caste divisions did exist before British rule but it wasn't as systematic and unified across India as after.

Boy how do we even talk about neocolonialism today if there are still people with full on colonialist sympathies holy shit

How do we talk about topic X if there are people who don’t think about it like I do? People having different opinions isn’t a bad thing.

Also I think you likely meant widely, not wildly.

> People having different opinions isn’t a bad thing.

No I think that is a bad thing and a failure of our society if there are still people around repeating talking points from 1850s British colonial rule for christ sake!

Its like saying the Roman empire was great because it brought Aqueducts to the savages or something, like that is just education/knowledge of history + basic moral principles. The genocidal barbarism of colonialism should be something we left behind collectively. Or do you think whether or not the holocaust was good or bad is a matter of opinion too?

Wasn't the Roman empire better than most contemporary polities? Like it created a long era of peace in a significant area and successfully integrated various population, culminating in the 3rd century where all free men were made roman citizens. If you'd ask under which ancient polity I would prefer to live, chance are I'll choose the Roman empire.

If aliens invaded earth and after decades of subjugation they successfully "integrated" us savages, they would view it the same way. The forceful destruction of all our culture, languages, religions, history, sovereignty, it would all be justified in the end because their alien technology and culture is "superior". I don't believe it's justified no matter how relatively primitive we are, and if aliens did it that alone would demonstrate their own primitive culture quite clearly no matter how much they whitewash themselves in the intergalactic history books.

I didn't said empires were good, just that in the rhetoric 'empires are bad', the Roman empire isn't the best example, especially since the roman usually didn't engage in forceful cultural destruction.

They were highly systematic and oppressive. Castes have been separated for long enough and strongly enough for there to be detectable genetic differences.

Caste is far older than western colonialism. The genetic evidence shows that castes oppression has been enough to suppress intermarriage for millennia:

https://www.livescience.com/38751-genetic-study-reveals-cast...

> Boy how do we even talk about neocolonialism today if there are still people with full on colonialist sympathies holy shit

How do we talk to people who are in denial bout historic oppression?

I'm not I'm saying the British colonial rule made it worse, here is a good summary:

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

and:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India#During_B...

How do you reconcile the claim that people could move between castes with the genetic evidence of lack of inter-marriage.=?

Special mention: the Partition.

But then again, without the British, there wouldn't have been a unified India but a multitude of states, sort of resembling the EU (in the best case). Worst case scenario, mini Africa.

Having a common hated enemy did have its benefits.

I’d say most Indians are pretty happy about the cricket situation.

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