Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

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> the number of Indian soldiers in WW2 -- 2.4 million, more than the other countries combined

That's a bald-faced lie.

The British alone had over 3.5 million. [1]

8.5 million Soviet soldiers died in the war. [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_during_the_Second_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_...

> Not a single mention of the fact that England with all its stated commitment to freedom ruled India and dozens of countries around the world against their will for two hundred years, systematically stripping them of their wealth for the benefit of the mother country.

Look at what a dishonest shitfest the political system is in India, and the whole culture of corruption.

It seems likely that without the British having brought "Anglo civilization", India today would be like most of Africa today.

Indians should be thankful for the British influence. As an American, I certainly am thankful for their influence on us.

> the number of Indian soldiers in WW2 -- 2.4 million, more than the other countries combined

That's a bald-faced lie.

THat comment could have been clearer, but it was clearly in response to the number of "Anglosphere" soldiers quoted in the article. For context the article says:

During the Second World War, 215,000 men served from New Zealand, 410,000 from South Africa, 995,000 from Australia, 1,060,000 from Canada, 2,400,000 from India.

In that context, Indian soliders did outnumber the other listed countries.

It seems likely that without the British having brought "Anglo civilization", India today would be like most of Africa today.

I'm old enough to remember the 1970's and 80's where India was like Africa[1]. I'm not drawing any conclusions from that except to say that colonial influence isn't as simple as you may believe.

[1] http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly...

> Look at what a dishonest shitfest the political system is in India, and the whole culture of corruption.

> It seems likely that without the British having brought "Anglo civilization", India today would be like most of Africa today.

India was keeping pace with the rest of world, and leading in many ways, quite nicely for thousands of years before the 1600s. It happened to be under continuous foreign occupation at just the time the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe, and British policies were explicitly designed to stifle the same changes happening in India. Most things that you see today are a consequence of that missed opportunity.

Without the British, it's more likely that India would have been like Japan today rather than Africa.

It's easy to be thankful for British influence when the US got rid of it so early in the industrialization game.

> British policies were explicitly designed to stifle the same changes happening in India

How so? I'm genuinely curious.

I know the British brought a system of law and education and a massive train system to India, and I don't know much else about what they may have done. None of that seems like it would serve to stifle the Industrial Revolution.

It seems to me like promoting the Industrial Revolution to the maximal extent possible in India would have been the rational thing for the British to do. You don't produce wealth by holding other people down. And the three examples I gave above would support the idea that that's what they were aiming for---development. But maybe there's something I don't know.

As nl mentioned below, I thought it was obvious that this was in response to the list of countries in the article -- NZ, Australia, South Africa and so on. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

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