“I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem,their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”
- Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835, British Parliament

“The burning of ancient books on Ayurveda in Kerala, so as to impose the European system of medicine on the natives, the cutting of weavers’ thumbs in Bengal with a view of crippling the production of superior Indian cloth and ensuring the sale of British products, the ruthless, often bloody, extortion of revenue from the peasants for decades on end, even in the midst of the worst famines, the whipping, hangings and tortures that awaited those who opposed the Empire - these are only a few among the unending examples of the “providential character” of the British rule.”
- Readings in Vedic Literature: The Tradition Speaks for Itself - By Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
“During the first 80 years of the 19th century 18,000,000 of the Indian people perished of famine. In one year alone - the year when Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, assumed the title of the Empress, - 5,000,000 of the people of Southern India were starved to death. In the District of Bellary, with which I am personally acquainted - a region twice the size of Wales - 1/4 of the whole population perished in the famine of 1876-77. I shall never forget my own famine experience; how, as I rode out on horseback, morning after morning, I passed crowds of wandering skeletons, and saw human corpses by the roadside, unburied, uncared for, half devoured by dogs and vultures; and how - still sadder sight - children, ‘the joy of the world’ as the old Greeks deemed them, had become its ineffable sorrow there, forsaken even by their mothers, their feverish eyes shining from hollow sockets, their flesh utterly wasted away, only gristle and sinew and cold shivering skin remaining, their heads mere skulls, their puny frames full of loathsome disease engendered by the starvation… Everyone who has been in India in famine times, and has left the beaten track of western made prosperity, knows how true a picture this is”
- India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom - By Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland

All from the following blog:http://www.kaveri.org/pari/archives/000096.html

but disgusted idea of “Lets stop this stupidity and move on … no one owes you anything, except yourself.”
sounds too romantic to be true…imagine yourself born as native of Sudan…darfour and then I wonder if you will say the same romantic idea of your…for get Sudan in India in some remote village with ” less than 1$/day”

About colonialism, it needs to be pointed out that the zamindari system improved upon by the british ranks right at the top of the sh1t-list India had to deal with after independence and is still dealing with now. This system, while it existed before the british was not institutionalized and the revenue agent did not have the kind of powers in local affairs that the zamindars did. Even during the mughal times.

Try the above link to a Wikipedia article on income inequality. The Gini coefficient, as I had suspected, indicates a greater inequality in the US than even in India. So what?

Also read the criticism of income inequality metrics further down in the article.

A comment on colonialism in general. Since this is an economic blog, it must stay true to form by seeking statistical and other measurable effects of colonialism. But what about the psychic effects? Aren’t those ultimately the driving forces of all economic outcomes, good or bad? My belief is that the British, through its vast bureaucracy, turned Indians into a “service raj,” which then gave birth to its offspring, “license raj,” after Independence. A nation whose educated middle class only dreamed of joining a service could not have NOT adopted Fabian Socialism. So here is a country that completely missed out on “enterprise raj” during the crucial one hundred period of mid-19th to mid-20th century and is still paying for it dearly.

A nation’s psyche may be hard to measure, but in my humble opinion, has far reaching economic impact.

Isn’t it true that the collateral damage of the strong US economy of the past two decades has been the widening gap between the rich and poor? Is that all bad?

My point is: is income inequality always indicative of economic failure? Is it even a relevant economic indicator?

However, it is a fact that from 1857 to 1947 India\’s share in the world economy fell from 18% to 3%, a six fold decrease. It is also true that British levied high taxes on agriculture, leading to disastrous famines the second half of the nineteenth century (Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis). British goods flooding Indian markets lead to the complete destruction of the Indian industries.

This is a microcosm of the British rape of India
http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=486&Itemid=103 and
http://www.vigilonline.com/reference/relart/vicharamalaArt_view.asp?art_id=94
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS00vMjAwNy8wMS8xNCNBcjAwODAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

There are two reasons of Income inequality
1) Colonialism
2) Fabian socialism post 1947
Socialism is IMHO,more responsible than colonialism. But, saying that the British rule was good for India is complete BS. We were doing quite well without the British, thank you.