Check out the Asian Dub Foundation song "Assassin" (on the 'Rafi's Revenge' album). This was inspired by the 1919 Amritsar/ Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.

The first words spoken in the song are "Mohammed Singh Azad*, Zindabad!"

* a.k.a Udam Singh

Oh damn. I always thought it was Dyer who got assasinated, not the Governor Michael O'Dwyer. That's. . .less .. .something.Okay, fine, I hate to say it, but dammit, that's less grimly satisfying.

It's also a little weird given the iconic scene of that massacre in the Ben Kingsley "Gandhi" movie from the 1980s.

That scene -- where all the guys with guns are white -- has pretty much been imprinted on my mind as the 'correct' version of events. And I don't think I'm alone: I seem to remember a scene in a recent, terrible Punjabi movie called Shaheed Udham Singh that copied Gandhi's Jallianwalla Bagh scene frame for frame.

It's weird to visualize the scene with desi soldiers.

Disgusting. What a pig this man was. What an utter pig. Hopefully, he is reborn as a South Indian female feminist.

On a side note - for all there is to admire in Winston Churchill and his stand against Nazism and fascism, there are his actions toward India which are less than stellar. But great men are still only men, alas ( I get the same feeling when I read Gandhi's writings toward prominent Jewish intellectuals - you know the famous essay where he told them they should be glad to submit? Well, glad isn't quite the right word, and pacifism is what it is).

*The US using Kurdish soldiers in Sunni areas is the best analogy you could come up with? A bit of a different situation....or were 8 million Iraqi's lining up just a bit of nothing (to get all Hinglishy)?

MD,
come on now, you can make better statements than wishing that the "pig" is reborn a "South Indian female feminist." Being a South Indian female Feminist, I am utterly insulted by your 'wish!'and I am sure some of the others who read this and are "those" people feel the same too.

As a South Indian female feminist, I amd not insulted by MD's comment and completely agree with her (I presume MD is a woman).

Let the scoundrel karmically feel the struggle that our women go through all across India, much less the south, and think, "I must have been an evil commander of the British Raj in my past life."

Swati,
I think what MD meant was that Dyer being the complete opposite of a 'South Indian female feminist', this would be some sort of karmic retribution..its not that this would be a punishment for anyone else, but for Dyer, he would obviously hate the thought of being reborn as such. Sheesh, don't be so quick to play the victim. Or, I may be completely wrong and MD may have meant to insult all SI feminists...I'll let MD talk on his behalf from now on..sorry :-)

Hopefully, he is reborn as a South Indian female feminist.

now i've been called many horrid things on this blog...but a "reincarnated Dyer" has to be the worst. ;) i keeed. i keeed.

Swati, i've been reading her for quite a while, and MD-didi is a doll. as a wheatish malayalee feminist, i'll totally vouch for her. here's my theory: i'll bet she didn't have her ek cup of chai and thus wrote that in a decaffeinated hurry. :) i know she didn't mean it the way it sounded. trust me.

Yikes, swati - maybe I shouldn't have posted in such a hurry - making jokes with such serious fare. What he did was an abomination, and I'm sorry if my comment offended you.

I guess what I was trying to say is that imagine you come back to a new life and you are aware - you are enlightened - and then you have some knowledge of what you were in another life. Can you imagine any greater punishment? The knowledge that you committed evil? I can't. Maybe that is what 'hell' is.

*Thanks for the defense, sm'ers :) Oh, and I am, indeed, a she. Darn glad of it, too.

*Ahem*, I would also like to say that I am a malayalee feminist--- anyone interested? Seriously though, didnt the Gandhi movie have loads of other errors?

That many of the soldiers who helped passify punjab came from other parts of desi-stan was one reason Punjabi soldiers mostly sided with the Brits in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. I don't think it was a case of "divide and conquer" so much as, I don't think nationalism was a part of desi-stan at that time. A Baloch from Sind and a Jatt from Haryana would not have thought they had too much common cause, I think.

I think the whole idea of "race" was not so calicified until recently. The Romans had emperors from Africa I think. Even my own relatives thought of the brits in a similiar fashion to any other group that had some kind of influence on Punjab. Before the brits it was Mughals, who were also different colored. I think color is only recently the dividing point of groups....the Meditarian and Eurasia were once the pivot of the world, and these areas are poly-colored

end.

ps i love malayalee feminists. i understand both MD as not being insulting and Swati's taking offence

On a side note - for all there is to admire in Winston Churchill and his stand against Nazism and fascism, there are his actions toward India which are less than stellar. But great men are still only men, alas

Darn, I wish he was assasinated.

Churchill was da man.
Some gems from the great leader:

"I do not admit...that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia...by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race...has come in and taken its place" - Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937.

"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes" - Writing as president of the Air Council. The gas attacks were in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wow, Im stunned. I had no idea that desi soldiers were involved in the massacre. What were they thinking? I guess it goes to prove that old addage "That its every man for himself"

I wonder if these soldiers ever faced any retribution?

The East India Company rarely used "white" soldiers. They were, after all, a trading company. They always used "native" soldiers for their battles - whether it was Plassey, Mysore or the Sepoy Mutiny. The generals were all British, of course.

The Official Raj continued this wildly successful tradition.

MD,

i went back and read your blog. very sorry for jumping the gun, pardon the baaad pun:) i have just been subjected to so many "you idli vada - me pav bhaji" inanities that i felt i had to voice my two paisas. this forum btw, is fantastic, may your lives be full of idlis, vadas, sambhars and pav bhajis.

The British merely continued a practice used by empires past and present, utilizing soldiers from one part of their empire to hold another. Many of the white soldiers stationed in India were Irish Catholics and Indian soldiers were used in Burma, Afghanistan, the Crimea, Iraq and East Africa to further imperial interests.

Churchill was undoubtedly racist but there is no comparison to Hitler.

hm. i'm surprised people are surprised that brown soldiers killed brown civilians at the behest of the british...after all, who do you think conquered "india", but brown sepoys (mostly bengalis and madrasis in the early days, with a later switch over to other groups as they got conquered). i suggest that we leave our modern sensibilities at the door, for if, as some believe, race is a social construction, culture certainly is, and nationality most definitely is. for history buffs, you will know that some of the greatest mughal generals were hindu (jai singh), and that many of the soldiers in the army of explicitly hindu kingdom of vijayanagar were muslim (that kingdom btw had european officers and advisors!).

when i went to the bangladesh in 1990 it was clear that many rural villagers did not understand conceptually that someone from across the meghna river was qualitatively a different kind of foreigness than someone from america (i experienced this personally, as i was slotted in with a woman who hailed from a city in north bengal as a "foreigner").

now, on this issue:
I guess it goes to prove that old addage "That its every man for himself"

well, certainly the way the soldiers behaved was atrocious, as soldiers have often behaved throughout history. but, i wonder, is it a more evil act because they were killing people ethnically similar to themselves? (though one can dispute this in the case of the balouch, who speak an iranian language, not an indo-aryan one) i think one can make that argument, but in general, history has not been characterized by neat and tidy conflicts that correspond to racial, ethnic and religious divides perfectly. in fact, the most common enemies were your neighbors. one reason many punjabi sikh soldiers supposedly fought for the british in suppressing the 1857 mutiny is that it had as its figurehead the mughal emperor (or at least an individual of that line), and the sikhs had negative memories of mughal oppression.

in the last planet of the apes film it was a common refrain that "ape must not kill ape," but that doesn't work with humans (ie; brown/white/black/muslim/christian/hindu must not kill brown/white/black/muslim/christian/hindu).

Salman Rushdie claimed that the only inadvertent factual error he made in Midnight'S Children was to say that the soldiers who shot at the Amritsar Crowd were white Britons.

(As opposed to the book's deliberate factual errors due to the unreliable narrator)

If even Rushdie can make the error, I think the rest of us can be forgiven.

Thats not the only mistake Rushdie ever made!

Looks like you had your "Sepia Mutiny", eh? Sepoy butchering Sepia... what joy.
Besides, Dyer is a good loking guy; so, I guess, it's ok. Anyways, its nice to kill a few people here and there occasionally.

"Is it a more evil act because they were killing people ethnically similar to themselves?"

NO definitely not. The ethnic identity of the soldiers in no way makes the act worse or better or more understandable. It was a heinous act pure and simple.

However, theories on ethnocentricity and reciprocal altruism posed by some sociobiologists may suggest that those from the same background or from the same "tribal group" maybe less likely to inflict harm on each other. However, in a country as diverse as India its hard to define one's "tribal group" Is it based on language, geographical location, religion, etc. ? As razib mentioned I guess it is very much a social construct. And these soldiers may not have perceived Punjabis to be their kin or members of the same "tribal group"

I guess the difference is that usually the people who invaded India settled there and thus the wealth stayed in India as well. Eventually a certain degree of respect and understanding was established between all parties. With the British however it soon became apparent that they werent going to respect the natives and more importantly had no plan to keep the wealth of India in India. No their takeover of India was for monetary reasons and to gain markets that could exploit to make the British Isles rich and powerful.

However, theories on ethnocentricity and reciprocal altruism posed by some sociobiologists may suggest that those from the same background or from the same "tribal group" maybe less likely to inflict harm on each other.

yes, we've talked a lot about this over at my blog. you can find a series of posts on the topic of inclusive fitness as applied to ethnicities (scroll down to see all the posts linked at the bottom). in sum, i find ethnic nepotism implausible on a wide geographic scale simply because your main competitors were those closest to you. there are other issues of course....

and reciprocal altruism is probably a way to explain the behavior of the solders. after all, the british were offering them steady pay and some status (in some parts of india british recruited dalits specifically because they were loyal against locals, for obvious reasons). the attachment they might have had to the people they killed would not have been on material/selfish grounds (unless very broadly interpreted), but their relations with their brit officers were advantageous to each.

Churchill was undoubtedly racist but there is no comparison to Hitler.

" in sum, i find ethnic nepotism implausible on a wide geographic scale simply because your main competitors were those closest to you."

As you stated before your closest neighbors may often be your worst enemy. Therefore it might behoove you to show a little altruism, as it may enhance your survival.

Fighting one type of racism and carrying out similar things at other places is a sign of a [sic] opportunistic imperialist.

Hmmm ... something about not learning from history and, thus, being condemned to repeat it comes to mind.

Therefore it might behoove you to show a little altruism, as it may enhance your survival.

well, i'm going to insert some pedantic precision here: on a genetic level your own survival is irrelevant if you don't reproduce. as you know, the way inclusive fitness works is that your own reproductive fitness hit is more than compensated by those who carry your genes. so, your sibling is 1/2 related to you, your children 1/2, your half-sibling 1/4, etc. so, for "selfish altruism" to work you need to gain genetic benefits in inverse proportion to the relationship, your brother's fitness needs to be more than twice your own fitness hit, your half-brother more than four times your own hit (because the common genes will then increase, or at least not decline, in frequency). naively interpreted this causes problems when you start being related to someone on the order of 1/32 or something (distant cousin). it is complicated by inbreeding and population substructure.

in sum, scientifically, human concepts of genetically hard-wired inclusive fitness might not project much further than your near family. there is a lot of complexity to this, but that's the gist of it. others try to rework the relationship to show how you are related to ethnicity A as opposed to ethnicity B as your are related to your brother vs. your cousin (browns are more related to each other than they are to whites for example). the problem with this logic is two fold:

1) the proximate evolutionary adaptations likely don't exist, because transracial contact was minimal (all the evolutionary inputs are probably being shaped by competition with people that look, and perhaps act, similar to yourself).

2) the further away you get from familial genetic relationships, the further from common sense genetic ideas of "kinship" nmatch "reality." there are genetic loci where you are more closely related to a chimp than you are to your own sibling (MHC loci), for example.

so we get back to culture. i think that is where ethnocentrism probably emerges. and culture is malleable (within limits). physically a pashtun may look more like his dark welsh officer than he does like a punjabi from the lowlands, but to the welsh officer both are "pandey niggers" (there is some genetic evidence to suggest that indians might be the outgroup if you compared persians, western europeans and indians, for example-though the evidence is mixed).

in any case, i simply wanted to respond to the common response that people have when they found out that group A oppressed/ruled/whatever group B with the help of group C though B and C seem to have much in common. this isn't something that occurs just in south asia, the aztecs fell because of the help of rivals like the mixtecs, celtic britain fell in part because of the ruling classes use of mercenaries against each other (eventually one group of mercenaries, the anglo-saxons, decided to settle down), and muslims and christians regular stabbed their co-religionists in the back when their own selfish interests were dominant.

i think people have a tendency to fixate on macro-categories as the most salient aspects of our identification...but, i suspect that individual/familial selfishness is just masked by the reality that it doesn't normally have a chance to operate and betray one's own "people/religion/tribe/nation." ethnic/religious/racial loyalties do exist, but i think we have a false sense of how important they are on a concrete level....

(to give an example, in 1960 most white americans were rather racist, and offered they wouldn't sit next to a black person on a bus. today, in 2005, there is a common anti-racist consensus that about 3/4 of white americans, and almost all the elites [g.w. bush himself is part of a mixed-race family], hold to. they simply changed with the times)

Churchill was undoubtedly racist but there is no comparison to Hitler.

Here is your comparison. The Famine of Bengal killed 3 million people. It was actually and proximally caused by the British. People were not even allowed to live their lives and eat on a subsistence basis.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews and about 11 million people overall.

Apologizing for Churchill by calling him merely "undoubtedly racist" and "no comparison" to Hitler spits in the face of those millions of Bengalis who wanted nothing more than to live and eat free of colonial domination.

well, certainly the way the soldiers behaved was atrocious, as soldiers have often behaved throughout history. but, i wonder, is it a more evil act because they were killing people ethnically similar to themselves?

On another note, one would think that the Nepali Gurkhas (who by the way, have remained in the British army and today serve in Iraq) would have an affinity to the men, women and children they so callously butchered. Yes there might have been some ambivalence to the desi cause under the theory that the British were yet another conqueror, but to shoot at a crowd featuring women in saris holding babies, men in kurta pajamas, etc....how could the troops not feel that to some extent they were shooting at themselves? Its not like they were shooting at other soldiers who were shooting back. In that case, the soldier might think "OK this is my job"....but when he shoots at unarmed men, women and children, one would think "These are my people" would win out over "This is my job."

(Sorry to dumb down my analysis, not feeling particularly intellectual today....more like sick to the stomach over imagining this event).

(though one can dispute this in the case of the balouch, who speak an iranian language, not an indo-aryan one)

This point is disputed, old theory was so. There is evidence that linguistically the Baluchi language is actually Dravidian based. It makes sense because they are ethnically and genetically different from their mixed Aryan-Dravidian neighbors...The more likely theory is that they were holdovers from the Indus Valley Civiliation....so next time you go to Baluchis, ask for some idli vada...(granted they might look at you funny).

More on the Gurkhas from the above-mentioned link:

Their reputation is also tethered to their "ethos" -- adherence to a strict, self-imposed code of honor and discipline.

"We must be loyal, honest, well-trained," explained a rifleman standing in front of perfectly arranged cots flush and grounded at their encampment here. "We are very experienced, especially in jungle warfare."

g.w. bush himself is part of a mixed-race family

Hahah...a couple of Hispanic relatives who married in doesn't count. One things for damn sure, GW is not mixed-race himself.

Bush is to gora as fried is to pakora.

You mention the fact that central governance allowed the Brits to dominate. I agree with this conclusion but keep in mind it was the English that did the dominating and the others did as they were told.

The problem in India was that after the Mughals fell and the Marathas, Sikhs, Nawabs etc began to fight it out the Brits appeared. The battle for one to dominate was never allowed to take place and was halted. The Nawab of Oudh stood by while the Nawab of Bengal was beaten by the British just like the Marathas stood by while South India was being taken over by the Brits. And then the Sikhs didnt do much while the Marathas were being taken care of and finally there was no one left to help the Sikhs.

If the Brits never showed up it is possible that either the groups would have come to some sort of peaceful solution or one would have battered the others out. In one of my War Studies class we were told that sometimes it is better to let a war conclude so that at least there is a permanant solution. This happened in Europe, centuries ago Europe had so many small kingdoms eventually it was reduced to a few major powers. In India the process was halted and the Brits did divide and conquer to take over. It is currently continuing as you see India & Pak sort of confronting one another to see who will dominate South Asia. While it was pretty much settled in 1971 it is still there. Eventually for any sort of peace or stability to truly occur one side has to come out on top. Why do you think some of the states fund and support insurgencies within India? They dont want a single state to control any region and would like to see India again fall apart into smaller bits based on ethnicity or religion b/c that will be easier to manipulate. The "whites" did this in Europe, the Americas and in Australia really well. They took and got what they wanted, now they preach human rights etc to everyone else while they go about their balance of power games.

One thing is clear, if Indians had somehow adopted a secular identity based on a shared history and loose cultural, linguistic, culinary and familial connections as they have today, the British would not have stood a chance....and India would be a lot more prosperous than it is today. Central governance is what led the British to dominate (remember, the British were actually made up of disparate groups too, Scots, Irish, Normans, Anglicans, Protestants, blah blah).

You are correct, but hindsight is 20/20. The only reason why present day India looks the way it does, was a result of the common threat posed to all in the subcontinent by the British.

If the western imperialists had failed in gaining a foothold on the Indian subcontinent, the area would look significantly different. Most likely a sprinkling of small and large princely states that would have ruled either by outright monarchy or some form of republic with the monarch as the figure head (like current day Great Britain). Also, old grievences between Maratha, Rajput, Mughal, and other Sultante kingdoms would still be lingering around in some fashion or the other.

These princely states despised each other more than the outsider British and that was the very reason "Divide and Conquer/Rule" worked.

Bureaucracies and the Miltary in colonial India were primarily staffed with Indians. This trend became accelerated after world war I when many foreigners had to go fight the great war. This left Indians to run the business at home.

In many ways, this also resulted in a relatively smooth transition to an independent republic since the Government and Military were already run by the natives.

If the western imperialists had failed in gaining a foothold on the Indian subcontinent, the area would look significantly different. Most likely a sprinkling of small and large princely states that would have ruled either by outright monarchy or some form of republic with the monarch as the figure head (like current day Great Britain). Also, old grievences between Maratha, Rajput, Mughal, and other Sultante kingdoms would still be lingering around in some fashion or the other.

How can you be so sure that the old grievances (which do exist even today) could not be superseded by some sort of secular republic, independent of British "assistance"? The Japanese were able to becoming a global power in about 20-30 years, without any colonial domination, there is no reason why the Indians couldnt do the same.

Therefore, if the western imperialists had failed in gaining a foothold on the Indian subcontinent, the area may have looked the same or even more powerful.

Here is your comparison. The Famine of Bengal killed 3 million people. It was actually and proximally caused by the British. People were not even allowed to live their lives and eat on a subsistence basis.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews and about 11 million people overall.

Apologizing for Churchill by calling him merely "undoubtedly racist" and "no comparison" to Hitler spits in the face of those millions of Bengalis who wanted nothing more than to live and eat free of colonial domination.

vurdlife you are correct. In fact both the Marathas and Sikhs were multiethnic and multireligious states where the communal situation was acctually better than today in many cases. Things began to settle down during that period since I think everyone had had enough of Aurangzeb and his kind of true believers. The British did create some sort of unity in the sense that everyone wanted them out, and when they left India was left partioned which acctually reopened a lot of old wounds that still fester to this day.

If the Brits had never shown up then it is entirely possible that would have 3-4 major states that would compete and cooperate and possibly form some sort of subcontinental union once the Age of Imperialism and the plans of the Europeans powers becomes clear for everyone to see by the late 1800s. In fact one could say that the reason that 1857 happened was precisely because the Indians realized what was going to happen to them. It wasnt till the mid 1800s that the Indians came to know what the Europeans are capable of and what their plans are with regards to all of Asia and Africa.

After reading the comment about the portrayal of the massacre in Attenborough's "Gandhi" I went back and looked at the scene on DVD. The movie actually shows non-British soldiers firing on the crowd and the only whites clearly shown are the officers. I vaguely remembered this being the case but I guess it goes to show how easily we can conflate what we think should be the case and what actually is shown.

Therefore, if the western imperialists had failed in gaining a foothold on the Indian subcontinent, the area may have looked the same or even more powerful.

I agree, there is no way of saying what would have happened if the British were absent. While there were political differences, we shouldn't discount the huge cultural and religious commonality that existed across most parts of present-day India.

Bravo, MF, bravo! I was thinking the same thing but didn't have access to the DVD. Way to go for fact checking.

As for all the rest of this: I have read that Nepal is basically an independant state (a very screwed up one up one, but an independant one) because, among other things, the Ghurkas fought with the British, and they fought so well, the British decided they'd rather have them as mercenaries than subjects. Basically, in exchange for a tribute of troops, the King of Nepal didn't have to do anything else for the UK, and got to keep running his own state. So, those Ghurkas, at least might well have been thinking--"better we shoot here than we reneg on our King's pledge by starting a mutiny, and risk bringing the British wrath down on Kathmandu."

Still not very nice, but a plausible explanation at least.

the link you provided stated it was actually caused by a fungus and lack of rice imports from Japanese occupied Burma.

I linked to wikipedia for convenience's sake...that article does state that the conscious British policy of creating artifical price inflation led to the famine.

But for more visit this article entitled The Unknown Famine Holocaust: About the Causes of Mass Starvation in Britain's Colony of India 1942-1945. Here's a snippet:

Food deliveries from other parts of the country to Bengal were refused by the government, on the one hand in order to weaken the independence movement, on the other hand in order to make food artificially scarce. This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the title "Rice Denial Scheme."

As for actual/proximate causation...if not for the artifical British price inflation (which Economics Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has said led to a rare "boom famine"), 2-3 million people would NOT have died...in a free and undominated market, there would be enough to eat. So there was "actual" causation. And it was proximately caused by them because it is foreseeable that creating price inflation during mass starvation will lead to famine. Anyway the prox/act causation is a legal analogy...for our purposes its enough to say the British did it.

What makes this British action even more represensible is that they were AWARE of what their policies were doing to the people (remember famines arent like tsunamis, they happen over time).

I can just imagine the Bengali overlords sitting around saying "Hmm...seems to me hundreds of thousands of people are dying of starvation. What to do?" I wish I could have teleported back and said, "Heres a hint assholes...Don't institute a 'Rice Denial Scheme'"

swati - thanks for being so reasonable. And now I finally get why it read so poorly! I didn't even think about the idli vada-pav bhaji angle. I just seemed to remember reading about some really prominent feminists who were South Indian, and it just stuck in my mind. Oh. Do not post before you've had morning tea, that's for sure.

Also, re: the many comments on Churchill. I have very ambivalent feelings because he was a racist, and the government policies at the time did contribute to the famine in Bengal. But in order for the analogy to stick, Hitler would have had to conduct a war to liberate millions, while locking up others. So if you want to compare the Bengali famine with the Holocaust, then you still have the fact that Churchill was the reason Hitler was stopped. Which dictator did Hitler try and stop? Sorry, it's just a wierd analogy. My point was that history is complicated and men are more so. How could he be both a racist and also the man who held the fort and kept Britain free during those long dark days when it was not clear the the Allies would win? (and how could Gandhi tell the Jews they should submit to the Nazis as almost a purification, and then say he understood why the Palestinians could take up arms? I'm sorry, that's just inconceivable. Why the advice that violence is understandable for the Palestinians, but not for the Jews to resist? I never get that essay.) Churchill may not have been a hero, but he did heroic things.

I mean, if I was someone liberated from Dachau, I might find the Americans and Churchill heroic. How can you compare Churchill with Hitler? Hitler was an aggressor, invading other countries and rounding up not only Jews, but gays, socialists, communists, gypsies, anyone felt to be deviant. They rounded up children in death camps and performed human experimentation on death camp inmates. The Bengal famine happened because of a complex set of factors: food being diverted to wartime Europe, the Japanese cutting off food supplies and poor British governance (which shouldn't have been there to begin with - freedom is for everyone, right?)

Ok, per vurdlife's last post from the Revisionist (interesting source, that) it is deliberately poor governance, not simply poor governance. Despicable? But where does that leave us? Was it good that he was instrumental in stopping Hitler or not?

*Did anyone else hear about kids named Hitler in India during world war II because he was fighting the British, and some Indians looked up to him? I heard those stories as a kid, but never looked up any references.

Arrrgh, despicable! not despicable? Yes, the deliberate nature of what happened is truly awful.

How can you be so sure that the old grievances (which do exist even today) could not be superseded by some sort of secular republic, independent of British "assistance"? The Japanese were able to becoming a global power in about 20-30 years, without any colonial domination, there is no reason why the Indians couldnt do the same.

Therefore, if the western imperialists had failed in gaining a foothold on the Indian subcontinent, the area may have looked the same or even more powerful

No one can be sure. Obviously, this is all subjective. However, I lean towards a more fragmented view. The subcontinent has far more people, is much more diverse, and area wise larger than Japan (language and religion). Therefore, I don't think it would have followed a Japanese model.

British "assistance" is also a bad term to use. Rather than assistance, it was more of a reaction to their colonization and opression. Whatever the British did in India was designed to keep it in power longer, not assist the local people. It inadvertantly may have helped people, but that was never the goal.

If anything, modern India without colonial rule may have resembled today's EU. As mentioned in the comments above, the larger kingdoms could have eaten up their smaller neighbors until it reached an equilibrium where the big boys can live together in some peace.

Here is the difference betweem Hitler and Churchill.

Hitler hated people he considered inferior and wanted to wipe them out.

Churchill hated people he considered inferior and often killed them when it suited him. Yet he kept them alive in a state of subjugation and oppression when it suited him. He wanted to use the inferior populations to create armies and spread British control. He wanted to use the inferior people as a market and exploit them to increase British revenues as long as they didnt create a fuss. The minute they began to create fuss he would not hesitate to wipe them out. Keep in mind that the Quit India movement started in 1942 and Churchill saw the Bengal famine as a way to implement a scorhed earth policy and block Japanese advances and to finish off the Quit India movement.

Hitler's hate was so deep that he resorted to genocide. Churchill's hate was more sublime and exploitative. He wanted to use the supressed people to reach his goals. If they refused to further his goals then they had to go.

Churchill hated Hitler b/c Hitler dared to end British independence, but Churhchill didnt want the independence of any of the people that he ruled over. He didnt want the UK to become a German colony but he wanted the UK to keep its own colonies. If he could have he would have made sure the UK didnt have to decolonise at all so as to still remain powerful and relevant in the world. To keep the UK as a superpower and prime pole of power in the world; a role that the UK had to give up and hand over to the US.

Amardeep,
The soldiers in "Gandhi" were not all white. The officers were, but not the rest.

I see ASR, so it was just a happy by product that Hitler was stopped (because of British nationalism) and that the Jews were saved? He is to get no credit for that? And why is fighting for your independence (if you are Gandhi) admirable and not if you are Churchill? (I'm only talking about the British people here, not the others ruled under Britain's empire, which, yes, was ruled oppressively).

So most of you think that Churchill and Hitler are equal, really? Is that what most of the Sepia Mutineer commenters are saying? Because that astounds me. It really does. Is the world better off because Churchill won? I find it astounding that some don't want to give him credit for helping to defeat Nazism and Fascism. It wasn't just that he was threatened by Hitler: he hated the system Hitler stood for. He hated communism and fascism. He hated the systems themselves, because he felt they were a form of tyranny. And yet, another sort of tyranny in India.

I find this whole thread depressing: the right glorifies Churchill, the left abhores him, and somewhere inbetween is the truth. Or Truth, as I prefer it, 'cause I think you will work harder for it if you think it's Truth.

How is it that a man can be so courageous and morally strong in one instance, be such a vile coward/xenophobe in another? I think he can be both. That was my original point.

i think this speculation about the possible trajectory of the indian subcontinent, and analogies to say japan, trip up over the fact that we are talking about a geocultural region on the order of the size of europe, rather than a nation-state. japan was relatively homogenous (the ainu were almost gone as a distinct people by the 19th century) after 200 years of tokugawa control when it was jarred into the modern world.

V,

Crap, my memory is playing tricks on me.

The only reason why present day India looks the way it does, was a result of the common threat posed to all in the subcontinent by the British... Most likely a sprinkling of small and large princely states...

Doubt it. Some kind of Indian federal union would still have formed. You're ignoring the intense economic and political pressures that have historically driven consolidation into larger nations.

And why is fighting for your independence (if you are Gandhi) admirable and not if you are Churchill?

Doubt it. Some kind of Indian federal union would still have formed. You're ignoring the intense economic and political pressures that have historically driven consolidation into larger nations.

the analogy isn't perfect, but consider the arab states, several of them (syria and egypt) have explicitly attempted union but it never worked, despite a common literary language and religion. so i don't think that unity is an inevitable force-political disunity might have been structurally enforced if the local elites had not been first obliterated. china for example has a 2,000 year history of central reassertion of power after chaos. south asia does not. the key thing is that federal consolidation does happen to states/polities of certain sizes, but various indian regions are very populous nations in their own right. european union is still less integrated than india, and it has been driven by powerful historical forces in the recent past that i am not sure are analogous with india....

Doubt it. Some kind of Indian federal union would still have formed. You're ignoring the intense economic and political pressures that have historically driven consolidation into larger nations.

I later said:

If anything, modern India without colonial rule may have resembled today's EU. As mentioned in the comments above, the larger kingdoms could have eaten up their smaller neighbors until it reached an equilibrium where the big boys can live together in some peace

You are correct in stating that there are economic and political pressures that lead to consolidation. To what degree this consolidation would occur is what I am arguing here. I do stand by the statement that the makeup of present day India (or its very existence) would not be the same. An EU like umbrella structure under which these independent nations would operate seems to be a likely answer.

Doesn't the idea of a federal republic have its roots in western philosophy? No imperial british rule would mean the infusion of ideas that percolated from British would be on a lesser scale.

various indian regions are very populous nations in their own right.

and...

An EU like umbrella structure under which these independent nations would operate seems to be a likely answer.

Populous does not intrinsically mean having lots of natural resources, access to oceans and rivers, the ability to prosper economically, indigenous defense tech...

Doesn't the idea of a federal republic have its roots in western philosophy?

Empires have managed the tensions between capitals and feudal units for thousands of years.

There is evidence that linguistically the Baluchi language is actually Dravidian based.

If you could reference a source for this, vurdlife, I'd appreciate it.

How can you be so sure that the old grievances (which do exist even today) could not be superseded by some sort of secular republic, independent of British "assistance"? The Japanese were able to becoming a global power in about 20-30 years, without any colonial domination, there is no reason why the Indians couldnt do the same.

Before Commodore Perry showed up in Tokyo Bay, Japan had already experienced a couple of centuries of political unity under the Tokugawa Shogunate. These centuries of political unity, in conjunction with Japan's relative geographic isolation as an archipelago, has led to a degree of ethnolinguistic homogeneity not found on the subcontinent.

National unification usually occurs at the expense of peoples like the Ainu, the Nicard or the Basques. New Delhi itself, which has been relatively benign in this regard, has had to reassure India's minorities that their cultures and languages would not be subsumed.

MD, regarding your original point "How is it that a man can be so courageous and morally strong in one instance, be such a vile coward/xenophobe in another?" and ASR's reply, the answer may be as follows:

I have a cynical, pragmatic sense of Churchill. His top priority probably was his country. Opposing/fighting/stoping Hitler was mandatory to keep Great Britain alive. And, keeping India subjugated and 'in its place' was also important for Britain. Its the impact of this single strain of ideology that's responsible for his apparantly bipolar actions.

As for Hitler vs. Churchill evil dukeout, I guess we all 'know' Hitler's deeds. But I wouldn't completely discount the same degree of loathing and disgust some of the colonial invaders had for India and indians. Pick up almost any account written by the early missionaries or British officials, and you'll notice the unmistakable stench unabashed vilifcation of religion, culture, and customs still causes from those pages written so long ago.

I am not so sure a complete tally of all hardships and deaths caused by 200 yrs of colonial antipathy towards the Indian peoples will not compete head-to-head with those caused by hitler. Only it doesn't get any play at all (present company excluded off course).

Finally, winners write history. Had Hitler won, no doubt he would have written himself in as benevolent and every positive thing else, and in 60 yrs there wouldn't be much available outside his realm to shed light on the truth. Its partially true in Churchill case today. How many of us have read through tomes expounding on day-to-day strategizing of the foxy East India Company and its impact on the locals? More importantly, how many of those actually even exist in comparison to the voluminous genre of everything about WWII/Hitler/Nazis/Holocaust ?

re: the dravidian + baloch connection, it is highly plausible that the iranid language of the baloch is built upon a dravidian substrate: after all, the brahui of balochstan are a dravidian speaking people. additionally, some linguists propose an "elamo-dravidian" language group, elam being an ancient iranian nation in what is today khuzistan (right next to southeast iraq).

the only thing i would caution is that using terms like "dravidian" causes confusions in the minds of people because it is often seen as an ethnic, racial and linguistic term, simultaneously, or apart. there is philological evidence that most north indian languages are built upon a dravidian substrate (some argue that indo-aryan languages are indo-european "spoken with a dravidian accent," especially ones like marathi that abut dravidian speaking regions).

also, the genetic evidence suggests that no matter what the linguistic issues are, there are general clinal shifts in frequencies which display a discontinuity all around the north rim of india where the lowlands give way to highlands. so though there is admixture between the peoples of nagaland and assam, or punjab and the northwest frontier, the differences are far sharper than between, for example, the punjab and the oudh.

I think it was Mill whose history of India was a step towards dehumanizing their history and customs. He was a classic liberal. His history made the British adventure as a "civilizing" mission more plausible. Which goes to show I think that one person's open-minded individual is another's demagogue.

I think Churchill is about perspective. What was he to you? I think it depends on what perspective you take. I take him as a product of his time. He was a product of a system than countenenced colonialism. Who does not fight for their home? But on what principles? Gandhi versus Churchill? Well, who knows? Why fight on behalf of men when we can fight on behalf of principles? Colonialism yes or no? Maybe it'll get us farther than Churchill yes or no?

Japan was an analogy. Obviously there are differences, but the point is that self-sufficiency was possible in an imperialism-free context (as if that proposition needed support). Japan was but one trajectory, India could have enjoyed its own successful experiments in self-sufficiency in numerous forms. The point is, as many have suggested, a federal or centralized (whether loosely or not) government would have been a strong possibility for India. But that possibility of genuine self-sufficiency was wrested away, and only returned to South Asia after the region had been debilitated and stultified.

Moreover, the statements about India's disparate regions and ethnic groups are correct, however the fact that India does exist as a unified nation -- the largest functioning democracy in the world -- that has had an amazingly stable political history (as opposed to say Pakistan or the United States..civil war) is testament to the fact that unity would have been possible because it exists today. In saying so I'm well aware of India's problems, but I can't think of another country that has so successfully managed its potentially-balkanizing religious diversity while maintaining democratic values.

If you could reference a source for this, vurdlife, I'd appreciate it.

Its from a grad-level academic book on the vedic people. I will try to locate it and the page over the weekend if you're really interested.

Hitler vs. Churchill. Great points Seeker. It reminds me of the OJ trial when Johnnie Cochran (RIP) equated American slavery with the Holocaust, and the Goldmans and some Jewish groups lambasted the comparison. Hitler's methods were pure evil obviously, but one must not discount centuries of commodification, domination and terror that the slaves faced. Maybe its an unfair statement but Jews worldwide today are doing a lot better than descendants of slaves worldwide (African Americans, Carribeans, etc). SO back to the point, Hitler and his Nazi regime were horrible, but Churchill and his imperialist regime were horrible too. (If you must have a winner, Hitler the man was way worse than Churchill the man).

Winston Churchill: An Apostle of Freedom?

A bit of a detour...

However, since many previous have already taken this road, thought I'd chip in with some choice Churchill gems.

On Eugenics:

'The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate ... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed.'

About the use of gas against Arabs in Iraq:

'I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes"

On Hitler (in 1937):
'One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.'

A shameless plug, but the more this joker's nonsense is outed, the better -- and he's called the Man of the Century? Give me a break..

More gems here

http://www.stringinfo.com/pkblog/archives/002560.html

I can't think of another country that has so successfully managed its potentially-balkanizing religious diversity while maintaining democratic values.

vurdlife:
The worst has already happened in the form of partition. But I am not sure whether it was India's moment of truth. The USA did come out triumphantly during its moment of truth, an event that you have not given justice in your arguments and used it out of context.

Perhaps, one fact in India's favour is that there was no nationalist identity based on religion or language that encompasses a certain region. The lack of Indian identity of our forebears is more than compensated by their lack of any other national identities. However, tribal identities of north-easterners might be an exception. Also the caste based nationalist identities(that you observe in Tamilnadu, Konga nadu, Chetti nadu?) have become irrelevent.

There were poets who defined regional boundaries and wrote nationalist poems. However, sometimes they had under covered or sometimes over covered the regions based on their rulers' dominion. In any case, the common people had no idea about their national identities that they could pass on to their future generations.

uh, all this junk abut churchill, much of it true (though prior to 1940 almost everyone aside from conservative evangelicals and roman catholics were pro-eugenics of some sort, sweden practiced it until the 1970s through sterilizations of the retarded). but can't we judge people by the times? i mean, gandhi with his statements about "kafirs" in south africa before he became a great saint?

come on.

Manish, you sound like a Marxist ;)

It's tantalizing to try to figure out what might have been, but this conversation makes me cringe as someone with a little training in history. The whole idea is like saying, "well if you killed off the tiger today, this is what South Asia's ecosystems would look like 50 years later."

There are always "larger forces" at play (technology, demographics, natural resources, preexisting capital, preexisting cultural trends etc.) that can help you to say that some things are really likely: e.g., in hindsight, I feel comfortable saying that South Asia as a whole would likely have been wealthier had it not been colonized (although just stating that opens up how bizarre this entire project of imagining "history that might have been" is: it's arguable whether the absence of colonization is really an option or whether there was a situation where desiland was going to be colonized by one or more European countries and the question was just which one(s)).

Without really comprehending the world of 1757 (and earlier), who knows what fractures were there and would have developed, which regions would have emerged as powerful, what directions language would have taken things, what religious movements would have arisen, etc. and then the corresponding developments from those complications and then the ones from those and the one from those and...

Just to take a small example--if John Hinckley had succeeded at killing Ronald Reagan in 1982, the course of United States, Central American, Iraqi, Russian, and many, many other histories would have been different in ways that we can't even really understand fully. I can still say fairly confidently that the Soviet Union would still have collapsed as a world power and a lot of other things, but there are things that would have been different. For example, what would be the impact of AIDS today in Africa and South Asia if we had had George Bush in office to control U.S. response to it in the 80s. And that's just 20 years ago--now try to imagine the impact of the South winning the American Civil War.

You see, people, this is what happens when you ignore masterpieces of American cinema like The Butterfly Effect just because you choose not to recognize the glory that is Ashton Kutcher. For shame!

Never mind all this serious discussion about genocide, famine and massacre, I just wrote a post about Monkeys & Indians In Space. Check it out and throw me a banana.

Its from a grad-level academic book on the vedic people. I will try to locate it and the page over the weekend if you're really interested.

If you're willing to do that, I'd be grateful, but if it's too much trouble, just the name of the book will do.

PB, I can't help but think Churchill would find "Monkeys and Indians" a redundant statement...

Manish, you sound like a Marxist ;)

And, perhaps you already know this, Marx did have something to about famines in colonial India. According to this he said "Between 1769 and 1770, the English manufactured a famine by buying up all the rice and refusing to sell it again, except at fabulous prices.". It's not surprising then that many newly-decolonized countries like India looked to Marx for political and economic ideas.

It's tempting to think of the Brits as benevolent overlords but I think it is good to be reminded that imperialism/colonialism is about nothing but the self-interest/greed of the colonizer (as is summarized here) even if it has a sprinkling of unforseen benefits for the colonized.

It's tantalizing to try to figure out what might have been... like saying, "well if you killed off the tiger today, this is what South Asia's ecosystems would look like 50 years later."

It's more like seeing electricity invented and predicting powered lighting. It's really pretty straightforward.

Doubt it. Some kind of Indian federal union would still have formed. You're ignoring the intense economic and political pressures that have historically driven consolidation into larger nations.

Knowing how people still can't get along well in India, I doubt if some kind of present day India would still have formed. We'd probably have a 'North India' and a 'South India', and an 'East India', but even in the south, I doubt if Tamil Nadu would have joined any federation. So there's another country for you 'Thamizh'. Plus there's Maharashtra - with the likes of people like Bal Thackeray, would they form part of another nation? Nopes.. that's a separate country for you right there. I could go on and on..

I doubt if Tamil Nadu would have joined any federation.

I don't think the consolidation would have been entirely voluntary, if you look at the history of the world during the colonialist period.

It's tantalizing to try to figure out what might have been... like saying, "well if you killed off the tiger today, this is what South Asia's ecosystems would look like 50 years later."

It's more like seeing electricity invented and predicting powered lighting. It's really pretty straightforward.

It depends on 1) the comprehensiveness and reliability of source materials out there 2) the work others have done in interpreting primary documents for you on the issues on which you're interested and 3) having satisfed the first two conditions, your ability to digest everything and make a prediction and include all necessary factors.

So we'll disagree, I guess, but I think you're being glib in reducing the entire history of South Asia to whatever macroforces you think govern it on the basis of the shoddy, often biased, and definitely incomplete evidence we largely have at our disposal today.

It's tempting to think of the Brits as benevolent overlords but I think it is good to be reminded that imperialism/colonialism is about nothing but the self-interest/greed of the colonizer (as is summarized here) even if it has a sprinkling of unforseen benefits for the colonized.

It's not really all that tempting anymore, and I've heard enough about the railroads :)

Re: Churchill and the Bengal famine

Right around the time of the famine, the British and the Americans jointly were conducting a huge airlift operation out of Northeastern India to China and Burma using long range bombers to drop supplies and materiel in China and Burma on a scale comparable to the later Berlin airlift. In fact, the commanding officer of the Berlin operation, Bill Tunner, was the guy in charge of the operation in India. Read about it by googling about "The Hump". So it was possible to get supplies (likely from India itself) to other countries over hundreds of miles away during that time. However, historians want us to believe that the British could not find a few food trains to go far less miles within Bengal itself. As to why that was, I leave it to you to speculate about...

... you're being glib in reducing the entire history of South Asia to whatever macroforces you think govern it...

Smaller economic units tend to consolidate given enough time where there are economies of scale (countries, EU, NAFTA, most U.S. industries). That's neither visionary nor controversial. If quoting the history of the world is glib...

but can't we judge people by the times?

Churchill's time was the same time as Hitler. If the whole world can say the Nazi system was barbaric and inhuman, temporally speaking the same can be said for the imperalist system and its leader, Sir Winston Churchill.

RC - yes, I know what satyaghara is. I wonder how it would have worked against the Nazis? Ask your self this: what would have happened to India if the Nazis and not the British had won?

vurdlife - I've been spending some time on that historical journal you linked regarding the Bengali famine. It is a Holocaust revisionist site that has this to say about Gandhi:

addressing a public meeting in Bombay on Sept. 26, 1896, he had the following to say about the Indian struggle in South Africa (1)

Sorry, hit post instead of preview

RC - yes, I know what satyagara is. I wonder how it would have worked against the Nazis? Ask yourself this question: what would have happened to India if the Nazis and not the British? Is it all just the same, then?

vurdlife - I've been spending some time on that historical journal you linked regarding the Bengali famine. It looks like it is a Holocaust revisionist site that has this to say about Gandhi:

from a series of quotes in an article by one Arthur Kemp, purported to be by Gandhi -

"Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

"It is one thing to register natives who would not work, and whom it is very difficult to find out if they absent themselves, but it is another thing - and most insulting - to expect decent, hard-working, and respectable Indians, whose only fault is that they work too much, to have themselves registered and carry with them registration badges."

"Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented community - the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While the native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here."

"We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."

"The petition dwells upon 'the co-mingling of the colored and white races.' May we inform the memebers of the Conference that so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is the purity of type."

Here is the url (I'm not going to link to a Holocaust revisionist site)

http://www.vho.org/tr/2004/2/Kemp184-186.html

I'm not going to vouch for such a site, but I do know that Gandhi did make comments about kaffirs and black South Africans that we would regard as racist in this day and age in the Indian Opinion (paper he started I believe). I will find a better reference, and link it.

Google Gandhi, kaffir or Zulu rebellion. Look, I believe Gandhi was a great man, who grew and evolved his whole life. But emphasis on man.

Men, not Gods. Once again, my original point.

Here is an article that is more academic and a little more reasonable:

Gandhi and the Black People of South Africa, James D. Hunt, Shaw University.

" A particulary vexing quesion has been the relationship between Gandhi and the Black people....many scholars have looked at this relationship and found it unsatisfactory."

The article goes on to say this claim was unfair: Gandhi started life as a "Victorian Indian, seeking accomodation and personal success within the British Empire. He shared the prejudices of this class concerning Black people, and his lifestyle and work kept him isolated from them. In this respect, he became a segregationist, albeit a liberal one, arguing for a special status for his own people while objecting to the treatment given the Black Africans."

Look, I don't want to play this trading quotes game. The story was complicated. It was then, it is now.

Have a nice night, ya'll.

MD,

Gandhi was born a high-caste Hindu and grew up with lot of the prejudices early on his life. Massive props to him however on being able to transcend his hindu prejudices later on. In fact, high caste hindus were so infuritated with him on 'pandering' to lower castes and other religions that they ASSASINATED him. In contrast, Churchill remained a committed imperial racist thug until the end. In spite of massive pressure from fellow englishmen and FD Roosevelt he continued to put forth his imperialist policies till he could help it.

Your characterisation of him having led his people from hilter's tyranny (or a variant) is quite weird. The factors that led to the fall of the third reich were - the russian winters, stalin, FDR and the US army generals in that order. To think that the cigar chomping blowhard won battles by giving soul-stirring speeches is the height of naivette. No amount of high-spiritedness can resist an army unless you have sufficient capability. In fact the only time he was ever given direct control of deciding the fate of war was as the First Lord of Admirality in Gallipoli (first world war), the british defeat (against turks) was so intense that the prime minister was gone and nobody would listen to the fraudster churchill until around 1938. He had some role in the another massive fiasco in Passcendale (sp?) where around 300,000 British troops lost their lives unnecessarily. To say that this guy led the British to fight and destroy Hitler is the height of ridiculousness.

At best he can be seen as a Paris Hilton of imperialism, a later generation spoilt Brat who spend most of his time in publicity and giving speeches and writing books. C'mon, if this guy really led the british to defeat the germans and was responsible for the freedom the british enjoyed why would he LOOSE THE 1945 election??? I mean, memories should be fresh in people's mind right? The fact is he was a stupid publicity whore and the british exposed him by voting with their feet.

Finally, I am curious why you would support this guy even if he led his country to glory. I mean, if you are English makes some sense I guess. As an american you have to realize that he pushed isolationlist America into the war (Pearl Harbor wasn't a random event). This led to hundreds of thousands americans being killed to defend England's ass. Hitler never threatned to attack america. He knew what would happen. Alternately as an Indian descendent you have to understand that his being prime minister would have given no self-rule to India. So unless you some closet imperialist, I fail to see what is happening. As India becomes self-confident and rises, a new generation will grow and see Churchill for the racist thug that he really was and history will be corrected.

Sigh. Once again - who held down the fort until the Americans arrived, how worked on FDR like a dog to get the Americans in, once again, what would the world have looked like if Hitler had won? No one seems to want to answer that question.

I never defended him and all his actions completely and to say I am a closet imperialist is to completely misunderstand what I said.

And I am first, and foremost, a member of the human race, so to say I should care about the lives of brown people over white is very wierd in my mind. I care that millions were killed in the Bengali famine, I care that millions were killed by Stalin, I care that the Japanese killed so many Chinese and Koreans, and that the Jews were slaughtered. At the end of the day, given the complex situation of the time, I am glad that Churchill and the Americans, with the help of Russia of course, won. That is what I am saying. To say Churchill had nothing to do with holding things together and getting the Allies together is sheer blindness.

Once again, boo yah - what would have happened to India if Hitler had won?

I would rather that there were no British occupation, but I am talking about the reality at the time, not what the ideal situation would have been.

As for loosing the election, well, democracy is not fair and the electorate is short minded, which is as it should be.

So, all that matters is that brown people, die, right? Doing the right thing is not important at all. Resisting tyranny just doesn't matter, does it?

And no, MD has not gone insane with all the late night posting. She is on call, and stuck waiting for a call at this time of night....yuck.

Before I knew his views on Indians I admired Churchill, but after I found out his views, I don't admire him. Why would I admire someone who thought my own ancestors were scum? I don't think I need to think good of Churchill to think fairly about the world

fyi on this topic, since I was reading on this somewhere else on the web, Indian soldiers were involved, to significant degrees, in both WW I and II. In WW I they were in in some of the most heavy fighting all over Europe, including Belgium. TFrom what I just read, their heroism of those fighters in part of the battlefield honors in Europe to this day. And in WW II, their efforts in Burma were central to the end of the Japanese advance. I knew of this before, but its amazing what gets forgotten sometimes. An ancestors in my family fought in WW I.

it is late and that is full of typos

If by this:

Some kind of Indian federal union would still have formed.

you meant this:

Smaller economic units tend to consolidate given enough time where there are economies of scale (countries, EU, NAFTA, most U.S. industries)

I don't disagree, and I'm too tired to argue that they're not equivalent.

And Raju has the final and best word: " I don't need to think good of Churchill to think fairly of this world."
And I would add that you can translate that to many 'heroes' of history, in many cultures.

* I mentioned this conversation to a friend of mine who is a Pole, who found it astounding, at first. But then, all this about Yalta this week, so.....

Ok, then. I stand down.

thanks for a f