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"British Indian history". That pretty much sums it up. No country should ever have the ignominy of appearing second in its own history. Every Indian wishes the
by apoorvkumar 9y ago
"British Indian history". That pretty much sums it up. No country should ever have the ignominy of appearing second in its own history. Every Indian wishes the 1857 revolt had snowballed to freedom.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoTo be fair, there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together. Unlike China, there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent. It's hard to know how things would have ended up politically if not for British hegemony. Would there be a country like India, or would its various disparate parts have continued as distinct sovereign entities? Part of the miracle of the whole Indian project is that it has remained basically intact since independence. This isn't something one would have taken for granted a few decades ago.
- viyyer 9y agoI am not sure how you separate these two instances. What is considered as China now has been together in history in one or two instances whereas India as a whole has had 5-10 instances where there have being reigns having the whole of India together . Update your knowledge of history before commenting .
- tacomonstrous 9y agoPlease give me one period in Indian history where the full subcontinent was ruled by the same power. Edit: For what it's worth, the contrast with China is probably flawed. I know very little about Chinese history, but I stand by the rest.
- douche 9y agoThe Mongols captured all of modern China, but couldn't master all of the indian subcontinent. Until the EIC, nobody else came closer.
- shivaodin 9y agoUm, wrong. Mauryan Empire was bigger than present-day India. Even Mughal Empire under Akbar was bigger. So, no. Also, the forms of control of British were different than those of previous empires.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- winter_blue 9y agoWell, take a look at the map here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire It's larger in total area under one power (at circa 5 million sq. km vs. 3 million sq km. today), but it doesn't cover some of the southern-most and eastern-most parts.
- winter_blue 9y agoAlso, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires_in_Ind...
- jalayir 9y ago> there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent There were several - indeed, the British had it easier because the Mughals had dissipated within living memory, and all their bureaucracies and systems were still functioning.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoThe Mughals never controlled most of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and big segments of the North East. To claim that India as it exists today was inevitable is a shaky proposition.
- morekozhambu 9y agoThat is the point. I guess in Western ideology definition of CONTROL over a land is through swords, guns and bloodshed. The Mughals never had the south because their culture was alien to most of the uninvaded south of india. But before them the whole of India, Pakisthan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Burma, Indonesia, Tibet, China were all culturally the same. I would even go further to say considerably most of the regions are still culturally the same.
- nyolfen 9y ago> I guess in Western ideology definition of CONTROL over a land is through swords, guns and bloodshed. there is nothing uniquely western about this definition of 'control'. it's the historical norm everywhere.
- morekozhambu 9y agoContrary to your confirmation bias, India has seen cultural movements without swords guns or bloodshed.
- zht 9y agoin what way is the culture of Sri Lanka and China similar?
- shardinator 9y agoIndia was like Greece, China like Rome. China had central control while India had independent states that didn't control each other politically but were unified in terms culture, communication, roads, infrastructure and importantly commerce. Today it wouldn't make sense to say "there really was no 'Greece'". Same for India.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoThe Greeks at least had a common language, from what I understand. That's far from true for India.
- shardinator 9y agoIf you said it's not 'strictly true for India', you'd be correct, but when you say it's 'far from true' then not so much. India has two ancient languages Tamil and Sanskrit and modern languages are derived from these (but I am def not an expert). The modern forms are considered different languages, but they are quite close to each other, easy to learn one from the other e.g.the grammar is the same and words are usually just different pronunciations/intonations of a common root. It's easy to see that in the ancient past they would have had more similarity. The original point was "there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together". If so, then where was Columbus trying to go? Of course there was 'an India', it just wasn't structured like a modern nation state, which is true for every other modern country as well.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoEverything you say applies just as well to all of Western Mediterranean Europe. In fact, even more so, since you're dealing with just one branch of a larger language group (the Latinate/Romance languages) rather than two completely disparate ones (Indo-Aryan and Dravidian). No one now thinks of this area as a nation-state. Western Europe, through the British conquest of the subcontinent, was woefully unaware of the internal differences. That Columbus ill-advisedly thought of India as a monolithic entity is no marker of anything.
- morekozhambu 9y agoTo be even fairer, Could you please enlighten us on for what country or region where the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French were searching for, further to the African tip the 'cape of good Hope' perhaps?