The Debt That India Owes Britain

“British government conceded Indian self-rule, they thought this the right thing to do. What would have happened to the Koreans or the Vietnamese if a local Gandhi had tried such tactics against the brutal Japanese kempetai or the French with their mercenaries from Morocco and Senegal? It was not that Gandhi was successful but that the British were forbearing … Gandhi’s tactics only work if the other side lets it …� Christie Davies’ Blog The Social Affairs Unit.

We Ungrateful Oriental So-and-So

Indians are an ungrateful lot. How can we forget the British and give Gandhi all the credit.
Ever the oriental selfishness. Why can we not sacrifice ourselves for the Great British Empire? Can we even imagine that the greatest empire in history had anything but the milk of human kindness at the time of granting Independence. After WW2, even though Britain was on rationing, they let us browns go independent.

The End Of Extraction

Churchill very much wanted the option of squeezing the brown man at least a little more. Whatever little there was left of the brown man after the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. But Clement Attlee pointed out that there was nothing left to squeeze. Attlee thought that the cost of squeezing was greater than the value of the extract. After Montagu Norman, Churchill, Lord Willingdon, Neville Chamberlain had finished with the Great Bullion Scam against India from 1925-1945. After the war was over and the brown man was used in Africa and Europe. They let us go - and allowed us to rule ourselves.

How can we ever repay this debt?

The Gift of English Language

First, the great benefit of English language. All other super powers and developed countries (Japan, China, Russia, France, Germany, Italy) use their own respective languages. They could have been very successful (like India) if they had learnt English, talked English, walked English, read English, cooked English, washed English, done everything in English.

But these stupid Germans, Italians, Japanese, Russians, French, Chinese - they don't know what we know!! English is the universal language.

Indian Industry

Can we ever forget the Lees-Mody pact which saved the Indian farmer from ruin on 28th October 1933? The Japanese had stopped purchase of Indian cotton. Never mind the fact that the British raised customs duty for imported Japanese cloth (increasing the cost to the consumer) to protect the Lancashire Mills, which were hurting by the Gandhian (that tricky so and so oriental) boycott.

We ungrateful Indians must further appreciate the British sacrifice and the industrial cost of conceding self rule to India. Within 1o years of Indian independence, the British car industry started closing down. British Steel collapsed and had to be nationalised within 20 years (Ratan Tata may revive British Steel finally). British coal mining became unviable within 15 years - and had to be shut finally. British Rail similarly collapsed. It is now making a hesitant comeback after privatisation. British capital goods industry (electrical, heavy machinery, electronics) went out of business. All due to us Indians hankering for Independence.

Colonial Railways

But they did teach Laloo Prasad Yadav how to run Indian Railways profitably. Should we complain so much, if we inherited a decrepit, run down, accident prone, outdated technology railway system from the British? Should we be ungrateful, if this railway system was financed by Indian capital? Even though it took India 40 years, to modernise the colonial railway system, we should be thankful. After all, they could have uprooted the rails, and taken away the wagons and engines. Indian Railways was the biggest scrap iron collection in the world at that time.

Captive Markets and Raw Material

What could the British do without captive markets and raw material sources. The British let all this go - so that Indian industry could survive. British business manager taught Indian businessmen how to run business competitively - and completely ignored their own business. Today, Britain has very few of the colonial era multinationals. British (The Great Benefactors) said - Go forth, brown man.
Some biased historians claim that the Britishers said to us Indians, “We know that you can do nothing by yourself. You are useless to us now. You are a burden to us. We have sucked you dry. But, you want to go away from our protective umbrella. Go forth and stagnate at the bottom�, at the time of Independence. I don't believe that.
Like I don't believe that the sun rises in the East (it is a conspiracy against us).

Colonial Indian Bureaucracy

We also do not appreciate their kindness towards us! The other British legacy that we should be very grateful is our colonial bureaucracy. This colonial era bureaucracy was permanently established - and it has been growing faster than our population. Its corruption is aided by a myriad laws created by the same bureaucracy - for the benefit of Indians. The British never had any intention to benefit from this entrenched laws and bureaucracy. In most states this bureaucracy takes up all the Governmental revenues and and leaves nothing but tax increases for us.

They Didn't Wipe Us Out - Like Red Indians And Aborigines

Recent archaeological (available with me) evidence shows that the British were repaying our kindness. Indians “marwari� seths had lent Queen Bodicea some money about 78 AD during her struggle against the Romans 2000 years ago. The British have never forgotten that. (Only the British and I know this secret story - based on documents to which only I have access in my family custody for 2000 years).
Hence, they did not kill us Indians in the numbers that they killed (more than 10 lakh Kenyans in 10 years) in the Mau Mau uprising. Or they did not torture and kill Indians the way they killed the Malaysians. Due to this reason, they also did not establish apartheid the way they did in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa. This unblemished record of the British against other people had nothing to do with Gandhiji. Gandhiji’s focus on post-colonial India, had nothing to with the existence of our statehood.

It was all the British legacy.

Why Didn't They Just Kill Gandhiji

It would have been so easy. The one British failure was that they did not kill Gandhi. That job was outsourced to an Indian “coolie�. This was one thing that they could have done - but didn’t do! In my books, we should be eternally grateful to the British Colonialist for not killing Gandhiji.

PS - If all else fails, there is the path of political assassination. A few days ago, from Washington, USA, someone Googled to ask “why britishers didn’t kill gandhi“. Perhaps, that was one moment in history, when the political leaders of the Anglo Saxon Bloc were momentarily humanised.