[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
For example, when England ocupied India, they were greatly outnumbered. It doesnt matter that they had guns. And look what happend.
I bet if just 50 percent of a population rebelled, the government would crumble.
You seemed to have forgotten that India has close to 1 billion people, whereas England has less than 100,000,000… not to mention that it was an invading force and that it ruled there for a couple of centuries. It’s just so easy to drive people out, isn’t it?
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India has nearly 1 billion people. True, but they are poor as hell and they didnt have any type of weapons at all. Not even guns. Do you even know what happened?
The British was the most powerful empire at the time with the most advance army. Without the cooperation of the Indian people, the British simply couldnt impose their will. The fact is, many Indians were mascred and they still didnt stop. How many British were killed? Hmm prolly not that many.
How can a government have a country when there is no one alive to rule?
I am talking about a independent country. Not one country controlling another. How can an entire country be controlled by the goverment?
Its rather simple, brain wash them, terrorise them, or simply the people support it.
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Hiya… just to clarify some details about India and the British Rule… I’m tired of hearing incorrect facts.
India is one of the oldest and richest civilizations in the world. It is home to the world’s first planned cities, where every house had its own bathroom and toilet five thousand years ago. The Ancient Indians have not only given us yoga, meditation and complementary medicines, but they have furthered our knowledge of science, maths - and invented Chaturanga, which became the game of chess.
According to Albert Einstein, they “taught us how to count”, as they invented the numbers 1-9 and ‘zero’, without which there would be no computers or digital age. Unfairly we call this system of counting Arabic numbers - a misplaced credit.
Two thousand years ago the Indians pioneered plastic surgery, reconstructing the noses and ears on the faces of people who had been disfigured through punishment or warfare. They performed eye operations such as cataract removal and invented inoculation to protect their population from Smallpox, saving thousands of lives.
India was one of the first civilizations to successfully extract Iron from ore and they quickly learnt how to cast huge structures with it - some of them surviving. Their metallurgists went on to invent steel which they called Wotz. It would take the British until the 19th century to come up with the same substance.
In 1790 the Indians defeated the British Army in the battle of Pollilur with a secret invention ? the rocket. The British eventually stole the idea and used it against Napoleon’s fleet.
But perhaps the most important invention the Indians have given us is cotton. 3500 years ago whilst we (Europeans) were lumbering around in animal skins and itchy wool they were cultivating a plant and weaving it into a material that would revolutionise Britain. They also pioneered the printing and dyeing of cotton in a staggering array of colours (saree’s) and invented the spinning wheel - something Europe wouldn’t catch up with until the Middle Ages. The mechanisation of this simple device by Hargreaves and Arkwright led to the industrial revolution and turned Britain into a superpower.
They also invented the world’s earliest clock and the constructed the world’s largest Sun dial (in Delhi). India was the most advanced, civilized and richest empire, its culture and diversity attracted many foreign invaders ranging from Alexander the Great to the Turks, Mongols and The British. The only other civilization that was equivalent to the Ancient Indus Valley Civilization of India were the Romans 2000 years later. While Europe was still in the Stone age The Indian, Egyptian, Mesopotamia and Chinese Civilizations were flourishing.
The British presence in India dates back to the early part of the seventeenth century. On 31 December 1600, Elizabeth, then the monarch of the United Kingdom, acceded to the demand of a large body of merchants that a royal charter be given to a new trading company, “The Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East-Indies.” Between 1601-13, merchants of the East India Company took twelve voyages to India, and in 1609 William Hawkins arrived at the court of Jahangir to seek permission to establish a British presence in India. Hawkins was rebuffed by Jahangir, but Sir Thomas Roe, who presented himself before the Mughal Emperor in 1617, was rather more successful. Two years later, Roe gained Jahangir’s permission to build a British factory in Surat, and in 1639, this was followed by the founding of Fort St. George (Madras).
British rule in India is conventionally described as having begun in 1757. On June 23rd of that year, at the Battle of Plassey, a small village and mango grove between Calcutta and Murshidabad, the forces of the East India Company under Robert Clive defeated the army of Siraj-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. Clive won the battle by promoting treason and forgery, British rule in India had an unsavoury beginning and something of that bitter taste has clung to it ever since.
After the 1857 uprising, the British followed Divide and Rule policy. They created a rift between the Hindus and Muslims. By fabricating the Aryan Invasion Theory they tried to create a rift on the basis of Aryans and Dravidians. Britain’s trade policy ruined India’s Cottage industries. The industries, education system and transportation system that developed in India, were according to the British needs.
So to Conclude, The Indians weren’t “Poor as Hell” and did have weapons!!, the only reason why the British were in India for so long was because they created conflicts between the people of different religions and castes, the moment India united (With Gandhi’s help) to fight for freedom they fought a war of Independence and achieved it on August 15th 1947.
The colonial rule in Africa and India exploited the natives and their natural resources. The natives were persecuted and ill ? treated because they were dark skinned. Europeans thought that only they had the right to govern Asia and Africa, because they natives were supposedly “Savages”. Quite Ironic how the British thought of the Indians as Savages, when the English themselves were civilized by the Romans, what’s even more ironic is that the roman’s formed a civilized empire 2000 years after the Indians had!
Sorry for the Long Post!!
Nik