Oy Vey Neri!

[Munger_Disciple]

3 hours ago, rohitc99 said:

absolutely. two wrongs make a right. 

 

this is what i wanted to avoid bringing up. How do you justify colonization and murder (Jallianwala Bagh massacre - Wikipedia) ? highlight all the negatives of the society you conquered. The British came and civilized a bunch of Africans and Indians who were savages before that. 

 

I am a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent. I came to the US as a graduate student to study engineering in '87 and became a permanent resident in '92 and a proud US citizen in 2000. When I left India, there were almost no technical jobs (I got a job in Delhi selling mainframe computers to govt customers but wanted to pursue a technical path) as the country was brought to near bankruptcy by 40 years of socialist policies that caused huge poverty and statism in the country. Nehru & Gandhi's (Indira) model for economy was based on that of Soviet Union with top down 5 year plans while killing private incentives for profit through nationalization. That changed in 1991 as PM Rao opened up the economy, encouraged private sector and lowered tariffs. The current PM Modi has continued and expanded on these reforms. That's what led to much higher growth rates of the Indian economy in recent times and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. I for one blame the socialist policies of Indian leaders in the first 40 years of independence for causing untold misery to hundreds of millions of Indians than the British who left India long long time ago. 

Edited January 8 by Munger_Disciple

[Sweet]

1 minute ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 

I am a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent. I came to the US as a graduate student to study engineering in '87 and became a permanent resident in '92 and a proud US citizen in 2000. When I left India, there were almost no technical jobs (I got a job in Delhi selling mainframe computers to govt customers but wanted to pursue a technical path) as the country was brought to near bankruptcy by 40 years of socialist policies that caused huge poverty and statism in the country. That changed in 1991 as PM Rao opened up the economy, encourage private sector and lowered tariffs. The current PM Modi has continued and expanded on these reforms. That's what led to much higher growth rates of the Indian economy and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. I for one blame the socialist policies of Indian leaders in the first 40 years of independence for causing untold misery to hundreds of millions of Indians than the British who left India long long time ago. 

Milton Friedman blamed the socialist policies of the Indian government after the British left and he said that the newly independent India followed the thinking of Harold Laski who was a Marxist.  I’m not Indian and don’t know the history of the place too well but it’s interesting to hear you make a similar point.

[Munger_Disciple]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

Milton Friedman blamed the socialist policies of the Indian government after the British left and he said that the newly independent India followed the thinking of Harold Laski who was a Marxist.  I’m not Indian and don’t know the history of the place too well but it’s interesting to hear you make a similar point.

 Friedman hit the nail on its head. You can just plot the economic trajectory of the Asian tigers like Singapore, HK, Thailand etc vs India during the timeframe 1947-1990. Nehru was a known socialist since his Oxford days. Thanks to Nehru and Indira Gandhi, India screwed itself by adopting socialism. 

Edited January 8 by Munger_Disciple

[formthirteen]

Oy vey, I found this 3671-page Bill Ackman compilation named ”Bill Ackman: Be Purely Rational” today:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yosAn0lruyHcVuUXjarFROvf_5X_Hkqg/view

 

 

[rohitc99]

3 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 Friedman hit the mail on its head. You can just plot the economic trajectory of the Asian tigers like Singapore, HK, Thailand etc vs India during the timeframe 1947-1990. Nehru was a known socialist since his Oxford days. Thanks to Nehru and Indira Gandhi, India screwed itself by adopting socialism. 

100% agree with you. Like you, I am a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent too. Came here in early 2000

 

no doubt the socialist policies screwed up the country for 40+ years.

[Munger_Disciple]

21 minutes ago, rohitc99 said:

100% agree with you. Like you, I am a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent too. Came here in early 2000

  Congrats & welcome to the club!

[Parsad]

13 hours ago, Sweet said:

Absolutely.  Although one difference, according to many on the left and many media outlets, anyone to right of someone like Bill Maher is far-right.  Margaret Thatcher would be considered a fully fledged fascist these days.

 

 

 

 

 

Not even remotely true.  Biden is essentially a centrist.  The inmates these days are running the asylum...be it the extreme left or right.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

5 hours ago, rohitc99 said:

Yes, not the same but then i dont know if you can really put a ranking on human misery. 

 

The east (bengal) and other parts of india had indigo farmers who were close to bonded labor. It was done very cleverly. Control the local zamindar (like a local landlord) who in turn would have these bonded labor. Whatever was collected as revenue (extremely high rate) would flow upwards. 

 

I dont have the reference here, but the railways and other infra for which supposedly indians should be grateful for, was funded through debt/bonds on the local economy.  Some of the arguments is that some practises such as the caste system was not introduced by the british and it was actually Indians doing to themselves. But they used it very cleverly to their advantage (sit on top of the social pyramid) and used it justify their actions

 

I won't add any further as it can get contentious on a public forum. 

 

Let's not forget partition!  Millions killed.  Cheers!

[Sweet]

6 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Not even remotely true.  Biden is essentially a centrist.  The inmates these days are running the asylum...be it the extreme left or right.  Cheers!

Biden is not so bad.  Regarding the Conservatives, I’m from the UK, we haven’t had a proper Conservative Party in many years.  Today even the Tories are called ‘fascists’ regularly on social media or ‘far-right’ - this is a party which in my view is only slight right of Labour.  I can point to maybe three areas of policy they are different.

 

Edited January 8 by Sweet

[Parsad]

3 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

You might want to keep in mind that bonded labour remains widespread today, throughout the US. Every star 'under contract' to a sports team, entertainment organisation, as well as the various underlings in the organised crime trades, etc. 10M for 3 years at XYZ team, is the very definition of bonded labour.

 

SD

 

Sharper, are you that naive.  Bonded labor historically was akin to slavery.  You were taken from your village/town and moved thousands of miles away to work for a pittance and would never see your village/town again.  That's what happened to my great, great grandfather...taken from his village in India to Fiji to work the gold mines and sugar cane fields.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

Yeah, and I think that to the extent to which discrimination and bias is deliberately introduced into the system, it should be on such dimensions. 

 

For instance, if economically, you and your family are worse off, then you should get systemic advantages (though not to the extent that achievement is discouraged, as that would have the effect of pushing people down, rather than helping raise them up.)  That's the whole point behind things like bursaries and progressive taxation.

 

The way I see it, if there's inequalities between racial groups, then that gets resolved by a larger proportion of a particular racial group able to avail themselves of those systemic advantages. And, governmental messaging on race should basically be, "At our core, people are essentially the same, and it's abhorrent discriminating based on race."  (As opposed to now, where the government messaging in Canada is essentially, "Race is super-important thing that should divide us. Certain races are less competent, dangerously fragile, and kind of pathetic. And some are also evil. So, it's only sensible to be a racist.")

 

That's not the sentiment at all in Canada.  Race is not remotely the issue it is in the U.S. other than under the breathes of a handful of disgruntled citizens who would be bitching about something else if it wasn't race.  The primary similarity to the U.S. is that some politicians are now trying to jump on the U.S. bandwagon and exploit that paranoia.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Thank you for your perspective. You obviously know more about this topic than I do and are certainly correct.

 

Short of the city states like Singapore and Hongkong, I can't come up with any country that seem to have benefited from colonization. Hongkong thrived because it was used as a base for the British to exploit China to a large extent.

 

Singapore did not thrive due to colonization.  It thrived due to the long-term tenure of Lee Kuan Yew who could implement his long-term vision of what the future of his people should look like.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 

I am a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent. I came to the US as a graduate student to study engineering in '87 and became a permanent resident in '92 and a proud US citizen in 2000. When I left India, there were almost no technical jobs (I got a job in Delhi selling mainframe computers to govt customers but wanted to pursue a technical path) as the country was brought to near bankruptcy by 40 years of socialist policies that caused huge poverty and statism in the country. Nehru & Gandhi's (Indira) model for economy was based on that of Soviet Union with top down 5 year plans while killing private incentives for profit through nationalization. That changed in 1991 as PM Rao opened up the economy, encouraged private sector and lowered tariffs. The current PM Modi has continued and expanded on these reforms. That's what led to much higher growth rates of the Indian economy in recent times and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. I for one blame the socialist policies of Indian leaders in the first 40 years of independence for causing untold misery to hundreds of millions of Indians than the British who left India long long time ago. 

 

There were 90 years where India's wealth was plundered by the British before Independence.  India's opportunities and politics may have looked very different if they weren't colored by what they experienced over those 90 years...your opportunities in India may have looked different as well.  The wealth, power and dominance of the Mughal Empire and its trading system was the whole reason why the British invaded India.  Cheers!

[james22]

2 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

There were 90 years where India's wealth was plundered by the British before Independence.

 

Why were the British able to colonize India?

 

And not the other way around?

[Sweet]

27 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Let's not forget partition!  Millions killed.  Cheers!

The same was said of Ireland, but in India like Ireland it was the people and political leaders that partitioned the country, the British just drew the line.

 

Edited January 8 by Sweet

[Munger_Disciple]

25 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

There were 90 years where India's wealth was plundered by the British before Independence.  India's opportunities and politics may have looked very different if they weren't colored by what they experienced over those 90 years...your opportunities in India may have looked different as well.  The wealth, power and dominance of the Mughal Empire and its trading system was the whole reason why the British invaded India.  Cheers!

If you read history, almost everyone on earth was invaded and taken advantage of if you go back far enough (Romans invaded Briton, Vikings raped and pillaged everyone & everything in sight, Genghis Khan's expeditions etc.). At some point, we just need to move on & get on with life. Our views are colored by our own experiences. The worst thing about Nehru/I Gandhi regimes was that even when they were presented with irrefutable evidence of their mis-guided policies, they refused to change their views. They were ideologues and didn't worry about the misery brought on by their policies. And the Indian people paid dearly. LKY pushed Indira Gandhi strongly to adopt market oriented policies several times to no avail. 

 

BTW Moghuls themselves invaded and pillaged India before Akbar brought peace as you know. 

Edited January 8 by Munger_Disciple

[rohitc99]

15 minutes ago, Sweet said:

The same was said of Ireland, but in India like Ireland it was the people and political leaders that partitioned the country, the British just drew the line.

 

Not really, far more complex than that. The British at one point saw threat from the INC - indian national congress and pursued the divide and conquer policy. They used religion for that. 

 

They knew the fault lines existed and exploited that. On top of that they drew the lines arbitrarily and accelerated the withdrawal - almost like, after 200+ yrs of rule, here is the country, good luck. That created a lot of chaos, civil war and millions died 

 

Its not like the rulers in the past were some holy saints, but the narrative that the British were there to 'save' India or did anything for the country is false. 

 

[rohitc99]

2 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

If you read history, almost everyone on earth was invaded and taken advantage of if you go back far enough (Romans invaded Briton, Vikings raped and pillaged everyone & everything in sight, Genghis Khan's expeditions etc.). At some point, we just need to move on & get on with life. Our views are colored by our own experiences. The worst thing about Nehru/I Gandhi regimes was that even when they were presented with irrefutable evidence of their mis-guided policies, they refused to change their views. They were ideologues and didn't worry about the misery brought on by their policies. And the Indian people paid dearly. LKY pushed Indira Gandhi strongly to adopt market oriented policies several times to no avail. 

agree with you. Indians and in general the country, as no ill will against Britain or any western nation. I have never heard anyone complain. They have just moved on. No one talks of righting the past or anything of that sort. 

 

Ofcourse there is push back when they are preached to

[Parsad]

25 minutes ago, james22 said:

 

Why were the British able to colonize India?

 

And not the other way around?

 

What does that have to do with anything?  If the U.S. invaded Canada or the UK, would that be appropriate and ok with you?  Cheers! 

[Parsad]

25 minutes ago, Sweet said:

The same was said of Ireland, but in India like Ireland it was the people and political leaders that partitioned the country, the British just drew the line.

 

 

Notice how millions and millions are killed every where the British drew the lines...Ireland, India, Israel/Gaza, etc.  Cheers! 

[Parsad]

10 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

If you read history, almost everyone on earth was invaded and taken advantage of if you go back far enough (Romans invaded Briton, Vikings raped and pillaged everyone & everything in sight, Genghis Khan's expeditions etc.). At some point, we just need to move on & get on with life. Our views are colored by our own experiences. The worst thing about Nehru/I Gandhi regimes was that even when they were presented with irrefutable evidence of their mis-guided policies, they refused to change their views. They were ideologues and didn't worry about the misery brought on by their policies. And the Indian people paid dearly. LKY pushed Indira Gandhi strongly to adopt market oriented policies several times to no avail. 

 

BTW Moghuls themselves invaded and pillaged India before Akbar brought peace as you know. 

 

I would hope we are more civilized than the Romans, Brits and Vikings when they were plundering and raping.  Maybe not from what I'm reading.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

11 minutes ago, rohitc99 said:

Not really, far more complex than that. The British at one point saw threat from the INC - indian national congress and pursued the divide and conquer policy. They used religion for that. 

 

They knew the fault lines existed and exploited that. On top of that they drew the lines arbitrarily and accelerated the withdrawal - almost like, after 200+ yrs of rule, here is the country, good luck. That created a lot of chaos, civil war and millions died 

 

Its not like the rulers in the past were some holy saints, but the narrative that the British were there to 'save' India or did anything for the country is false. 

 

 

+1!  Cheers!

[rohitc99]

7 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Notice how millions and millions are killed every where the British drew the lines...Ireland, India, Israel/Gaza, etc.  Cheers! 

absolutely. i dont recall where, but it seems a lot of conflicts across the globe are linked to these 'partitions' they did before withdrawing from the area. Same thing in africa too if i recall correctly.

[james22]

7 minutes ago, Parsad said:

What does that have to do with anything? 

 

It says something about comparative (primarily) cultural advantages.

 

7 minutes ago, Parsad said:

If the U.S. invaded Canada or the UK, would that be appropriate and ok with you? 

 

It says something about US culture that such an invasion seems inconceivable, no?

[Sweet]

11 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Notice how millions and millions are killed every where the British drew the lines...Ireland, India, Israel/Gaza, etc.  Cheers! 

That’s disingenuous and side steps the point.  
 

In both Ireland and India the British didn’t want to partition the country.  
 

In Ireland there likely would have been civil war, partition was a way to avoid it.
 

In India the Hindu and Muslim leaders didn’t want to united India.
 

Israel is a different story, it was the UN’s partition plan.