Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
I don't know enough about the history to talk about accuracy, but it's an interesting perspective at the least.
- Before the British occupation, India was not a poor backwater, but a culturally and economically prosperous civilization that had existed for millennia. India was home to the oldest university in the world, had originated our numerical system, had produced countless thinkers, philosophers, poets, and scientists. It had given the world Buddhism and Hinduism, and had birthed a more tolerant, pluralistic version of Islam. Yoga and meditation, so common among the overworked professional classes in the West, were born in India thousands of years before there was even a West to speak of. In the 17th century, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb took in 10 times the revenue of his contemporary, Louis XIV of France. According to economist Angus Maddison, in the 18th century India accounted for 23 percent of the world’s GDP, a percentage greater than all of Europe combined. By the time the British packed up their things and sailed home in 1947, that number had fallen to under three percent.