..judging from your POV I am sure its no different from the propaganda machinery.Flamboyant statements and dramatic accusations are not debating points. All I can say is that I do not consider my views to be that of any propaganda machinery.
On the famine(s)you are repeating back to me part of what I have myself stated in my previous post.
According to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen:
Calcutta was experiencing a war-time boom and effectively sucked food out of a food-producing countryside. Those who could not afford rice at 4 times the normal price simply starved under a callous British administration.
Please show me where Sen has made this quote. I don't say he did not make it; I would love to know where he said these exact word ("callous British administration"). Do you have a source?
My reading of Sen's work suggest to me that his theory was on the nature of hunger and the impact of distribution on famine.
The nature of colonialism was pretty much the same the world over. But believing that Japan and Britain as imperialist equals in what they did, to the regions they occupied, is as dangerous as the belief that Britain spread peace and good cheer wherever she went.
Flamboyant statements and dramatic accusations are not debating points.
Its not an accusations but just an observation.
Please show me where Sen has made this quote. I don't say he did not make it; I would love to know where he said these exact word ("callous British administration"). Do you have a source?
Towards the end of the 12th paragraph it says:
"However, as analysed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Calcutta was experiencing a war-time boom and effectively sucked food out of a food-producing countryside. Those who could not afford rice at 4 times the normal price simply starved under a callous British administration."
The nature of colonialism was pretty much the same the world over. But believing that Japan and Britain as imperialist equals in what they did, to the regions they occupied, is as dangerous as the belief that Britain spread peace and good cheer wherever she went.
I would appreciate if you can go beyond parroting mere statements comming straight from the British propaganda press and prove whatever that is you claim. Here we are arguing on the hard facts about how bad the 200 years of British rule has been for India as against how bad a "hypothetical" Japanese rule over India could have been, which is no argument at all. The systematic decimation of Indian economy, draining of Indian wealth to brink of acute poverty resulting into frequent and intermittent mass starvation holocausts (for an India that never knew hunger prior to the British) may not sound as dramatic as the Jewish holocaust or the rape of Nanking but is no less criminal in nature.
Had the Japanese been the victors at war and had they ruled India for 200 years, I am sure the logical course for them to follow would be to expung every detail of their crimes atrocities, genocides, plunder and rapine from their written history and collective memory and for the next 200 years churn out vast amounts of literature on how much beneficial Japanese rule over India had been and along side demonise and denigrate the the "native" culture and religion as primitive "savages" and go into greath lengths to create grandiose lies about the history and culture of India and the "civilising effect" the influence of Japanes Empire had on it. And this kind of indoctrination would have ready and blind acceptance in the wide Japanese speaking world. And even the Japanese Empire would go into history as a benevolent empire just like the British.
Fortunately or unfortunately we Indians rarely forget our history. My original point was that, for an average Indian farmer, life under the British was not worth dying for even under an impending Japanese invasion except for the fact that joining the Army provided the only viable source of income in an India that was reeling under extreme poverty and mass starvation. Indians joining the British army by droves is no indication that the general masses prefered the British empire over the Japanese empire as the British lies would have you believe. It was the only means to escape poverty at that time.
For all those self styled British "Indologists" harping on the greatness and benevolence of the British Empire, I would like to see them living as Indian peasants grueling under a repressive and cruel British regime. Then perhaps they would consider revising their curriculum.