You did not read that article properly. The poor suffered during the war but the middle classes who led the independence struggle prospered. Many Indian merchants became extremely rich by supplying goods to the British Army.

TTCUSM wrote “And let’s not forget, Singapore’s success is partly due to its geographic location in the Straits of Malacca.” India has a very strategic location too. Indeed India has a very central location in the world and in the Indian Ocean. Any ship travelling from Australia/New Zealand/ S.E. Asia to Europe and the Middle East will find India a very convenient stopping/trading point.

TTCUSM wrote

“India was ruled by the British East India Company since 1757, which is even longer.” Agreed but is that gap (less than a century) of membership of the British Empire enough to explain the enormous mind-boggling gap between Singapore and India as far as standard of living is concerned. And what about Taiwan which faced European colonisation since 1544?

TTCUSM wrote “But the very site that you linked to states that 2.1 million people died during the Bengal Famine, when crops were diverted by the British to support the war effort.”

Agreed, I never said India was never affected at all. About 80,000 Indian soldiers in the British Indian army lost their lives (British military deaths from the British Isles was about 300,000). But it was not directly affected i.e. it did not face large scale bombing of its cities and warfare between large armies within India. Indians did not have to wake up and run to bomb-shelters, see Japanese and British soldiers fight it out in their cities and villages. It was safe under Pax-Britania during WW2. Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, all of South East Asia, Europe, Soviet Union, North Africa etc… were not that lucky. The Soviet Union lost a mind-boggling 24 million people, the Germans 8.5 and Japan about 3 million. All these places had their cities bombed out completely. India was affected only indirectly. I think overall the U.S.A too was not affected directly as well.

Najil, thanks for the info.

Not exactly shrinking, but rather close

The rate of GDP and per capita growth were one per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively during the period 1900-01 to 1946-47 (Nayyar, 2006)

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10459706/India%E2%80%99s-Economic-Growth-and-the-Role-of-Foreign-Direct-Investment

Where do you think the MORE STEEP progressive tax money will go, to the poor? Income Tax officials and not NRIs own most of the studio apartments coming up on the Greater Noida expressway (2-3 crore each) Since money in India equals social capital and license to circumvent law, it confers uber privilege and elite status. Why should an unscrupulous Byhri who passed a petty UPSC exam be afforded a status higher to say an entrepreneur who toiled, worked his intelligence and made his money the hard way. What kind of society do you think that will produce?

Persia (Iran) and Ethiopia were never colonised by any other nation, but what success stories have they been.

Iran’s HDI is 0.782, which is higher than India’s HDI of 0.612.

Mangesh wrote:

Singapore was a British colony since 1819 which is quite long and was conquered by the Japanese

India was ruled by the British East India Company since 1757, which is even longer. And let’s not forget, Singapore’s success is partly due to its geographic location in the Straits of Malacca.

Mangesh wrote:

Britain did not have to as India was not directly devastated by the Second World War.

But the very site that you linked to states that 2.1 million people died during the Bengal Famine, when crops were diverted by the British to support the war effort.

Britain did not have to as India was not directly devastated by the Second World War. The British stopped the Japanese in Burma but I think the Japanese did reach the present North East of India. But the British did spend a lot in rebuilding Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia after the war. But the second World war made India very rich as London began paying the British Indian government for part of its war contribution of goods and manpower, payments which left India with an astonishing 1.3 billion pounds in sterling balances at the end of 1945. This money was available to both the Indian and Pakistani governments at the end of the Empire in South Asia. http://www.swaminomics.org/et_articles/et20030820_bengalfamine.htm

Do you have any proof that India was experiencing negative economic growth from 1897 to 1947

TTCUSM said ‘LinZi, Japan didn’t exactly start out “struggling”. Unlike India, Japan was never colonized by another country.’

Persia (Iran) and Ethiopia were never colonised by any other nation, but what success stories have they been. They were conquered by Europeans and held for a short time. I believe Iran was conquered by the British and the Soviets for a short time to prevent the Iranians to go to Adolph Hitler’s side. Indeed Japan (and Germany) were completely devastated after the Third World war. Thailand which was never colonised did well but is not as prosperous as the heavily colonised Hongkong.

TTCUSM said ‘For that matter, I don’t think any of the Tiger countries were under foreign rule for as long as we were….’ Hongkong left the British Empire only in 1996. Indeed if I am not mistaken the per capita income of the people in Hongkong was greater than that of the U.K. during the 80s when it was part of the British Empire! Taiwan was colonised since 1544 by the Portuguese followed by the Dutch, Spanish and the Japanese. Today’s Taiwanese are mostly the descendants of Chinese immigrants. The original Taiwanese have become a minority just like the Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. S.Korea faced Japanese colonial rule for about 40 years and then occupation and division of the country by the Americans and the Soviets. That was followed by a brutal devastating civil war. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnx2CjhHADM To realise how horrifying the war was check out this movie Singapore was a British colony since 1819 which is quite long and was conquered by the Japanese (the surrender of Singapore to the Imperial Japanese forces was the greatest defeat faced by the British ever).

Do you have any proof that India was experiencing negative economic growth from 1897 to 1947

TTCUSM said ‘LinZi, Japan didn’t exactly start out “struggling”. Unlike India, Japan was never colonized by another country.’

Persia (Iran) and Ethiopia were never colonised by any other nation, but what success stories have they been. They were conquered by Europeans and held for a short time. I believe Iran was conquered by the British and the Soviets for a short time to prevent the Iranians to go to Adolph Hitler’s side. Indeed Japan (and Germany) were completely devastated after the Third World war. Thailand which was never colonised did well but is not as prosperous as the heavily colonised Hongkong.

TTCUSM said ‘For that matter, I don’t think any of the Tiger countries were under foreign rule for as long as we were….’ Hongkong left the British Empire only in 1996. Indeed if I am not mistaken the per capita income of the people in Hongkong was greater than that of the U.K. during the 80s when it was part of the British Empire! Taiwan was colonised since 1544 by the Portuguese followed by the Dutch, Spanish and the Japanese. Today’s Taiwanese are mostly the descendants of Chinese immigrants. The original Taiwanese have become a minority just like the Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. S.Korea faced Japanese colonial rule for about 40 years and then occupation and division of the country by the Americans and the Soviets. That was followed by a brutal devastating civil war. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnx2CjhHADM To realise how horrifying the war was check out this movie Singapore was a British colony since 1819 which is quite long and was conquered by the Japanese (the surrender of Singapore to the Imperial Japanese forces was the greatest defeat faced by the British ever).

So you’re saying that no true Scotsma- I mean, Socialist, would trample on the ordinary guy to line his own pockets?

The NREGA is extraordinary like Operation Barga because it is a slight break from the preexisting trend (whcih i hope will continue and blossom, while others might find use for only in maintaining political stability), and even that it is a minimal social welfare move compared to what COULD hypothetically be done (e.g. land reform) given political will

The NREGA is a colossal waste of money that has produced negligible improvements in infrastructure, mere scraps for the people it’s meant to help, and a bonanza of ill-gotten graft from the government trough for bureaucrats and clerks. If you want a real social welfare move, make public school teachers show up to work. That would do 100 times more than any state-dependency inducing give-away you could ever imagine.