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Re: Karl Marx on British Imperialism in India

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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 11:41 AM
Let's discuss this, shall we?

-

Last night the debate on India was continued in the House of Commons, in the usual dull manner. Mr. Blackett charged the statements of Sir Charles Wood and Sir J. Hogg with bearing the stamp of optimist falsehood. A lot of Ministerial and Directorial advocates rebuked the charge as well as they could, and the inevitable Mr. Hume summed up by calling on Ministers to withdraw their bill. Debate adjourned.

Hindostan is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for the Alps, the Plains of Bengal for the Plains of Lombardy, the Deccan for the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of Sicily. The same rich variety in the products of the soil, and the same dismemberment in the political configuration. Just as Italy has, from time to time, been compressed by the conqueror’s sword into different national masses, so do we find Hindostan, when not under the pressure of the Mohammedan, or the Mogul[104], or the Briton, dissolved into as many independent and conflicting States as it numbered towns, or even villages. Yet, in a social point of view, Hindostan is not the Italy, but the Ireland of the East. And this strange combination of Italy and of Ireland, of a world of voluptuousness and of a world of woes, is anticipated in the ancient traditions of the religion of Hindostan. That religion is at once a religion of sensualist exuberance, and a religion of self-torturing asceticism; a religion of the Lingam and of the juggernaut; the religion of the Monk, and of the Bayadere.[105]

I share not the opinion of those who believe in a golden age of Hindostan, without recurring, however, like Sir Charles Wood, for the confirmation of my view, to the authority of Khuli-Khan. But take, for example, the times of Aurangzeb; or the epoch, when the Mogul appeared in the North, and the Portuguese in the South; or the age of Mohammedan invasion, and of the Heptarchy in Southern India[106]; or, if you will, go still more back to antiquity, take the mythological chronology of the Brahman himself, who places the commencement of Indian misery in an epoch even more remote than the Christian creation of the world.

There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. I do not allude to European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism, by the British East India Company, forming a more monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters startling us in the Temple of Salsette[107]. This is no distinctive feature of British Colonial rule, but only an imitation of the Dutch, and so much so that in order to characterise the working of the British East India Company, it is sufficient to literally repeat what Sir Stamford Raffles, the English Governor of Java, said of the old Dutch East India Company:

“The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their [Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the purchase money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite of contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders.”

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history.
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 11:48 AM
Seems like he's not too fond of British imperialism, yeah?
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diamondmark is not online. diamondmark
Joined: 22 Apr 2011
Total Posts: 1779
14 Feb 2014 11:49 AM
I'm not. Reading that.. sorry :)

Here is a kind of interesting point he made on torture, though. Basically, it creates new mechanisms that contribute to society.

No further comment.

I'm not against many of his views by any means, but it does seem a bit strange.

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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 11:55 AM
I'll condense it a little bit; sorry.

India is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for the Alps, the Plains of Bengal for the Plains of Lombardy, the Deccan for the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of Sicily. The same rich variety in the products of the soil, and the same dismemberment in the political configuration. Just as Italy has, from time to time, been compressed by the conqueror’s sword into different national masses, so do we find India, dissolved into as many independent and conflicting States as it numbered towns, or even villages.

The misery inflicted by the British on India is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all India had to suffer before.

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in India may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Indian, and separates India, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history.
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diamondmark is not online. diamondmark
Joined: 22 Apr 2011
Total Posts: 1779
14 Feb 2014 11:59 AM
Fair enough.. but wow. Still, he is Karl Marx ^_^. Sorry about that random statement. Its just I was wondering whether injustice was only unacceptable when it went against his values.

I don't really know much about India at that time. I'd assume he was right on some levels, but I want to know what other people know and think of it.
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 12:00 PM
I'd love to hear re's opinion on this.
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diamondmark is not online. diamondmark
Joined: 22 Apr 2011
Total Posts: 1779
14 Feb 2014 12:03 PM
I was thinking this might have been directed at him. I am unable to answer this properly, but I'm sure he could come up with some interesting stuff.
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
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14 Feb 2014 12:28 PM
bump
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Gordielad is not online. Gordielad
Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Total Posts: 585
14 Feb 2014 12:39 PM
BIRITISH IMPERIALISM FTW I LOVE THT WE CONQURED IDNAI

#PRUOD2BEBIRTISHIMPERIALIST
#MODDLECLASSVALUES
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re567 is not online. re567
Joined: 01 Nov 2010
Total Posts: 4550
14 Feb 2014 12:42 PM
I pretty much figured out the point of the thread: to drive me into the debate.

@Gordie, are you sure you are not joking?
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Gordielad is not online. Gordielad
Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Total Posts: 585
14 Feb 2014 12:43 PM
I was joking.
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re567 is not online. re567
Joined: 01 Nov 2010
Total Posts: 4550
14 Feb 2014 12:48 PM
...

Well, it was not a really nice thing to mock someone...

Well, I am retiring from the thread. Still here on RG though.
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 12:48 PM
@re

Well, yes. I want to see your opinion on this because it pretty clearly says that Marx opposed British imperialism.
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zachzach74 is not online. zachzach74
Joined: 21 Jul 2008
Total Posts: 15397
14 Feb 2014 03:28 PM
Am I the only one that read the whole thing?

Anyway yeah I figured this was direct at re, I mean come on it's about India, the British, Karl Marx, and imperialism.
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ValeriusMaximus is not online. ValeriusMaximus
Joined: 28 May 2013
Total Posts: 425
14 Feb 2014 03:29 PM
karl marx is hip and edgy
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
14 Feb 2014 04:18 PM
nuh uh che is even more hip and edgy
my coleg profesiur told me that che wuz good gui he must be rite
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GoblarkGobral is not online. GoblarkGobral
Joined: 15 Dec 2012
Total Posts: 4324
14 Feb 2014 06:31 PM
Karl Marx invented capitalism.
-My Mother
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ValeriusMaximus is not online. ValeriusMaximus
Joined: 28 May 2013
Total Posts: 425
14 Feb 2014 08:40 PM
you mom is rely smart.
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dfhsffgfggfghf is not online. dfhsffgfggfghf
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Total Posts: 130
14 Feb 2014 10:28 PM
I have mixed feelings about British Imperialism and how they ruled the sub-continent. Of course, we all know how EIC merchants plundered, bribed and looted their way through India, manipulating princes ans forcing princely states to go into treaties with them.
But during the arrival of the British, the Mugal Empire was falling. The Marathas were attacking from the South, the Afghans from the East, and the other imperial powers itching to take control. If the British didn't occupy India, who would? Perhaps we'd be under a Russian Raj? Or the Dutch would take over? Or maybe the whole of India would split into different parts under different leaders, even more divided than before?
And if we think about it, even though the British brought poverty, misery, and disease to India, they also brought railways, laws, architecture, scientific ideas and countless other things. I know for a fact that Pakistan happens to use the same railways the British constructed. The canals which they built are still in use. I can name countless things both India and Pakistan are still using which date back to the British Raj.So maybe, they helped us a lot more than we think.
So in the end, although the British were scheming, manipulative, and greedy basterds, they brought some development to the sub-continent to a certain extent.
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0Z0NE is not online. 0Z0NE
Joined: 25 May 2010
Total Posts: 7951
15 Feb 2014 01:05 AM
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re567 is not online. re567
Joined: 01 Nov 2010
Total Posts: 4550
15 Feb 2014 04:03 AM
@DH, that is what I was going to say.
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0Z0NE is not online. 0Z0NE
Joined: 25 May 2010
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15 Feb 2014 09:48 AM
[ Content Deleted ]
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MidmystSalt is not online. MidmystSalt
Joined: 27 Jan 2014
Total Posts: 1427
15 Feb 2014 09:57 AM
The same thing can be said about the USSR. The Soviets improved infrastructure, education, and arguably healthcare. Literacy rates jumped from 24% in the Russian Empire in 1897 to 90% by 1939 and 99% by the 1950s. But at what cost? This came at the cost of terrible famines, economic stagnation, the Red Terror, the Purges, gulags, slave labor, tens of millions dead, a repressive totalitarian regime, etc: Are we honestly going to say that because they improved some things that they're alright? No, imperialism, like socialism, was terrible and we should not make excuses for it. Our attitudes towards collectivist and authoritarian ideologies should be universal condemnation.
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diamondmark is not online. diamondmark
Joined: 22 Apr 2011
Total Posts: 1779
15 Feb 2014 09:59 AM
Okay. But you are a Marxist. That does not tell me how Marxism is not in contradiction with imperialism.
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dfhsffgfggfghf is not online. dfhsffgfggfghf
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Total Posts: 130
15 Feb 2014 10:06 AM
Like I said, mixed feelings.
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