Whenever the issue of economic exploitation and the �drain of wealth� during the 200 years of British colonial rule comes up, the one rebuttal from western historians is that there is scant evidence to prove it. To bolster the argument, the point is then made that Indian historians are nationalist, biased (sometimes as a consequence) and do not pay attention to figures and statistical evidence.
In my analysis of this topic, I have therefore, relied heavily on recent research by Western historians and tried to draw conclusions based on that.
Even by …