If the British had brought progress by railway and telegraph they had also brought harsh laws and crippling taxes. Justice was mostly a mockery : the village police , paid a starvation wage of four shillings monthly, openly gave their allegiance to roving bands of robbers. To reduce litigation to the minimum , �John Company� ordained that even a coolie must present his plea over a shilling stamp before consulting an attorney. Torture � lighted matches between the fingers, the arms tied behind the back and screwed together with a Spanish windlass � was the recognized mode of extracting confessions.

Taxes were a cynical outrage. A man could not travel twenty miles without paying toll at a river ferry, farmed out by the company to private speculators. Land Tax, often demanded before the crop was raised, was made in quarterly installments; beyond sunset on a specific date the Collector could refuse to accept it. A shortage of sixpence in the amount and the defaulter�s property was forfeit for auction. Salt was heavily taxed for laborers who earned three-farthings a day; also taxed were opium , saltpeter and all fermented juices. The annual rent for an acre of land was 3s., yet the produce of that acre rarely averaged 8s. in value. For two months each year most laborers � or �heathens� as the official documents styled all Indians � could not purchase rice. They existed n roots or on bread made from a coarse flour of ground mango stones. Salt was grubbed from the alkali of burnt vegetable ash.

My position on this is: who knows what would have happened if history had not turned out the way it did…

The main point is that there was a “cost” to all the “benefits” that people associate with the British Raj…and we need to bear that in mind before singing peans in praise of the Empire…

Thia is because -

Britishers – wanted to loot the country and built the “infrastructure” ONLY to live and loot the riches. Looting a country is not an overnight affair. They built some infrastructure inside the country [telegraph, 'good' education (to minimal group - 5% literacy by 1905 starting from recorded 95%+ literacy) etc.] to make their ‘life’ possible till the whole riches can be looted. The rest of the infrastructure [trains, communication etc] for the exclusive purpose of, again, looting the country. We got benefitted from these ONLY because they didn’t put in any more money to dismantle what they built when they left the country. Instead they created Pakistan to ensure a perpetual conflict. [With reference to partition, Sardar Patel said to the effect of - give me the authority over Britain for 1 week and I'll make them fight amongst themselves for perpetuity].

Muslims – They came to rule us and hence left the money inside the country that they were (and wanted to perpetually) ruling. They granted us Pakistan, Bangladesh and an enormous number of muslims following premitive arabic culture.

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