India Trilogy Part 1 - Colonial British loot of India
Happy 75th Anniversay of Indian independence.
To commemorate this special occasion, I have written a Trilogy of 3 articles. Its my humble tribute to this great civilisation, great nation, the land of our ancestors. Ill also share how my ancestors played their small part in the freedom struggle.
Part 1 : Colonial British loot and Indian independence
Part 2 : Real Indian History we might not know.
Part 3 : A nation we can be proud of.
For my international friends. This is a story, not just about India. Just like, how Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, Hiroshima bombing, American war of independence, the French revolution is not about Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Americans or Europeans alone. It's about humanity winning over Hate. It's about Standing up for liberty, equality, fraternity. I take a lot of inspiration from Patriots, Liberals and Humanists across the globe. Like wise, Indian independence is about triumph of Morals over materialism, Truth over treason, Human spirit over Evil and hope it inspires you. It's long but worth a read.
Few years back, three things happened in same year. I had Samuel Adams Beer in Boston. I visited the National palace Museum in Taipei. I had afternoon Tetley tea in London. What does my visit to 3 different continents have to do with India's independence. You will understand if you read till the end.
Trilogy Part 1 : Colonial British loot and Indian resistance
“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”~ Albert Einstein
6 million Jews died in Nazi Holocaust and the whole world is made to remember that in movies and books. Close to 35 million Indians were killed by the British and there is hardly any evidence of it in history. Why? There is an African proverb, "Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter," HISTORY books are in ENGLISH. And in Britain and many parts of the globe the white man's atrocities are never captured in history books. And our well meaning, but conservative Indian education system does not talk about the atrocities of our foreign invaders be it Islamic 1100 to 1700, or British 1700 to 1947. This is wrong. British Government never apologized, let alone acknowledge the crimes against humanity. I have many British friends and they abhor colonialism or racism of any kind. Naturally one can't blame them for thier ancestor's mistakes. Be that as it may, it's important, just like how Germany acknowledged Nazi excess and Holocaust, I just wish the current British Government acknowledge and apologize for the past atrocities against Indians and bring this to closure sooner than later.
India was and is a very rich country when it comes to spiritual, historical, cultural and civilizational dimensions.
Spiritualy rich.
4 major religions of the world originated in India. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Nobel Peace Laureates from Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Barack Obama to Aung Saan Suu Kyi have acknowledged Mahatma Gandhi as their fountainhead of moral inspiration.
India is the home of poets, artists, musicians, Saints, Sages like, Ved Vyasa, Agastya, Gautama Buddha, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa to Dalai Lama. India stands for riches in spiritual dimension, perhaps unmatched in any other part of the world.
Culturally and civilisationally rich.
Max Mueller, German scholar: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.
Indian civilisation has a recorded history of over 12,000 years. In fact, it's proven the epic Ramayana, is not some figment of imagination, but actual history which happened in 5000BC, using planetary positions which don't repeat in 25,000 years. See below.
https://www.vifindia.org/transcriptions-paper/2012/07/03/scientific-dating-of-ancient-events-from-7000-bc-to-2000-bc
Indian Hindu and Buddhist Icons are part of folklore in many countries across South East Asia, China and Japan. RAMAYANA, the story of Prince Ram is there in Thailand, Cambodia, Java, Bali to Sri Lanka. Buddhism originated in India and spread to Greece in the west and Japan in the East, and was founded by Gautama Buddha 600 years before even Christ was born. One of the worlds oldest continously inhabited city is Varanasi or Kashi. And India would have five other cities including Madurai to Ujjain which have a recorded history of over 5000 years.
Mark Twain, American author said “India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition"
Materially rich
For almost 3000 years from 1000bc to 1700ad, India was either the richest or the second richest country in the whole world. See pic below. Perhaps, beating almost all ancient civilisations from Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, Aztec to Persian civilisation. So much soChristopher Columbus, accidentally discovered "America" while he was trying to get a western route from Europe to India for trading. India was so rich, no one locked thier homes in many towns, because there was no one there to steal. Everyone had enough and was happy.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/
https://fortune.com/2014/10/05/most-powerful-economic-empires-of-all-time/
Rich in knowledge.
Will Durant, American Historian: “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.”
Beyond material wealth Indians looked at art, sciences, medicine, love making, astronomy, mathematics to even inner engineering. Thus you have ganidha (maths), rasayana (chemistry), boogola (geography), ithihasa (history), purana (epics) to Yoga (union of mind and body), Ayurveda (medicine) Martial arts, Dhyana (Meditation) to even Kama sutra (love making). In 900 to 1100 ad, much before Oxford and Harvard, the biggest universities were Nalanda and Taxila. Students came from China, Persia, Greece to study in India.
Britiah Colonial atrocities
Now lets understand a bit of the colonial atrocities of British across the globe. The Boston tea tax is the smallest of crimes they did in America, which culminated in America getting independence from British almost two centuries before India. When I was sipping Samuel Adam's beer in Boston, USA I was quite inspired to hear about Samuel Adams the patriot who opposed the British. And how the Americans after two centuries fondly recall the fight against injustice of tea tax.
These British colonial atrocities are nothing compared to the millions of lives lost in Americas and Africa (The Transatlantic Slave Trade), China (The Opium Wars and the opium trade) and India (loot of the worlds richest country). Plus they had "special" operations like the Jalianwala Bagh shooting in Amritsar, Boer concentration camps in South Africa, Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the list goes on. Colonial Britain was a transcontinental and sophisticated EVIL power, period. India perhaps suffered the worst.
The British plunder of India
In 1700AD India had 23% of world GDP and Britain 1.8%. When British left india after 200 years of plunder and loot, it was reversed. India had less than 1% and Britain over 20% of world GDP. By some estimates the value of the British loot over 200 years exceed $45 Trillion in current value terms. See below for details.
https://historyofyesterday.com/how-britain-looted-45-trillion-from-india-2e923dfb2efb
After 200 years of plunder and loot, from 1750 to 1947, the British left India with Famine, disease, illiteracy and a country partitioned on religious lines as India and Pakistan, killing many millions in the process.
There is a myth, esp among few Indian elites and western world, the British civilized native Indians. They bought ship building, railways, telegram, modern education, modern cities, roads, electricity etc. The second myth was there was no united India, we were just princely states before British came in. There is some truth in both statements. But also it hides a big lie. Indians unlike many parts of uncivilized world, was already a major trading power. 25% of world GDP in 1700 was from India. We had a system of traditional education. We had well functioning monarchies. But we were not united. We were constantly at war with other Indians by provinces. The British took advantage of this and divided the Indians even further by religion, caste, creed, language etc. That's why still you have the Pakistan and Ireland problem.
The British killed every local industry and trade India was known for centuries. They destroyed Indian hand Weaving industry and made millions of weavers jobless by putting a punitive tax on hand made cloth and making the cloth made by machines from Manchester duty free. Imagine this. You took cotton from the fields of India, used the looms in Manchester and sold back the cloth to Indians at 10x raw material price. A sort of loot into the British govt exchequer. Same rule was applied to grains, tea, spices, gold, diamonds, jute, coal, steel to opium. Infact native Indians did not even get permissions to open steel plant (Tata struggled to get permissions), cotton mills (Birla struggled), cement plants, ship building (VO Chidambaram struggled) lest they compete with British in thier trade. Raw material from India. Finished goods from Britain. The value of loot from India by British runs into trillions (not billions) of dollars over two centuries.
At first, British used silver and gold to purchase textiles and rice from Indian producers and then sold them on the European market at a higher price. Initially, this trade benefited both the indigenous Indian market and the British.
Later, they used 1/3rd portion of the tax revenue to purchase goods, instead of investing it in India-This was the first loot. Once they grasped revenue collection, they used revenue generated by Indian companies exclusively to purchase Indian goods, resulting in widespread exploitation of Indians. This was a scam; previously, they would purchase Indian goods in exchange for gold and silver; now, they are taking it for free and earning a 100% profit. For a long time, Indian producers were unaware of this because the tax collection and goods production departments were administered by two distinct authorities. The British used the massive profit gained by EIC to buy strategic raw materials such as Iron and timber to fuel their own industrial revolution back in Britain.
According to UN data, India’s merchandise exports were the second highest in the world between 1900 to 1928, trailing only the United States. However, rather than becoming a trade surplus nation, India remained a trade deficit nation as a result of Britain’s dishonest and unethical policies.
Read more on this here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atrocities-british-empire-amritsar-boer-war-concentration-camp-mau-mau-a6821756.html
My family and Indian freedom struggle.
Both my parents were born in India of British empire, in 1927 and 1933 respectively. All thier children, my sister, my brother and myself were born in free and independent India. So how does independence look from a family point of view. For me, I did not realize, how big was this, till I was in my early teens. My mom was a teenager, when India got independence. All she remembers was flag hoisting and some sweet distribution ceremony in school deep down south of India. My mother's father and my maternal grand father, JR Krishnaswamy (JRK) who was from an orthodox family, was a great Gandhian and lived per Gandhis principles. He was trained as a charted accountant under British. Worked in prestigius accounting firms like Fraser and Ross, and later Indian Bank.
To oppose the British, thier foreign cloth, he only wore hand spun (Khadi) cloth right through his life. Khadi shirt, khadi dhoti, khadi pant, even coat was made of khadi. He had a charka (spinning wheel) at home and every day for 30 mins he spun cotton into yarn. This handmade yarn was exchanged with bales of Khadi on which his clothes were stitched. He also never had Tea and Coffee in his life. He always spoke the truth. Always 100% truth, not even a white lie. When my Mom was born in 1933, everyone thought he would buy a fine silk dress for the first birthday of his baby girl. But he bought her a fine handmade Khadi dress only. He was a proud Tamil, but learnt Hindi per the bidding of Gandhi so that it becomes a connecting language for Indians. Gandhi who was a Gujarati gave his son in marriage to daughter of Rajaji a Tamilian and it was an arranged marriage, and the ceremony was in Sanskrit and Hindi. Despite his busy work schedule in a bank, he almost always attended every nationalist meeting conducted by congress party where leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Rajaji and Kamaraj spoke. I salute my paternal grandfather JR Krishnaswamy who fought for freedom in his own way.
My friends and Indian partition.
Being from south India, we never experienced the pains of partitioning our country on religious lines. However, I have friends, whose ancestors left thier ancestral home in Western Punjab or Eastern Bengal, which is now Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively, and migrated with nothing more than a suitcase, a prayer and hope thier family will be safe from harm in new India. Their tales are heart wrenching. I salute them for believing in new India.
I have met families down south, who were beaten mercilessly by British police, for just walking into the beach or club, reserved for british, or holding thier Indian flag instead of union jack. I salute them for standing up for what is right.
Other Indians who lost lives for our freedom
We read about native kings, queens, soliders and martyrs over 200 years who laid down their life, protecting thier people from invaders and looters of the west. British, Dutch, French, Portuguese etc. I salute them for defending our nation against invaders.
In 1959, when, peace loving Tibet was annexed by China, we made noise, but the world ignored India. When China attacked us in 1962, the world was busy in USA-USSR cold War, in Cuban missile crisis and we defended ourselves. When in 1992 and later 2008, Islamic terrorists attacked Mumbai, we defended. I salute all the defence and police personnel who gave up thier lives in these battles plus Kargil to Pulwama to defend our freedom and territory.
Despite above plunder, we must proud of as a nation for rising up like a Phoenix. We have come a long way in uplifting almost 400m people out of poverty to make a huge middle class market for every company in India and the world. The middle class population of India is higher than Total population OF USA. We are now the 3rd largest economy by PPP after USA and China. We can be very proud of our rich and ancient history. You can read how the visit to Taiwan National palace Museum taught me a lot about India itself. Also in my view there are a few things in modern India, which all of must feel very proud as Indians. You will see how my afternoon tea in London is linked to that.
Happy reading and happy Independence day. Jai Hind.
Nash Narasimhan Tupil
August 2022
Bangalore, India
75 years of independence celebration.
To commemorate this special occasion, I have written a Trilogy of 3 articles. Its my humble tribute to this great civilisation, great nation, the land of our ancestors. Ill also share how my ancestors played their small part in the freedom struggle.
Part 1 : Colonial British loot and Indian independence
Part 2 : Real Indian History we might not know.
Part 3 : A nation we can be proud of.
For my international friends. This is a story, not just about India. Just like, how Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, Hiroshima bombing, American war of independence, the French revolution is not about Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Americans or Europeans alone. It's about humanity winning over Hate. It's about Standing up for liberty, equality, fraternity. I take a lot of inspiration from Patriots, Liberals and Humanists across the globe. Like wise, Indian independence is about triumph of Morals over materialism, Truth over treason, Human spirit over Evil and hope it inspires you. It's long but worth a read.
Few years back, three things happened in same year. I had Samuel Adams Beer in Boston. I visited the National palace Museum in Taipei. I had afternoon Tetley tea in London. What does my visit to 3 different continents have to do with India's independence. You will understand if you read till the end.
Trilogy Part 1 : Colonial British loot and Indian resistance
“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”~ Albert Einstein
6 million Jews died in Nazi Holocaust and the whole world is made to remember that in movies and books. Close to 35 million Indians were killed by the British and there is hardly any evidence of it in history. Why? There is an African proverb, "Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter," HISTORY books are in ENGLISH. And in Britain and many parts of the globe the white man's atrocities are never captured in history books. And our well meaning, but conservative Indian education system does not talk about the atrocities of our foreign invaders be it Islamic 1100 to 1700, or British 1700 to 1947. This is wrong. British Government never apologized, let alone acknowledge the crimes against humanity. I have many British friends and they abhor colonialism or racism of any kind. Naturally one can't blame them for thier ancestor's mistakes. Be that as it may, it's important, just like how Germany acknowledged Nazi excess and Holocaust, I just wish the current British Government acknowledge and apologize for the past atrocities against Indians and bring this to closure sooner than later.
In 1700AD India, was the richest nation in the world. It had 23% of world GDP and Britain 1.8%. When British left india after 200 years of plunder and loot, it was reversed. India had less than 1% and Britain over 20% of world GDP. By some estimates the value of the British loot over 200 years exceed $45 Trillion in current value terms. More about how they swindled India later.
India was and is a very rich country when it comes to spiritual, historical, cultural and civilizational dimensions.
Spiritualy rich.
4 major religions of the world originated in India. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Nobel Peace Laureates from Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Barack Obama to Aung Saan Suu Kyi have acknowledged Mahatma Gandhi as their fountainhead of moral inspiration.
India is the home of poets, artists, musicians, Saints, Sages like, Ved Vyasa, Agastya, Gautama Buddha, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa to Dalai Lama. India stands for riches in spiritual dimension, perhaps unmatched in any other part of the world.
Culturally and civilisationally rich.
Max Mueller, German scholar: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.
Indian civilisation has a recorded history of over 12,000 years. In fact, it's proven the epic Ramayana, is not some figment of imagination, but actual history which happened in 5000BC, using planetary positions which don't repeat in 25,000 years. See below.
https://www.vifindia.org/transcriptions-paper/2012/07/03/scientific-dating-of-ancient-events-from-7000-bc-to-2000-bc
Indian Hindu and Buddhist Icons are part of folklore in many countries across South East Asia, China and Japan. RAMAYANA, the story of Prince Ram is there in Thailand, Cambodia, Java, Bali to Sri Lanka. Buddhism originated in India and spread to Greece in the west and Japan in the East, and was founded by Gautama Buddha 600 years before even Christ was born. One of the worlds oldest continously inhabited city is Varanasi or Kashi. And India would have five other cities including Madurai to Ujjain which have a recorded history of over 5000 years.
Mark Twain, American author said “India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition"
Materially rich
For almost 3000 years from 1000bc to 1700ad, India was either the richest or the second richest country in the whole world. See pic below. Perhaps, beating almost all ancient civilisations from Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, Aztec to Persian civilisation. So much soChristopher Columbus, accidentally discovered "America" while he was trying to get a western route from Europe to India for trading. India was so rich, no one locked thier homes in many towns, because there was no one there to steal. Everyone had enough and was happy.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/
https://fortune.com/2014/10/05/most-powerful-economic-empires-of-all-time/
Rich in knowledge.
Will Durant, American Historian: “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.”
Beyond material wealth Indians looked at art, sciences, medicine, love making, astronomy, mathematics to even inner engineering. Thus you have ganidha (maths), rasayana (chemistry), boogola (geography), ithihasa (history), purana (epics) to Yoga (union of mind and body), Ayurveda (medicine) Martial arts, Dhyana (Meditation) to even Kama sutra (love making). In 900 to 1100 ad, much before Oxford and Harvard, the biggest universities were Nalanda and Taxila. Students came from China, Persia, Greece to study in India.
Britiah Colonial atrocities
Now lets understand a bit of the colonial atrocities of British across the globe. The Boston tea tax is the smallest of crimes they did in America, which culminated in America getting independence from British almost two centuries before India. When I was sipping Samuel Adam's beer in Boston, USA I was quite inspired to hear about Samuel Adams the patriot who opposed the British. And how the Americans after two centuries fondly recall the fight against injustice of tea tax.
These British colonial atrocities are nothing compared to the millions of lives lost in Americas and Africa (The Transatlantic Slave Trade), China (The Opium Wars and the opium trade) and India (loot of the worlds richest country). Plus they had "special" operations like the Jalianwala Bagh shooting in Amritsar, Boer concentration camps in South Africa, Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the list goes on. Colonial Britain was a transcontinental and sophisticated EVIL power, period. India perhaps suffered the worst.
The British plunder of India
In 1700AD India had 23% of world GDP and Britain 1.8%. When British left india after 200 years of plunder and loot, it was reversed. India had less than 1% and Britain over 20% of world GDP. By some estimates the value of the British loot over 200 years exceed $45 Trillion in current value terms. See below for details.
https://historyofyesterday.com/how-britain-looted-45-trillion-from-india-2e923dfb2efb
After 200 years of plunder and loot, from 1750 to 1947, the British left India with Famine, disease, illiteracy and a country partitioned on religious lines as India and Pakistan, killing many millions in the process.
There is a myth, esp among few Indian elites and western world, the British civilized native Indians. They bought ship building, railways, telegram, modern education, modern cities, roads, electricity etc. The second myth was there was no united India, we were just princely states before British came in. There is some truth in both statements. But also it hides a big lie. Indians unlike many parts of uncivilized world, was already a major trading power. 25% of world GDP in 1700 was from India. We had a system of traditional education. We had well functioning monarchies. But we were not united. We were constantly at war with other Indians by provinces. The British took advantage of this and divided the Indians even further by religion, caste, creed, language etc. That's why still you have the Pakistan and Ireland problem.
The British killed every local industry and trade India was known for centuries. They destroyed Indian hand Weaving industry and made millions of weavers jobless by putting a punitive tax on hand made cloth and making the cloth made by machines from Manchester duty free. Imagine this. You took cotton from the fields of India, used the looms in Manchester and sold back the cloth to Indians at 10x raw material price. A sort of loot into the British govt exchequer. Same rule was applied to grains, tea, spices, gold, diamonds, jute, coal, steel to opium. Infact native Indians did not even get permissions to open steel plant (Tata struggled to get permissions), cotton mills (Birla struggled), cement plants, ship building (VO Chidambaram struggled) lest they compete with British in thier trade. Raw material from India. Finished goods from Britain. The value of loot from India by British runs into trillions (not billions) of dollars over two centuries.
At first, British used silver and gold to purchase textiles and rice from Indian producers and then sold them on the European market at a higher price. Initially, this trade benefited both the indigenous Indian market and the British.
Later, they used 1/3rd portion of the tax revenue to purchase goods, instead of investing it in India-This was the first loot. Once they grasped revenue collection, they used revenue generated by Indian companies exclusively to purchase Indian goods, resulting in widespread exploitation of Indians. This was a scam; previously, they would purchase Indian goods in exchange for gold and silver; now, they are taking it for free and earning a 100% profit. For a long time, Indian producers were unaware of this because the tax collection and goods production departments were administered by two distinct authorities. The British used the massive profit gained by EIC to buy strategic raw materials such as Iron and timber to fuel their own industrial revolution back in Britain.
According to UN data, India’s merchandise exports were the second highest in the world between 1900 to 1928, trailing only the United States. However, rather than becoming a trade surplus nation, India remained a trade deficit nation as a result of Britain’s dishonest and unethical policies.
Read more on this here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atrocities-british-empire-amritsar-boer-war-concentration-camp-mau-mau-a6821756.html
My family and Indian freedom struggle.
Both my parents were born in India of British empire, in 1927 and 1933 respectively. All thier children, my sister, my brother and myself were born in free and independent India. So how does independence look from a family point of view. For me, I did not realize, how big was this, till I was in my early teens. My mom was a teenager, when India got independence. All she remembers was flag hoisting and some sweet distribution ceremony in school deep down south of India. My mother's father and my maternal grand father, JR Krishnaswamy (JRK) who was from an orthodox family, was a great Gandhian and lived per Gandhis principles. He was trained as a charted accountant under British. Worked in prestigius accounting firms like Fraser and Ross, and later Indian Bank.
To oppose the British, thier foreign cloth, he only wore hand spun (Khadi) cloth right through his life. Khadi shirt, khadi dhoti, khadi pant, even coat was made of khadi. He had a charka (spinning wheel) at home and every day for 30 mins he spun cotton into yarn. This handmade yarn was exchanged with bales of Khadi on which his clothes were stitched. He also never had Tea and Coffee in his life. He always spoke the truth. Always 100% truth, not even a white lie. When my Mom was born in 1933, everyone thought he would buy a fine silk dress for the first birthday of his baby girl. But he bought her a fine handmade Khadi dress only. He was a proud Tamil, but learnt Hindi per the bidding of Gandhi so that it becomes a connecting language for Indians. Gandhi who was a Gujarati gave his son in marriage to daughter of Rajaji a Tamilian and it was an arranged marriage, and the ceremony was in Sanskrit and Hindi. Despite his busy work schedule in a bank, he almost always attended every nationalist meeting conducted by congress party where leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Rajaji and Kamaraj spoke. I salute my paternal grandfather JR Krishnaswamy who fought for freedom in his own way.
My friends and Indian partition.
Being from south India, we never experienced the pains of partitioning our country on religious lines. However, I have friends, whose ancestors left thier ancestral home in Western Punjab or Eastern Bengal, which is now Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively, and migrated with nothing more than a suitcase, a prayer and hope thier family will be safe from harm in new India. Their tales are heart wrenching. I salute them for believing in new India.
I have met families down south, who were beaten mercilessly by British police, for just walking into the beach or club, reserved for british, or holding thier Indian flag instead of union jack. I salute them for standing up for what is right.
Other Indians who lost lives for our freedom
We read about native kings, queens, soliders and martyrs over 200 years who laid down their life, protecting thier people from invaders and looters of the west. British, Dutch, French, Portuguese etc. I salute them for defending our nation against invaders.
In 1959, when, peace loving Tibet was annexed by China, we made noise, but the world ignored India. When China attacked us in 1962, the world was busy in USA-USSR cold War, in Cuban missile crisis and we defended ourselves. When in 1992 and later 2008, Islamic terrorists attacked Mumbai, we defended. I salute all the defence and police personnel who gave up thier lives in these battles plus Kargil to Pulwama to defend our freedom and territory.
Despite above plunder, we must proud of as a nation for rising up like a Phoenix. We have come a long way in uplifting almost 400m people out of poverty to make a huge middle class market for every company in India and the world. The middle class population of India is higher than Total population OF USA. We are now the 3rd largest economy by PPP after USA and China. We can be very proud of our rich and ancient history. You can read how the visit to Taiwan National palace Museum taught me a lot about India itself. Also in my view there are a few things in modern India, which all of must feel very proud as Indians. You will see how my afternoon tea in London is linked to that.
Happy reading and happy Independence day. Jai Hind.
Nash Narasimhan Tupil
August 2022
Bangalore, India
75 years of independence celebration.
Indias GDP contribution in the world. From 1000 BC to 1700 AD for 2700 years India was either No.1 or No.2 economy in the world. Much before UK and USA, India was a super power in trade.
British India Map (includes whats now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar)
GANDHI as the British educated lawyer working in South Africa, 1905 with his three piece suit and tie.
GANDHI, shunning imported machine made cloth, and moving to hand spun Khadi Cloth, for rest of his life, which was worn by majority of Indians
A photo of my Maternal Grandfather Mr. JR Krishnaswamy with his wife Lakshmi and son Sampath. You can see him wearing Khadi, handspun shirt, khadi coat and khadi dhoti. Despite his English accountant education, he shunned foreign cloth to show solidarity with his fellow countrymen. A true Gandhian who never uttered a single lie in his life. Proud to be his descendant.
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