“A country that was the world leader in at least three industries- textiles, steel and ship building. A country that had everything… And after 200 years of exploitation, expropriation and clean outright looting, this country was reduced to one of the poorest countries in the world by the time the British left in 1947,” he said.
I stop reading after the third paragraph, which I posted above. If India were a leader in ship building and steel, why is it Britain that sailed to India and colonize India, rather than other way around.
The truth is that India was a geographical expression. Britain created India. This guy and any Indian national should thank Britain for created India.
You should not have stopped reading after reading that paragraph, and sadly your reasoning hardly made any sense. A country might have a booming ship-building industry, but whether it should decide to sail around the world or not entirely depends upon its commercial necessity, not on its ship-building potential as you are suggesting. For example, the Chinese too, had made great technological advancement in ship-building but its maritime commerce were mainly confined within Arabian peninsula and the coast of Japan. On the other hand, it was trading necessity that forced England, Belgium and the Dutch to sail all across the world to Asia, not their technological superiority in ship-building.
India had always a thriving Ship-building Industry, but its post 1757 political realities had tremendously affected its furtherance. Trade routes were monopolized in favor of the British merchants, protective legislation was passed to limit Indian vessels from sailing between England and its colonies. After Napoleonic threat was over, Indian vessels had been barred from sailing to America, leaving them making trade with the unprofitable route to China only.
Indian vessels compared to their British counterparts were far more cheaper and more durable with all due credit to Indian workmanship and expertise in wood, high-tensile brass and better quality teak and sal compared to British oak and fir. And for these reasons, purely on economic basis the British in India did revived the ship-building Industry in Bengal till the first decades of 19th century, which was ruined systematically again for the growing pressure from the British ship-builders at home.
As for your last sentence, though it has no relevance with the present context, 'this guy' has not denied that the British gave political unity to present India, but he also observes two vital facts. The first being that, when they left this country, there were over 600 princely states that made almost one third of the sub-continent whose national identity were yet to be defined. And secondly, there is no reason to believe that had the British not taken up the task for uniting India (not on any nationalistic urge but for purely commercial basis), an Indian would not have merged as a leader who could solidify India as a single entity which Ashoka , Akbar had long struggled for over thousand years.
If You claim that Islam was a British false flag operation to split India,
You are probably going to get banned ;-)
India had a large population and agrarian economics.
When Great Britain started to industrialize, the Indian economy lost out due
to beeing to expensive, so even if India had not been colonized, the economy would
have taken a hit.
This is an over-simplistic assertion in my opinion. India for centuries had a history of cultivating foreign technology, craftsmanship and art. If India had not been colonized, it was also possible that Indian entrepreneurs could have imported machinery and railways which could have utilized in a way more efficient way than the British did. And when the British started to Industrialize, the Indian economy which depended heavily on agriculture and textile manufactures were already ruined. It lost not due to being over-priced but simply the other way around.