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How Indian Troops Became the Backbone of the British Empire

You mean diarrhoea makes people eat more? Impeccable logic. Try drumsticks to calm your tum-tum.

Good example of (attempted) wit making up for the lack of logic. Windjammer would be proud of you.:mps:

From my lofty perch on the drumstick tree, I have to agree that you are right on this one.

Drumstick trees are not known to be sturdy enough to bear the weight of a fully grown man. Be careful, the fall might be hard.
 
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That is the exact thing that Diana Eck seeks to clarify in her book, the review of which I had linked in my previous post.





The political identity did not come out of the blue, as a result of the British, but it was a mere crystallization of fluidic sense of "geography" in which India has always existed in the mind of the people inhabiting this sub-continent due to the pilgrimages stretching from the char dhams up North to Kashi to Rameswaram. The idea of the northern borders of this bharatha kanda being the himalayas and the southern edge ending in the sea was always there.

Maybe the only new geographical landmass that was added to India was the North East which till then shared precious little with the "mainland".



Bengal famine ?

Bengal famine was due to various reasons - 1941 - it was famine but the authorities intervened and saw to that the effects were not seen. 1942 - cyclone and floods detroyed the crops in Bengal. So no carry over stocks. 1942 - British army defeat and surrender in Singapore. So Burma which was the exporter of food to Bengal was off-limits. South India was struck with famine as well and so could not provide grains to Bengal. So the effects were cumulative. If there was an opportunity, British would have taken action quickly like they did in 1941.


Again it was the elected governments of various states which denied Bengal the grain. Understanding the severity of the situation, the viceroy threatened the various governments with dire consequence and that is when the grains were supplied by these state governments to Bengal. So the blame is not on British but self-inflicted by some elected leaders.
 
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That was mean, really mean, comparing me with that ****. Real cheap shot.

Ok....That was indeed a bit far-fetched.

But I find your unmitigated and unreasoned hate for alternate view-points particularly disconcerting ,your "my-way or highway" logic unacceptable and your doing-a-Digvijaya, trying to find a Hindutva hand in everything, amusing and your character assassination of an elected leader without any legally admissible proof to back up that claims unconstitutional.

@Sashan,

Books: Churchill's Shameful Role in the Bengal Famine - TIME
 
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That is not a passport; that is an identification card for PIOs.

i heard about PIO but its not my case. my indian passport has 'OCI', stating Overseas Citizen of India, rest I dont know about other type of visas for NRIs as this is enough for me to come here anytime, as i came this time on this OCI passport. its a separate passport i got from the indian embassy in perth, along with my Australian passport, and i have to show both, the Australian and OCI passport, at the time of arrival :meeting:
 
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Actually Madhusree Mukherjee did provide data and stats to prove her point about Churchil and didn't just talk about how Churchil hated Indians. I need look up an article which summarized her findings.
 
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Actually Madhusree Mukherjee did provide data and stats to prove her point about Churchil and didn't just talk about how Churchil hated Indians. I need look up an article which summarized her findings.

I do not dispute that. She might be right as Shashi mentions that she has done indepth research. As I said I would want to get hold of the book.
 
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Without the highlights.


The War Cabinet received repeated warnings that famine could result from its exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort—and ignored them.

The Japanese occupation of Burma in March 1942 cut off rice imports, of between one and two million tons per year, to India. Instead of protecting the Indian public from the resultant food shortage, the War Cabinet insisted that India absorb this loss and, further, export rice to countries that could no longer get it from South East Asia. As a result, after war arrived at India’s borders, the colony exported 260,000 tons of rice in the fiscal year 1942-43.

Meanwhile India’s war expenditures increased ten fold, and the government printed paper money to pay for them. In August 1942 a representative of India’s viceroy told the War Cabinet that runaway inflation could lead to “famines and riots.”

In December 1942, Viceroy Linlithgow warned that India’s grain supply was seriously short and he urgently needed 600,000 tons of wheat to feed soldiers and the most essential industrial workers. The War Cabinet stated that ships were not available. In January 1943, Churchill moved most of the merchant ships operating in the Indian Ocean over to the Atlantic, in order to build up the United Kingdom’s stockpile of food and raw materials. The Ministry of War Transport cautioned him that the shift would result in “violent changes and perhaps cataclysms” in trade around the Indian Ocean. (In addition to India, the colonies of Kenya, Tanganyika, and British Somaliland all suffered famine in 1943.) Although refusing to meet India’s need for wheat, Churchill insisted that India continue to export rice.

With famine raging, in July 1943 Viceroy Linlithgow halted rice exports and again asked the War Cabinet for wheat imports, this time of 500,000 tons. That was the minimum required to feed the army and otherwise maintain the war effort. The news of impending shipments would indirectly ease the famine, he noted: any hoarders would anticipate a fall in prices and release grain, causing prices to fall in reality. But at a meeting on August 4, the War Cabinet failed to schedule even a single shipment of wheat for India. Instead, it ordered the buildup of a stockpile of wheat for feeding European civilians after they had been liberated. So 170,000 tons of Australian wheat bypassed starving India—destined not for consumption but for storage.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s stockpile of food and raw materials, intended for shoring up the postwar British economy, reached 18.5 million tons, the highest ever. Sugar and oilseeds overflowed warehouses and had to be stored outdoors, under tarpaulins.

Of course Churchill knew that his priorities would result in mass death. In one of his tirades against Indians, he said they were “breeding like rabbits” anyway. On behalf of Indians, the War Cabinet ignored an offer of 100,000 tons of Burmese rice from freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose (who was allied with the Japanese), discouraged a gift of wheat from Canada, and turned down rice and wheat volunteered by the United States.

The War Cabinet eventually ordered for India 80,000 tons of wheat and 130,000 tons of barley. (Barley was useless for famine relief because it had no impact on prices.) The first of these meager shipments reached India in November. All the while, the Indian Army consumed local rice and wheat that might otherwise have fed the starving. The famine came to an end in December 1943, when Bengal harvested its own rice crop—at which point Churchill and his friend Cherwell renewed their demand for rice exports.
 
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i heard about PIO but its not my case. my indian passport has 'OCI', stating Overseas Citizen of India, rest I dont know about other type of visas for NRIs as this is enough for me to come here anytime, as i came this time on this OCI passport. its a separate passport i got from the indian embassy in perth, along with my Australian passport, and i have to show both, the Australian and OCI passport, at the time of arrival :meeting:

It's still not a passport. You can't use it to travel, only to get certain restricted privileges in India. You aren't an Indian citizen and you can't vote.
 
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I visit Delhi, regularly, don't worry, and have seen what's happening. Incidentally, you might like to come to Kolkata and look at some more BMWs, Mercs and Bentleys, Jags and even one nut's Rolls, which he takes out at night and drives around the empty streets. I was also in Ludhiana between 2006 and 2008; it has more exotic cars per '000 population than anywhere else, including Delhi.

In case you didn't notice, I was talking about the riff-raff from the villages who sell land and turn up in foreign countries. Many go to the UK, for instance, very much more to Australia of late, to join shady colleges with no intention other than to get work, any work, and try to stay on. The first item on the agenda is to marry a foreigner and acquire citizenship, of that country or any other.

Most of them are illiterate idiots who can't write a single line of English. They get where they get by spending money like water. Then they have to justify it to their relatives by explaining that they get very highly paid, much more than Indians doing the same work in India!

It's a joke. Most of them are busy trying to hide their Indian identity and strike postures indicating that they are actually foreign bred and born. Pathetic doesn't begin to describe them.
say it joe.i know which people you are talking about :lol:
i've met few of the likes you are talking about.they are completely illiterate and want to move to kanadda(this is what they sound wen they say canada) just to drive taxi or to work in a departmental store:D
 
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It's still not a passport. You can't use it to travel, only to get certain restricted privileges in India. You aren't an Indian citizen and you can't vote.

yes neither i can vote nor buy a land in the rural areas but it states, "Overseas Citizen of India" so i have a feeling im still a citizen of india, but overseas :meeting:. anyway my identiy is open to many as my life has been messed up by few western politicians so i show you, how this OCI passport looks like, as below, with my degree from UTS also otherwise you will keep thinking of me a liar :enjoy:

i find it hard to attach it, you may send me an email on stiwarimech10@hotmail.com and show you ...
 
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say it joe.i know which people you are talking about :lol:
i've met few of the likes you are talking about.they are completely illiterate and want to move to kanadda(this is what they sound wen they say canada) just to drive taxi or to work in a departmental store:D

:lol:

I was talking about the one's from 'eastern' India. As lethal as the one's you describe.
 
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Many Indians under a thin surface covering are still dealing with a modern world with outdated, superstitious, even downright bizarre concepts.

Here our man Joe Shearer provides a perfect example of a colonized and servile mind. He associates "modernity" with science and ancient India with bizarre superstition. The fact is that the level of logic and science in ancient India was unparalleled amongst all contemporary civilizations.
 
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Here our man Joe Shearer provides a perfect example of a colonized and servile mind. He associates "modernity" with science and ancient India with bizarre superstition. The fact is that the level of logic and science in ancient India was unparalleled amongst all contemporary civilizations.

Just as long as people remember that the 21st century is not a contemporary period to ancient India.
 
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