Hitler's Indian recruits

[swerve]

A vast (I'm talking seriously vast here) pool of manpower, apparently quite willing to volunteer, fight and die for Queen and country. 

 

Why wasn't this resource taken advantage of to the full?

 

Because it wasn't fully trusted, & Bose reduced that trust further. Remember, in 1857 the rebellion against British rule was by troops of the East India Companys army - British armed, trained & led. The disproportionatley large numbers of troops recruited from a few ethnic groups, e.g. Gurkhas, were because they were perceived as not identifying with India, or a large fraction of it, so could be trusted more. Recruiting a couple of million Hindi-speakers from Uttar Pradesh & Bihar would have left Britain utterly dependent on them. And anyway, we couldn't afford to arm, equip & deploy them.

 

In strictly military terms, the British failure to recruit more Indian troops in WW2 probably didn't make much difference to our strength. The earlier failure to develop the Indian economy - or allow it to develop itself - was the great mistake. A richer India could have made a huge difference to our military potential, as long as it remained on our side. So giving India an incentive to support Britain was another necessity. We didn't do enough of either. India was seen, economically, as a captive market for British industry & as a source of income & primary produce. Very old-fashioned & short-sighted economic thinking. The "licence raj" (which independent India made the mistake of keeping) stifled the economy wherever it was thought it might offer competition for British manufacturers, as it was designed to. The idea that richer Indians could buy more British goods didn't seem to register with the makers of colonial policy. Ah well, too late now.

Edited August 22, 2005 by swerve

[FlyingCanOpener]

The INA made it categorical that they refused to fight any other nation except the British. I would doubt very much that Bose would fight for the Japanese in China.

210633[/snapback]

 

I thought you said you were going to stop earlier...

 

OK Nitin, I won't reply further. Except this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

210296[/snapback]

 

Yippie Bharat-Rakshak Redux!

[RajKhalsa]

I thought you said you were going to stop earlier...

I changed my mind.

 

 

Yippie Bharat-Rakshak Redux!

210735[/snapback]

Mmm hmm. Wikipedia is now officially part of the vast Bharat-Rakshak-anti-Semite-Nipponophile conspiracy against the by-jove-the-Colonials-were-just-bloody-swell-!! crowd.

 

Care to throw in Osama bin Laden and Che Guevara in that witches brew? I think Chairman Mao and Pol Pot may find a place in there as well at the end of this argument.

Edited August 22, 2005 by RajKhalsa

[FlyingCanOpener]

I changed my mind.

Mmm hmm. Wikipedia is now officially part of the vast Bharat-Rakshak-anti-Semite-Nipponophile conspiracy against the by-jove-the-Colonials-were-just-bloody-swell-!! crowd.

 

Care to throw in Osama bin Laden and Che Guevara in that witches brew? I think Chairman Mao and Pol Pot may find a place in there as well at the end of this argument. 

210743[/snapback]

 

Actually I was referring to the present attitude, but you seemed to miss that too. If you want to duke it out, go to the FFZ and get manhandled if you want, since after all...

 

This forum is for the discussion of all non armor-specific military topics. Military history of any era, what-ifs, air & naval subjects, all are welcome here.

 

Note the lack of reference to Indian nationalistic posturing...

Edited August 22, 2005 by FlyingCanOpener

[JOE BRENNAN]

Off topic... does anybody still seriously use the British version of "Billion"?  Even the UK government has given up and uses the US billion throughout their national statistics. 

210457[/snapback]

I think we can safely say "1 (US) billion" is an affectation at this point, among those CW types with a strange allergy for anything American , billion means 1,000,000,000 pretty universally at this point.

 

OTOH the old Brit term for billion, milliard is still used as a one syllable abbreviation for billion in intl financial markets, Yen 1Bil is "a yard".

 

Joe

[RajKhalsa]

Note the lack of reference to Indian nationalistic posturing...

210759[/snapback]

 

Posting a Wikipedia link and applying numbers/intent of the people killed to an analogy based on the the US legal definitions of homicide is Indian nationalistic posturing?

 

And being referenced to in the same breath as Nazi and Japanese whitewasher is, what?, British understatement?

[Rickshaw]

I can't believe I just read that. British quit India because they could see the immorality of it? They so saw their immorality that they arbitrarily imprisoned many hundreds of thousands of Indians, possibly millions, until the very end?

 

Oh please. It had nothing to do with morality. It had everything to do with economics.

 

It was simply because the colonized had reached the point in development of their own nation state that it was simply impossible for the British to control India without resorting to such overt practices of state-sponsored genocide.

 

Netaji Bose's actions in formation of the INA and its subsequent massive following in particular proved to the British that even that bedrock of British might, the Indian army, will now look after themselves first, and not their former masters.

Do you not find it incredibly tragic that you have to justify British rule in India by constantly waving around the red herring that you weren't "as bad" and didn't kill millions "as openly" as some of the most despotic rulers in history? Does it assuage your conscience?

 

Should I mete out a congratulations to the colonial apologist for not resorting to genocide? You want a cookie for it?

 

Fine.

 

Have a whole bloody box. Chewing perhaps will stop your mouth from blithering such excruciatingly inane nonsense further.

 

-Raj

210517[/snapback]

 

 

Mmmm, very materialist, one could almost say, Marxist. I'd suggest that ignoring the moral sphere fails to understand the importance of this dimension in the decision making of the time. While you may ascribe this to economic matters, I'd suggest that they were a great deal less important than the moral point that had illustrated the illusion of teaching people that "all men are equal" and then demonstrating to them that while "four legs are good, two legs are better."

 

If India was that important economically to the UK, the UK would have hung onto India, come hell or high water. They didn't, so therefore there must be another explanation why they left India without much of a fight. I'd suggest looking at the effect the moral arguments that Ghandhi had.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Posting a Wikipedia link and applying numbers/intent of the people killed to an analogy based on the the US legal definitions of homicide is Indian nationalistic posturing?

 

And being referenced to in the same breath as Nazi and Japanese whitewasher is, what?, British understatement?

210771[/snapback]

 

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't get the "Feel Ashamed for Supposed British Incompetence in India" entry in my latest White Guilt Memorandum. Hopefully you'll do likewise for the "Acadians get Exiled to Louisiana" entry in your Memorandum for Other Tragic Stuff That Barely Makes a Dent in the March of History. Once again, my apologies...

Edited August 22, 2005 by FlyingCanOpener

[BillB]

If India was that important economically to the UK, the UK would have hung onto India, come hell or high water. They didn't, so therefore there must be another explanation why they left India without much of a fight. I'd suggest looking at the effect the moral arguments that Ghandhi had.

210778[/snapback]

I suspect the election of Attlee's Labour government in 1945 had something to do with it too.

 

all the best

 

BillB

[RajKhalsa]

I'm a Marxist now?? Are you kidding me? I'm probably one of the most libertarian people you can meet.

 

I didn't realize acknowlaging the blatantly obvious policy of anti-democratic authoritarian mercantilism that the British employed for 300 years in India is now crosses the relm into the commie.

 

Hell, I'm already an anti-Semitic, Nipponophilic rabid foaming at the mouth hindoostani nationalist, so I guess that's just another pip I earned. Anything else I forgot that the colonial-apologists here would like to add? Am I also a Dixie seperatist? Sleeper Al Queda cell? Basque militant?? Hutu warlord?? Columbian Drug Baron??? Please, people! tell me when I'm getting warm...

 

 

Tell me, if the British left India due to the kindness of their warm, mushy colonialist hearts, why did it take a Mahatma, 50 million marchers and incredibly intercene violence before the British decided to up and leave?

 

Could it be that *gasp* perhaps the Indian made British rule completely unfeasible? Could it *shock* be that the Indian military finally put its foot down after the war, refusing to police colonial government law? Could it *horror* be that, as Gandhiji put it, a could thousand britons cannot control 800 million Indians when they decide not to be controled?

 

 

 

Are these really so terribly difficult concepts to understand? Are they more difficult than wilfully and categorically spurning documented fact, moral logic or any sort of rationale?

 

The term "cognitive dissonance" must be Sanskrit-based, for apparently so many Anglo nationalists here are able to completely not comprehend it.

 

-Rajinder

[Gabe]

I can't believe I just read that. British quit India because they could see the immorality of it? They so saw their immorality that they arbitrarily imprisoned many hundreds of thousands of Indians, possibly millions, until the very end?

 

Oh please. It had nothing to do with morality. It had everything to do with economics.

210517[/snapback]

 

True enough the British quit for many practical reasons. But on the morality side of it, you'll have to thank Clement Atlee. Had Churchill won the election I really don't see him letting go.

 

Bose was a patriot but also misguided. Had he not been thwarted the war in South Asia would've dragged out longer with worse consequences for the Indian people, and the rest of Asia as well. The Common Wealth was grateful for India's contributions and this certainly factored into the pro-independence support India received from the new British government.

[BillB]

Posting a Wikipedia link and applying numbers/intent of the people killed to an analogy based on the the US legal definitions of homicide is Indian nationalistic posturing?

 

No mate, but taking up bandwidth with massive, one sided and marginally relevant screeds about Bose is. How about sticking to providing links in future?

 

And being referenced to in the same breath as Nazi and Japanese whitewasher is, what?, British understatement?

210771[/snapback]

Well, personally speaking I'm a great believer in keeping biased bollocks all in one place so it doesn't contaminate the sensible stuff, so in this instance I'd say yes. Ref the understatement bit, I doubt it as FCO is not British but One of Sam AFAIK. But I think he is white, so I suppose he'll make an acceptable substitute Colonial Oppressor for you to hiss at and blame all your present shortcomings and inferiorities on...

 

all the best

 

BillB

[Rickshaw]

I suspect the election of Attlee's Labour government in 1945 had something to do with it too.

 

all the best

 

BillB

210786[/snapback]

 

Certainly would have helped, compared to if Winston had got back in power. For all his bluff talk about liberty and freedom, he still didn't seem too willing to accept that Indians might want a hand in their own destiny. Attlee was from my reading, much more easily swayed by moral arguments.

[RajKhalsa]

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't get the "Feel Ashamed for Supposed British Incompetence in India" entry in my latest White Guilt Memorandum. Hopefully you'll do likewise for the "Acadians get Exiled to Louisiana" entry in your Memorandum for Other Tragic Stuff That Barely Makes a Dent in the March of History. Once again, my apologies...

210785[/snapback]

 

Wow! What a fantastic language you Brits have invented!

 

It's so deep!

 

Apparently posting historical fact and making a reasoned analogy that everyone and their 'mummy' is ignoring for ad homiems also has the added grandeur of meaning I'm also virtually demanding cyber-reperations from the random British internet argumentor over dents of 4 million people starved into death and 20 million others into submission that is so insignificant event in history, that no one, not even the 1 billion desendants of those victims compared to the 200-odd million Anglos, acknowlages them as being less of an event than the deportation of some hundred odd french Canadians!

 

By the Queens Ears! What a magnificently complex diction this Anglo prose I'm writing is. I had no idea words had so many different meanings! Why, I can now read shakspere and find out that Hamlet wasn't contemplating the simple revenge! Not! But that what was really meant was that 'hey guys! It's _OK_ if the Indians bring up unconfortable historical facts! Just call them nazis!'

 

Golly!

[RajKhalsa]

No mate, but taking up bandwidth with massive, one sided and marginally relevant screeds about Bose is. How about sticking to providing links in future?

Is there a 'donate' link somewhere here that you can kindly point me to? I'd like to pay for the whole 20 cents of bandwidth I ate up by posting images linked off another site!

 

Well, personally speaking I'm a great believer in keeping biased bollocks all in one place so it doesn't contaminate the sensible stuff, so in this instance I'd say yes. Ref the understatement bit, I doubt it as FCO is not British but One of Sam AFAIK.

Why doubt it! If a Sikh guy can 'not care' about the Jewish Holocaust, or wave away with one hand Japanese atrocities in China, then why should an American not be a hyperventilative colonial apologist!

 

 

But I think he is white, so I suppose he'll make an acceptable substitute Colonial Oppressor for you to hiss at and blame all your present shortcomings and inferiorities on...

You are absoutely right! I'm a also a member of the Black Panthers as well! How could I've forgotten! Down with whitey and such!

 

I also think its just swell that it was my shortcomings and inferiorities that are making colonial-apologists try to sophist away in thinly veiled and even thinlier (is that a word?) constructed arguments the fact that the British used starvation as a political tool to stamp down a restive wartime populace, and that as a result many millions of innocent civilians died

 

Wow, what power I have!

 

I dare say, some small central-African nation better be scared when I show up comment pleasingly about the weather and 500,000 peasants leap at my thundering call to arms and overthrow the government and install me as potentate 4 life!

 

I just ooze militancy!

Edited August 23, 2005 by RajKhalsa

[FlyingCanOpener]

...Random gibberish that is neither funny nor sarcastic...

 

than the deportation of some hundred odd french Canadians!

 

...Random gibberish that is neither funny nor sarcastic...

210801[/snapback]

 

Actually there were over 15,000 Acadians exiled.

[RajKhalsa]

^ well then, I must be a Canadian Anglonationalist as well! How pleasingly ironic

[FlyingCanOpener]

Ref the understatement bit, I doubt it as FCO is not British but One of Sam AFAIK. But I think he is white, so I suppose he'll make an acceptable substitute Colonial Oppressor for you to hiss at and blame all your present shortcomings and inferiorities on...

 

all the best

 

BillB

210797[/snapback]

 

Man, I can't believe I didn't catch the whole "Gee-He's-British" undertone there. After all, for an Anglophile, being mistaken for a Briton is the highest compliment.

 

Since we're talking ancestry, I'm all German-American here with virtually all Prussian ancestors with a hint of Hessian (who came to the US at the request of King George, and found the place rather lacking and went back to the Olde Continent), so yeah, I do make an acceptable colonial oppressor...

[FlyingCanOpener]

^ well then, I must be a Canadian Anglonationalist as well! How pleasingly ironic

210808[/snapback]

 

Oh, I just thought you were ignorant about something out of your field of bickering. My bad.

[BillB]

I'm a Marxist now??  Are you kidding me? I'm probably one of the most libertarian people you can meet.

Towards everyone but Colonial oppressors and Anglo-nationalists, presumably. One more piece of evidence to show that those who claim and probably actually believe themselves to be something rarely are in reality. Self-delusion is a terrible affliction...

 

I didn't realize acknowlaging the blatantly obvious policy of anti-democratic authoritarian mercantilism that the British employed for 300 years in India is now crosses the relm into the commie.

Interesting. So you are castigating the Evil British Colonial Oppressors for not bestowing upon India what hadn't been invented for at least the first century of your highly questionable time span, and didn't apply to its own citizens for between 100 and 150 years of it. You ought to do stand up comedy, British lefties would love someone with as weak a grasp of history as themselves. You'd get rave reviews in the Guardian. I especially like the way you gloss over the fact that for a goodly chunk of that period various Indian rulers were only too happy to partake in anti-democratic authoritarian mercantilism, and made a good profit out of it too. To say nothing of happily conspiring with the hated Colonial Oppressors to employ their superior military against their Indian neighbours and competitors. But then I suppose they weren't real Indians, but Lickspittle Colonial Collaborators or some such nonsense.

 

Hell, I'm already an anti-Semitic, Nipponophilic rabid foaming at the mouth hindoostani nationalist, so I guess that's just another pip I earned. Anything else I forgot that the colonial-apologists here would like to add? Am I also a Dixie seperatist? Sleeper Al Queda cell? Basque militant?? Hutu warlord?? Columbian Drug Baron??? Please, people! tell me when I'm getting warm...

No, you're not getting warm because you missed out narrow-minded, tunnel visioned bigot and knobhead. Colonial apologists! Stop it, my sides are splitting. Who the f*ck are you, chairman of the Peoples Popular Front for the Freedom of Somewhere or Other? Splitter!!!

 

Tell me, if the British left India due to the kindness of their warm, mushy colonialist hearts, why did it take a Mahatma, 50 million marchers and incredibly intercene violence before the British decided to up and leave?

Ah yes, that would be the internecine (that's how you spell it in English, btw) that prolly killed more Indians in no time flat than the British Colonial Oppresors did in decades?

 

Could it be that *gasp* perhaps the Indian made British rule completely unfeasible? Could it *shock* be that the Indian military finally put its foot down after the war, refusing to police colonial government law?

 

The first bit is good, but then you veer off into fantasy again. This would be the same Indian Army that proudly maintains its historical links with the Army of the Colonial British Oppressors, right?

 

Could it *horror* be that, as Gandhiji put it, a could thousand britons cannot control 800 million Indians when they decide not to be controled?

Very true. Shame it took you lot just under a century to work it out. Or could it be *horror* that for most of the time India was groaning under the heel of the British Colonial Oppressors that your average Indian *shock* was quite happy with the way things were? No, that could never be it...

 

Are these really so terribly difficult concepts to understand? Are they more difficult than wilfully and categorically spurning documented fact, moral logic or any sort of rationale?

 

Well mate, I've read back thru the thread and the only mentioning any of this is you, for whatever reason, so I'm not quite sure who you are expecting to grasp anything. Your opening contention is perfectly valid, but then you go all inaccurate again. I think you meant to type "my preferred version of documented fact, moral logic...[and]...rationale." I say that because not a lot of what you trumpet meets my understanding of those terms, you see.

 

The term "cognitive dissonance" must be Sanskrit-based, for apparently so many Anglo nationalists here are able to completely not comprehend it.

 

Actually, I think you'll find there are few if any "Anglo-nationalists" (whatever one of those is - pseudo-Marxist claptrap isn't really one of my strongpoints) here. I think you are misunderstanding FCO's clear signals that all this is a matter of supreme indifference to the overwhelming majority here, who are Yanks and therefore quite proud of their own anti-colonial credentials which predate yours by a rather long period. As a matter of interest, do you live in India, or are you one of the died in the wool, patriotic to the bone Indians who lives and works somewhere else because *shock* the prospects, pay and conditions *horror* are better elsewhere? I ask because we already have one of those kicking about somewhere and he spouts a lot of the same drivel as you.

 

all the best

 

Bill "Anglo-Nationalist Apologist For Colonialist Oppressors" B

[BillB]

Is there a 'donate' link somewhere here that you can kindly point me to? I'd like to pay for the whole 20 cents of bandwidth I ate up by posting images linked off another site! 

 

As I understand it, keeping the bandwidth down is a matter of manners rather than cost. But you keep right on winning friends and influencing people, you're doing a sterling job.

 

Why doubt it! If a Sikh guy can 'not care' about the Jewish Holocaust, or wave away with one hand Japanese atrocities in China, then why should an American not be a hyperventilative colonial apologist!

You are absoutely right! I'm a also a member of the Black Panthers as well! How could I've forgotten! Down with whitey and such!

 

I also think its just swell that it was my shortcomings and inferiorities that are making colonial-apologists try to sophist away in thinly veiled and even thinlier (is that a word?) constructed arguments the fact that the British used starvation as a political tool to stamp down a restive wartime populace, and that as a result many millions of innocent civilians died

I'm not really sure what most of this is about, so I'll just smile and nod politely. The problem with the bit I can understand is that while the Evil British Oppressors were carrying out their genocide by starvation they were also managing to maintain the largest wholly volunteer army that the world has ever seen from within the ranks of the Oppressed, as you yourself siad a few posts back. Now there's a dichotomy there, altho I can't quite seem to put my finger on it. As you claim to be the master of logic and suchlike, perhaps ypu could explain it away for me?

 

Wow, what power I have!

 

I dare say, some small central-African nation better be scared when I show up comment pleasingly about the weather and 500,000 peasants leap at my thundering call to arms and overthrow the government and install me as potentate 4 life!

 

I just ooze militancy!

210805[/snapback]

Nah, you just ooze intellectual laziness and narrow minded personal opinion dressed up as the opposite, like most of the closed-minded fanatics I've had the misfortune to run across.

 

all the best

 

BillB

Anglo-Nationalist Colonialist Oppressor To the Gentry

[RajKhalsa]

Oh, I just thought you were ignorant about something out of your field of bickering. My bad.

Indeed. It may surprise you to find out that I don't argue about things I don't know.

 

You've proved most worthy an example of the opposite. Especially in a field that not at all the most blatant red herring, ever. Kudos!

 

 

Towards everyone but Colonial oppressors and Anglo-nationalists, presumably. One more piece of evidence to show that those who claim and probably actually believe themselves to be something rarely are in reality. Self-delusion is a terrible affliction...

Quite right! Liberate the proletariat and damn the torpedoes. Za rodinu and Jai Hindustan! A communist rabid Indian nationalist I am. Driven by my overwhelming sense of self pity dare drive other people to call me communist-nazi-racebaiters by daring to post fact still yet irrefuted

 

Interesting. So you are castigating the Evil British Colonial Oppressors for not bestowing upon India what hadn't been invented for at least the first century of your highly questionable time span, and didn't apply to its own citizens for between 100 and 150 years of it. You ought to do stand up comedy, British lefties would love someone with as weak a grasp of history as themselves.

 

Wow! Again, the words that I type mean so much more than what they actually say! Beautifully articulate language this is. Beautiful!

 

That a comment stating the deep-rooted extent of anti-democratic ethos in the British-involvement in India (aka, for those seemingly unable to take a half-stated argument to its logical completion: ethos driving political/military action that are at odds with those living under the same political tyranny), and that the ideas of un-democractic action and mercantilist policy are seemingly indivisible principals when applied to British involvement in India, could be twisted by half-hearted sophistry into a valiant denunciation by yours truely is truely remarkable. Wow!

 

But who am I to dare wield the full power of this language? Could it, dare I say!, simply mean what exactly I said I meant, that all normal people not applying legalistic anal-retentiveness to correct grammar would get by basic intuition?

 

Could I simply mean by my statement that my acknowlagement of the fundamental fact that British policy through the East India Company and subsequent Raj was based on mercantilistic policy; and that such policy was fundamentally undemocratic and anti-colonized, even after the heady ideals of modern democracy were put in place, and the Briton in England enjoyed the fruits of those democratic trees planted, while the average Indian in British India withered under the mismanagement and authoritarianism of what literally is a fascist state?

 

Could I get another example of sophistic blithering around an obvious reason of statement?

 

I especially like the way you gloss over the fact that for a goodly chunk of that period various Indian rulers were only too happy to partake in anti-democratic authoritarian mercantilism, and made a good profit out of it too. To say nothing of happily conspiring with the hated Colonial Oppressors to employ their superior military against their Indian neighbours and competitors.

 

Tsk Tsk. Apparently you don't seem to understand the notion of the word 'Mercantilism'.

 

It was very much a two way street in the immoral ethos. Pity that the average Indian realizes that the selfish Kings were as much to blame in the matter, while the British and their assorted apologists are apparently content to say "yeah we were jackasses but you were also kind of, so therefore, we weren't!"

 

And of course, your page-long rant over your idiotic extrapolation of a tangent of an argument I didn't even make, makes oh so much relevance to the ONLY fact and argument I posted earlier that, and I will expand on it now for the benefit of the willfully blind,

 

*ahem*

 

The British in WW2 to the average Indian was only margianally better a colonial oppressor than both the Japanese and the Nazis. Their political repression had the net result of killing millions of Indian civilians, and bringing a hundred million to starvation even while over a million Indians joined up to fight for democracy and freedom in Europe which they never themselves enjoyed.

 

It was under this climate that Netaji Bose attempts to militarize the Indian to fight for his own freedom rather than anothers was so well recieved, and why he is so adored today.

 

 

Did all you all grow up on a farm? Cause you are incredibly fond of building up and tearing down straw men.

 

 

No, you're not getting warm because you missed out narrow-minded, tunnel visioned bigot and knobhead. Colonial apologists! Stop it, my sides are splitting. Who the f*ck are you, chairman of the Peoples Popular Front for the Freedom of Somewhere or Other? Splitter!!!

 

WAait wait! Before you go on! I don't think anyone called me a crackhead yet! Oh did I mention the fact that I am a Triad gangster as well! And I think I'm also a serial rapist, because I'm so deliciously evil you see!

 

 

Ah yes, that would be the internecine (that's how you spell it in English, btw)

Wow a spelling nazi meets me, the Indian nazi! Ain't the internet amazing!

 

that prolly killed more Indians in no time flat than the British Colonial Oppresors did in decades?

Right. That was the intercene (thats the way I spell it, btw) violence that was allowed to go unchecked even though the British had the ability to control the situation. Shall I bring up more Wikipedia articles about the Bengal riots, or will that again be a dasteredly act by a commie nazi meiji indian nationalist racist pig?

 

 

Very true. Shame it took you lot just under a century to work it out. Or could it be *horror* that for most of the time India was groaning under the heel of the British Colonial Oppressors that your average Indian *shock* was quite happy with the way things were? No, that could never be it...

Very true indeed. It was a shame it took just under a century to work it out.

 

Could it *shock* be that the average Indian was content with his lot because *horror* he was not educated in the basic freedoms that democracy would otherwise grant him. Could this be *cringe* why the Indian independence movement was only a fad by the Indian elites until *gasp* Gandhiji and his followers created a mass grassroots movement through elimination of the former polity and social and ideological reconstruction of the poor multitudes whom he mobilized to demand their freedoms?

 

Could such a person like yourself make an argument that since the slaves in the Americas so very much outnumbered their oppressive masters, and because they were so broken in spirit as a people after hundreds of years of institutionalized oppression and kept uneducated in their basic freedoms and rights that they absolutely loved slavery! Hey, they hardly ever revolted, right! What fun they must have had! No?

 

But that would be a commie thing to say! Damn you, you evil, evil white, evil devil man you!

 

 

Actually, I think you'll find there are few if any "Anglo-nationalists" (whatever one of those is - pseudo-Marxist claptrap isn't really one of my strongpoints) here.

Good lord you're absolutely daft.

 

I guess the term "irony" is an Indian concept only. As is the logical application of political slurs on me logically extended to statements of similar 'radicalism' on the other side of hte coin.

 

 

I think you are misunderstanding FCO's clear signals that all this is a matter of supreme indifference to the overwhelming majority here, who are Yanks and therefore quite proud of their own anti-colonial credentials which predate yours by a rather long period.

Perhaps. But then, if they were so discinclined to throw their moral weight behind fundamentally immoral acts, who am I to stop them?

 

As a matter of interest, do you live in India, or are you one of the died in the wool, patriotic to the bone Indians who lives and works somewhere else because *shock* the prospects, pay and conditions *horror* are better elsewhere?

Actually, I'm a 3rd-generation Indian-American who's soon going to attend boot camp for the Marines Corps in about 3 months.

 

But wait! I'm also a Indian Hindu nationalist anti-semite commie nazi racist! Not someone who believes in democracy and capitalism, votes republican, and is against colonialist fascism!

 

Oh lordy how can that be! How can that be! *weeps*

 

Oh what overwhelming self-pity I have! *breaks down into a bitter shell of a man he once was*

 

 

 

Could it simply be that the lot here are hyperventilative reactionaries when confronted with an analogy that so unconfortably puts them at moral par with ww2 nazis and japanese?

 

 

 

 

all the best

 

Bill "Anglo-Nationalist Apologist For Colonialist Oppressors" B

210814[/snapback]

Cheers,

 

Comrade Herr Maharaj Rajinder X, Revolutionary Leader of all and sundry.

Edited August 23, 2005 by RajKhalsa

[FlyingCanOpener]

Indeed. It may surprise you to find out that I don't argue about things I don't know.

 

Then why did you make a comment about teh Acadians when it is blatantly obvious you're ignorant of the topic?

 

You've proved most worthy an example of the opposite. Especially in a field that not at all the most blatant red herring, ever. Kudos!

210834[/snapback]

 

Awww... So sweet. It's too bad you used the lazy man's way out of an arguement... Yell logical fallacy and run.

 

I eagerly await your incoherent response. I do need another chuckle.

[RajKhalsa]

As I understand it, keeping the bandwidth down is a matter of manners rather than cost. But you keep right on winning friends and influencing people, you're doing a sterling job.

You're absoultely right. I should be instead dishing out slurs. That seems to be the way to gain street cred around here.

 

The problem with the bit I can understand is that while the Evil British Oppressors were carrying out their genocide by starvation they were also managing to maintain the largest wholly volunteer army that the world has ever seen from within the ranks of the Oppressed, as you yourself siad a few posts back.

Its simple to anyone with basic knowlege of Indian history or had seen the movie 'Gandhi'.

 

Congress under Gandhi, Nehru, etc. supported the war on moral grounds, to fight the greater evil, and encouraged people to join. In fact, most freedom fighters encouraged people to join so that India can have ranks of war-hardened and trained soldiers so that if the time comes, they can call upon them. Especially in the Sikh community did leaders call on Sikhs to join for this purpose.

 

Congress also was under the delusion that Britian would find its moral core and grant Indian indepednence after the war as tribute to their right for humanity's greater freedom.

 

As the war grew longer, and British government in INdia grew increasingly cruel and oppressive of the Indian populace, (ref: political action against Indian leaders, things like the Bengal famine) there was a huge growing popular discontent. Out of this discontent did Netaji Bose rise to prominance among Indians particualrly at odds with the Gandhian non-violent independence movement.

 

It was from the pool of military people disgusted by Britians hypocracy in fighting for the freedom of Britians, but fighting against the freedom of Indians that the INA was formed.

 

And after the war, it was that very hypocracy that fueled the popular struggle for freedom. The people wisely channeled it through nonviolent means, but only the spectre of violent resistance to British rule forced the British to pack up.

 

It's like the Mafioso coming to you and saying, do this, we'll give you $50 and our kudos, don't do this and we'll kill you.

 

The British wisely chose not to be thrown out of India like the Portruguese eventually did.

 

 

 

Nah, you just ooze intellectual laziness and narrow minded personal opinion dressed up as the opposite, like most of the closed-minded fanatics I've had the misfortune to run across.

To lazy do direct ire at others in this thread, are we?

Edited August 23, 2005 by RajKhalsa

[Slater]

This thread has veered off in an unfortunate direction. Perhaps the Mods should administer a mercy killing.