Utsa Patnaik - renomowana profesor ekonomii, opublikowała rozprawkę, w której - przytaczając obfite dane i statystykę - dowodzi, iż Anglia/wielka Brytania w latach 1765 - 1938 "wyeksploatowała" (naprzód za pośrednictwem Kampanii Wschodnioindyjskiej, później bezpośrednio) z Indii kwotę ponad 45 bilionów dolarów USA.
Mechanizm eksploatacji jak wyżej polegał - upraszczając ogromnie kwestię - na pobieraniu od mieszkańców Indii podatku, z którego 1/3 przeznaczano na zakup od nich różnorakich dóbr. W ten sposób eksploatujący - de facto - płacił za towar minimum lub w ogóle nie płacił - więc zysk był czysty.
Konkluzja do jakiej dochodzi Patnaik jest taka, iż to nie Wielka Brytania pomagała rozwijać i cywilizować Indie ( jak głoszą piewcy imperializmu brytyjskiego) ale - na odwrót - Indie sfinansowały rewolucję przemysłową w Anglii/Wielkiej Brytanii oraz jej ekspansje kolonialną.
Ekonomistka jak wyżej prezentuje - aczkolwiek bardzo dobrze uzasadniony - sensu stricto induski punkt widzenia. Dla weryfikacji jej tezy wskazanym byłoby zapoznać się z opinią przeciwstawną.
Zainteresowanych detalami odsyłam do podlinkowanego materiału.


www.aljaze(*)ion-india-181206124830851.html


And that's not all. Britain used this flow of tribute from India to finance the expansion of capitalism in Europe and regions of European settlement, like Canada and Australia. So not only the industrialisation of Britain but also the industrialisation of much of the Western world was facilitated by extraction from the colonies. Patnaik identifies four distinct economic periods in colonial India from 1765 to 1938, calculates the extraction for each, and then compounds at a modest rate of interest (about 5 percent, which is lower than the market rate) from the middle of each period to the present. Adding it all up, she finds that the total drain amounts to $44.6 trillion. This figure is conservative, she says, and does not include the debts that Britain imposed on India during the Raj.These are eye-watering sums. But the true costs of this drain cannot be calculated. If India had been able to invest its own tax revenues and foreign exchange earnings in development - as Japan did - there's no telling how history might have turned out differently. India could very well have become an economic powerhouse. Centuries of poverty and suffering could have been prevented.
All of this is a sobering antidote to the rosy narrative promoted by certain powerful voices in Britain. The conservative historian Niall Ferguson has claimed that British rule helped "develop" India. While he was prime minister, David Cameron asserted that British rule was a net help to India. This narrative has found considerable traction in the popular imagination: according to a 2014 YouGov poll, 50 percent of people in Britain believe that colonialism was beneficial to the colonies.Yet during the entire 200-year history of British rule in India, there was almost no increase in per capita income. In fact, during the last half of the 19th century - the heyday of British intervention - income in India collapsed by half. The average life expectancy of Indians dropped by a fifth from 1870 to 1920. Tens of millions died needlessly of policy-induced famine. Britain didn't develop India. Quite the contrary - as Patnaik's work makes clear - India developed Britain. What does this require of Britain today? An apology? Absolutely. Reparations? Perhaps - although there is not enough money in all of Britain to cover the sums that Patnaik identifies. In the meantime, we can start by setting the story straight. We need to recognise that Britain retained control of India not out of benevolence but for the sake of plunder and that Britain's industrial rise didn't emerge sui generis from the steam engine and strong institutions, as our schoolbooks would have it, but depended on violent theft from other lands and other peoples.
Editor's note: A previous version of this article erroneously had the beginning of the British Raj as 1847. The correct year is 1858.The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance."