Question

''The British Empire was a force for good in India.” How far do you agree with this statement?

Answer 1

Answer:

uh, nowhere. They were HORRIBLE

Why not, you may ask?

- The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

- By 1890 about 6,000 British officials ruled 250 million Indians

- Racism was also reflected in the penal code. There had never been a taboo against homosexuality in Indian culture and practice until the British Victorians introduced one.

- Britain also helped solidify and perpetuate the iniquities of the caste system, which was a horrible division of people.

- Religion became a useful means of divide and rule, with the fostering of a two-nation theory that eventually divided the country and made partition inevitable; one million were killed and 17 million displaced.

- Winston Churchill, widely heralded as one of the greatest brits was viciously racist and perpetuated hardline racism in British colonies around the world, once saying: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion . . . Let the Viceroy sit on the back of a giant elephant and trample Gandhi into the dirt.”

- Up to 35 million died unnecessarily in famines; London ate India’s bread while India starved, and in 1943 nearly four million Bengalis died. It was their own fault, according to Churchill, for “breeding like rabbits”.

and that's barely skimming the surface. The sheer number of atrocities Britain has committed in India established its legacy as being one of genocide, tyranny, cultural theft and erasure. The few positive things its presence accomplished are far outweighed by the sick acts it carried out on the Indian people.