India was one of the biggest and most developed economies of the world in old times and aptly called "Sone ki chidiya" i.e. a golden sparrow. That is one of the biggest reason why Britishers were attracted towards it and came to do business through "East India Company". One question comes up: why the sobriquet golden sparrow and why not golden eagle/hawk? May be it was known as peace loving nation.
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Taking advantage of a divided society and fighting kingdoms, and backed by their technological prowess, especially in arms and ammunitions, they...
more... developed territorial interests. They shrewd application of divide and rule policy, they started capturing the kingdoms. Their aim was to rule India, and Plunder India by many ways like
(1) transporting natural resources of India to their country
(2) purchasing Indian agricultural produce at throwaway prices to feed their burgeoning industries
(3) Break the backbone of desi industries, weavers, etc
(4) Sell their industrial output to Indians at high profit
(5) They annexed the Indian kingdoms on one pretext or the other
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* British were pioneers in Rlys and GB was birth place of Rlys.
* Development of Rlys in India suited the Britishers as they facilitated their highly profitable export/import of goods between India & GB, quick movement of soldiers to suppress any uprising against them in vast Indian subcontinent.
* Export of Rly track and rakes to India was in itself a highly profitable business for GB as they charged many times the actual cost of Rlys. They compelled Indians to buy Rly track material, locos, wagons, coaches at very high price from British Companies. So much was their profit, the the cost of Rly tracks & locs etc were much higher than any other country.
* Railway needed a lot of investment and they roped in Kingdoms to form companies and invest. So Indian money was invested to purchase Rly track and trains at very high cost from GB.
* A lot of credit goes to many Kingdoms who took a lot of interest, invested a lot of money and put in a lot of efforts to bring in Rlys in their kingdoms. They were in fact fascinated by Railways, and to such an extent that they acquired luxury saloons which were not even owned by the the British Railways.
* British nationals were manned to all the top posts in Railways at very high salaries paid by Indian pockets!. Later some Indians too were posted but at much lower salaries!
* Britisher taking credit for bringing Rlys to India is too difficult to digest, due to fact that they profiteered a lot through sale of rails and trains to India and could rule for so long by controlling Rlys which were the main mode of travelling those days.
* Had Britishers not invaded and gradually annexed India, had they not killed the desi industries the Indian economy was very strong and resilient and could have purchased the Rly technology at much lesser cost than the Britishers has cunningly imposed on India.
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* It is really painful to know our history which clearly shows that how our country which was one of the greatest civilization of the world, biggest economy, leader of world trade, leader in education etc. gradually fell down to a poor and "developing" nation with negligible importance at global level.
* The main reason of downfall of India is lack of unity amongst Indians due to discrimination on the basis of caste and creed.
* Earlier Britishers took advantage of it to plunder India by drove wedges in to our society through policy of divide and rule.
* Instead of taking lessons from history to take corrective actions in the interest of the nation, our leaders are in fact taking it to higher level. And today our politicians are using the same weapon with much more zeal to drive home their political interests to rule the nation.
