Like anything, it depends on your point of view and time.

My grandparents and their generation were all born in Ireland, and had a very different outlook than the people who remained and folks you talk to today there. People just want to live their lives.

It depends on which Indian state you were from. South Indian states like Travancore were allied with the British Empire and signed a treaty that brought it under British influence. Travancore was facing extinction from Islamic conquerors - Tippu Sultan.

Travancore and British forces defeated Tippu Sultan which resulted in the Treaty of Seringapatam (1792).

Travancore was extremely prosperous under the Britsh Empire and was given special status. The same could not be said of the Northern Indian states which faced heavy subjugation and exploitation by the East India Company.

Some Indians benefitted, but the vast majority suffered.

The brits took India from a variety of different rulers, but principally the Mughals. The Mughals werent any one thing, but they were despised in a lot of places.

The brits also largely permitted the caste system to proceed. my experience is that upper caste indians preferred the brits, where the lower caste ones dont really discern the difference.

So you found 1 person 30 years ago to justify colonialism?

of course i'm sincere, and obviously India is infinitely better off today, and the best parts of India are the British Tradition

Maturing is realizing that the Cardassians and Klingons are the only serious races on Star Trek.

I would choose the Byzantine Empire but I'm biased. But you can tell based on my romanticizing , British Empire gets the silver.

I envy your level of introspection.

Rather surprising then that we have the Commonwealth of 56 member states, most of which were former territories of the British Empire from which the Commonwealth developed. They are connected through their use of the English language and cultural and historical ties. Doubtless these countries have appalling memories of the evils perpetrated by the Brits. And yet they even accept Charles III as the head of the Commonwealth. Also amazing that in most colonies independence was achieved without a shot being fired.

Unbelievable eh? Maybe it's a case of Stockholm Syndrome.

On the other hand it could have been worse. We should remember that for almost every colonized people, the alternative to British Jurisdiction was not unmolested progress towards modernity but conquest by someone else, the French, the Germans,the Turks, the Russians,the Japanese and worst of all, the Belgians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

> Britain owes a debt to its colonies. The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt.

There's pretty clearly a distinction between different individual colonies on this one. Something like the Falkland Islands which had no indigenous population is very very different from Jamaica which was a plantation colony full of slaves, which is yet again very different something like Aden (now part of Yemen) which had about 600 people living there at the time it was annexed and which has had a very very difficult post-independence story.

> The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand did alright, though.

United States too in a way (i.e. I doubt it would be what it is now if the same territory was colonized by the Spanish or even the French. Of course unless you were Native American…).

So India gets the praise and the British Empire gets the blame? And how about Since '47? Are you taking the same critical approach?

Every great regime will experience crisis. But you have to ask yourself -- where would I have been otherwise?

Indians are still clamoring to get into this supposedly genocidal regime.

in many ways they are carrying on the British tradition

common law, sanitation, industrialization, administration, diplomacy, record keeping, archeology , business culture, tea culture, etiquette, economics, trade & maritime science -- I could name 50 more.

Yeah. I'm from Malaysia, and while we definitely benefited in many ways, to state that we do not still have massive and pervasive social issues as a result of colonization is insane. I'm glad you posted the link above and spoke up. I didn't even know where to start, but was worried someone might take the original comment seriously.

what point are you making?

it's a fair argument, and tips the scales a bit, but the balance is still overwhelmingly in favor

It's not like Ireland and Wales are doing much to preserve their legacies regardless. So it's hard, as an outsider, to intuit how much they actually care.

Wales and in a large part Ireland were conquered long before British Empire was a thing, though.