Economic Development In The City Of Cambridge Year-End Review: Fill & Download for Free

Short Answer first -The term ‘British India’ can broadly cover a long period of 350 years, starting from the early 1600s when East India Company ships landed on coastal India, until 1947. However, I have covered the 90 year period call the ‘British Raj’ from 1857–1947.They were the best of times - This period witnessed the creation and explosive growth in Infrastructure that came to define modern India (and Pakistan, Bangladesh) - Major Urban Centers, Hill Stations, Cantonments, Railroads, Major Highways, Bridges, Communication system (Post, Telegraph, Telecom), Irrigation system (Canals), Legal system, Major Universities and Colleges, Institutions, Archaeological Department, Political system, Bureaucracy, Armed forces, Police forces, and even some of the largest Business and Industrial Groups. There prevailed an air of intellectual curiosity, and many bright people and ideas from Europe flowed into India. The great Middle Class of India which numbers around 300 million today has roots in this period. People could own land or transfer ownership while being protected by law. First time in thousands of years, the lowest castes got an opportunity to improve their lot and were covered by law rather than customs. Lastly, India managed to escape from the clutches of a foreign power after hundreds of years.They were the worst of times - OTOH this period witnessed the most savage massacre of Indian rebels at the hands of the British after the 1857 Rebellion was suppressed. Over a 100,000 were butchered, many blown directly from the cannons. In 1919, General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire on a peaceful demonstration that left over 1,000 dead. The British introduced Indenture system which was sort of Debt Bondage under which they sent 3.5 million Indian laborers to far away colonies like Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Fiji, etc. Around 200,000 Indian soldiers died in the 2 World Wars fighting for the British Indian Army. The Partition in 1947 lead to the largest population migration in the human history with 15 million people getting uprooted and anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million killed in riots. There was widespread discrimination against Indians, including the elite Indians, and mingling with the natives was strongly discouraged. Though the caste divide has been ingrained in the subcontinent for thousands of years, the British rule formalized and accentuated the divide. However, the most shocking part of this period was the reckless management that was a major cause of several Famines and lead to anywhere from 30 million to 50 million people dying of starvation or subsequent epidemic.So how was life in this 90 year period? It depended on who you were. If you were one of the top ranking British officials or one of the 1,000 odd British Civil servants, you literally lived like a king. The remainder of British officials, soldiers, businessmen lived a very comfortable life too as a superior. The rulers of the Princely states lived luxurious lives too, some of them living like Sheikhs of the Middle East. The minority elite Indians who got access to Western education and worked closely with the British lived a life full of opportunities too. Then there was the newly emerging Middle Class comprising of thousands of Zamindars and Jagirdars, Moneylenders, Government Clerks, Army men, Railway employees, Supervisors, Engineers, Lawyers, Academics, Printers, small businessmen catering to the British, who were living in urban centers lived reasonably comfortable lives. However, the bottom 90% Indians or more were tied to agriculture, toiled in the fields, often looking up towards the sky for rains, worrying about debt, the village moneylender, and worst case starvation and disease.Yes, that was the short one :-)Now the long answer. Just to warn you, this turned out to be much longer than I had planned for. Appreciate any feedback on what can be removed. (Bonus: it comes with pictures) -British India (1857 - 1947) - During this period, the Provinces (called Presidencies or Presidency towns earlier) were collectively referred to as British India. The major provinces were Bengal, Madras, Bombay, United Provinces, Central Provinces, Punjab, Assam, and Burma.Then there were 600 odd Princely states or Native states in the Indian subcontinent with major ones being Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Jammu and Kashmir, Baroda, Gwalior. The British Crown had suzerainty over 175 of these Princely states that were generally the largest and most important. The remaining approximately 400 states were influenced by Agents answerable to the provincial governments of British India. Wonder why they were called Princely states? After all, their rulers had the native titles of Raja, Raje, Rana, Rao, Rawal, Sardar, Sardesai, Deshmukh, Thakur and none of these translate to the word Prince. It was meant to keep them a level or two below the Queen!Population - The British started the first census of India in 1871. As of 1881, there were estimated to be 255 million people. By 1947, the population had grown by 50% to 390 million. Note that in the next 70 odd years (1947 till date), the population of the region has quadrupled to 1.6 billion! Of course, the advancements in healthcare, better sanitation, and green revolution have contributed to this growth. During the British Raj, the 50 million odd deaths due to Famines had put brakes on the population growth.Indian Rebellion of 1857 - The rebellion had enraged towns like Meerut, Delhi, Kanpur (called Cawnpore), Lucknow, Jhansi, Indore with Hindu and Muslim soldiers joining hands.British finally managed to suppress the rebellion. Bahadur Shah Zafar was captured at Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi in September, 1857 and exiled to Burma, while several of the Mughal princes were executed.The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded. New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed.British soldiers as well as people back in Britain were hungry for revenge and the rebels who were caught were hanged or shot or worst case blown from cannons. Around 100,000 Indians were executed.The rebellion saw the end of the East India Company's rule in India. In 1858, the company was formally dissolved and its ruling powers over India were transferred to the British Crown.After the British victory in Revolt of 1857, they confiscated the Jama Masjid in Delhi and stationed their soldiers here. They also wanted to destroy the mosque to punish the people of the city. But due to opposition faced, the demolition was not done. The period after 1857, put the Muslim community in India at a disadvantage and some of the damage has lasted till date.Education Infrastructure -Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were established in 1857, just before the Rebellion. The Government College, University in Lahore, was established in 1864. The institution was initially affiliated with the University of Calcutta for examination. The prestigious University of the Punjab, also in Lahore, was the fourth university established in the year 1882.Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, founded in 1875, was the first modern institution of higher education for Muslims in India. By 1920 it became The Aligarh Muslim University and was the leading intellectual center of Muslim political activity.The Thomason College of Civil Engineering was set up at Roorkee in Uttarakhand in 1847, that later became University of Roorkee and then IIT, Roorkee.The Allahabad University was set up in 1875. The institute was once termed as the 'Oxford of East' due to its scholarly alumni and vast potential.In Delhi, St. Stephen's College was founded in 1881, Hindu College in 1899 and Ramjas College in 1917.By 1880, a new middle class had arisen in India and spread thinly across the country. And by 1890, some 60,000 Indians had matriculated, chiefly in the liberal arts or law. About a third entered public administration, and another third became lawyers. The result was a very well educated professional state bureaucracy. By 1887, of the 21,000 mid-level civil service appointments, 45% were held by Hindus, 7% by Muslims, 19% by Anglo Indians (European father and Indian mother), and 29% by Europeans. Of the 1000 top-level positions, almost all were held by Britons, typically with an Oxbridge degree.The government, often working with local philanthropists, opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911; they enrolled 36,000 students (over 90% men). By 1939 the number of institutions had doubled and enrollment reached 145,000.Growing awareness for the need of technical education in India gave rise to establishment of institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, established by philanthropist Jamshetji Tata in 1909. By the 1930s India had 10 institutions offering engineering courses.One of the great aspects in those days was the faculty who would bring the best ideas from Europe and Indians (at least some Indians) had first hand access to them.For instance, the famous Hungarian-British Archaeologist, Sir Marc Aurel Stein, (26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) who is known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia, left Hungary in 1884 and went to England to study oriental languages and archaeology. In 1887, Stein came to India, where he joined the Punjab University as Registrar. Later, between 1888 and 1899, he was the Principal of Oriental College, Lahore.Railways and Highways - During Lord Dalhousie’s period, the first railway line was built and the train ran between Bombay and Thane in 1853. Then the Calcutta-Raniganj Railway line was built and later on the Madras-Arcot railway. Similarly, right from the time of Lord William Bentinck, the highway building activities were carried on. In 1839, the Grand Trunk Road was built, that connected Delhi and Calcutta Later on it was connected with Lahore and Peshawar.The route mileage of this network increased from 1,349 km (838 mi) in 1860 to 25,495 km (15,842 mi) in 1880 – mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.The Railways started to generate employment in large numbers, and to this date I believe is the largest Employer of India with 1.4 million on payrolls. It also figures in the Top 10 largest employers in the world. Note that the Indian Armed Forces is the next in line with 1.3 million personnel.Urban Centers - Cities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay had anyways grown as urban centers and they continued to see more and more city infrastructure being built.Victoria Terminus (VT), now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an historic railway station was built in Bombay (now called Mumbai) in 1887 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.The Victoria Memorial of Calcutta was built between 1906 and 1921 by the banks of the Hooghly River to commemorate Queen Victoria.New Delhi - From 1911 onward, fortunes of Delhi changed too as they decided to shift the capital from Calcutta to Delhi and built the city of New Delhi over a 20 year period till 1931.Cantonments and Hill Stations - As part of the reorganization measures after the 1857 Rebellion, the British decided to leverage the Rail Network and built over 100 Cantonment towns (also called Cantts in short form), that are key centers for the current Indian Army (as well as in Pakistan and Bangladesh).The accounts of the Britain-like climate started attracting several British officers to the area during the hot Indian summers. By 1826, some officers had started spending their entire vacation in Shimla. Shimla thus became a hill station famous for balls, parties and other festivities. Subsequently, residential schools for pupils from upper-class families were established nearby. By the late 1830s, the city also became a center for Theatre and Art exhibitions. The presence of many bachelors and unattached men, as well as the many women passing the hot weather there, gave Shimla a reputation for adultery, and at least gossip about adultery.After the revolt of 1857 the British sought further distance from what they saw as a disease-ridden land by escape to the Himalayas in the north and Nilgiri Hills in the south. Other factors included anxieties about the dangers of life in India, among them "fear of degeneration brought on by too long residence in a debilitating land." The hill stations were meant to reproduce the home country.and thus The British Raj, and in particular the British Indian Army, founded around 50 odd hill stations in the Indian subcontinent.In 1863, the Viceroy of India, John Lawrence, decided to shift the summer capital of the British Raj to Shimla. He took the trouble of moving the administration twice a year between Calcutta and this separate centre over 1,000 miles away, despite the fact that it was difficult to reach.Many Hill stations were the summer capitals of their Province. For instance, Murree (now in Pakistan) was the summer capital of the Punjab Province of British India until 1864. Ooty served as the summer capital of the Madras Presidency; Soldiers were sent to nearby Wellington to recuperate.The Dalhousie is a hill station in Himachal Pradesh, was established in 1854 by the British Empire's government in India as a summer retreat for its troops and officials.Around 1860s, the British civil servants started using Gulmarg as a retreat to escape summers in North Indian plains. Hunting and golfing were their favorite pastime and three golf courses were established in Gulmarg including one exclusively for women. In 1927, British established a ski club in Gulmarg and two annual ski events were hosted one each during Christmas and EasterMussoorie was founded in 1840s by Lt. Frederick Young and being close to Dehradun, it became a popular destination for the British. In 1850 the first beer brewery in India was built in Mussoorie. By 1894 there were 22 breweries in India producing 6 million gallons a year.I have heard of racist signs posted on the Hill stations during the British Raj, expressly stating that Indians are not allowed. Not sure how true these stories are, however a dress code was enforced on the Mall Roads. Probably not very different from the upscale shopping malls in India, where you come across only those who seem a certain income level.Darjeeling was developed as a sanatorium initially but as the station was developed, the population grew rapidly between 1835 and 1849.Founding of the Indian National Congress - Allan Octavian Hume, helped conceive the idea of the Indian National Congress in 1881 - the political party that would eventually lead the country to Independence. In 1883, Surendranath Banerjee organised a national conference - the first of its kind in 19th century India. This conference heralded the birth of The Indian National Congress.Legal system - Following the First War of Independence in 1857, the control of company territories in India passed to the British Crown. Being part of the empire saw the next big shift in the Indian legal system. Supreme courts were established replacing the existing mayoral courts. These courts were converted to the first High Courts through letters of patents authorized by the Indian High Courts Act passed by the British parliament in 1862. Superintendence of lower courts and enrollment of law practitioners were deputed to the respective high courts.The High Court of Calcutta is the oldest High Court in India and was built in 1862.Famines in India - Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Timeline of major famines in India during British ruleAmartya Sen found that the famines in the British era were not due to a lack of food but due to the inequalities in the distribution of food. He links the inequality to the undemocratic nature of the British Empire.The famines were a product both of uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies. Colonial polices implicated include rack-renting, levies for war, free trade policies, the expansion of export agriculture, and neglect of agricultural investment. Indian exports of opium, rice, wheat, indigo, jute, and cotton were a key component of the economy of the British empire, generating vital foreign currency, primarily from China. These export crops displaced millions of acres that could have been used for domestic subsistence, and increased the vulnerability of Indians to food crises.But then suddenly, the famines disappeared after 1943 even though India’s (or rather subcontinent’s) population quadrupled from 400 million to 1.6 billion today. Of course, Green revolution of 1970s has much to do with it as well as the increase in irrigated land. But the leadership change in 1947 seems to surely have something to do with it.I am not posting any pictures, as there already are many depressing ones circulated on Quora :-(Mark Twain’s visit to India in 1896 - Mark Twain traveled through India and Sri Lanka from January to April, 1896. Twain's three months in India were the highlight of his year-long trek and the intriguing centerpiece of his revealing 700 page book, Following the Equator.Many members of Indian audiences, accustomed to British speech and pronunciation and formality, found in his American accent a certain piquancy. They liked it. America was something of a mystery for most people he encountered. They knew about George Washington, about Chicago and its World's Fair that made Swami Vivekananda a world figure. That was about the extent of general knowledge in those days.Most of the theaters where he appeared accommodated about 1,000 people and in some extra seats had been provided. In Bombay the Novelty Theater held 1,400. Prices in India were Rs 1, 2, 3 and 4, depending on how close one wished to be to the celebrity. He collected about Rs 2,600 (or $650 in those days) for each evening.As he traveled through Bombay, Poona, Allahabad, Banaras, Calcutta, Darjeeling, Agra, Jaipur, Delhi and other cities, mostly by train, the American humorist gathered impressions and crafted them into descriptions. He later wrote about the animals in India, with special reference to the crows and lions and an elephant ride that made him feel quite regal. He gave quaint tales of life in Indian hotels, of fancy parties and horrible long names, of street scenes and fakirs, of the fancy Indian costumes that made him wax poetic and even of long-forgotten historical events. An example:A two-day visit to Banares presented Twain and his party with an opportunity to explore Hinduism and investigate especially its contradictions, orthodoxy and superstition. The filthy waters of the Ganges disgusted him and the fact that pilgrims looked upon it as pure and purifying and drank it eagerly absolutely repelled him.He noted that wherever there was room for one more Linga, a Linga was there. "If Vishnu had foreseen what this town was going to be, he would have called it Idolville or Lingamburg."Despite the crowded and often funereal experiences, Banares was not entirely a disappointment to Mark Twain. He called it "the Oxford of India" for its wealth of Hindu and Sanskrit studies.It is all the more remarkable that he wrote cheerfully and with great humor about India and her peoples, that he was able to watch dhobys laundering their master's clothes at the river and inquire: "Are they trying to break those stones with clothes?"British people in India - Despite the country's vast population, there were never more than 100,000 British people in India. At the top of the hierarchy were the Viceroy, Governors of Provinces, 1,000 odd Oxbridge educated British Civil Servants. A large number of the British people were Soldiers, followed by Entrepreneurs, and then Employees of the Raj machinery.Given the fact that there were 50 hill stations built and the prestigious Gymkhanas, Clubs, Cricket clubs, Golf courses, Ski resorts, Lounges, Bungalows built for a very small group of people, you can imagine the lifestyle.An average Sahib’s morning would start with elaborate breakfast, a horse ride, reading, a beer or a whiskey drink at the club in the evening, while the Memsahibs had an army of servants working on the garden.Some of India’s current VIP culture of Politicians, Army leaders, and Senior Bureaucrats seems directly inherited from the days of the Raj.While the popular imagination leads us to the Sahibs and Memsahibs, David Arnold, a respected scholar of South Asia, has estimated almost 50% of the European population in India in the last decades of the nineteenth century could be classified as poor whites. There were low class soldiers, seamen, adventurers and chancers, and many semi-skilled workers, especially in the railways.Just as Indian society was divided by caste, class and religion, the British too were not a homogeneous group. They were divided, principally by class, and, to a lesser extent, by the English/Scottish/Irish distinction. ‘Whiteness’ and ‘Britishness’ were stratified, and full possession of ‘whiteness’ depended on superior social class. The elite saw the very poor, or the ‘great unwashed’ of the nineteenth century as a different race, and they applied a similar understanding to poor, white ‘riff-raff’ in India.In 1869, the European Vagrancy Act established a network of workhouses, and a system for deporting white beggars and ‘loafers’.Indians who prospered during the British Raj - Many Indians grew immensely in their rapid fields. Upper class Bengali Hindus were the first ones to get into the Civil Service and many became Judges, Lawyers as well as Academics. Parsis had been in India for few hundred years but had lived an unnoticed life in Gujarat. The British realized their potential and the ethical values that they were endowed with. As a result, the minority Parsi community reached new heights. Likewise, Punjabis and Marwaris, found business opportunities and created large enterprises.Here are few instances/success stories -Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (3 March 1839 – 19 May 1904) was an Indian pioneer industrialist, who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. He was born to a Parsi Zoroastrian family in Navsari then part of the princely state of Baroda.He founded what would later become the $100 billion worth in revenues, Tata Group of companies. Tata is regarded as the legendary "Father of Indian Industry"He founded a trading company in 1868 with 21,000 capital, bought a bankrupt oil mill at Chinchpokli in 1869 and converted it to a cotton mill, which he renamed Alexandra Mill. He sold the mill two years later for a profit. He set up another cotton mill at Nagpur in 1874, which he christened Empress Mill when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on 1 January 1877.The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859–1932), opened its plant at Jamshedpur in Bihar in 1908. It became the leading iron and steel producer in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945.JRD Tata - He guided the destiny of India’s largest Industrial house for well over half a century.Headed Tata Sons in 1938; Tata Chemicals in 1939; Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) in 1945.M. S. Oberoi was born in a Punjabi Sikh family in a minor village of Jhelum District, Punjab, British India. In 1922, he came to Shimla to escape from the epidemic of Plague and got a job as front desk clerk, at The Cecil Hotel at a salary of Rs 50 per month. The manager of Cecil, Mr. Ernest Clarke and his wife Gertrude took a great liking to the honesty of a hardworking of young Mohan Singh Oberoi. During their six months absence, he doubled up the occupancy to eighty percent which gave them enough reason to offer the hotel - on a decided amount to Oberoi, as they wanted to return to England.After continuous hard work for five years, on 14 August 1934, Mohan Singh Oberoi became the sole and absolute owner of Hotel Carlton, Shimla. Subsequently, it grew from one hotel to an empire of it’s own, and today the Oberoi group of hotels owns the Top rated hotels of India.Ghanshyam Das Birla laid the foundation of the his industrial empire by establishing GM Birla Company, trading in jute, in 1911. The First World War began in 1914 greatly increasing the demand for jute sacks. It is estimated that during the war, the Birla worth rose from Rs 20 lakh to 80 Lakh. In 1919 he became among the first group of Indian entrepreneurs to become owner of a Jute mill named Birla Jute.[12] In the next few years he acquired several cotton mills. He later started several sugar mills. The publication Hindustan Times was co-founded by GD Birla in 1924 and fully acquired it in 1933. Hindustan Motors was started in 1942.Now Aditya Birla group operates in more than 33 countries, employs over 133,000 people and has annual revenues of over $35 billion.Sir Ganga Ram Agrawal (April 1851 – 10 July 1927) was born in Mangtanwala, a village of Punjab Province inBritish India. He graduated from Thomason College of Civil Engineering in 1873. After a brief Service in Punjab P.W.D devoted himself to practical farming. He obtained on lease from Government 50,000 acres of barren, un-irrigated land in Montgomery District, and within three years converted that vast desert into smiling fields, irrigated by water lifted by a hydroelectric plant and running through a thousand miles of irrigation channels, all constructed at his own cost. This was the biggest private enterprise of the kind, unknown in the country before. Sir Ganga Ram earned millions most of which he gave to charity.Wadias - In 1879, Bombay was next only to New Orleans as the world's largest cotton port. It was at this time that Nowrosjee Wadia, the second generation Wadia, set his sights on India's mushrooming textile industry. In a humble redbrick shed, he began a small operation. Here, cotton yarn spun in India was dip dyed by hand in three colors-turkey red, green and orange-and laid out in the sun to dry. The Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing Co. Ltd. had been born. A modest beginning for a company that was to grow in the following 115 yr. into one of India's largest producer of textiles.Sir Sobha Singh (1890–18 April 1978) was a civil contractor and a prominent builder of Lutyens' Delhi and real estate owner of Delhi. He is the father of famous Indian writer Khushwant Singh. When Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, announced the plan to move the British Indian capital city to Delhi was along with the Coronation Durbar for King George V and the Queen Mary, would take place in Delhi in December 1911, Sujan Singh and 22-year-old Sobha Singh, who was then a contractor working on the Kalka-Shimla railroad, shifted base to Delhi as building contractors. Building contracts then being given out. Sujan Singh-Sobha Singh were accepted as senior-grade contractors.Sir Sobha bought as much land in Delhi as he could. He bought several extensive sites at as little as Rs 2 per square yard, freehold. There were few other takers, and he came to be described as adhi dilli da malik (the owner of half of Delhi),Ardeshir Burjorji Sorabji Godrej (1868–1936) was an Indian businessman. With his brother Pirojsha Burjorji, he co-founded the Godrej Brothers Company, the precursor of the modern Godrej Group. Taking a loan from his father's friend he started to manufacture medical equipment used in surgery, such as scalpels, surgeon's scissors, forceps, etc. Later, one morning he read in the newspaper that burglary rates in Bombay were increasing and that locks weren't working as well as they should. He saw that as a business opportunity and started to research lock making. This venture was so successful he is now known as the lock-master of India.Govindram Seskaria - Not many people may know about him, but he is one of the most famous businessman of pre-independence India. At that time, British rule made it difficult for Indians to enter into business. Foreign businesses controlled most of India’s trade and those businesses were in turn supported by the government. But that didn’t deter Govindram. Govindram first joined the Bombay Cotton Exchange and was so successful as a cotton trader that he became known as the Cotton King of the World. After his success in the cotton market, Govindram diversified and began trading in bullion and other commodities. A founding member of the Indian Stock Exchange, Govindram founded Govindram Brothers Private Limited in 1937. This company got into the sugar, textile, minerals, banking, printing, and movie businesses.K.C. Mahindra was born in 1894 in the Punjab, the second of nine children. After studying at Cambridge, he worked at Messrs. Martin & Company editing INDIA and the Hindustan Review. In the 1940s, he went into the energy business, and helped develop the nation’s coal policy by implementing the latest methods of coal mining. In 1946, he moved to Bombay to found Mahindra & Mohammed, which later became Mahindra & Mahindra, an industrial powerhouse in many sectors of the economy.Religion in India - From early on, the British found the Indian culture and religions at odds with the rationality of the West and considered it to be regressive. Some practices like Sati were bizarre and abhorrent to them and were finally banned by efforts of Indian elite as well as the British. However, at one point they realized that the traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily; Consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in matters dealing with religion.Therefore, the holy pilgrimage sites like Banaras, Haridwar, Ujjain, Pushkar, Chitrakoot, Kishkindha, Somnath for the Hindus, Amritsar and other major Gurudwaras of the Sikhs, and Muslim centers of Delhi, Lahore, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Hyderabad, etc continued their customs unhindered. The Missionaries from Britain and Europe worked with zeal, as they did worldwide and established many Churches and Missionary schools. As a result, the Christian population grew in India during the Raj.Literature and Writings of that period - One key difference between writers of India and the West has been that the Western scholars, travelers, observers have been really good at capturing objective information, as in a Travelogue or describing Geographical features of a region or Cataloging of anything, be it Flora, Fauna, People, etc. As a result, there’s a wealth of information that was gathered by the British and other Westerners on all the aspects of India. Of course, the motivation to write about a foreign land is higher than writing about your own homeland.You may think that Indians were mostly illiterate, and hence we have to rely on the works of Westerners. It’s probably not true. If you look at the lists of Indian writers who wrote in the Vernacular (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Telugu, etc), there’s amazing amount of work that was written. More than often, the native writing is in the story form or poetry or some form of fiction. However, you can still draw a lot of insight from these works.Here are few names that came to mind -Premchand (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand, was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindi-Urdu literature. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent, and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindustani writers of the early twentieth century. His works include more than a dozen novels, around 250 short stories, several essays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi. Notable works Godaan, Bazaar-e-Husn, Karmabhoomi, Shatranj ke khiladi, Gaban.Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) is considered one of the leading Bengali novelist and essayist of the 19th century. His first novel Durgeshnandini, considered a benchmark in the history of Bengali literature, was published in 1865. He also wrote "Vande Mātāram", the national song of India, which appears in his novel Anandamath (1882).Rabindranath Tagore, Asia's first Nobel laureate - Possibly the most prolific writer in Bengali. Tagore dominated both the Bengali and Indian philosophical and literary scene for decades. His 2,000 Rabindrasangeets play a pivotal part in defining Bengali culture, both in West Bengal and Bangladesh. He is the author of the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, both composed in Bengali. Other notable Bengali works of his are Gitanjali, a book of poems for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and many short stories and a few novels.Uttamadhanapuram Venkatasubbaiyer Swaminatha Iyer (1855–1942) was a Tamil scholar and researcher who was instrumental in bringing many long-forgotten works of classical Tamil literature to light. His singular effort over five decades brought to light major literary works in Tamil and contributed vastly to the enrichment of its literary heritage. Iyer published over 91 books in his lifetime, on a variety of matters connected to classical Tamil literature, and collected 3,067 paper manuscripts, palm-leaf manuscripts and notes of various kinds. He is affectionately called Tamil Thatha (Grandfather of Tamil)Devaki Nandan Khatri (June 18, 1861 – 1913) was an Indian writer, who belonged to the first generation of popular novelists in the modern Hindi language. Also known as Babu Devakinandan Khatri, he was the first author of mystery novels in Hindi. Chandrakanta and Bhootnath is the most popular of his works.Michael Madhusudan Dutt, (25 January 1824 – 29 June 1873) was a popular 19th-century Bengali poet and dramatist. He was a pioneer of Bengali drama and his famous work Meghnad Bodh Kavya, is a tragic epic. It consists of nine cantos and is exceptional in Bengali literature both in terms of style and content. He also wrote poems about the sorrows and afflictions of love as spoken by women.Ghalib, Iqbal, Zauq, … - The language of Urdu got its pinnacle under the British Raj, and it received official status. All famous writers of Urdu language including Ghalib and Iqbal were given British scholarships.**************************************************************************Few Random pictures from the British Raj -A ship arriving at a ghat in Calcutta -2. Calcutta in 1902 -3. Tram in Chandni Chowk, Delhi4. Delhi Durbar of 1911 -5. Hyderabad in late 1800s -6. Muharram procession in Calcutta -7. Women protesting in Bombay -8. Random scene on a street -Resources -Poor whites - Loafers, Vagrants and 'Low Europeans'http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/1964_16/15/the_middle_class_in_india.pdf

A Brief Review Of Professor Yasheng Huang's 2008 Book "Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics" Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008.1 Introduction At first sight, this is a highly impressive book. As the book cover reports,"Professor Yasheng Huang teaches political economy international management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Tecghnology. He previously held faculty positions at the Harvard Business School and as a consultant at the World Bank. He has published Inflation and Investment Controls in China (1996) FDI in China (1998) and and Selling China (2003: Chinese version in 2005)."The blurb continues by referring to Huang's featured articles in Western Publications (such as the Wall Street Journal, the economist, Bloomberg, Business World, Le Monde, Economic and Business Weekly, Economic and Political Weekly, and to his prominence in Chinese publications such as Nanfang Zhoumo, Nanfang Doshibao, Economic Observer, Global Entrepreneur, China Entrepreneur, Fortune Weekly, 21st Century Business Herald, Liangwang and Zinhuanet. The blurb points out that in addition to his academic articles, he has also written for the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, and New York Times. And"At MIT, Professor Huang Runs a "China Lab" and an "India Lab" that help entrepreneurial businesses in China and India improve their management."So Professor Yasheng Huang is therefore very well-placed academically, with a wide experience of Western academic positions and has written several books about China and his views have been widely distributed in Western and Chinese publications, and he is very active in furthering his research and his opinions.Surely he must know what he is talking, writing and teaching about?Unfortunately not always.2 The Washington Consensus Mindset of Professor Yasheng HuangIn many ways, this book is academically admirable. Professor Huang has done a great deal of original research about Chinese developments and educational systems, and much of that is new to me and probably to others.But Professor Huang claims that the foundation of his book is factual. In the "Detailed Synopsis of the book" (pxiii) preface he states:"this book has a different and factual approach."For much of the book, he has adopted such an approach. But there are two structural flaws which run like massive fault lines throughout his book.First, he demonstrates that he knows nothing about the economic theory and practice of the Asian Keynesian who became the Asian Keynes, about Doctor Osamu Shimomura (1910-1989) who was "Japan's most Influential Post-War economist" according to the website of the Development Bank of Japan. (SeeShimomura Fellowship | 設備投資研究所 | 日本政策投資銀行（DBJ）The practise of the alternative capitalist system of Shimomuran macroeconomics lies at the root of the economic miracles of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China (which I have christened “The Tokyo Consensus Zone”) and it is difficult intelligently to comment on Chinese economic growth if you don’t understand how the engine works.Second, Professor Huang has (and cannot help having) the mindset of a Washington Consensus (WC) economist. He puts forward alleged parallels and proposes WC solutions (such as democratic reforms for China) which are not, however ideologically desirable, soundly and evidentially based.I will return to these observations in the conclusion of this Answer.3 An Excerpt From "Financing Industrial Investment", John C Carrington and George T Edwards, The Macmillan Press, London and Basingstoke, 1979, p 192-3.After John C Carrington and I won 1970 Post Office Scholarships to study for a Diploma in Business Administration, we both decided to take these qualifications at the University of Edinburgh, where we both graduated with distinction in 1971. We developed a friendship which has lasted to this day and we conducted research at the LSE library in London into the foundations of rapid economic growth in Japan.Almost immediately we came across the tremendous insights of Dr Osamu Shimomura.We published our first book in 1979, in which we pointed out the existence of the Shimomura Model and its relevance to understanding the credit-creation model of the Japanese economy. Pages 192 and 193 of that book are reproduced below. The references 11 and 12 to Chapter 5 of that book relate to:"11 Kenneth K Kurihara The Growth Potential of the Japanese Economy The John Hopkins Press Baltimore 1971, p7712 Ibid, p136. Dr O Shimomura has been described as the father of Japan's "Income-Doubling Plan and the initiator of the growth controversy. (K K Kurihara, op. cit. p2) See also O. Shimomura "Basic Problems of Growth Policy", Economic Studies Quarterly, May 1961.”I have marked the four most relevant paragraphs of this photocopy running from "Consider a banker"... to "...relatively high. "There are pehaps two key observations in these scanned photocopies.First the sentence "Loans create credit, which in turn creates more loans."Second, the explicit formula set out by Dr Kenneth Kenkichi Kurihara on Shimomura's key growth-accelerating equation about the Japanese economy, adding higher investment as a direct consequence of higher BoJ-created credit, in the "credit-creating Japanese economy."The relevance of these observations to the Chinese economy is stressed in the Answer atGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to How did China develop so quickly? When did it start to happen? How did the government manage to stay focused and executed plans so fast and efficiently as they aimed?Where I say"After the Nixon-inspired rapprochement between Japan and China on 29 September 1972, the Chinese Government sent business and economics delegations into Tokyo to find out how Japan had grown so rapidly in the post-war period. (Would that the West had been as wise.) They found out about Shimomuran macroecomics, the economics explained by the master economist Dr Osamu Shimomura (1910–89) who, as the Development Bank of Japan website informs us, rose to became ”Japan’s most influential post-war economist.” See the fellowship offered in his memory by the DBJ at Shimomura Fellowship | 設備投資研究所 | 日本政策投資銀行（DBJ）where a brief bio of that great man’s life is provided. What Shimomura did (among much else) was revise and extend the basic Keynesian investment-saving equilibrium condition by adding in Bank of Japan no-cost fiat-created investment credit creation to both sides, thus: Is+ Id = S + D where Is = Investment financed by saving, Id = Investment financed by Debt, S = the natural level of Saving and D = Debt (but actually no-cost credit creation by the Bank of Japan). The practise of Dr Osamu Shimomura’s economic understanding lies at the root of the four high growth Tokyo Consensus economies - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China."The Chinese are practising an alternative capitalism in the sucessfully transplanted version of the Harrod-Domar "Economic Model of Japan" developed by Dr Osamu Shimomura. SeeThe Master Economist – George Tait Edwards – MediumProfessor Yasheng Huang appears to know nothing about Shimomuran macroeconomics, with the result that many of his observations and comments are woefully misinformed.4 Five Possibly Mistaken Observations In Professor Yasheng Huang's BookIn my eyes, five of the concluding observations in this book appear to me to be very mistaken.4.1 China's ProspectsFirst, Professor Huang, under a section called "China's Prospects", suggests that the boom-collapse experience of Mexico and Brazil (see pages 285-6) are a possible warning of China's future insofar as FDI is involved. But the Chinese economic miracle is largely self-funded by PBoC credit creation and not dependent to any significant degree on foreign funds for its continuance. The good professor doesn't know what's going on. The parallel he tries to draw is at best misinformed and at worst utterly mistaken.The PBoC now has reserves of $4 trillion, more than the GDP of all but the five largest countries. There is no possibility of any Chinese economic collapse, however much the Western media may harp upon it, and many Western commentators may falsely predict its coming.4.2 Is China's Growth Sustainable?Second, Professor Huang says under the section "Is China's Growth Sustainable" (p 286-290) that the new city constructions and the infrastructure improvement are not really compatible with continuing high economic growth. The new cities are a vast improvement on the normal development pattern of stinking slum cities in the developing countries of the Washington Consensus Zone, and it is not just new cities that have been created but China has moved many key industries inland and upland into the outskirts of these new beautiful urban areas. In my view China has successfully implemented the greatest management system in the world to plan ahead for the natural development process of urban drift of the previously agricultural workers into the manufacturing centres associated with new cities. The evidence indicates that these new cities, a few years after their initial construction period, teem with productive life. See the excellent reports of Wade Shepard at5 Chinese Ghost Cities that Came Alivewhere Wade Shepard says"But when a Chinese “ghost city” does fill up with people and businesses it inconspicuously falls off the radar of the dominant international media. It becomes a regular city, mashed into China’s broader urban matrix — a success story that few seem interested in hearing about. We are amused by empty streets, vacant shopping malls, and barren financial districts in China, not budding new cities steadily coming to life. Ex-ghost cities are rarely news."The improvements in Chinese infrastructure do not have a quick return but China is now developing the new Silk Road, widely referred to as the Belt and Road Initiative, began in 2013, five years after Huang's book was published. SeeBelt and Road Initiative - WikipediaAfter the vast improvements in China's infrastructure - not only its new cities but its new high-speed rapid transit trains, the new roads connecting its old and new cities, its fast IT networks and all the essential social overhead capital of schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, and public buildings, not forgetting the vast industrial estates catering for SMEs and relocated and new factories on the city outskirts - it seems inevitable to western observers that this kind of breakneck speed of economic development cannot continue. But it did continue for almost three decades in Japan and has continued for over four decades in China so far, and no end is in sight.It is difficult to imagine an external event which could stall China's development. China is trying to ensure it does not fall into the “speculation trap” which caused the Japanese economic doldrums after the asset speculation of 1986–91. SeeChina's fear of becoming Japan is driving deal crackdownThe Chinese Government are railing in the speculation that limited Japanese prosperity. That article, once its doom and gloom overhang is removed, carries a useful message.In my view the infrastructure improvements in China are an essential underpinning of its future economic developments.Growth is sustainable when Central Bank (PBoC/BoJ/FED/etc) credit creation is used to invest in productive assets (e.g. new cities/communications such as roads/capital investment) and is not sustainable when CB credit creation funds asset speculation (e.g. Japan’s boom-collapse asset speculation 1986–91, the Credit Crunch, etc)4.3 Equity in ChinaChina is roughly about as equal in income inequalities as is the USA, but you would not think so after reading Professor Huang's comments under the heading "Equity" on pages 256 to 260 of this book, where he begins by saying “”It is well established that China today is among the most umequal societies in the world.”The CIA World Factbook data suggests income inequalties In China, as measured by a Gini Index of 46.5, is broadly comparable to the USA's 45. Furthermore, in 2011 the Chinese Government set a new poverty line of RMB 2,000 (about $400). While the poorest 10% in China get 2.1% of GDP and the highest 10% get 31.4% in 2012, this seems not much different from the CIA 2007 estimate of the US distribution of 2% of GDP to the poorest 10% and about 30% of GDP to the highest 10%.Now it could be the much has changed since 2008, all of due to the Chinese capability of greater growth lifting more of its its people out of poverty, which the USA has not done at all recently.See my recent suggestion that the Washington Consensus system is a failure at lifting populations out of poverty atIs Washington Consensus a failure?The calculations in that "Answer" point out that the USA with a population of 324 millions, has about 49 million people (15.1%) below its self-set poverty line while China, with 4.2 times as many people or a population of 1.374 billion people, has about 48 million people (3.3%) below their poverty line. Please see that answer for qualifications and caveats about that result.At times Professor Huang seems to have a kind of Western populist agenda of criticising China without making relevant comparisons with (say) the USA.,This prejudiced attitude at times undermines his initial claim to have a "factual approach." When the numerical facts are inconvenient to his argument, he omits any consideration of them.4.4 That China Should Adopt Democracy?At one point, Professor Yasheng Huang says that the adoption of democracy is essential to China's further economic progress. There is no evidence whatsoever for that assertion.It must be very upsetting to the Western academics and elites that very high rates of economic growth have been attained in quasi-authoritarian societies - by the American wartime administration in FDR's American economic miracle (1938-44), in post-war Japan when the high growth era started with General MacArthur's wartime occupation (1945-52); in President General Park's South Korea (which achieved an average economic growth rate of 14% from 1960-80, although Park was assassinated in 1979) and in the originally Communist China from 1975 onwards. The Western Democracies under Washington Consensus Economics have relatively low growth rates and no lasting economic miracles.There is no realistic likelihood that democratic India will achieve the growth rate of China. SeeGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to What did China do but India hasn't that brought a billion people out of poverty?What actually produces higher or lower rates of economic development is the extent of realistic economic understanding (such as Shimomuran economics) and the practice of that understanding, in a country. Democracy is not necessarily an essential component of higher economic growth.See The Most Successful Economic Policy of all time5 Conclusions5.1 About Professor Yasheng Huang's BookIt is a great pity that Professor Yasheng Huang knows nothing about the Chinese alternative system of capitalism, about the major Shimomuran economic understandings of the Tokyo Consensus Zone. His book could have been a great book, but it isn't, due to that omission.Nonetheless his book is an excellent, highly readable account of the view of China from an expert economist who can only comment from the viewpoint of a Washington Consensus mindset, which is all his education has taught him. He has tens of thousands of colleagues in the same boat.This book makes you think about the many different aspects of Chinese development. To that extent it is very useful. But when Huang calls upon his extensive knowledge of other Western economies and sees parallels with China, his comments are very unlikely to be valid. No parallels with the experience of Western countries are in the least relevant to China.ANSWER TO QUESTION: You should read his book with some caution, enjoying the areas in which it adds to your knowledge of China, but being wary of the above-mentioned limitations in Professor Yasheng Huang’s economic understanding and his Washington Consensus bias.5.2 About ChinaChina has a world-connecting strategy, and while the two previous hegemonic leaders are withdrawing from engagement with their partners and neighbours (through Trump's disengagement from Nato and from the Paris Agreement on climate control, and in Britain though BREXIT) China is increasing its physical and business linkages wth much of the rest of the world.China's growth has reduced in recent years from the previous average of 9% to 10% pa to about 7%. That drop is largely due to the Chinese switch from the more easy policy of the imitation of Western products and production processes into the more difficult procedures of domestic Chinese invention and innovation.There can be no doubt that China leads the world in many of the new technologies. See7 Technologies Where China Has the U.S. BeatChina now has the world's fastest computers, the most advanced Quantum computers (the Chinese five-photon computer is claimed to be 24,000 times faster than the ones built in the West - seeChina adds a quantum computer to high-performance computing arsenal )as well as the world's biggest construction project in the Silk Road Economic Belt and Road Initiative, the biggest dam (the Three Gorges Dam), the greatest output of energy from green sources, the five highest bridges in the world (headed by the Duge Bridge in Guizhou), and the building with the largest floorspace in the world (the New Century Global Centre, at 1.7 m square metres). China has five out of the ten tallest buildings in the world, the USA has one out of the ten (the One World Trade Centre).From a manufacturing and inventive and innovation viewpoint, the West has stalled and China is going places that are only possible because it understands the Shimomuran Economics of abundant capital.So be it.And if you want to understand Shimomuran Economics and the Rise of the Tokyo Consensus, maybe you could consider buying my book about that subject.

1 Introduction Here’s a summary about what everyone should know about the hidden economic history of Japan, about howJapanese colonists in Manchuria created the first enormous economic miracle of the South Manchurian Railway Company the “Mantetsu” or the South Manchurian Railway Company, which used no-cost investment credit creation to produce high growth and to become the first location of an “abundant capital” zone in the world, providing high living standards to the colonists and the employed local people as well as 25% of the total revenues of the Japanese Government in the 1930s; the marvellous research done by that colony in the cultivation and distribution of the soya bean placed that product on the diet of the China Sea economies and the rest of the world;after 1946, many the repatriated Mantetsu colonists brought back to Japan the high-growth economics they had practised in that colony and used their understanding of that new economic technology to produce high economic growth in postwar Japan;The Japanese Kept The Credit Creation Techniques of High Economic Growth As a Quasi-State Secret Secret Until 1961, When Dr Osamu Shimomura published his “Economic Model of Japan”, and the West ignored him;the Chinese signed the September 1972 rapprochement with Japan and were astonished by the obvious extent of Japanese economic development, so they sent many delegations into Tokyo to beg the Japanese to share with them “the secret of Japanese economic growth” which they did;the economic miracles of the four Tokyo Consensus Zone economies (Japan 1946–73, South Korea 1960–80, Taiwan 1965–85,and China 1975-now) were all founded upon the transfer of the economic understanding set out by Dr Osamu Shimomura in 1952 and 1961 and first piloted in Manchuria;Shimomura’s visits to the USA first in in 1937 and then particularly in 1946 provided him with the key numerical understanding of the capital-output ratios in major 1945 US industries which was then available to Japan though investment credit creation to produce the economic miracles of the post war period and the 1960s;the Japanese maintained a policy of keeping the macroeconomic understanding of Shimomuran Macroeconomics as a kind of state secret from 1945 until 2017, when Kozo Horuichi updated his internet article with the help of a Development Bank of Japan Committee and produced a book after about a century of the successful first use of investment credit creation economics in the Mantetsu and after 72 years from the use of that economic understanding in post-war Japan;the Japanese (and the Chinese, who have joined the game) cannot hide the economic understandings of Dr Osamu Shimomura any more than they can hide the sun.The rising sun of the understanding of the whole system of Shimomuran macroeconomics can provide a powerful technology for the rapid rise in living standards throughout the world, for the reversal of global warming, the essential early introduction of green technologies and reduction of and the end of poverty in the less developed nations of the world; andWestern economists should end their Washington Consensus Zone commitment to the unworkable and unproductive WC macroeconomics (which operates as only an advantage to the rich) and should embrace the fresh-to-the-West understandings of Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics.The stars may be silent because other civilisations in this galaxy have failed to negotiate the dangerous watershed between poverty and the almost unimaginable richness of a world of “abundant capital.” Mankind must rise to the challenges of change using Shimomuran-Wernerian understandings as the best bridge to the cornucopia of a productive green future for all of the people, the animals and the environments of the world.Each of these topics are more fully considered in the following sections.1.1 Japanese colonists in Manchuria created the first enormous economic miracle of the South Manchurian Railway Company, which was operated for a while by Shinzo Abe’s grandfather. The best book on the subject is this one:This Japanese colony illustrates several aspects of the use of no-cost investment credit economics. The living standards of the Mantetsu colonists were perhaps the highest in the world. As the above Review remarks “The Special express trains called ‘Asia’ were among the fastest and best appointed trains in the world.” The new city of Heinching (now Changchun) planned and built by the Mantetsu was a forerunner, albeit in a single city, to the “Chinese Dream” of 400 new cities of about a million people each built at the rate of 20 a year between the years 2000 and 2020. The vast Mantetsu economic growth was caused (but not financed) by the annual Government of Japan (and BoJ) agreement to the no-cost investment credit creation budget earmarked to produce that growth. The Japanese Government received in return for that no-cost agreement repayment in cash (on average about about 25% of Japanese Government revenues were paid during the 1930s by the Mantetsu) and in kind. The Mantetsu researched the best available strains and methods of producing soya beans and exported increasingly large amounts of these highly nutritious beans to Japan and to elsewhere in Asia using the railway line to distribute these. Soya bean farming, production and distribution became so important that some commentators regarded this aspect of the Mantetsu as the dominant one. The high place of soya in many Asian diets seems to be due to the Mantetsu research and activity and the local farmers have never forgotten the lessons learned about soya bean farming. That undoubtedly helped feed Mao’s liberation army when they started to organise in their Manchurian bases.This first location of an “abundant capital” zone in the world was asset-stripped and had all of its equipment removed by the Russians after 1945.1.2 After 1946, many the repatriated Mantetsu colonists brought back to Japan the high-growth economics they had practised in that colony and used their understanding of that new economic technology to produce high economic growth in postwar Japan, where they were referred to as “The Manchurians”. These people brought to Japan the economic techniques of creating explosive economic growth which they had piloted in Manchuria.Like many another people, the Japanese did not readily accept these repatriated Japanese, who were initially derogatorily called “the Manchurians.” But these repatriates demonstrated their worth by becoming the hidden administrative backbone of the economic management of the postwar recovery of Japan. The initially insulting description of “Manchurian” became said with awe, as Japan exploded into 10% rates of economic growth from 1945–52. SeeHow Japan Zoomed From War Devastation into Prosperity 1945–521.3 The Japanese Kept The Credit Creation Techniques of High Economic Growth As a Quasi-State Secret Secret Until 1961, When Dr Osamu Shimomura published his “Economic Model of Japan”,and the West ignored himThe official story of Japan’s explosive post-war growth does not refer to these people nor their knowledge. They are ignored in the otherwise excellent publication “PostWar Construction Of The Japanese Economy” which can be bought on the internet, and has the summary reproduced below:The major issue that I have with this book is that it ignores and does not mention the no-cost credit-creation system which financed the Japanese economic miracle from 1945–73 and a bit beyond. It is therefore a book about “Hamlet without the Prince.” It is a recipe for success which omits to mention how to create the no-cost funds to pay the prices of this very ambitious and excellent menu for development.I have not been able to determine whether Dr Osamu Shimomura either visited, or was employed for a while, as part of the South Manchurian Railway organisation, but it seems likely that at the very least he visited that colony. It is certain, as an employee and an official in the Price Research Bureau of the BoJ, that he knew a great deal about the Mantetsu’s achievements and mode of operation.It is also quite certain that the Japanese during the 1945–68 period used BoJ credit creation to fund the growth of Japan’s investment level. Kenneth Bieda, the Australian economist, produces a table in his book about the sheer scale of that credit creationBetween 1946 and 1968, bank advances increased by factor of 246.increasing at an average compound rate of about 28.4% pa over these 22 years.The West ignored the publication of Shimomura’s research. Seeand you can read the PDF presentation athttps://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/content.gresham.ac.uk/data/binary/260/03mar15longfinance_georgetaitedwardsfinal.pdfand also relevant isSee How Long Will The West Lag Behind – George Tait Edwards – Medium which remarks“In 1961, Dr Osamu Shimomura presented his Model of the Japanese Economy and its equations to the joint meeting of the Japanese Economic Association and the Japanese Econometric Society. His presentation was then published under the title “Seicho Seisaku No Kihon Mondai” (Basic Problems of Growth Policy) in Riron Keizaigaku, March 1961. Also in 1961, Dr Shinohara published “The Secret of Accelerated Growth.” The year after that, Dr Kenneth Kenkichi Kurihara wrote a seminal article in Kyklos, Vol XV, 1962, and repeated his observations in the Appendix to Chapter 5 of his 1963 book. He then further repeated and expanded his observations in his book, “The Growth Potential of the Japanese Economy”, John Hopkins Press Maryland 1971.”All that activity ocuurred without Western media mentions or academic follow-throughs! Amazing to me.1.4 The Great Japanese-born But American-educated Master Economist Professor Kenneth Kenkichi Kurihara Became the Fulbright Visiting Professor At Tokyo Metropolitan University for six months in 1965 and Produced the Best Window In English Into Shimomuran Macroeconomics in his 1971 Book “The Growth Potential the Japanese Economy”.Profesor Kenneth Kenkichi Kurihara is in many respects the best 20th century English-language gateway to Shimomuran macroeconomics. SeeThe Key Relevance of the Writings of Professor Kenneth Kenkichi KuriharaAs that source says:“Professor Kenneth K Kurihara (1910-1972) was the Distinguished Professor of Economic Theory at the State University of New York in Binghampton. He wrote eight books and over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and he taught macro-economics at Princeton and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, as well as being a guest lecturer at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The interesting insights of Professor Kenneth K. Kurihara’s greatest book “The Growth Potential of the Japanese Economy” (John Hopkins Press Maryland 1971) should have been integrated into Western macro-economic theory by now.”His gravestone at Vestal Hills Memorial Park looks like this:On Kenneth Kurihara’s grave I have left the following flowers:1.5 The Chinese signed the September 1972 rapprochement with Japan and were astonished by the obvious extent of Japanese economic development, so they sent many delegations into Tokyo to beg the Japanese to share with them “the secret of Japanese economic growth” which they eventually did.The Economist magazine in the mid 1970s dutifully described how many Chinese visitors in Tokyo were begging their Japanese hosts to inform them about the secrets of Japanese high economic growth. Despite the possibility that Shimomura was (according to Hakan Hedberg, a Swedish economist-journalist) considered for a Nobel Prize in the 1970s, the Economist never followed up on what happened subsequently.But the Japanese foreign ministry on 31 August 1980 released a press statement that “China will emerge as a tremendous economic and military power in the 21st century.”That Foreign Ministry did not explain their foundation for that forecast and that belief. But it was prescient and is now coming to fruition.1.6 The economic miracles of the four Tokyo Consensus Zone economies (Japan 1946–73, South Korea 1960–80, Taiwan 1965–85, and China 1975-now) were all founded upon the transfer of the economic understanding set out by Dr Osamu Shimomura in 1952 and 1961 and first piloted in Manchuria.The Shimomuran economies all show the following similar familial characteristics:they all have a subservient central bank obedient to the government’s desire to create large amounts of no-cost investment credit creation to fund much higher investment and faster growththey all have a “convoy system” for convoying the centrally created CB investment credit down through intemediate banks to nearly all local SMEs and industries throughout the countrythey all have an equivalent to Japan’s “Economic Planning Agency” to monitor and report to the Prime Minister about the economic progress occurringthey all have low interest rates and very long terms of repayment on business loansthey all “know what they are doing” and have (or had) a conscious government policy of achieving high economic growth with minimal inflation, as Shimomura proved was possible in his 1952 publication of the dissertation which earned him his PhD.1.7 Shimomura’s visits to the USA first in in 1937 and then in 1946 provided him with the key numerical understanding of the capital-output ratios in major 1945 US industries which was available to Japan though investment credit creation to produce the economic miracles of the post war period and the 1960sAfter WWII, there was an American-funded businessman exchange programme between Japan and the USA. Many Japanese businessmen and economists visited the USA on that programme. Japan after the war had the official policy of “economic growth first”and wanted to (and needed to) copy the best available production technologies for steel production, motor vehicle production, electricity production, etc. and Shimomura visited the USA either under that exchange programme or as a continuation of the BoJ sponsorship of his 1937 visit.Shimomura was understandably proud of his knowledge of the equipment-output ratios (close to 1) of Japanese industry and the capital-output ratios (close to 3 for Japan in the 1960s) which underpinned his forecast of 10% economic growth in the 1960s. Other Japanese economists were less well informed.British and American economists even now do not know about any of the capital output numbers for their domestic industries. That is far too realistic an item for the inhabitants of the castle in the clouds of neoclassical economics to concern themselves about.1.8 the Japanese maintained a policy of keeping the macroeconomic understanding of Shimomuran Macroeconomics as a kind of state secret from 1945 until 2017, when Kozo Horuichi updated his internet article with the help of a Development Bank of Japan Committee and produced a book after about a century of the successful first use of investment credit creation economics in the Mantetsu, and after 72 years from the first 1945 use of that economic understanding in post-war JapanEventually the Development Bank of Japan formed an advisory committee to overview the publication on 5 September 2017 about a book authored by Kozo Horiuchi entitledThis is a very interesting book, obviously produced by a committee updating Horiuchi’s article previously published but now withdrawn from the internetA Vision for Corporate Behavior under Zero Economic Growth and Global Environmental Constraints: Shimomura's Theory of the Japanese Economy but still available on various locations on Worldcat.This book attempts to redefine the great economic advances of Dr Osamu Shimomura as having a purely historical reference to the Postwar Japanese economy. But he is much more and immensely greater than that.Of course, that book is useless from an explanatory viewpoint - it tries to establish Dr Osamu Shimomura where he should be, as the second most inportant (second only to Keynes) economist of the 20th cntury but although the book lists and explains what Shimomura did, there is no valid economic explanation about how he and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda and his successors actually did it. The book continues Japan’s historic policy of concealing, as far as possible, Dr Osamu Shimomura’s complex system of economic understanding, perhaps because of the immense trading advantage that system enables. But maybe the Japanese no longer fully understand what Shimomura did. If that’s the case I would be delighted to explain it to them.1.9 The Japanese (and the Chinese,who have joined the game) cannot hide the economic understandings of Dr Osamu Shimomura any more than they can hide the sun.The world-altering economic insights of Dr Osamu Shimomura are a “new thing under the sun.” Although it can be argued (and I have argued) that the Shimomuran macroeconomics is (or can be seen as) a direct development of Keynesian macroeconomic understandings, it is a fact that no-cost investment credit economics was first used to produce the Manchurian economic miracle of the South Manchuria Railway Company. That first 20th century use of investment credit macroeconomics - the creation of credit earmarked for productive purposes - predated all the relevant writing of Keynes. So the economic understanding about how to produce an economic explosion was an Asian understanding in the first place.Perhaps the most stupid thing I have ever heard a British university lecturer say (and I have heard many such statements) is that “Economics has been developed over centuries by the best brains of mankind, and it is therefore impossible to believe that Asians can make or have made any valid contribution to economic theory and practice.” SeeCommon Responses To Shimomuran Economics – George Tait Edwards – MediumThe Asian contribution to economic understanding is now there on a magnificent scale. It is there not only as a new systemic set of economic insights but also in the form of the results of the application of these fresh understandings, in the hundreds of magnificent new cities of China and the recent production plant and higher living standards and reduced poverty in Taiwan, China and South Korea.The Washington Consensus understandings have failed in producing equally good results. SeeWashington Consensus Macroeconomics Is Not The Best System For Increasing Prosperity and Economic…The economically collapsed rustbelt cities of the USA such as Detroit are the product of WC economics as is the impoverishment not only of the LDCs but of the working people of the USA and the UK through the useless austerity programme for the sake of tax cuts for the rich.From time to time one or two members of the Chinese leadership say there is no such thing as the Chinese economic model and even if there is, it could not be replicated elsewhere. That would be true if the Japanese Shimomuran model had not been so extensively replicated in China. And if Shimomura was not mentioned as the only important economist in the recent review of the Chinese history of economic thought.1.10 The rising sun of the understanding of the whole system of Shimomuran macroeconomics can provide a powerful technology for the rapid rise in living standards throughout the world, for the reversal of global warming through the essential early introduction of green technologies and reduction of and the end of poverty in the less developed nations of the worldThe alternative capitalist system of Shimomuran macroeconomics is currently the best available economic technology in the world. It is capable of enabling governments to act to provide rapidly rising living standards in all of the nations of the world as the doubling of living standards in Japan during 1960–6 by the Ikeda-Shimomura team has illustrated and as China has also demonstrated for decades since the mid-1970s.Western politicians, acting within the limited economic understanding of WC macroeconomics in the interests of already rich, constantly proclaim that global warming cannot be reversed because it would be too costly to do that.The reverse is true. See the MIT Technology Review atCost of Solving Climate Change and see the NASA site atGlobal climate change adaptation and mitigation1.11 Western economists should end their Washington Consensus Zone commitment to the unworkable and unproductive WC macroeconomics (which operates as only an advantage to the rich) and should embrace the fresh-to-the-West understandings of Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics.WC economics leads to no positive outcomes. Austerity is the mother of continual economic decline. Washington Consensus Macroeconomics is a poverty increasing system and the high probability of continual credit crunches - due to the WC preference of government policies prioritising finance over industry - provides recurrent credit crunches and reduces the little growth the system produces.In contrast, the practise of Shimomuran Macroeconomics can lead governments towards the transformation of their economies into what Shinzo Abe has called “an economy of abundant capital.” The correct place for economics in the social sciences is as an enormous enabler of the continual rise in living standards and the relative rise of the value of human life and human time against the price of goods and services. Shimomuran economics performs that function. WC economics doesn’t.Yet Shimomuran macroeconomics, great as it is, does not yet explicitly contain the Wernerian insights about how to permanently end credit crunches and how to use local publicly funded banking systems to adequately finance the SME process of individual invention and its transfer to factory floor production which is the key to perpetual development. That is the focus of my ongoing research, which I judge to be well advanced but not yet complete. More about Shimomuran-Wernerian Macroeconomics later.1.12 The stars may be silent because other civilisations in this galaxy have failed successfully to negotiate the dangerous watershed between poverty and the almost unimaginable richness of a world of “abundant capital.” Mankind must rise to the challenges of change using Shimomuran-Wernerian understandings as the best bridge to the cornucopia of a productive green future for all the people and the animals and the environment of this world.Fermi was once told that, given the age and scale of our galaxy, intelligent life would exist nearly everywhere. He immediately reportedly said ”Then where are they?”His point was that our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across. If intelligent life existed and survived and if it could propel a starship at (say) one tenth of the speed of light, the entire galaxy could be colonised or explored within a million years. That’s not a long time, given the age of the galaxy or even the age of species (such as mankind) so there must be reasons why the aliens are not here.We can see in our developing history reasons why we too might destroy ourselves. A large-scale atomic war could destroy the Earth as an abode for life. The continuation of the current trend of reckless fossil-fuel fired economic development could make this planet a sister planet to Venus in a runaway greenhouse effect. Rising sea levels will salinate the coastal plains which produce much of mankind’s food supplies.But none of that need happen. Shimomuran economics offers a no-cost way of paying for the reversal of the greenhouse gases and coping with the natural weather disasters which are now unpreventable.There is no need for the people of the world to stay poor or their governments to remain very badly uniformed about the economic options.I have high hopes for the Pauline conversion of most Western economists. It could happen. Seeat How Western-Trained Economists Can Become Supremely UsefulBut there is no sign of a Western intellectual renaissance yet.