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MYTH # 1Gay men molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.THE ARGUMENTDepicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality — and for winning elections and referenda, as Anita Bryant found out during her successful 1977 campaign to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance barring discrimination against gay people. Discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, the most ubiquitous purveyor of anti-gay junk science, has been a major promoter of this myth. Despite having been debunked repeatedly and very publicly, Cameron's work is still widely relied upon by anti-gay organizations, although many no longer quote him by name. Others have cited a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council did in November 2010, that "the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a [molestation] danger to children." A related myth is that same-sex parents will molest their children.THE FACTSAccording to the American Psychological Association, children are not more likely to be molested by LGBT parents or their LGBT friends or acquaintances. Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation's leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men.Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all men who molest male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A. Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children, shows that is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child molesters: fixated and regressive. The fixated child molester — the stereotypical pedophile — cannot be considered homosexual or heterosexual because "he often finds adults of either sex repulsive" and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child molesters are generally attracted to other adults, but may "regress" to focusing on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found, as Herek notes, that the majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their adult relationships.The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute notes that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering outside schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as much religious-right rhetoric suggests.Some anti-gay ideologues cite ACPeds’ opposition to same-sex parenting as if the organization were a legitimate professional body. In fact, the so-called college is a tiny breakaway faction of the similarly named, 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics that requires, as a condition of membership, that joiners "hold true to the group's core beliefs ... [including] that the traditional family unit, headed by an opposite-sex couple, poses far fewer risk factors in the adoption and raising of children." The group's 2010 publication Facts About Youth was described by the American Academy of Pediatrics as not acknowledging scientific and medical evidence with regard to sexual orientation, sexual identity and health, or effective health education. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, was one of several legitimate researchers who said ACPeds misrepresented the institutes’ findings. “It is disturbing to me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality,” he wrote. “The information they present is misleading and incorrect.” Another critic of ACPeds is Dr. Gary Remafedi, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who wrote a letter to ACPeds rebuking the organization for misusing his research.In spite of all this, the anti-LGBT right continues to peddle this harmful and baseless myth, which is probably the leading defamatory charge leveled against gay people.MYTH # 2Same-sex parents harm children.THE ARGUMENTMost hard-line anti-gay organizations are heavily invested, from both a religious and a political standpoint, in promoting the traditional nuclear family as the sole framework for the healthy upbringing of children. They maintain a reflexive belief that same-sex parenting must be harmful to children — although the exact nature of that supposed harm varies widely.THE FACTSNo legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples.The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry affirmed in 2013 that “[c]urrent research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents do not differ from children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or in their relationships with peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to develop emotional or behavioral problems.”The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in a 2002 policy statement declared: "A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual." That policy statement was reaffirmed in 2009 and in 2013, when the AAP stated its support for civil marriage for same-gender couples and full adoption and foster care rights for all parents, regardless of sexual orientation.The American Psychological Association (APA) noted in 2004 that "same-sex couples are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation." In addition, the APA stated that “beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation.” The next year, in 2005, the APA published a summary of research findings on lesbian and gay parents and reiterated that common negative stereotypes about LGBT parenting are not supported by the data.Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America's official position with regard to same-sex parents is that "lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual counterparts."A 2010 review of research on same-sex parenting carried out by LiveScience, a science news website, found no differences between children raised by heterosexual parents and children raised by lesbian parents. In some cases, it found, children in same-sex households may actually be better adjusted than in heterosexual homes.A 2013 preliminary study in Australia found that the children of lesbian and gay parents are not only thriving, but may actually have better overall health and higher rates of family cohesion than heterosexual families. The study is the world’s largest attempt to compare children of same-sex parents to children of heterosexual parents. The full study was published in June 2014.The anti-LGBT right continues, however, to use this myth to deny rights to LGBT people, whether through distorting legitimate research or through “studies” conducted by anti-LGBT sympathizers, such as a 2012 paper popularly known as the Regnerus Study. University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus’ paper purported to demonstrate that same-sex parenting harms children. The study received almost $1 million in funding from anti-LGBT think tanks, and even though Regnerus himself admitted that his study does not show what people say it does with regard to the “harms” of same-sex parenting, it continues to be peddled as “proof” that children are in danger in same-sex households. Since the study’s release, it has been completely discredited because of its faulty methodology and its suspect funding. In 2013, Darren Sherkat, a scholar appointed to review the study by the academic journal that published it, told the Southern Poverty Law Center that he “completely dismiss[es]” the study, saying Regnerus “has been disgraced” and that the study was “bad … substandard.” In spring 2014, the University of Texas’s College of Liberal Arts and Department of Sociology publicly distanced themselves from Regnerus, the day after he testified as an “expert witness” against Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban. The judge in that case, Bernard Friedman, found that Regnerus’ testimony was “entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration,” and ruled that Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Despite all this, the Regnerus Study is still used in the U.S. and abroad as a tool by anti-LGBT groups to develop anti-LGBT policy and laws.MYTH # 3People become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents.THE ARGUMENTMany anti-gay rights activists claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder caused by some psychological trauma or aberration in childhood. This argument is used to counter the common observation that no one, gay or straight, consciously chooses his or her sexual orientation. Joseph Nicolosi, a founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, said in 2009 that "if you traumatize a child in a particular way, you will create a homosexual condition." He also has repeatedly said, "Fathers, if you don't hug your sons, some other man will."A side effect of this argument is the demonization of parents of gay men and lesbians, who are led to wonder if they failed to protect a child against sexual abuse or failed as role models in some important way. In October 2010, Kansas State University family studies professor Walter Schumm released a related study in the British Journal of Biosocial Science, which used to be the Eugenics Review. Schumm argued that gay couples are more likely than heterosexuals to raise gay or lesbian children through modeling “gay behavior.” Schumm, who has also argued that lesbian relationships are unstable, has ties to discredited psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Paul Cameron, the author of numerous completely baseless “studies” about the alleged evils of homosexuality. Critics of Schumm’s study note that he appears to have merely aggregated anecdotal data, resulting in a biased sample.THE FACTSNo scientifically sound study has definitively linked sexual orientation or identity with parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse.The American Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet available on the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, that dealing with gay, lesbian and bisexual issues, that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.Similarly, the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization notes on its website that "experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual orientation" and added that it's unlikely that anyone can make another person gay or heterosexual.Advocates for Youth, an organization that works in the U.S. and abroad in the field of adolescent reproductive and sexual health also has stated that sexual abuse does not “cause” heterosexual youth to become gay.In 2009, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a psychologist at the Christian Grove City College, noted in an analysis that “the research on sexual abuse among GLBT populations is often misused to make inferences about causation [of homosexuality].”MYTH # 4LGBT people don't live nearly as long as heterosexuals.THE ARGUMENTAnti-LGBT organizations, seeking to promote heterosexuality as the healthier "choice," often offer up the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physical and mental health of gays and lesbians as reasons why they shouldn't be allowed to adopt or foster children.THE FACTSThis falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled "The Lifespan of Homosexuals." Using obituaries collected from newspapers serving the gay community, he and his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men. On the basis of the same obituaries, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 times more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexuals, 22 times more likely to die of heart attacks than whites, and 11 times more likely than blacks to die of the same cause. He also concluded that lesbians are 487 times more likely to die of murder, suicide, or accidents than straight women.Remarkably, these claims have become staples of the anti-gay right and have frequently made their way into far more mainstream venues. For example, William Bennett, education secretary under President Reagan, used Cameron's statistics in a 1997 interview he gave to ABC News' "This Week."However, like virtually all of his "research," Cameron's methodology is egregiously flawed — most obviously because the sample he selected (the data from the obits) was not remotely statistically representative of the LGBT population as a whole. Even Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called Cameron's methods "just ridiculous."Anti-LGBT organizations have also tried to support this claim by distorting the work of legitimate scholars, like a 1997 study conducted by a Canadian team of researchers that dealt with gay and bisexual men living in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The authors of the study became aware that their work was being misrepresented by anti-LGBT groups, and issued a response taking the groups to task.MYTH # 5Gay men controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.THE ARGUMENTThis claim comes directly from a 1995 book titled The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. Lively is the virulently anti-gay founder of Abiding Truth Ministries and Abrams is an organizer of a group called the International Committee for Holocaust Truth, which came together in 1994 and included Lively as a member.The primary argument Lively and Abrams make is that gay people were not victimized by the Holocaust. Rather, Hitler deliberately sought gay men for his inner circle because their "unusual brutality" would help him run the party and mastermind the Holocaust. In fact, "the Nazi party was entirely controlled by militaristic male homosexuals throughout its short history," the book claims. "While we cannot say that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their central role in Nazism," Lively and Abrams add. "To the myth of the 'pink triangle' — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the 'pink swastika.'"These claims have been picked up by a number of anti-gay groups and individuals, including Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, as proof that gay men and lesbians are violent and sick. The book has also attracted an audience among anti-gay church leaders in Eastern Europe and among Russian-speaking anti-gay activists in America.THE FACTSThe Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history at Reed College, did a 1994 line-by-line refutation of an earlier Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi Party was "entirely controlled" by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their thesis.The myth that the Nazis condoned homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s, started by socialist opponents of the Nazis as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler's inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay. (Röhm was murdered on Hitler's orders in 1934.) The Nazis considered homosexuality one aspect of the "degeneracy" they were trying to eradicate.When Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in 1933, it quickly strengthened Germany's existing penalties against homosexuality. Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's security chief, announced that homosexuality was to be "eliminated" in Germany, along with miscegenation among the races. Historians estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to concentration camps and many thousands died there.Himmler expressed his views on homosexuality like this: "We must exterminate these people root and branch. ... We can't permit such danger to the country; the homosexual must be completely eliminated."MYTH # 6Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.THE ARGUMENTAnti-gay activists, who have long opposed adding LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislation, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailing of religious figures who preach against homosexuality — part of a bid to gain the backing of the broader religious community for their position. Janet Porter of Faith2Action, for example, was one of many who asserted that the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act — signed into law by President Obama in October 2009 — would "jail pastors" because it "criminalizes speech against the homosexual agenda."In a related assertion, anti-gay activists claimed the law would lead to the legalization of psychosexual disorders (paraphilias) like bestiality and pedophilia. Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing, conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal law was passed that it would legalize "all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric Association." This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations, including the Illinois Family Institute.THE FACTSThe claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who "oppose the homosexual lifestyle" is false. The First Amendment provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who publicly suggested that gays and lesbians should be killed would be protected.Neither do hate crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when persons are victimized because of their "sexual orientation" (among other factors) — "protect pedophiles," as Janet Porter and many others have claimed. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation refers to heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality — not paraphilias such as pedophilia. Paraphilias, as defined (pdf; may require a different browser) by the American Psychiatric Association, are characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at non-consenting persons or those unable to consent like children, or that involve another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death.Moreover, even if pedophiles, for example, were protected under a hate crime law — and such a law has not been suggested or contemplated anywhere — that would not legalize or "protect" pedophilia. Pedophilia is illegal sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished people who attacked pedophiles would not change that.MYTH # 7Allowing gay people to serve openly will damage the armed forces.THE ARGUMENTAnti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces, not only because of their purported fear that combat readiness will be undermined, but because the military has long been considered the purest meritocracy in America (the armed forces were successfully racially integrated long before American civil society, for example). If gays serve honorably and effectively in this meritocracy, that suggests that there is no rational basis for discriminating against them in any way.THE FACTSGays and lesbians have long served in the U.S. armed forces, though under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy that governed the military between 1993 and 2011, they could not do so openly. At the same time, gays and lesbians have served openly for years in the armed forces of 25 countries (as of 2010), including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, according to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Palm Center report concluded that lifting bans against openly gay service personnel in these countries "ha[s] had no negative impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall combat effectiveness." Successful transitions to new policies were attributed to clear signals of leadership support and a focus on a uniform code of behavior without regard to sexual orientation.A 2008 Military Times poll of active-duty military personnel, often cited by anti-gay activists, found that 10% of respondents said they would consider leaving the military if the DADT policy were repealed. That would have meant that some 228,000 people might have left the military the policy’s 2011 repeal. But a 2009 review of that poll by the Palm Center suggested a wide disparity between what soldiers said they would do and their actual actions. It noted, for example, that far more than 10% of West Point officers in the 1970s said they would leave the service if women were admitted to the academy. "But when the integration became a reality," the report said, "there was no mass exodus; the opinions turned out to be just opinions." Similarly, a 1985 survey of 6,500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13,500 British service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds expressed strong reservations about serving with gays. Yet when those countries lifted bans on gays serving openly, virtually no one left the service for that reason. "None of the dire predictions of doom came true," the Palm Center report said.Despite the fact that gay men and lesbians have been serving openly in the military since September 2011, anti-LGBT groups continue to claim that openly gay personnel are causing problems in the military, including claims of sexual abuse by gay and lesbian soldiers of straight soldiers. The Palm Center refutes this claim, and in an analysis, found that repealing DADT has had “no overall negative impact on military readiness or its component dimensions,” including sexual assault. According to then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012, the repeal of DADT was being implemented effectively and was having no impact on readiness, unit cohesion or morale. Panetta also issued an LGBT Pride message in 2012.MYTH # 8Gay people are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.THE ARGUMENTAnti-LGBT groups want not only to depict sexual orientation as something that can be changed but also to show that heterosexuality is the most desirable "choice," even if religious arguments are set aside. The most frequently used secular argument made by anti-LGBT groups in that regard is that homosexuality is inherently unhealthy, both mentally and physically. As a result, most anti-LGBT rights groups reject the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Some of these groups, including the particularly hard-line Traditional Values Coalition, claim that "homosexual activists" managed to infiltrate the APA in order to sway its decision.THE FACTSAll major professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.The American Psychological Association states that being gay is just as healthy as being straight, and noted that the 1950s-era work of Dr. Evelyn Hooker started to dismantle this myth. In 1975, the association issued a statement that said, in part, “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, reliability or general social and vocational capabilities.” The association has clearly stated in the past that “homosexuality is neither mental illness nor mental depravity. … Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals.”The American Psychiatric Association states that (PDF; may not open in all browsers) homosexuality is not a mental disorder and that all major professional health organizations are on record as confirming that. The organization removed homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual in 1973 after extensive review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts, who concluded that homosexuality is not a mental illness.Though it is true that LGBT people tend to suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population, that is due to the historical social stigmatization of homosexuality and violence directed at LGBT people, not because of homosexuality itself. Studies done during the past several years have determined that it is the stress of being a member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use.Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like this in 2008: "Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination ... increase stress and diminish the ability of individuals [in minority groups] to cope with stress, which in turn contribute to poor physical and mental health."Even as early as 1994, external stressors were recognized as a potential cause of emotional distress of LGBT people. A report presented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA House of Delegates Interim Meeting with regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotional disturbance gay men and lesbians experience around their sexual identity is not based on physiological causes, but rather on “a sense of alienation in an unaccepting environment.”In 2014, a study, conducted by several researchers at major universities and the Rand Corporation, found that LGBT people living in highly anti-LGBT communities and circumstances face serious health concerns and even premature death because of social stigmatization and exclusion. One of the researchers, Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler, a sociomedical sciences professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said that the data gathered in the study suggests that “sexual minorities living in communities with high levels of anti-gay prejudice have increased risk of mortality, compared to low-prejudice communities.”Homosexuality is not a mental illness or emotional problem and being LGBT does not cause someone to be mentally ill, contrary to what anti-LGBT organizations say. Rather, social stigmatization and prejudice appear to contribute to health disparities in the LGBT population, which include emotional and psychological distress and harmful coping mechanisms.MYTH # 9No one is born gay.THE ARGUMENTAnti-gay activists keenly oppose the granting of "special" civil rights protections to gay people similar to those afforded black Americans and other minorities. But if people are born gay — in the same way that people have no choice as to whether they are black or white — discrimination against gay men and lesbians would be vastly more difficult to justify. Thus, anti-gay forces insist that sexual orientation is a behavior that can be changed, not an immutable characteristic.THE FACTSModern science cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many studies suggest that it is the result of both biological and environmental forces, not a personal "choice." A 2008 Swedish study of twins (the world's largest twin study) published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior concluded that "[h]omosexual behaviour is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors." Dr. Qazi Rahman, study co-author and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said: "This study puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single 'gay gene' or a single environmental variable which could be used to 'select out' homosexuality — the factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about homosexuality here — heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors." In other words, sexual orientation in general — whether homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual — is a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.The American Psychological Association (APA) states that sexual orientation “ranges along a continuum,” and acknowledges that despite much research into the possible genetic, hormonal, social and cultural influences on sexual orientation, scientists have yet to pinpoint the precise causes of sexual orientation. Regardless, the APA concludes that "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation." In 1994, the APA noted that “homosexuality is not a matter of individual choice” and that research “suggests that the homosexual orientation is in place very early in the life cycle, possibly even before birth.”The American Academy of Pediatrics stated in 1993 (updated in 2004) that “homosexuality has existed in most societies for as long as recorded descriptions of sexual beliefs and practices have been available” and that even at that time, “most scholars in the field state that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice … individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual.”There are questions about what specifically causes sexual orientation in general, but most current science acknowledges that it is a complex mixture of biological, environmental, and possibly hormonal factors but that no one chooses an orientation.MYTH # 10Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality.THE ARGUMENTIf people are not born gay, as anti-gay activists claim, then it should be possible for individuals to abandon homosexuality. This view is buttressed among religiously motivated anti-gay activists by the idea that homosexual practice is a sin and humans have the free will needed to reject sinful urges.A number of "ex-gay" religious ministries have sprung up in recent years with the aim of teaching gay people to become heterosexuals, and these have become prime purveyors of the claim that gays and lesbians, with the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachings, can "come out of homosexuality." The now defunct Exodus International, the largest of these ministries, once stated, "You don't have to be gay!" Meanwhile, in a more secular vein, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality describes itself as "a professional, scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality."THE FACTS"Reparative" or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric and professional counseling organizations. In 2009, for instance, the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution, accompanied by a 138-page report, that repudiated ex-gay therapy. The report concluded that compelling evidence suggested that cases of individuals going from gay to straight were "rare" and that "many individuals continued to experience same-sex sexual attractions" after reparative therapy. The APA resolution added that "there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation" and asked "mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change in sexual orientation." The resolution also affirmed that same-sex sexual and romantic feelings are normal.A very large number of professional medical, scientific and counseling organizations in the U.S. and abroad have issued statements regarding the harm that reparative therapy can cause, particularly if it’s based on the assumption that homosexuality is unacceptable. As early as 1993, the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that “[t]herapy directed at specifically changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving change in orientation.”The American Medical Association officially opposes reparative therapy that is “based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based on an a priori assumption that the person should change his/her homosexual orientation.”The Pan-American Health Organization, the world’s oldest international public health agency, issued a statement in 2012 that said, in part: “Services that purport to ‘cure’ people with non-heterosexual sexual orientation lack medical justification and represent a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people.” The statement continues, “In none of its individual manifestations does homosexuality constitute a disorder or an illness, and therefore it requires no cure.”Some of the most striking, if anecdotal, evidence of the ineffectiveness of sexual reorientation therapy has been the numerous failures of some of its most ardent advocates. For example, the founder of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, left the organization in 1979 with a fellow male ex-gay counselor because the two had fallen in love. Other examples include George Rekers, a former board member of NARTH and formerly a leading scholar of the anti-LGBT Christian right who was revealed to have been involved in a same-sex tryst in 2010. John Paulk, former poster child of the massive ex-gay campaign “Love Won Out” in the late 1990s, is now living as a happy gay man. And Robert Spitzer, a preeminent psychiatrist whose 2001 research that seemed to indicate that some gay people had changed their orientation, repudiated his own study in 2012. The Spitzer study had been widely used by anti-LGBT organizations as “proof” that sexual orientation can change.In 2013, Exodus International, formerly one of the largest ex-gay ministries in the world, shut down after its director, Alan Chambers, issued an apology to the LGBT community. Chambers, who is married to a woman, has acknowledged that his same-sex attraction has not changed. At a 2012 conference, he said: “The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction.”1. “We need to protect marriage.”The word “protect” implies that gay people are a threat to the institution of marriage. To imply that including same-sex couples within the definition of marriage will somehow be detrimental or even destructive for the institution is to suggest gay people must be inherently poisonous. It also implies a nefarious gay mafia that is out to wreck marriage for straight people. Naturally if such a mafia existed I would be bound by a code of honour to deny its existence. However, it doesn’t exist.2. “We must preserve traditional marriage.”Given that marriage has always changed to suit the culture of the time and place, I would refrain from ever calling it “traditional”. If marriage was truly traditional, interracial couples would not be allowed to wed, one could marry a child, ceremonies would be arranged by parents to share familial wealth and the Church of England would still be under the authority of the Pope.3. “Marriage is a sacred institution.”The word “sacred” suggests marriage is a solely religious institution. The Office for National Statistics shows how civil, non-religious marriage made up 68 per cent of all marriages in the UK during 2010. Let us not forget matrimony existed long before Jehovah was even a word you weren’t allowed to say.4. “Marriage has always been a bond between one man and one woman.”This declaration ignores the legally married gay couples in Canada, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, and South Africa. It conveniently forgets the 48 countries where polygamy is still practised. It also omits from history the married gay couples of ancient China and Rome, Mormon polygamy, and the ancient Egyptians who could marry their sisters. The assertion is obviously false.5. “Gay marriage will confuse gender roles.”This hinges on the idea that gender roles are or should be fixed, as dictated by scripture, most often cited for the sake of healthy child development. The love and care homosexual couples routinely provide children are, it would seem, irrelevant. Perhaps it would help to reiterate that gay people are not confused about gender, they are just gay. It is the churches who are deeply confused about gender and sexuality. I would ask them to stop focusing on my genitals, and start paying attention to my humanity.6. “Gay marriage will confuse the terms ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, or ‘mother and ‘father’.”Another form of the previous argument. It is not hard but I’ll say it slowly just in case … married men will refer to themselves … as “husbands”, and married women will refer to themselves … as “wives”. Male parents will be “fathers” and female parents will both be “mothers”. Not so confusing really.7. “Gay people cannot have children and so should not be allowed to marry.”The Archbishop of York John Sentamu used a barely disguised version of this argument in a piece for the Guardian when he referred to “the complementary nature of men and women”. He is insinuating, of course, that homosexual relationships are not complementary by nature because they cannot produce offspring, and therefore they are unnatural and undeserving of the word “marriage”.May I refer him to the elderly or infertile straight couples who cannot produce children? If a complementary relationship hinges on procreative sex, are these relationships unnatural? Should they be allowed to marry?8. “But studies have shown heterosexual parents are better for children.”No, they have not. Dozens of studies have shown gay people to be entirely capable of raising children. While it is true that many reputable studies have shown two-parent families tend to be most beneficial, the gender of the parents has never been shown to matter.The studies cited by actively homophobic organisations like the Coalition for Marriage were funded by anti-gay organisations, or have basic methodology flaws – for example, they would compare married straight couples with un-wed gay couples, or they would take a person who may have had a single curious experience with the same sex and define them as exclusively homosexual. Sometimes, the even more disingenuous will reference studies [PDF] which do not even acknowledge gay parents. Same-sex parents are simply presumed by biased researchers to be equivalent to single parents and step-parents, and therefore use the data interchangeably, which as anyone with an ounce of scientific literacy knows is not the way such studies work.Arguments based on “traditional family” will always be insulting, not just to the healthy, well-adjusted children of gay couples, but to the children raised by single parents, step-parents, grandparents, godparents, foster parents, and siblings.9. “No one has the right to redefine marriage.”Tell that to Henry VIII. When marriage is a civil, legal institution of the state, the citizenship has a right to redefine marriage in accordance with established equality laws.10. “The minority should not have the right to dictate to the majority.”Asking to be included within marriage laws is certainly not equivalent to imposing gay marriage on the majority. No single straight person’s marriage will be affected by letting gay people marry.Another form of the above argument is “Why should we bother changing the law just to cater to 4% of the population?” By this logic, what reason is there to provide any minority equal civil rights?11. “Public opinion polls show most people are against gay marriage.”A petition by the Coalition for Marriage claimed to have 600,000 signatures in opposition to gay marriage in the UK. It should come as no surprise that the directors of the organisation are religious and manipulation of the results was easy. A single person could submit their signature online multiple times providing they used different email addresses (which were not verified). Programs that allow for anonymity of IP addresses also enabled anyone around the world to add their signature.The majority of UK polls demonstrate a majority in favour of gay marriage. These include a 2004 Gallup poll, a 2008 ICM Research poll, a 2009 Populus poll, a 2010 Angus Reid poll, a 2010 Scottish Social Attitudes survey, a 2011 Angus Reid Public Opinion survey, and a 2012 YouGov survey.Even if most people were against gay marriage, which polls consistently show is not the case, majority will is no justification for the exclusion of a minority.12. “Why is it so important for gay people to have marriage?”For the same reason it is important to straight people. Our relationships are just as loving and valid as heterosexual relationships, but our current marriage laws suggest it is not. We are equally human and we should be treated by the law as such.13. “Why do gay people have to get society’s approval?”To turn the argument on its head, one simply has to ask why society feels the need to segregate our rights from those of heterosexuals. It has nothing to do with approval, and has everything to do with equality.14. “There are two sides to the argument. Why can’t we compromise?”Should women have compromised their right to vote? One does not compromise equal rights otherwise they are not equal rights.15. “Gay people in the UK already have civil partnerships which provide all the same rights as marriage.”Civil partnerships were born out of politicians pandering to homophobia. A step in the right direction, perhaps, but they are a separate form of recognition that reaffirmed society’s wish to keep homosexuals at arm’s length should we somehow “diminish” true marriage.Type B: The Arguments That Don’t Even Bother to Hide Their HomophobiaWhile we must look closely to spot the homophobia inherent in some arguments against gay marriage, with others the prejudice is barely disguised at all.16. “I am concerned about the impact gay marriage will have on society/schools.”There is no concern here, only prejudice. We can conclude this because there is absolutely no evidence to suggest gay marriage will harm society. Have the 11 countries where gay marriage is legal crumbled yet? Ultimately the argument turns out to be hyperbolic nonsense designed to instil confusion, fear, and mistrust of gay people.17. “Gay marriage is immoral.”If there is something immoral about legally acknowledging the love between two consenting adults, it would help the argument to state precisely what that is. “God says so” is not an argument. And this article, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, is the real “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”.18. “Gay people should not be allowed to marry because they are more likely to be promiscuous.”This claim is based on the degrading preconception that gay people do not feel true love and just have sex with as many people as possible. It is also beside the point - straight couples are not precluded from marriage on the basis they may be unfaithful, so why should gay people?19. “I love my best friend, my brother and my dog. That does not mean we should have the right to marry.”Thank you for reducing the love I have for my long-term partner to friendship, incest or bestiality. May also take the form: “The state should not be blessing every sexual union.”Thank you, again, for reducing my long-term, loving relationship to just sex.Type C: The Really Silly Homophobic Arguments20. “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”Clearly not a Biology graduate.21. “If everybody was gay, mankind would cease to exist.”Ignoring the fact not everyone is gay, and also ignoring the fact gay people can and do have children through donors and surrogates, I actually quite enjoyed the apocalyptic images this argument conjured.22. “Gay rights are fashionable right now.”The Suffragettes famously marched together because they needed an excuse to compare clothing. Civil rights activists looked fabulous with hoses and guns turned on them. Nooses around gay Iranian necks are totally “in” right now. We are all mere lambs of our Queen Gaga.People actually use this argument.23. “The only people who want gay marriage are the liberal elites.”If this was really true, how come hundreds of everyday gay people protest outside anti-gay marriage rallies? How come thousands of people voice their support for gay marriage in polls? I do not imagine there are many people who believe they deserve fewer rights or who desire to be second-class citizens.24. “Gay people do not even want marriage.”Yes, Ann Widdecombe, we do. We do not appreciate you mischaracterising what millions of us do and do not want, and squaring reality to fit your Catholic bigotry.25. “Gay people can already get married – to people of the opposite gender.”This is Michele Bachmann’s demented logic. Yes, gay people can already get married … to people of the opposite gender. No, they are not allowed to marry the people they actually love. This is not just bigotry, it’s also stupidity.26. “There will be drastic consequences for society if we accept gay marriage.”Person A: “Have you been to Canada lately? They have free health care, they play hockey, and they’re very peaceful and polite.”Person B: “That sounds nice.”Person A: “They have gay marriage too.”Person B: “Sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah.”27. “Gay marriage will cause the disestablishment of the church.”Or to put it another way: “If you don’t stop all this silly talk, we will be forced to go away and leave you in peace.” Scary!28. “Gay marriage will lead to polygamy/bestiality/paedophilia/etc.”The truth is that the legalisation of gay marriage will lead to the legalisation of gay marriage. Dire warnings of slippery slopes are scaremongering. In the countries that have so far legalised same-sex marriage, courts have always rejected calls for the legalisation of polygamy.29. “Gay marriage caused the end of the Roman Empire/September 11th/etc.”The Roman Empire disintegrated as barbarians from the north overwhelmed them, forcing the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer. This had nothing to do with homosexuality.The attacks on the World Trade Center were orchestrated by Al-Qaeda, an extremist Muslim group that detests America. The gay mafia was not involved.30. “You are too emotionally involved to make a rational argument.”Of course I’m angry. Wouldn’t you be if you had to listen to arguments like these? I’m passionate about achieving equality and combating prejudice. But, as everyone should know, passion and reason are complementary.31. “We are in an economic crisis, so we should not be wasting time on gay marriage.”Is it too much to wish for politicians who can multi-task? And for leaders who don’t consider equality a luxury add on?

Dr Shashi Tharoor, made the case in a debate titled 'This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies', which was put on by the world-famous debating society, the Oxford Union.Dr. Tharoor's speech was widely appreciated in India and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament:Tharoor’s speech reflected the feelings of patriotic Indians on the issue and showed what an impression one can leave with effective arguments by saying the right things at the right place.The main thrust of Dr Tharoor's speech was about the economic toll that British rule took on India.His point number 1 was “Robert Clive brought their rotten boroughs in England on the proceeds of their loot in India.”“British had the gall to call him Clive of India' as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him...”Sir, you completely forget about the deceit and treason of the natives; that is how a nation of 100 million was conquered by few. “Clive of India” only succeeded because of the intrinsic betrayal of treason set in the blood of our people; we were rotten, not the boroughs that Clive bought; we who sold our motherland’s allegiance for a trifle. Forget about removal of vestiges of jijiya, abolishing cruel inhuman system,suppressin of Mopla rebellion, their is solid evidence of their great contributions.The background (Historical references in footnotes):The colonial era in India began in 1502, when the Portuguese Empire established the first European trading centre at Kollam, Kerala. In 1505 King Manuel I of Portugal appointed Dom Francisco de Almeida as the first Portuguese viceroy in India, followed in 1509 by Dom Afonso de Albuquerque. In 1661 Portugal was at war with Spain and needed support from England. This led to the marriage of Princess Catherine of Portugal to Charles II of England, who imposed a dowry that included the insular and less inhabited areas of southern Bombay while the Portuguese managed to retain all the mainland territory north of Bandra up to Thana and Bassein. This was the beginning of the English presence in India.The spice trade between India and Europe was one of the main types of trade in the world economy and was the main catalyst for the period of European exploration. The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the accidental "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. We became slaves and a colony because of our spices.In 1617 the British East India Company was given permission by Mughal Emperor Jahangir to trade in India. Gradually their increasing influence led the de jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty-free trade in Bengal in 1717.The Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of the Bengal province, opposed British attempts to use these permits. This led to the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, in which the Bengal Army of the East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the French-supported Nawab's forces.In 1757 Mir Jafar, the commander in chief of the army of the Nawab of Bengal, along with Jagat Seth, Maharaja Krishna Nath, Umi Chand and some others, secretly connived with the British, asking support to overthrow the Nawab in return for trade grants. (Nawab’s rule was almost tyrannical with no democracy, and the will of Nawab was of paramount supremacy. The 600 fiefdoms, like cheese holes, were scattered over the entire landmass; what productivity could be expected out of corrupt kingdoms? The Raj’s last legacy was to do away with them through document of paramountancy). The British forces, whose sole duty until then was guarding Company property, were numerically inferior to the Bengali armed forces. At the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, fought between the British under the command of Robert Clive and the Nawab, Mir Jafar's forces betrayed the Nawab and helped defeat him. Jafar was installed on the throne as a British subservient ruler. The battle transformed British perspective as they realised their strength and potential to conquer smaller Indian kingdoms, and marked the beginning of the imperial or colonial era in South Asia.This was the first real political foothold with territorial implications that the British acquired in India. Clive was appointed by the company as its first 'Governor of Bengal' in 1757. This was combined with British victories over the French at Madras, Wandiwash and Pondichéry that, along with wider British successes during the Seven Years' War, reduced French influence in India.The British East India Company extended its control over the whole of Bengal. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company acquired the rights of administration in Bengal from de jure Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II; this marked the beginning of its formal rule, which within the next century engulfed most of India. The East India Company monopolized the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called the Permanent Settlement which introduced a feudal-like structure in Bengal, often with zamindars set in place.His point number 2 was: “By the end of 19th century, the fact is that 'India was already Britain's biggest cash cow…”Until 1947, the subcontinent was deeply bifurcated and separated at odds (Look at the maps of India of 1857 and India of 1901):The British gave the subcontinent contiguity, extended it beyond Indus to Durand Line - they left an almost communicable subcontinent. Without the Raj, no one would be able to unite the subcontinent; it was never one the way it became a federation after 1947. Thank the Raj. We were never “one” before that.Imperial entities of India:Dutch India 1605–1825Danish India 1620–1869French India 1769–1954Portuguese India (1505–1961)Casa da Índia 1434–1833Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633British India (1612–1947) - East India Company 1612–1757 Company rule in India 1757–1858 British Raj 1858–1947 British rule in Burma 1824–1948 Princely states 1721–1949 Partition of India 1947The British Empire in the Indian subcontinent lasted almost 200 years. Beginning in 1757, all the areas of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma were brought under British political control by the middle of the nineteenth century.The Indian subcontinent was divided into two sets of territories, the first being the territories under the control of the British Empire, and the second being the territories over which the Crown had suzerainty, but which were under the control of their hereditary rulers. These hereditary rulers were historically independent and wanted to maintain their lavish lifestyles. Their populace was virtually a slave under their draconian systems, not only burdened caste divisions but the wealth was all accumulated at the top – extravagance galore, and abusive in 680 native states that kept 45% of the total area of British India poverty-stricken. In addition, there were several colonial enclaves controlled by France and Portugal.This is what sub-continent looked like post 1900. A fragmented land. Fifty percent of it ruled by potentates who would treat the people as enslaved subjects. They raped freedom of every one, hugely holders of the wealth; we were freed from rape of these potentates. From June to August 15 1947, 562 of the 565 India-linked states signed the instrument of accession. Despite dramatic political exchanges, Travancore, Jodhpur and Indore signed on time. The political integration of India established a united nation for the first time in centuries from a plethora of princely states, colonial provinces and possessions. The British created Madras out of five different linguistic groups and parts of five modern states. This was the biggest contribution of Raj, we would be otherwise Africanised and Balkanised.We are ungrateful and unaware of what we have been going through for a full 1000 years of bondage.“British India” was defined as “all territories and places within Her Majesty’s dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India”; the remaining areas were referred to as the “native states” or the “princely states” by the Colonial government and were ruled by hereditary kings. About 680 native states were recognized by the Foreign Office in 1910. Native states constituted about 45% of the total area of British India (excluding Burma and Sind) and about 23% of the total population in 1911.In 1947 Vallabhbhai Patel, as Minister for Home and States Affairs, had the responsibility of welding the British Indian, provinces and the princely states into a united India. Simultaneously, the Government of India, through a combination of diplomatic and military means, acquired de facto and de jure control over the remaining colonial enclaves, which too were integrated into India.The political integration of these territories into India was a declared objective of the Indian National Congress, which the Government of India pursued over the next decade. Through a combination of factors, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon convinced the rulers of the various princely states to accede to India. Having secured their accession, they then proceeded to, in a step-by-step process, secure and extend the central government's authority over these states and transform their administrations until, by 1956, there was little difference between the territories that had formerly been part of British India and those that had been part of princely states At the time of Indian independence in 1947.There was no North in 1857, just Indus and all these yellow lands that were owned by the Nawabs who owned nearly all the wealth of the state. Without a central Army that Raj bequeathed to us, these Nawabs would have given and wreaked hell on the ordinary people of a balakanized subcontinent. The best thing to happen to the subcontinent was that all these 600- plus blood-sucking Nawabs disappeared.Dr. Tharoor's third point was that: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23 percent, by the time the British left it was down to below 4 per cent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. In fact Britain's industrial revolution was actually premised upon the de-industrialisation of India…”He completely missed the fact that India and China were the world’s most populated nations too. Look at the charts. Naturally, the GDP would consequently be high, but though it was high, the economy and productivity were very inefficient, as wealth was mostly concentrated in a few RULING hands. The subcontinent’s economy was left behind with the hockey stick growth of the west as a result of internal combustion engine and steam. Without the Raj we would be struggling with internecine wars, no language skills and hugely divided Nawabic lands with no railways that made the continent one.Let me explain further. Yes, the share of world output was 23% when the world was an utterly agricultural-based economy. India's population was 120 million too. With China they were nearly 45% of the known population of the world. In 1000 AD, according to Maddison’s calculations, China and India together contributed 50.5% of world GDP (GDP being computed in 1990 dollars and in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms). By 1600, that share had gone up to 51.4%, with China accounting for 29% and India 22.4% of world GDP. Once the industrial economy took over the power of steam, THAT killed manual labor. A hundred years later, China’s GDP had fallen but India’s went up to 24.4% of world output. By 1820, however, India’s share had fallen to 16.1%. By 1870, it went down to 12.2%. International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections indicate that India’s share of world GDP would be 6.1% in 2015.The industrial use of steam power started with Thomas Savery in 1698. For most of human history, growth in world output per head averaged little more than 0.1% a year. It was not until the late 18th century that growth accelerated, to an average of 1.2% a year over the past 200 years (see charts), thanks to a spurt in technological innovation. Since then, the world has seen four main waves of innovation. The first, from the 1780s to the 1840s, was the industrial revolution in Britain, fueled by steam power; the second, from the 1840s to the 1890s, was the railway age; the third, from the 1890s to the 1950s, was driven by electric power and the car. Now we are in the information age.The subcontinent was lucky that as a result of the Raj we had an early rendezvous with the industrial revolution, fueled by steam power. Otherwise sans steam power, no agricultural revolution, or a scientific revolution had occurred, and in the long run, the manual skill of the Indian artisan could be no substitute for technical progress. There is no easy answer to the problem that the country was prosperous and the people were poor, as wealth was accumulated in the coffers of the ruling Emperor or the Nawabs.(“The annual revenues of the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb (1659-1701) are said to have amounted to $450,000,000, more than ten times those of (his contemporary) Louis XIV.” John Kautsky, The Politics of Aristocratic Empires, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1982, p. 188). One explanation is that even in the 18th century, India had a large population and plenty of cheap labour. Prosperity comes with rising productivity and a rise in productivity depends on technology. When the supply of labour is elastic, it is more economical to hire people than to invest in machines. Hence, an Englishman observed in 1807, “In India it is seldom that an attempt is made to accomplish anything by machinery that can be performed by human labour.” http://gurcharandas.org/rich-nation-poor. But the despicable wicked caste system that cuts the productivity of a significant portion of the population to zilch is the fault of British rule then?If the Mughals had continued their unremitting rule of India without a proper system of education introduced by the British and over-reliance onmadrasas, downtown Bangalore would be a picture of a day-after-day beheading, rather than being the most important tech hub it became. The English language was Raj-induced that was taught in Indian schools and institutes and was an official language in the country. They gave us the language that connected us to the world. The long term benefits can be seen today. The communities that lacked interest in learning the skill set remained still backward:'In 1824 when Government decided to start a Sanskrit College in Calcutta, the Hindu leaders met under the leadership of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and demanded that they did not want Sanskrit College to be established by Government but wanted that it should start English colleges as far as possible.On the other hand in 1835, after 11 years when the Mohammedans came to know that Government intends to start English teaching in all schools, they submitted an application signed by 8000 Moulvis of Calcutta to stop it. Muslims vehemently opposed the new system of education believing that the philosophy and logic taught in English was at variance with the tenets of Islam. They looked upon the study of English as little less than embracing of Christianity.'An important point ignored by Dr. Tharoor in the heat of the moment is overlooking the Raj’s contribution to healthcare, control of rampant diseases that helped reduce mortality rates.According to Angus Maddison, "The British contributed to public health by introducing smallpox vaccination, establishing Western medicine and training modern doctors, by killing rats, and establishing quarantine procedures. As a result, the death rate fell and the population of India grew by 1947 to more than two-and-a- half times its size in 1757."The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. Ten thousand British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic. Estimated deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 exceeded 15 million. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. The Third Pandemic of plague started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading disease to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone. Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, became the first microbiologist to develop and deploy vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925 the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.Fevers ranked as one of the leading causes of death in India. In the 19th century Britain's Sir Ronald Ross, working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta, finally proved in 1898 that mosquitoes transmit malaria, while on assignment in the Deccan at Secunderabad, where the Center for Tropical and Communicable Diseases is now named in his honour.In 1881, around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in India. Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination. Mass vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end of the 19th century. In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox. Between 1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to establishing a systematic institution in Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives. In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognised colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (alongside Elphinstone College, Deccan College and Government Law College, Mumbai). - WikiWe just cannot just thank them enough. Dr Tharoor made another huge omission in his speech by making no reference to the largest irrigation systems made by the Raj and the Brits from 1890 onwards that made Punjab the granary of the subcontinent - it even cultivated Sind and the tail ends.This was the biggest gift of the Raj, with the other being the early introduction of age of steam and industrialization, and language. (There is a reason why Iran, Afghanistan and many others could not see development of Silicon Valley in their own backyards and did not see their sons running Microsoft and top Fortune 500).Let me give you an example of the canals system established to tame Indus – a miracle to save us from certain famine as a result of vagaries of the Indus. British realised the potential source of water in the sub continent and built a canal system for the purpose. Brits did it to avoid the specter of mass famine had these massive water works not been undertaken.It may have been political expediency to grow cotton, but much before that after 1857 to 1870, a lot of planning was done to grow more food for a growing sub-continent population in North of India. I have read the speeches and the paper in archives of the British Library where the case to avoid mass famine in upper Sind and lower Sind was made for construction of Sukkur barrage.True to their nature Mughals did try to harness water from Indus but for them – not food but pleasure was the target. The first evidence of perennial irrigation on any of the Indus rivers dates back to early seventeenth century when an 80-kilometer-long canal was constructed by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (reigned 1605-27) to bring water from Ravi to the pleasure gardens of Sheikhupura near Lahore. Pakistan today meets its entire agricultural requirements through Indus Basin arrangements. Agriculture use is close to 97 percent, a staggering figure that is well above the global average of about 70 percent.The areas now included in Pakistan were undergoing developments to build some gigantic and remarkable engineering works. In 1871, the weir across River Ravi was built at the head of Bari Doab canal in Punjab. The building of Khanki headworks was undertaken in 1890-92. The headworks of Rasul on Jhelum River were built in 1901.Between the period 1900-1950, the following were constructed: Marala weir on River Chenab, Balloki headworks on River Ravi and Ferozpur, Sulemanki, Islam and Panjnad on River Sutlej, Trimmu on River Jhelum and Sukkur and Kalabagh on River Indus.What all this developed into was ‘The Indus Basin,’ a very developed watershed in that it has a lot of storage and management infrastructure. This is this single feat of British that has saved us from ‘Somaliazation’, this is what my doctoral thesis is based on. Indus Basin irrigation system is a marvel of engineering and a gift of the British to our generations who are not aware what has gone into it. As a result we have entered into the 21st century with the world's largest and unified irrigation system that consists of three major reservoirs (Chashma, Mangla, and Tarbela); 18 barrages (Ferozepur, Sulemanki, Islam, Balloki,Marala, Trimmu, Panjnad, Kalabagh, Sukkur, Kotri, Taunsa, Guddu, Chashma, Mailsi, Sidhnai, Rasul,Qadirabad, and Marala); 12 link canals; 45 irrigation canals; and over 107,000 water courses and millions of farm channels and field ditches. The total length of main canal system is estimated about 585,000 Kilometer (36,932 miles) and that of watercourses and field channels exceeds 1.62 million Kilometers (over 1.02 million miles).Pakistan has a unique irrigation system which comprises of five main rivers, i.e. the Indus, the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi and the Sutlej River. The network of Indus basin Irrigation System consists of the Dams, Barrages, Headworks, Canals and Interlinks. Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma are the three primary reservoirs on this system. This system of reservoirs and canals forms the basis of the Indus Basin irrigation system and is thus absolutely essential to our food and avoidance of famine a la Somalia.This system includes Link Canals that were built with a concept to transfer water from the Western Rivers, i.e., Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to the Eastern Rivers, i.e. Ravi and Sutlej after the Indus water treaty of 1960. Whereas, the feeder canals taken out from different head works are meant mainly to irrigate the agricultural lands throughout. The waters of the Indus Basin Rivers are diverted through reservoirs/barrages into canals, classified as the Main Canals. These main canals then distribute the irrigation water into their command areas through a network of branch canals.Water from the Indus empties onto the plains through regulatory structures known as rim stations mostly designed pre-partition. About 173 billion cubic metres pass through the rim stations, about 128 billion cubic metres of which is diverted for irrigation. But this figure is still insufficient to meet agricultural irrigation requirements, and the shortfall of about 40 percent is made up from groundwater pumping. The associated canal network is massive – with 43,561 kilometres of canals, 18,884 kilometres of seepage/storm water drains and 12,612 kilometres of tile drains, mostly in the Indus Plain provinces of Punjab and Sindh.Railways, posts, every possible system that we enjoy today are the remnants of the Raj. The difference between North Waziristan and us is the language and versatility of connection, the difference between madrassas and contemporary minds is the ability of modern education accorded to us by the Raj, with all due respect. The largest man-made irrigation system on the Indus, as explained earlier, is a gift of Raj engineering. Yes, excesses were committed, but Ghauris, Ghazanvis, Slave Dynasties, Sirajudullahs were not democratically elected leaders of India.A leap forward in science requires foresight, reason and rationalism and all this was amiss. It was just the absolute love of Lodhis Aurungzebs Abdalis to enforce the desert dogma through sword and terror on a riparian peaceful society. One should read the poets Mir and Ghalib forloot ki dastaan (tales of plunder). Internecine wars of Islam crippled the North completely; it was regrettably the heart of the subcontinent.David Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G Williamson, among others, affirm that "while India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900."The reason for that was India and China's huge population advantage, the size of the economy was although naturally bigger as population was between 100-150 million people in times of Akbar, so on per capita basis they had a far larger share, but in no way were these economies booming economies, they remained stagnant for nearly a hundred years. Despite major intellectual advantage - India was the equivalent of Silicon Valley of the mathematics - its originality, creativity and recuperation was maimed by these continual invasions and killings. India's progress stopped; as the post renaissance age took off once dogma was thrown out and industrial revolution set off, the world rocketed ahead but China and Indian subcontinent remained stagnated: Over the past millennium, world population rose twenty-two–fold. Per capita income increased thirteen–fold, world GDP nearly three-hundred–fold. This contrasts sharply with the preceding millennium, when world population grew by only a sixth, and there was no advance in per capita income. Indian economy remained stagnant at 450-560 $ per head from 1500-1950.It is sad but I feel compelled to reiterate that it was we who were rotten, not Clive. He may have not taken over, though we would still remain like Afghanistan and Somalia cut off from the world - inadvertently Mir Jafari’s betrayal helped. We had an early rendezvous with Newtonian calculus based harnessing of steam power and invention of internal combustion engine; without advances in agriculture and railways introduced by the Raj we would have faced far bigger famines. These '600 rotten fiefdoms' would not be able to tap the 'mighty rivers' the way Raj was able to do from 1890 onward - once they created contiguity they were able to get the canal system going as well as communication extended to the whole subcontinent.Imagine, till today we cannot have consensus to tap Indus hydro-power of 60k mgw since 1972 after Tarbela - we just cannot agree. They made Lloyd's in 1900 onward to save Sind from certain famine, the canals on the left bank helped Nawabshah and the right bank Larkana Dadu- they gave us the life - moguls never made canals only Aurungzebi kind of wars.“1966-1980 is effectively the dark period for the Indian economy.” Nothing hurt India more but the lost decades. The Raj helped us become a great subcontinent and India took off once the socialist system was written off and the Hindu growth rate was ditched by Manmohan Singh. P.C. Mahalanobis Nehru's strategic planner thought competition was wasteful, a flawed idea because there can be little improvement in productivity and there were no opportunities for rapid export expansion in the 1950s.India's share of world trade declined from 2.2 percent in 1947 to 0.5 percent in 1990 as Nehruvian India's mantra of an inward-looking, import-substituting path rather than an outward-looking, export-promoting route; denied India a share in world trade and the prosperity that trade brought in the post-War era. Though India was on wrong socialist inward path by the late sixties, instead of changing course after Nehru, Indira Gandhi introduced supplementary controls. She nationalized banks, discouraged foreign investment, and placed more hurdles before domestic enterprise. Hence, industrial growth plunged from 7.7 per cent a year between 1951-1965 to 4.0 per cent between 1966-1980. Productivity of Indian manufacturing declined half a percent a year from 1960 to 1985.How come we always conveniently overlook that we kept on fighting for hundreds of years on religion and kept our populace in chains and shackles as a result of an evil caste system. We ignore and find xenophobic slogans to neglect jhopar pattis (slums) where men are denied dignity of living - why did he not raise the issue of our criminal neglect, lack of egalitarianism, ever warring nature which is the real cause of our poverty?What economy can prosper ‘when waging holy wars is the name of the game’; some of these fiefdoms used to spend 50% of GDP of the princely state, and Aurunzebi rule on either ostentatious living or later case mad wars. Can you imagine how many times the capital Delhi used to be looted and raped by Iltimush, Tamerline, Lodhis, and Moguls intensive wars between them Nadir shahs Abdalis before the Raj? How could a nation come out of it? Had it not been for the systems that the Raj established, we were being killed like moths by these invaders and we call them our Emperors only because we cannot face the bitter facts.As an aside:Dr. Tharoor’s kind of speech leads to claims like the one in January 2015 where the speakers at a prestigious science conference in Mumbai had claimed that a Hindu sage invented interplanetary spacecraft 7,000 years ago, that a herbal paste applied to a person’s feet can help locate underground water and that a bacteria found in cows can turn any material into gold.These unconventional claims were made during a session of the continuing Indian Science Congress, titled Ancient Sciences Through Sanskrit. The discussion was sandwiched between more orthodox events on nuclear magnetic resonance and the structure of the atom, and speakers were an uncomfortable fit with the rest of those on the day’s schedule: spiritual counsellors and Sanskrit scholars moving among neurologists, chemists and physicists.“There is official history and unofficial history,” said one of the speakers, retired pilot trainer Anand Bodas. “Official history only noted that the Wright Brothers flew the first plane in 1903,” but the inventor of the airplane was really a sage named Bharadwaja, who lived around 7,000 years ago. “The ancient planes had 40 small engines.”My kind of story leads to shunning of these fairytales and highlighting the truth. The truth is that John Dalton (1766 – 1844), an English chemist and physicist, is the man credited today with the development of atomic theory. However, a theory of atoms was actually formulated 2,500 years before Dalton by an Indian sage and philosopher, known as Acharya Kanad. Acharya Kanad was born in 600 BC in Prabhas Kshetra (near Dwaraka) in Gujarat, India. His real name was Kashyap.Today, I make an interesting observation from my vantage point. Connecting points of history to ‘Vedic Mathematics’, which is acknowledged by every Arab that I have talked with in Alazhar and every Iranian intellectual, even the Vedic influence on Qurraysh pre-Jahilliiyah is very much accepted.Al-Beruni’s ability to find the correct circumference of the earth that was the closest and nearest call of the circumference of the planet earth to what was determined contemporarily was made by Abu Rayhan Biruni (973-1048), after Eratosthenes (300 B.C.) close estimates, depending on what 'stadia' he was referring to - Egyptian or Greek. Abu Rayhan Biruni studied closely, the work of famous Indian mathematician named Aryabhata, who lived around 500 A.D. Al- Biruni, actually calculated the Earth's circumference in a small town on a mountain top of Pind Dadan Khan, District Jhelum, Punjab, presently Pakistan. His method was different from Eratosthenes. He used Vedic methods, and development of Algebra.My point is simple, that Ibn Battuta, Averroes, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi, and Ibn al-Shatir were few of these scholars who benefitted from Vedic mathematics and helped the age of enlightenment within Moorish Spain and Abbasid Baghdad. Islamic scholars owed their knowledge of a moving earth and 'zero' to Vedic Hindu philosophy. Let's trace the root of the Arabic word for restoration, al-jabru, is the root of the word algebra. Algebra, this ancient knowledge of solutions of equations found a home early in the Islamic world, where it was known as the "science of restoration and balancing." In the 9th century al-Khwarizmi wrote Arabic algebra, it is theoretical not in a formula form, both the examples and proofs. The system of mathematics that they and their Sassanid ancestors observed in India was adapted by them and given the name 'Al-Jabr' meaning 'the reunion of broken parts'.It was the desert Arab amalgamation of cradles of eastern civilizations that spewed elite luminaries responsible for the enlightenment of a whole era. Centuries earlier Aryabhatta held to a view in which the Earth rotated. (Zero was invented by the ancient Indian scientists; most people accept that it was invented by the great mathematician Aryabhata). If zero was not discovered mankind would be zero. The rules governing the use of zero appeared for the first time in Brahmagupta's book Brahmasputha Siddhanta (The Opening of the Universe), written in 628. Here Brahmagupta considers not only zero, but negative numbers, and the algebraic rules for the elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dr. Tharoor, thanklessness is not a virtue. We should give credit where it’s due. No nations are built in 70 years. The subcontinent owes the acceleration of its growth because of contributions of the Raj and we should not forget that. With all due respect, you should have researched better on irrigation and railway systems, rather than grandstanding and playing to your audience. Please stop propagating this misplaced hyper nationalism; it is based on a figment of 'vain imagination,' false unfounded glory, and exaggerated oratory. The fact is that all the wealth, like North Korea of today, was in the hands of paltry ostentatious 600 Nawabs, the privileged classes from the scriptures in line with dharma, and to fund the Emperors’ false wars that were mostly internecine or territorial conquests. Not only did you forget irrigation but your facts were wrong on railways too.The British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, including canals and irrigation systems in addition to railways, telegraphy, roads and ports. The Ganges Canal reached 350 miles from Hardwar to Cawnpore, and supplied thousands of miles of distribution canals.By 1900 the Raj had the largest irrigation system in the world. One success story was Assam, a jungle in 1840 that by 1900 had 4,000,000 acres under cultivation, especially in tea plantations. In all, the amount of irrigated land multiplied by a factor of eight. Historian David Gilmour says:"By the 1870s the peasantry in the districts irrigated by the Ganges Canal were visibly better fed, housed and dressed than before; by the end of the century the new network of canals in the Punjab at producing even more prosperous peasantry there."Railways were for the benefit of the entire subcontinent, not only serving as arteries to help export raw materials to the ports. To make it beneficial to all, the route mileage of this network was increased through soliciting investments. From 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 it increased to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, that is what made India a contiguous land. People connected and the concept of a united country inadvertently seeped in.The biggest challenge is and was capital formation: In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.The railway network in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world. "The most magnificent railway station in the world." says the caption of the stereographic tourist picture of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888.British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century which was the fourth largest in the world. The railways at first were privately owned and operated. It was run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians. (Wikipedia)The point is that any infrastructure is most difficult to establish; once in place it is easy to expand and elongate. But the poverty in India cannot be attributed to the Raj. The biggest resistance to change was the landowning privileged class of the subcontinent - the blood suckers of the poor - they incubated, encouraged and patronised poverty and did not allow modernisation and breaking of the caste system.Sanitation and no toilets, even today, is not the fault of the Brits. The slogan of 'toilets before temple' was not coined by the Brits, it was by the current BJP government. There is a reluctance to improve the lot of the poorest of the poor. To keep them enchained and poor is what has kept us where we are. Sad, extremely sad, that we look for scapegoats instead. The complicity of the Congress' near uninterrupted rule cannot be overlooked, Dr. Tharoor, in these matters of criminal neglect of poor humans.After nearly 70 years of independence, extreme poverty of 33% and open defecation is a curse that continues to rule supreme. Since we failed to deliver we find scapegoats. About one billion people in the developing world, or 15 percent of the global population have to rely on open defecation. India is a country with the highest number of people practicing open defecation: around 600 million people. This is 47% of India's population. Most of it occurs in rural areas where the prevalence is estimated at 65 percent of the population. The other countries with the highest number of people openly defecating are Indonesia (54 million people), followed by Pakistan (41 million people), Nigeria (39 million) and Ethiopia (34 million).Koh-i-noor; a curse or a blessing: Koh-i-Noor (it means mountain of light in Persian) diamond, a British crown jewel allegedly acquired from India that every Indian politician would like returned. To whom exactly would the diamond be returned? The British acquired it from Lahore (now in Pakistan) after the conquest of the Sikh Empire. Pakistan and India are both successor states of British India. The diamond itself was never really the property of the Indian state, but always a prize fought over by conquerors. Virtually every possessor of the diamond seized it from its previous owner.Famine: Yes- India suffered a series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century, leading to widespread famines in which at least 10 million people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule.This changed during the Raj, in which commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect.Mindset - the 'Indian desire' for hoarding non productive gold instead of investment :British found that India produced the world's best cotton yarn and textiles and in enormous quantities. What the Indians wanted in exchange from the Europeans was gold and silver, for which they had a voracious craving. Hence, there was a constant flow of gold into India, which absorbed a good deal of the bullion mined by the Spaniards in the New World. Having learned about cotton textiles from India, the English turned the tables, and brought an industrial revolution to Britain. Instead of investing the cotton proceeds, Indians hoarded gold, they still do. Industrial Revolution threw millions of weavers out of work, but it would have happened any way as newer technologies of weaving reached India.Although Britain could not winch up Indians out of deficiency, nor prevent famines, it did give India the institutions of democracy, the rule of law, a sovereign judiciary and a liberated press. It built railways, canals, and harbors. It gave India almost a hundred years of peace—the Pax Britannica without interfering with its ancient traditions and religion. Mass education was the big failure, 83 percent of Indians were illiterate at Independence. The education system produced only a thin higher top of exceptionally well educated Indians, while the masses remained illiterate.PS: Why are so many of the world's best companies run by Indians?'There are some simple reasons for why China fares poorly in this regard. College-educated Indians tend to speak good English and are comfortable with American business culture; that isn’t the case for many of their Chinese counterparts. And in the case of tech companies such as Microsoft and Google, there’s a natural affinity with the rich tech culture back in India that nurtured business leaders like Nadella and Pichai.'I dare we such thankless people? Our children in the subcontinent should never forget two people, Fleming and Borlaug. This streak of thanklessness we have and our incessant abuse of the west should stop. Until 1800, the average life expectancy, after 900 years invasions, was 25 years. We luckily owe our existence and prosperity to two developments masterminded by Fleming and Borlaug.These are the facts, Dr. Tharoor. The purpose of this debate is to present historical facts and realities in the face of arguments that the British drained the subcontinent, which I have taken the liberty to counter with this open rebuttal.Open Rebuttal to arguments calling for Britain's reparations to its former colony - Its 'Jewel in the Crown'*References:Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. Diane Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87169-248-1.1. "Vasco da Gama: Round Africa to India, 1497–1498 CE". Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Paul Halsall. June 1998. Retrieved7 May 2007. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. V: 9th to 16th Centuries, pp. 26–40.2. "Indian History – Important events: History of India. An overview". History of India. Indianchild.com. Retrieved 7 May 2007.3. "The Great Moghul Jahangir: Letter to James I, King of England, 1617 A.D.". Indian History Sourcebook: England, India, and The East Indies, 1617 CE. Internet Indian History Sourcebook, Paul Halsall. June 1998. Retrieved 7 May 2007. From: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 Vols. (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1904–1906), Vol. II: From the opening of the Protestant Revolt to the Present Day, pp. 333–335.4. "KOLKATA (CALCUTTA) : HISTORY". Calcuttaweb.com. Retrieved 7 May 2007.5. Rickard, J. (1 November 2000). "Robert Clive, Baron Clive, 'Clive of India', 1725–1774". Military History Encyclopedia on the Web.historyofwar.org. Retrieved 7 May 2007

Open Rebuttal to arguments calling for Britain's reparations to its former colony - Its 'Jewel in the Crown'By iqbal.latifDr Shashi Tharoor made the case in a debate titled 'This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies', which was put on by the world-famous debating society, the Oxford Union.Dr Tharoor's speech was widely appreciated in India and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament:Tharoor’s speech reflected the feelings of patriotic Indians on the issue and showed what an impression one can leave with effective arguments by saying the right things at the right place.The main thrust of Dr Tharoor's speech was about the economic toll that British rule took in India.His point number 1 was “Robert Clive brought their rotten boroughs in England on the proceeds of their loot in India.” “British had the gall to call him Clive of India' as if he belonged to the country when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him...”Sir, you completely forget about the deceit and treason of the natives; that is how a nation of 100 million was conquered by few. “Clive of India” only succeeded because of the intrinsic betrayal of treason set in the blood of our people; we were rotten, not the boroughs that Clive bought; we who sold our motherland’s allegiance for a trifle. Forget about the removal of vestiges of jijiya, abolishing the cruel inhuman system, suppression of Mopla rebellion, there is solid evidence of their great contributions.The background (Historical references in footnotes):The colonial era in India began in 1502, when the Portuguese Empire established the first European trading centre at Kollam, Kerala. In 1505 King Manuel I of Portugal appointed Dom Francisco de Almeida as the first Portuguese viceroy in India, followed in 1509 by Dom Afonso de Albuquerque. In 1661 Portugal was at war with Spain and needed support from England. This led to the marriage of Princess Catherine of Portugal to Charles II of England, who imposed a dowry that included the insular and less inhabited areas of southern Bombay while the Portuguese managed to retain all the mainland territory north of Bandra up to Thana and Bassein. This was the beginning of the English presence in India.The spice trade between India and Europe was one of the main types of trade in the world economy and was the main catalyst for the period of European exploration. The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the accidental "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. We became slaves and a colony because of our spices.In 1617 the British East India Company was given permission by Mughal Emperor Jahangir to trade in India. Gradually their increasing influence led the de jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty-free trade in Bengal in 1717.The Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of the Bengal province, opposed British attempts to use these permits. This led to the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, in which the Bengal Army of the East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the French-supported Nawab's forces.In 1757 Mir Jafar, the commander in chief of the army of the Nawab of Bengal, along with Jagat Seth, Maharaja Krishna Nath, Umi Chand and some others, secretly connived with the British, asking support to overthrow the Nawab in return for trade grants. (Nawab’s rule was almost tyrannical with no democracy, and the will of Nawab was of paramount supremacy. The 600 fiefdoms, like cheese holes, were scattered over the entire landmass; what productivity could be expected out of corrupt kingdoms? The Raj’s last legacy was to do away with them through the document of paramountcy). The British forces, whose sole duty until then was guarding Company property, were numerically inferior to the Bengali armed forces. At the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, fought between the British under the command of Robert Clive and the Nawab, Mir Jafar's forces betrayed the Nawab and helped defeat him. Jafar was installed on the throne as a British subservient ruler. The battle transformed British perspective as they realised their strength and potential to conquer smaller Indian kingdoms, and marked the beginning of the imperial or colonial era in South Asia.This was the first real political foothold with territorial implications that the British acquired in India. Clive was appointed by the company as its first 'Governor of Bengal' in 1757. This was combined with British victories over the French at Madras, Wandiwash and Pondichéry that, along with wider British successes during the Seven Years' War, reduced French influence in India.The British East India Company extended its control over the whole of Bengal. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company acquired the rights of administration in Bengal from de jure Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II; this marked the beginning of its formal rule, which within the next century engulfed most of India. The East India Company monopolised the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called the Permanent Settlement which introduced a feudal-like structure in Bengal, often with zamindars set in place.His point number 2 was: “By the end of 19th century, the fact is that 'India was already Britain's biggest cash cow…”Until 1947, the subcontinent was deeply bifurcated and separated at odds (Look at the maps of India of 1857 and India of 1901):The British gave the subcontinent contiguity, extended it beyond Indus to Durand Line - they left an almost communicable subcontinent. Without the Raj, no one would be able to unite the subcontinent; it was never one the way it became a federation after 1947. Thank the Raj. We were never “one” before that.Imperial entities of India:Dutch India 1605–1825Danish India 1620–1869French India 1769–1954Portuguese India (1505–1961)Casa da Índia 1434–1833Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633British India (1612–1947) - East India Company 1612–1757 Company rule in India 1757–1858 British Raj 1858–1947 British rule in Burma 1824–1948 Princely states 1721–1949 Partition of India 1947The British Empire in the Indian subcontinent lasted almost 200 years. Beginning in 1757, all the areas of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma were brought under British political control by the middle of the nineteenth century.The Indian subcontinent was divided into two sets of territories, the first being the territories under the control of the British Empire, and the second being the territories over which the Crown had suzerainty, but which were under the control of their hereditary rulers. These hereditary rulers were historically independent and wanted to maintain their lavish lifestyles. Their populace was virtually a slave under their draconian systems, not only burdened caste divisions but the wealth was all accumulated at the top – extravagance galore, and abusive in 680 native states that kept 45% of the total area of British India poverty-stricken. In addition, there were several colonial enclaves controlled by France and Portugal.This is what sub-continent looked like post 1900. A fragmented land. Fifty percent of it ruled by potentates who would treat the people as enslaved subjects. They raped freedom of every one, hugely holders of the wealth; we were freed from rape of these potentates. From June to August 15 1947, 562 of the 565 India-linked states signed the instrument of accession. Despite dramatic political exchanges, Travancore, Jodhpur and Indore signed on time. The political integration of India established a united nation for the first time in centuries from a plethora of princely states, colonial provinces and possessions. The British created Madras out of five different linguistic groups and parts of five modern states. This was the biggest contribution of Raj, we would be otherwise Africanised and Balkanised.We are ungrateful and unaware of what we have been going through for a full 1000 years of bondage.“British India” was defined as “all territories and places within Her Majesty’s dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India”; the remaining areas were referred to as the “native states” or the “princely states” by the Colonial government and were ruled by hereditary kings. About 680 native states were recognised by the Foreign Office in 1910. Native states constituted about 45% of the total area of British India (excluding Burma and Sind) and about 23% of the total population in 1911.In 1947 Vallabhbhai Patel, as Minister for Home and States Affairs, had the responsibility of welding the British Indian, provinces and the princely states into a united India. Simultaneously, the Government of India, through a combination of diplomatic and military means, acquired de facto and de jure control over the remaining colonial enclaves, which too were integrated into India.The political integration of these territories into India was a declared objective of the Indian National Congress, which the Government of India pursued over the next decade. Through a combination of factors, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon convinced the rulers of the various princely states to accede to India. Having secured their accession, they then proceeded to, in a step-by-step process, secure and extend the central government's authority over these states and transform their administrations until, by 1956, there was little difference between the territories that had formerly been part of British India and those that had been part of princely states At the time of Indian independence in 1947.There was no North in 1857, just Indus and all these yellow lands that were owned by the Nawabs who owned nearly all the wealth of the state. Without a central Army that Raj bequeathed to us, these Nawabs would have given and wreaked hell on the ordinary people of a balkanized subcontinent. The best thing to happen to the subcontinent was that all these 600- plus blood-sucking Nawabs disappeared.Dr Tharoor's third point was that: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23 percent, by the time the British left it was down to below 4 per cent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. In fact, Britain's industrial revolution was actually premised upon the de-industrialisation of India…”He completely missed the fact that India and China were the world’s most populated nations too. Look at the charts. Naturally, the GDP would consequently be high, but though it was high, the economy and productivity were very inefficient, as wealth was mostly concentrated in a few RULING hands. The subcontinent’s economy was left behind with the hockey stick growth of the west as a result of internal combustion engine and steam. Without the Raj, we would be struggling with internecine wars, no language skills and hugely divided Nawab's lands with no railways that made the continent one.Let me explain further. Yes, the share of world output was 23% when the world was an utterly agricultural-based economy. India's population was 120 million too. With China, they were nearly 45% of the known population of the world. In 1000 AD, according to Maddison’s calculations, China and India together contributed 50.5% of world GDP (GDP being computed in 1990 dollars and in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms). By 1600, that share had gone up to 51.4%, with China accounting for 29% and India 22.4% of world GDP. Once the industrial economy took over the power of steam, THAT skilled manual labour. A hundred years later, China’s GDP had fallen but India’s went up to 24.4% of world output. By 1820, however, India’s share had fallen to 16.1%. By 1870, it went down to 12.2%. International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections indicate that India’s share of world GDP would be 6.1% in 2015.The industrial use of steam power started with Thomas Savery in 1698. For most of human history, growth in world output per head averaged little more than 0.1% a year. It was not until the late 18th century that growth accelerated, to an average of 1.2% a year over the past 200 years (see charts), thanks to a spurt in technological innovation. Since then, the world has seen four main waves of innovation. The first, from the 1780s to the 1840s, was the industrial revolution in Britain, fueled by steam power; the second, from the 1840s to the 1890s, was the railway age; the third, from the 1890s to the 1950s, was driven by electric power and the car. Now we are in the information age.The subcontinent was lucky that as a result of the Raj we had an early rendezvous with the industrial revolution, fueled by steam power. Otherwise sans steam power, no agricultural revolution, or a scientific revolution had occurred, and in the long run, the manual skill of the Indian artisan could be no substitute for technical progress. There is no easy answer to the problem that the country was prosperous and the people were poor, as wealth was accumulated in the coffers of the ruling Emperor or the Nawabs.(“The annual revenues of the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb (1659-1701) are said to have amounted to $450,000,000, more than ten times those of (his contemporary) Louis XIV.” John Kautsky, The Politics of Aristocratic Empires, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1982, p. 188). One explanation is that even in the 18th century, India had a large population and plenty of cheap labour. Prosperity comes with rising productivity and a rise in productivity depends on technology. When the supply of labour is elastic, it is more economical to hire people than to invest in machines. Hence, an Englishman observed in 1807, “In India it is seldom that an attempt is made to accomplish anything by machinery that can be performed by human labour.” http://gurcharandas.org/rich-nation-poor. But the despicable wicked caste system that cuts the productivity of a significant portion of the population to zilch is the fault of British rule then?If the Mughals had continued their unremitting rule of India without a proper system of education introduced by the British and over-reliance on madrasas, downtown Bangalore would be a picture of a day-after-day beheading, rather than being the most important tech hub it became. The English language was Raj-induced that was taught in Indian schools and institutes and was an official language in the country. They gave us the language that connected us to the world. The long term benefits can be seen today. The communities that lacked interest in learning the skill set remained still backward:'In 1824 when Government decided to start a Sanskrit College in Calcutta, the Hindu leaders met under the leadership of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and demanded that they did not want Sanskrit College to be established by Government but wanted that it should start English colleges as far as possible.On the other hand in 1835, after 11 years when the Mohammedans came to know that Government intends to start English teaching in all schools, they submitted an application signed by 8000 Moulvis of Calcutta to stop it. Muslims vehemently opposed the new system of education believing that the philosophy and logic taught in English was at variance with the tenets of Islam. They looked upon the study of English as little less than embracing of Christianity.'An important point ignored by Dr Tharoor in the heat of the moment is overlooking the Raj’s contribution to health care, control of rampant diseases that helped reduce mortality rates. According to Angus Maddison, "The British contributed to public health by introducing smallpox vaccination, establishing Western medicine and training modern doctors, by killing rats, and establishing quarantine procedures. As a result, the death rate fell and the population of India grew by 1947 to more than two-and-a- half times its size in 1757."The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. Ten thousand British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic. Estimated deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 exceeded 15 million. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. The Third Pandemic of plague started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading disease to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone. Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, became the first microbiologist to develop and deploy vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925 the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.Fevers ranked as one of the leading causes of death in India. In the 19th century Britain's Sir Ronald Ross, working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta, finally proved in 1898 that mosquitoes transmit malaria, while on assignment in the Deccan at Secunderabad, where the Center for Tropical and Communicable Diseases is now named in his honour.In 1881, around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in India. Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination. Mass vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end of the 19th century. In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox. Between 1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to establishing a systematic institution in Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives. In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognised colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (alongside Elphinstone College, Deccan College and Government Law College, Mumbai). - WikiWe just cannot just thank them enough. Dr Tharoor made another huge omission in his speech by making no reference to the largest irrigation systems made by the Raj and the Brits from 1890 onwards that made Punjab the granary of the subcontinent - it even cultivated Sind and the tail ends.This was the biggest gift of the Raj, with the other being the early introduction of age of steam and industrialisation, and language. (There is a reason why Iran, Afghanistan and many others could not see development of Silicon Valley in their own backyards and did not see their sons running Microsoft and top Fortune 500).Let me give you an example of the canals system established to tame Indus – a miracle to save us from certain famine as a result of vagaries of the Indus. British realised the potential source of water in the sub-continent and built a canal system for the purpose. Brits did it to avoid the spectre of mass famine had these massive water works not been undertaken.It may have been political expediency to grow cotton, but much before that after 1857 to 1870, a lot of planning was done to grow more food for a growing sub-continent population in North of India. I have read the speeches and the paper in archives of the British Library where the case to avoid mass famine in upper Sind and lower Sind was made for construction of Sukkur barrage.True to their nature Mughals did try to harness water from Indus but for them – not food but the pleasure was the target. The first evidence of perennial irrigation on any of the Indus rivers dates back to an early seventeenth century when an 80-kilometer-long canal was constructed by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (reigned 1605-27) to bring water from Ravi to the pleasure gardens of Sheikhupura near Lahore. Pakistan today meets its entire agricultural requirements through Indus Basin arrangements. Agriculture use is close to 97 percent, a staggering figure that is well above the global average of about 70 percent.The areas now included in Pakistan were undergoing developments to build some gigantic and remarkable engineering works. In 1871, the weir across River Ravi was built at the head of Bari Doab canal in Punjab. The building of Khanki headworks was undertaken in 1890-92. The headworks of Rasul on Jhelum River were built in 1901.Between the period 1900-1950, the following were constructed: Marala weir on River Chenab, Balloki headworks on River Ravi and Ferozpur, Sulemanki, Islam and Panjnad on River Sutlej, Trimmu on River Jhelum and Sukkur and Kalabagh on River Indus.What all this developed into was ‘The Indus Basin,’ a very developed watershed in that it has a lot of storage and management infrastructure. This is this single feat of British that has saved us from ‘Somaliazation’, this is what my doctoral thesis is based on. Indus Basin irrigation system is a marvel of engineering and a gift of the British to our generations who are not aware what has gone into it. As a result we have entered into the 21st century with the world's largest and unified irrigation system that consists of three major reservoirs (Chashma, Mangla, and Tarbela); 18 barrages (Ferozepur, Sulemanki, Islam, Balloki,Marala, Trimmu, Panjnad, Kalabagh, Sukkur, Kotri, Taunsa, Guddu, Chashma, Mailsi, Sidhnai, Rasul,Qadirabad, and Marala); 12 link canals; 45 irrigation canals; and over 107,000 water courses and millions of farm channels and field ditches. The total length of main canal system is estimated about 585,000 Kilometer (36,932 miles) and that of watercourses and field channels exceeds 1.62 million Kilometers (over 1.02 million miles).Pakistan has a unique irrigation system which comprises of five main rivers, i.e. the Indus, the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi and the Sutlej River. The network of Indus basin Irrigation System consists of the Dams, Barrages, Headworks, Canals and Interlinks. Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma are the three primary reservoirs on this system. This system of reservoirs and canals forms the basis of the Indus Basin irrigation system and is thus absolutely essential to our food and avoidance of famine a la Somalia.This system includes Link Canals that were built with a concept to transfer water from the Western Rivers, i.e., Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to the Eastern Rivers, i.e. Ravi and Sutlej after the Indus water treaty of 1960. Whereas, the feeder canals taken out from different head works are meant mainly to irrigate the agricultural lands throughout. The waters of the Indus Basin Rivers are diverted through reservoirs/barrages into canals, classified as the Main Canals. These main canals then distribute the irrigation water into their command areas through a network of branch canals.Water from the Indus empties onto the plains through regulatory structures known as rim stations mostly designed pre-partition. About 173 billion cubic metres pass through the rim stations, about 128 billion cubic metres of which is diverted for irrigation. But this figure is still insufficient to meet agricultural irrigation requirements, and the shortfall of about 40 percent is made up from groundwater pumping. The associated canal network is massive – with 43,561 kilometres of canals, 18,884 kilometres of seepage/storm water drains and 12,612 kilometres of tile drains, mostly in the Indus Plain provinces of Punjab and Sindh.Railways, posts, every possible system that we enjoy today are the remnants of the Raj. The difference between North Waziristan and us is the language and versatility of connection, the difference between madrassas and contemporary minds is the ability of modern education accorded to us by the Raj, with all due respect. The largest man-made irrigation system on the Indus, as explained earlier, is a gift of Raj engineering. Yes, excesses were committed, but Ghauris, Ghazanvis, Slave Dynasties, Sirajudullahs were not democratically elected leaders of India.A leap forward in science requires foresight, reason and rationalism and all this was amiss. It was just the absolute love of Lodhis Aurungzebs Abdalis to enforce the desert dogma through sword and terror on a riparian peaceful society. One should read the poets Mir and Ghalib forloot ki dastaan (tales of plunder). Internecine wars of Islam crippled the North completely; it was regrettably the heart of the subcontinent.David Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G Williamson, among others, affirm that "while India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900."The reason for that was India and China's huge population advantage, the size of the economy was although naturally bigger as population was between 100-150 million people in times of Akbar, so on per capita basis they had a far larger share, but in no way were these economies booming economies, they remained stagnant for nearly a hundred years. Despite major intellectual advantage - India was the equivalent of Silicon Valley of the mathematics - its originality, creativity and recuperation was maimed by these continual invasions and killings. India's progress stopped; as the post renaissance age took off once dogma was thrown out and industrial revolution set off, the world rocketed ahead but China and Indian subcontinent remained stagnated: Over the past millennium, world population rose twenty-two–fold. Per capita income increased thirteen–fold, world GDP nearly three-hundred–fold. This contrasts sharply with the preceding millennium, when world population grew by only a sixth, and there was no advance in per capita income. Indian economy remained stagnant at 450-560 $ per head from 1500-1950.It is sad but I feel compelled to reiterate that it was we who were rotten, not Clive. He may not have taken over, though we would still remain like Afghanistan and Somalia cut off from the world - inadvertently Mir Jafari’s betrayal helped. We had an early rendezvous with Newtonian calculus based harnessing of steam power and invention of internal combustion engine; without advances in agriculture and railways introduced by the Raj, we would have faced far bigger famines. These '600 rotten fiefdoms' would not be able to tap the 'mighty rivers' the way Raj was able to do from 1890 onward - once they created continuity they were able to get the canal system going as well as communication extended to the whole subcontinent.Imagine, till today we cannot have consensus to tap Indus hydro-power of 60k mgw since 1972 after Tarbela - we just cannot agree. They made Lloyd's in 1900 onward to save Sind from certain famine, the canals on the left bank helped Nawabshah and the right bank Larkana Dadu- they gave us the life - moguls never made canals only Aurungzebi kind of wars.“1966-1980 is effectively the dark period for the Indian economy.” Nothing hurt India more but the lost decades. The Raj helped us become a great subcontinent and India took off once the socialist system was written off and the Hindu growth rate was ditched by Manmohan Singh. P.C. Mahalanobis Nehru's strategic planner thought competition was wasteful, a flawed idea because there can be little improvement in productivity and there were no opportunities for rapid export expansion in the 1950s.India's share of world trade declined from 2.2 percent in 1947 to 0.5 percent in 1990 as Nehruvian India's mantra of an inward-looking, import-substituting path rather than an outward-looking, export-promoting route; denied India a share in world trade and the prosperity that trade brought in the post-War era. Though India was on wrong socialist inward path by the late sixties, instead of changing course after Nehru, Indira Gandhi introduced supplementary controls. She nationalized banks, discouraged foreign investment, and placed more hurdles before domestic enterprise. Hence, industrial growth plunged from 7.7 per cent a year between 1951-1965 to 4.0 per cent between 1966-1980. Productivity of Indian manufacturing declined half a percent a year from 1960 to 1985.How come we always conveniently overlook that we kept on fighting for hundreds of years on religion and kept our populace in chains and shackles as a result of an evil caste system. We ignore and find xenophobic slogans to neglect jhopar pattis (slums) where men are denied dignity of living - why did he not raise the issue of our criminal neglect, lack of egalitarianism, ever warring nature which is the real cause of our poverty?What economy can prosper ‘when waging holy wars is the name of the game’; some of these fiefdoms used to spend 50% of GDP of the princely state, and Aurunzebi rule on either ostentatious living or later case mad wars. Can you imagine how many times the capital Delhi used to be looted and raped by Iltimush, Tamerline, Lodhis, and Moguls intensive wars between them Nadir shahs Abdalis before the Raj? How could a nation come out of it? Had it not been for the systems that the Raj established, we were being killed like moths by these invaders and we call them our Emperors only because we cannot face the bitter facts.As an aside:Dr. Tharoor’s kind of speech leads to claims like the one in January 2015 where the speakers at a prestigious science conference in Mumbai had claimed that a Hindu sage invented interplanetary spacecraft 7,000 years ago, that a herbal paste applied to a person’s feet can help locate underground water and that a bacteria found in cows can turn any material into gold.These unconventional claims were made during a session of the continuing Indian Science Congress, titled Ancient Sciences Through Sanskrit. The discussion was sandwiched between more orthodox events on nuclear magnetic resonance and the structure of the atom, and speakers were an uncomfortable fit with the rest of those on the day’s schedule: spiritual counsellors and Sanskrit scholars moving among neurologists, chemists and physicists.“There is official history and unofficial history,” said one of the speakers, retired pilot trainer Anand Bodas. “Official history only noted that the Wright Brothers flew the first plane in 1903,” but the inventor of the airplane was really a sage named Bharadwaja, who lived around 7,000 years ago. “The ancient planes had 40 small engines.”My kind of story leads to shunning of these fairytales and highlighting the truth. The truth is that John Dalton (1766 – 1844), an English chemist and physicist, is the man credited today with the development of atomic theory. However, a theory of atoms was actually formulated 2,500 years before Dalton by an Indian sage and philosopher, known as Acharya Kanad. Acharya Kanad was born in 600 BC in Prabhas Kshetra (near Dwaraka) in Gujarat, India. His real name was Kashyap.Today, I make an interesting observation from my vantage point. Connecting points of history to ‘Vedic Mathematics’, which is acknowledged by every Arab that I have talked with in Alazhar and every Iranian intellectual, even the Vedic influence on Qurraysh pre-Jahilliiyah is very much accepted.Al-Beruni’s ability to find the correct circumference of the earth that was the closest and nearest call of the circumference of the planet earth to what was determined contemporarily was made by Abu Rayhan Biruni (973-1048), after Eratosthenes (300 B.C.) close estimates, depending on what 'stadia' he was referring to - Egyptian or Greek. Abu Rayhan Biruni studied closely, the work of famous Indian mathematician named Aryabhata, who lived around 500 A.D. Al- Biruni, actually calculated the Earth's circumference in a small town on a mountain top of Pind Dadan Khan, District Jhelum, Punjab, presently Pakistan. His method was different from Eratosthenes. He used Vedic methods, and development of Algebra.My point is simple, that Ibn Battuta, Averroes, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi, and Ibn al-Shatir were few of these scholars who benefitted from Vedic mathematics and helped the age of enlightenment within Moorish Spain and Abbasid Baghdad. Islamic scholars owed their knowledge of a moving earth and 'zero' to Vedic Hindu philosophy. Let's trace the root of the Arabic word for restoration, al-jabru, is the root of the word algebra. Algebra, this ancient knowledge of solutions of equations found a home early in the Islamic world, where it was known as the "science of restoration and balancing." In the 9th century al-Khwarizmi wrote Arabic algebra, it is theoretical not in a formula form, both the examples and proofs. The system of mathematics that they and their Sassanid ancestors observed in India was adapted by them and given the name 'Al-Jabr' meaning 'the reunion of broken parts'.It was the desert Arab amalgamation of cradles of eastern civilizations that spewed elite luminaries responsible for the enlightenment of a whole era. Centuries earlier Aryabhatta held to a view in which the Earth rotated. (Zero was invented by the ancient Indian scientists; most people accept that it was invented by the great mathematician Aryabhata). If zero was not discovered mankind would be zero. The rules governing the use of zero appeared for the first time in Brahmagupta's book Brahmasputha Siddhanta (The Opening of the Universe), written in 628. Here Brahmagupta considers not only zero, but negative numbers, and the algebraic rules for the elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers.Dr Tharoor, thanklessness is not a virtue. We should give credit where it’s due. No nations are built in 70 years. The subcontinent owes the acceleration of its growth because of contributions of the Raj and we should not forget that. With all due respect, you should have researched better on irrigation and railway systems, rather than grandstanding and playing to your audience. Please stop propagating this misplaced hyper-nationalism; it is based on a figment of 'vain imagination,' false unfounded glory, and exaggerated oratory. The fact is that all the wealth, like North Korea of today, was in the hands of paltry ostentatious 600 Nawabs, the privileged classes from the scriptures in line with dharma, and to fund the Emperors’ false wars that were mostly internecine or territorial conquests. Not only did you forget irrigation but your facts were wrong on railways too.The British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, including canals and irrigation systems in addition to railways, telegraphy, roads and ports. The Ganges Canal reached 350 miles from Hardwar to Cawnpore, and supplied thousands of miles of distribution canals.By 1900 the Raj had the largest irrigation system in the world. One success story was Assam, a jungle in 1840 that by 1900 had 4,000,000 acres under cultivation, especially in tea plantations. In all, the amount of irrigated land multiplied by a factor of eight. Historian David Gilmour says:"By the 1870s the peasantry in the districts irrigated by the Ganges Canal were visibly better fed, housed and dressed than before; by the end of the century the new network of canals in the Punjab at producing even more prosperous peasantry there."Railways were for the benefit of the entire subcontinent, not only serving as arteries to help export raw materials to the ports. To make it beneficial to all, the route mileage of this network was increased through soliciting investments. From 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 it increased to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, that is what made India a contiguous land. People connected and the concept of a united country inadvertently seeped in.The biggest challenge is and was capital formation: In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.The railway network in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world. "The most magnificent railway station in the world." says the caption of the stereographic tourist picture of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888.British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century which was the fourth largest in the world. The railways at first were privately owned and operated. It was run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians. (Wikipedia)The point is that any infrastructure is most difficult to establish; once in place it is easy to expand and elongate. But the poverty in India cannot be attributed to the Raj. The biggest resistance to change was the landowning privileged class of the subcontinent - the blood suckers of the poor - they incubated, encouraged and patronised poverty and did not allow modernisation and breaking of the caste system.Sanitation and no toilets, even today, is not the fault of the Brits. The slogan of 'toilets before temple' was not coined by the Brits, it was by the current BJP government. There is a reluctance to improve the lot of the poorest of the poor. To keep them enchained and poor is what has kept us where we are. Sad, extremely sad, that we look for scapegoats instead. The complicity of the Congress' near uninterrupted rule cannot be overlooked, Dr. Tharoor, in these matters of criminal neglect of poor humans.After nearly 70 years of independence, the extreme poverty of 33% and open defecation is a curse that continues to rule supreme. Since we failed to deliver we find scapegoats. About one billion people in the developing world or 15 percent of the global population have to rely on open defecation. India is a country with the highest number of people practising open defecation: around 600 million people. This is 47% of India's population. Most of it occurs in rural areas where the prevalence is estimated at 65 percent of the population. The other countries with the highest number of people openly defecating are Indonesia (54 million people), followed by Pakistan (41 million people), Nigeria (39 million) and Ethiopia (34 million).Koh-i-noor; a curse or a blessing: Koh-i-Noor (it means mountain of light in Persian) diamond, a British crown jewel allegedly acquired from India that every Indian politician would like returned. To whom exactly would the diamond be returned? The British acquired it from Lahore (now in Pakistan) after the conquest of the Sikh Empire. Pakistan and India are both successor states of British India. The diamond itself was never really the property of the Indian state, but always a prize fought over by conquerors. Virtually every possessor of the diamond seized it from its previous owner.Famine: Yes, Famine killed millions: - India suffered a series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century, leading to widespread famines in which at least 10 million people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule.This changed during the Raj, in which commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect. You keep hi-lighting the prejudiced minds of the Raj ignoring the good - in governance you got to compare what we have had under the Moguls and thousand years before that to post-1857. If we would be free in 1857 we would be a Somaliazed Subcontinent ala Africa with 600 different states and no central control. There were also contributing weather ElNino patterns failure and lack of strong Monsoons ( the invisible hand that keeps subcontinent western ghats watered and keep India granary full alongside Himalayan Indi Ganges plain ) and the inequity of the landed aristocracy that denied food to their own peasants, the massive concentration of wealth in the hands of Nawabs and Rajas was the reason of our wretched poverty and without their abolition we would be facing not only caste divide but ' class divide.'Just to highlight the negatives and not the multitude of positives is not a fair deal. Yes - even Conrad's Marlow ridiculed in the Heart of Darkness that: "The conquest of the earth, which means the taking away from those who have a different complexion and slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look at it.Some books also definitely support the thesis that in1901, shortly before the death of Queen Victoria, the radical writer William Digby looked back to the 1876 Madras famine and confidently asserted: "When the part played by the British Empire in the 19th century is regarded by the historian 50 years hence, the unnecessary deaths of millions of Indians would be its principal and most notorious monument." Who now remembers the Madrasis?In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis charted the unprecedented human suffering caused by a series of extreme climactic conditions in the final quarter of the 19th century. Drought and monsoons afflicted much of China, southern Africa, Brazil, Egypt and India. The death tolls were staggering: around 12m Chinese and over 6m Indians in 1876-1878 alone. The chief culprit, according to Davis, was not the weather, but European empires, with Japan and the US. Their imposition of free-market economics on the colonial world was tantamount to a "cultural genocide".Please do read 'El Nino in History: Storming Through the Ages; Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino, Famines, and the Making of the Third World'by Cesar N. Caviedes, Mike DavisMindset - the 'Indian desire' for hoarding non productive gold instead of investment :British found that India produced the world's best cotton yarn and textiles and in enormous quantities. What the Indians wanted in exchange from the Europeans was gold and silver, for which they had a voracious craving. Hence, there was a constant flow of gold into India, which absorbed a good deal of the bullion mined by the Spaniards in the New World. Having learned about cotton textiles from India, the English turned the tables, and brought an industrial revolution to Britain. Instead of investing the cotton proceeds, Indians hoarded gold, they still do. Industrial Revolution threw millions of weavers out of work, but it would have happened any way as newer technologies of weaving reached India.Although Britain could not winch up Indians out of deficiency, nor prevent famines, it did give India the institutions of democracy, the rule of law, a sovereign judiciary and a liberated press. It built railways, canals, and harbours. It gave India almost a hundred years of peace—the Pax Britannica without interfering with its ancient traditions and religion. Mass education was a big failure, 83 percent of Indians were illiterate at Independence. The education system produced only a thin higher top of exceptionally well educated Indians, while the masses remained illiterate.PS: Why are so many of the world's best companies run by Indians?'There are some simple reasons for why China fares poorly in this regard. College-educated Indians tend to speak good English and are comfortable with American business culture; that isn’t the case for many of their Chinese counterparts. And in the case of tech companies such as Microsoft and Google, there’s a natural affinity with the rich tech culture back in India that nurtured business leaders like Nadella and Pichai.'I dare we such thankless people? Our children in the subcontinent should never forget two people, Fleming and Borlaug. This streak of thanklessness we have and our incessant abuse of the west should stop. Until 1800, the average life expectancy, after 900 years invasions, was 25 years. We luckily owe our existence and prosperity to two developments masterminded by Fleming and Borlaug.These are the facts, Dr. Tharoor. The purpose of this debate is to present historical facts and realities in the face of arguments that the British drained the subcontinent, which I have taken the liberty to counter with this open rebuttal.PS:The story of ' from ridiculous to sublime... ' This is my town - this is my own story, this is what I saw what Raj did to me and mines . The excesses of thousands of years of incessant war of ideology, plunder loot and scriptures where poverty and disease were rampant.Why Moghuls did not do it or anyone else before?? Except for indulging warlording and continuous perpetual wars...Anyone with 20000 soldiers will just cross the Khyber to trample us. Likes of Nadir Shah to Abdali .We had excesses in comparison to barren lands across Khyber, we were riparian societies and our ordinary man was peaceful and ready to be subjugated as our warlords would make new alliances with either Lodhi or Babar and continue to fight. 65% taxes on gross production would be eaten by munsibdar of Mughal REmperors. What was the greatness in the beheading of Darashikoh and presenting it on a platter?#ShashiTharoor We had an early rendezvous with steam and railways and technology- that is how we averted Somiliazation of South Asia. Show me one building like this in 5000 years of our existence - you may say, Taj Mahal??? 100's of millions of lives were saved.. ungratefulness has some limits. You have no limits in your book. These machines changed the course of our history.This is how we escaped the prospect of even much more wretched poverty that we are still entrapped now. These machines were transferred to Subcontinent Sukkur. The fastest pace of technology transfer.When Mughals were making pleasure canals to Ravi garden - within 100 years of that these machines are turning the desert of Sind into a green garden. We should have a museum to highlight how our bleak prospects changed. Instead of these machines, and printing presses Akbar the great opted for guns like Ottomans did. This stance of mine is not a popular stance, the Bakhts will be angry as I talk about the fractured society, the Muslims will be angry as I take on the Moguls and looters of the South Asia and Britsh anyone think that they have done a million wrongs, they will not speak out of political correctness and not hurt our sensitivities, they allow facts to be distorted. .This is the reason of this greenery you see - the desert was converted into a garden. And in 21st century we are destroying our province .. we had a head start we destroyed it.We can't even maintain this ..Construction of Sukkur (Lloyd) Barrage, across the Indus, Sind, 1924. From the book " Lincoln's excavators: The Ruston Years 1875-1930" by Peter Robinson. There were six of these Ruston 3000 steam & diesel excavators delivered to this scheme in 1924."Commenced in 1923 and officially known as the Lloyd Barrage and Canal Construction Scheme this massive project, the purpose of which was to irrigate 6 1/2 million acres of land in the Sind desert of NW India, involved the excavation of more than 210 million cubic yards of material and the construction of the Sukkur Dam nearly a mile long spanning the river Indus. It was the largest irrigation scheme in the world, with a cost greater than the Suez Canal and involving four times as much excavation."There are seven main canals having a total length of 1,000 miles and ranging from 79ft to 346ft in width and up to 20ft in depth. Also 700 miles of branch canals and 4,000 miles of distributory canals, plus 50,000 miles of final feeders excavated by the farmers who rented the land.There were fierce winds and sandstorms almost every day, nowhere to service machinery, no water suitable for boilers, few roads, and it was necessary to build tramways to supply the machines with coal, oil etc.The temperature was 49*C (120*F) in the shade at times! Camels used for supply in outlying areas and men lived in tents near the machines. Three shifts were operated per day, all year, mostly operated by Indians. The whole scheme was completed in 1932.https://www.facebook.com/ikelatif/posts/10154855785792561*References:Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. Diane Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87169-248-1.1. "Vasco da Gama: Round Africa to India, 1497–1498 CE". Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Paul Halsall. June 1998. Retrieved7 May 2007. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. V: 9th to 16th Centuries, pp. 26–40.2. "Indian History – Important events: History of India. An overview". History of India. Indianchild.com. Retrieved 7 May 2007.3. "The Great Moghul Jahangir: Letter to James I, King of England, 1617 A.D.". Indian History Sourcebook: England, India, and The East Indies, 1617 CE. Internet Indian History Sourcebook, Paul Halsall. June 1998. Retrieved 7 May 2007. From: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 Vols. (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1904–1906), Vol. II: From the opening of the Protestant Revolt to the Present Day, pp. 333–335.4. "KOLKATA (CALCUTTA) : HISTORY". Calcuttaweb.com. Retrieved 7 May 2007.5. Rickard, J. (1 November 2000). "Robert Clive, Baron Clive, 'Clive of India', 1725–1774". Military History Encyclopedia on the Web.historyofwar.org. Retrieved 7 May 2007