The Wider Social Impacts Of Changes In The Structure Of Agricultural Businesses: Fill & Download for Free

Warning: This is just a few words short of 3,000. That makes it about a 10-minute read.After writing Molly Carter's answer to What male/female double standard do you hate the most?, I’ve been thinking a lot of patriarchal societies and what that means.And here’s where I’m at with my thoughts and analysis. Civilization and society have developed in specific ways for specific reasons. Some we can quantify, some we can’t. But one major influence for women, throughout most of human history, is the fact that she’s been ruled by childbearing and rearing responsibilities.Before 1957 and the creation of hormonal birth control pills, there was little a woman could do to stop herself from getting pregnant. Sure there was sheepskin and coat hangers, but in reality, many women got and remained pregnant for much of their childbearing years.And this, pregnancy and breast feeding and toddlers in tow, made women vulnerable. Pregnancy makes you large and cumbersome and having a infant attached to your breast sure makes it difficult to move quickly.In the earliest stages of humanity, we were hunters and gatherers. Generally speaking, men in these early societies were the primary hunters, traveling away from camp for periods of time in search of large game. Women stayed close to camp and foraged while taking care of the child rearing. Both of these positions were important and it’s assumed that one was not viewed as “better” than another within these cultures.[1]These roles did not develop because men were oppressing women. It was because it’s women who carry children. It’s women whose breasts fill with milk. It was therefore women who were primarily in charge of child rearing. Which, if we’re honest, is the whole biological reason for life, passing on those genes.These roles had massive amounts of influence on early humans. Not just on how they interacted with one another, but on how their brains evolved over time. For instance, much of female tasks were monotonous (things like getting water, gathering fuel, and cooking), didn’t require much concentration, and could easily be interrupted and returned to without much issue (a necessary quality when dealing with children).[2]Men’s tasks, on the other hand, tended to be more dangerous, further from home, and required much of their thought process. In addition, while the women’s work was relatively constant, the men’s tasks ebbed and flowed.Because of such things, men’s brains, in general, have as much as seven times the gray matter than females in areas related to intelligence.[3] Gray matter is made of localized cell bodies, which process both information and action. This increase in gray matter use is most likely responsible for the “tunnel vision” many wives complain of, basically the habit of some men getting so heavily engaged in an activity that they ignore their surroundings or the people around them.[4]Female’s brains, on the other hand, have as much as 10 times the white matter in these areas as men’s. White matter is composed of nerve fibers[5] and creates connections across brain structures. There’s evidence that this increase in neural connections results in the women’s ability to both switch between tasks without trouble and multi-task with ease.What’s more, in women these neural connections tend to run back and forth between the two hemispheres of the brain, where men have more neural connections in one hemisphere.[6] This may indicate that women pull from different sources (again with that multi-tasking bullshit), and may be why we tend to seem so complicated, while men tend to have better perception and stronger connections between spatial and motor skills. That means men tend to be better with their hands, in general, of course.The brain differences between the sexes go beyond gray and white matter, though. There’s also a difference in how the brain processes neurotransmitters, especially serotonin.If you don’t know, serotonin is the chemical often associated with depression and is impacted with the common antidepressant class of SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), which includes brand names of Prozac and Zoloft.[7]Women, it turns out, have an increased number of serotonin receptors in the brain when compared to men and less proteins that transport the neurotransmitter for reuptake.[8]This may have some involvement in the fact that women are more likley to suffer from depression or anxiety, while men struggle more with sitting still (serotonin also impacts our ability to be still for extended periods of time).There are also differences with oxytocin, both in brain levels and the reactions it causes.Oxytocin, which is often referred to as the love hormone, is a neurotransmitter that increases bonding. It’s perhaps best known for being released when a woman nurses, encouraging her to fall in love with the infant (primarily so she doesn’t just leave it in the woods to die). It’s also released during orgasm and when we fall in love, hug, and kiss.[9]When given a dose of oxytocin, men and women responded differently, but, in theory, in a way that made pairing and reproducing (aka doing the dirty) more likely for each, especially in a prehistoric world. In one study, men identified which partners they thought would be easier to pursue and, after given oxytocin, had an increase in wanting to partner with that woman. After their dose, women were more likley to find men they deemed faithful attractive and were more interested in long-term relationships.[10]As I’m veering away from the purpose of this answer, I’m just going to bullet a few more points about the differences in male and female brains that impact behavior and support that prehistoric human dynamic:Women’s prefrontal cortex, which controls judgement and attention to details, develops earlier then it does in men, which is probably why women take less risks.[11] It may also impact why women offer more details when communicating. In general, of course.Women also have a larger prefrontal cortex, which continues to support their less risky behavior, but men have a larger amygdala, which gives them greater processing power for threatening situations. It also increases competitiveness.[12] Go figure.When the body is at rest, the brain too rests, but it’s not quiet. Especially in women. One study showed significant difference of the brain at rest, both in the amount of activity and in the active areas. [13] This may be one of the reasons women struggle more (in general, of course) than men with the “racing mind.” It may also influence men’s ability to “turn off,” which is something many women just aren’t able to do.In men, the hypothalamus, which regulates mating behaviors, aka controls your sex drive, and food intake is about twice as large in men as it is in women.[14]On average, a woman’s limbic cortex is larger, which is the area of the brain that regulates emotions.[15] That shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise to anybody.I mentioned above how men have more gray matter in intelligence areas, but women have more gray matter in the hippocampus, which deals with emotions and memory. It makes sense then that many women (not all and some men of course) retain strong emotional memories, allowing us to recall every moment of the fight back in 2013 when you talked to that blonde at the bar and looked at her in that way, even though you said you didn’t. Yeah. You know what I’m talking about.Observations have been made on 2– to 3-month old babies demonstrating that female infants tend to focus on faces, while male infants focus more on things and notice visual disturbances more often than females.[16]One thing that’s interesting about all this brain stuff (come the fuck on, it’s all interesting!!) is that the areas with the biggest differences in size have the highest concentrations of receptors for the sex hormones.So what’s this have to do with patriarchy?Just added because it made me giggle.Well, I’m glad you asked!So, I hope to have shown by this point that men and women’s brains are different in some important ways that supported the roles of those early humans. It allowed each of them to succeed in the ways they needed to for the species to survive.And we did. And things were probably pretty good.And time moved on.I’m sorry I have to go here, but I think it’s necessary for me to address. I believe it’s safe to assume that there have always been a small percentage of men who rape women. And I think it’s safe to assume that these prehistoric times were no different. There will always be abuse of power. And strength is power. And, in general, men will remain stronger than women. This has nothing to do with a patriarchic society. It has to do with biology. And the only thing, imho, you can do to even the playing field is carry a gun (that links to an article on women’s self defense and ccw I wrote, in case you want to learn more). Or learn some kick-ass kung fu.….….And then, about 10,000–12,000 years ago, someone in the Fertile Crescent (the area that contains Iraq, Syria, and Jordan), planted a seed and changed the world.See, in the time before agriculture, there was little private property. Hunter-Gatherer groups were nomadic. There was no rich and no poor. Most groups were family groups and these clans shared food and shelter and work. Most were considered equal, even among the sexes.Sure the leaders of these groups were men. That’s not because they had penises (well, it sort of is), but because they were the leaders of the hunts, the leaders of the fights. Because they were bigger and stronger, they were the protectors. Again, not just because they’re “big-tough men” but because THEY WERE, in fact, big, tough men. And because of this, it was the men who left for the hunts and the men who participated in warfare. And the men who became the leaders.But then that seed was planted and things changed.Mark Dyble, an anthropologist who led a study at the University College of London, states:There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.[17]So with agriculture, humans took a step that deviated them from what many of the other primates and animals were doing, hanging out and living in nature, and started us on the journey to civilization.They settled.[18]And with settlements came an abundance of food. Food that could be stored. And soon after that seed was planted, humans, those smart things, learned animal husbandry. And we suddenly had livestock.This caused many, many things to happen (including an unprecedented population boom that continues to grow exponentially even today).But our brains were (and are) still wired for that primitive pre-agriculture lifestyle, and they still react the same ways to stimulants. So warrior classes formed and men went off for battle, back “on the hunt” for land, money, riches. Women continued, as we always have, to bear and rear children.Civilization emerged. Men, as they’re out and about, they’re engage with others. They’re fighting. They’re conquering. They’re losing. They're winning. Treaties and agreements are forged and broken.And of course it’s men doing these things. They’re the ones who are out of the home. Not because they’re trying to suppress women, but because… well, have you ever traveled by horseback eight months pregnant with a two year old strapped to your back and a whiny five year old walking beside you? Doesn’t sound pleasant does it. Nor safe. Nor effective.So the women stayed home and did what they had always done. Rear children.Governments developed. Politics. Power.And it was primarily the men who were engaged in these things… Because, you guess it, the women were home pregnant and rearing children.Eventually, the men, who had always been the ones talking and making decisions with the other men, made policies that suited them. Because that’s what they’d always done.So men were doing the politics things. They were also fighting amongst other men. And when they started implementing rules and regulations and whatnots, they did it amongst themselves.They were also protective of their women, and many, I’m sure, considered their women their property, not necessarily as in they owned them, but as in they didn’t want other men fucking them (and if we’re honest here, aren’t we all a little like that? Molly Carter's answer to Has anyone ever had inappropriate interest in your spouse? How did you handle it?).All this while, women continued to do what women have always done (in general, of course).But even in ancient Egypt, women weren’t oppressed at the beginning. Hell, women ruled and owned property in Egypt and lineage was passed through females.[19] If the world has ever seen a true matriarchy, it would have been in ancient Egypt. Women could own businesses, they could engage in trade. They were the most equal the world had seen before the US.But time goes on. And all these things continue and, over time, men become more and more in control. And eventually, throughout the ancient world, even in Egypt, the men’s rule took over.Although none of us can say for certain, but I highly doubt the men of the ancient world were sitting around, determining what laws to create with the goal of keep women down, suppressing their wants and needs.See, remember way back at the top when I was talking about brain differences? Remember the part about men having tunnel vision? Men, naturally, think about what’s in front of them (in general, of course). The idea of adding women into law was probably never even thought of.Again, not because they were trying to suppress women, more because women were home, doing what women had always done. And men were doing what they had always done since the dawn of civilization (but not always, remember those hunter-gatherers), making decisions with other men about what, as they saw it, only affected other men.So, my guess is it wasn’t a sexist move, it was simply an oversight. Not because they’re dumb. Or inconsiderate. Or bigoted. But because that’s the way their brains are designed to work.And time continued.And for the most part, no one complained too much.Then America came along. The land of the free and a Constitution that held up individual rights and liberty. And people saw true freedom for the first time in their lives. And they were like, “Wait a minute! I want that, too.”And then we had superstars like Susan B. Anthony and we won women’s suffrage. And 41 years after the 19th Amendment came into play, in 1960 when the FDA approved hormonal birth control, women saw freedoms never before seen.Now, women can choose not to get pregnant. They can choose not to have children. And, although women and men are not really equal in qualities (not equal doesn’t equate to better than), at least here in America they live in a world where they, for the most part, are given equal opportunities.As it stands now, our patriarchal society, which many would like to say holds women back, also holds men back. Men, our society says (biology says it too, btw) are the protectors. They’re bigger and stronger.And society expects them to act as such (at least traditionally, the fad of the last 15 years or so has been to chastise them for it). They’re expected to not cry in public (it shows weakness and the primitive brain doesn’t want the enemy or the potential partner to think they’re weak). They expected to be the providers (remember it was the male brain that was developed to go on hunts and bring back the bacon, quite literally). They’re expected to fight and win and protect.While many want to blame this on men, it is, by no fucking means, men’s fault. Especially today’s men. Any more than it’s a women’s fault she menstruates. It’s biology, folks. It’s the way the body and brain are made.And it really doesn’t matter how PC y’all want to be, you’re not going to change biology. And yes, we can change law. And we have. And we are. But understand as much as you want it to be true, men and women are not the same. Neither one is better. Not men. And not women. Which means there should never be a “the future is female.”No. The future is male and female. And while women are no longer tied to the birthing bed, we need to work together to redefine this new dynamic between us. Because, regardless of where you put them, men have male brains. And women have female brains. And they will never think the same. In general, of course.That was a lot of words. If you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me!Footnotes[1] Early men and women were equal, say scientists[2] Men and Women Hunters and Gatherers[3] Sex differences in N-acetylaspartate correlates of general intelligence: An 1H-MRS study of normal human brain[4] Brain Differences Between Genders[5] Gray and white matter of the brain: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia Image[6] Are Male and Female Brains Different?[7] About Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)[8] Sex Differences In The Brain's Serotonin System[9] Psychology Today[10] Oxytocin: More Than Just a "Love Hormone"[11] 6 Fascinating Gender Differences Between Men and Women at Work[12] The Difference Between Women's and Men's Brains. . .[13] Resting brain activity: Differences between genders[14] Hypothalamus Males and Females[15] Do men and women have different brains?[16] How men's and women's brains are different[17] Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands[18] The Development of Agriculture[19] The Role and Power of Women in Ancient Egypt | Historic Mysteries

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world. Globalization indicates that the world today is more interconnected than before. Globalization in its basic economic sense refers to the adoption of open and unfettered trading markets .Large volumes of money movement, increased volumes of trade, changes in information technology and communication are all integral to a global world. There is also a significant movement of people from one country to another for trade and work. Such increases in the movement of goods, labor, and services have weakened national barriers and restrictions that are imposed by a nation state. Some identify a new emergence of a “global village.” In the past two decades, economic globalization has been the driving force behind the overall process of globalization. Globalization is a significant factor in competitive world that integrate and mobilize cultural values of people at global level. In the age of rapid technical progression, many countries are unified and transformed due to the process of globalization. Globalization has a huge impact on cultural, social, monetary, political, and communal life of countries.Indian society is multifaceted to an extent perhaps unknown in any other of the world’s great civilizations. Virtually no generalization made about Indian society is valid for all of the nation’s multifarious groups. Comprehending the complexities of Indian social structure has challenged scholars and other observers over many decades.The ethnic and linguistic diversity of Indian civilization is more like the diversity of an area as variable as Europe than like that of any other single nation-state. Living within the embrace of the Indian nation are vast numbers of different regional, social, and economic groups, each with different cultural practices. Particularly noteworthy are differences between social structures in the north and the south, especially in the realm of kinship systems. Throughout the country, religious differences can be significant, especially between the Hindu majority and the large Muslim minority; and other Indian groups–Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Jews, Parsis, Sikhs, and practitioners of tribal religions–all pride themselves on being unlike members of other faiths.Access to wealth and power varies considerably, and vast differences in socioeconomic status are evident everywhere. The poor and the wealthy live side by side in urban and rural areas. It is common in city life to see a prosperous, well-fed man or woman chauffeured in a fine car pass gaunt street dwellers huddled beneath burlap shelters along the roadway. In many villages, solid cement houses of landowners rise not far from the flimsy thatched shacks of landless laborers. Even when not so obvious, distinctions of class are found in almost every settlement in India.Urban-rural differences can be immense in the Indian Society. Nearly 74 percent of India’s population dwells in villages, with agriculture providing support for most of these rural residents. In villages, mud-plastered walls ornamented with traditional designs, dusty lanes, herds of grazing cattle, and the songs of birds at sunset provide typical settings for the social lives of most Indians. In India’s great cities, however, millions of people live amidst cacophony–roaring vehicles, surging crowds, jammed apartment buildings, busy commercial establishments, loudspeakers blaring movie tunes–while breathing the poisons of industrial and automotive pollution.Gender distinctions are pronounced. The behavior expected of men and women can be quite different, especially in villages, but also in urban centers. Prescribed ideal gender roles help shape the actions of both sexes as they move between family and the world outside the home.Crosscutting and pervading all of these differences of region, language, wealth, status, religion, urbanity, and gender is the special feature of Indian society that has received most attention from observers: caste. The people of India belong to thousands of castes and caste like groups–hierarchically ordered, named groups into which members are born. Caste members are expected to marry within the group and follow caste rules pertaining to diet, avoidance of ritual pollution, and many other aspects of life.Given the vast diversity of Indian society, any observation must be tempered with the understanding that it cannot apply to all Indians. Still, certain themes or underlying principles of life are widely accepted in India.The Economic impact due to Globalization:1. Globalization has given nations greater access to global markets, technology, financial resources and quality services and skilled human resources.2. Improvement and greater access to quality goods and services and an exponential increase in the volume of trade.3. Access to global capital resources via the stock market and international debt depending on the economic potential of nations and their markets.4. Access to technologies depending on the nations responsiveness to respect to protection of IPR and the responsible usage of technologies.5. Access to the world markets to the skilled human resources from nations with inherent intellectual and technical capabilities6. Increase in exports of goods and services in which nations have their respective competencies.7. Increased access to better and qualitative education.8. Increased the purchasing capability of the nation through the creation of a sizeable middle class which is hungry for quality goods and services while there coexists a large poor class whose time is yet to come. One would expect that the fruits of liberalization and globalization would have a trickledown effect through the collection of taxes and revenues by Government due to increased trade and commerce.The SOCIAL impact due to Globalization:1. The free flow of Information both general and commercial.2. Globalization has through greater exposure liberalized our attitudes, reduced our biases and predispositions about people, situations and communities worldwide.3. The advent of Information Communication Technologies (ICT),Nations have built greater awareness of themselves and the other countries and cultures of the world.4. One can see in India that inhibitions have been diluted because of the advent of media and the medium of entertainment. This has also naturally had some affect on the old cultural values with the focus now being on consumerism and success..5. The experience in India is of relevance because of the greater cultural and literacy diversity between states and the economic divide between the urban and rural areas of India.6. There has been a tremendous increase in consumerism, for goods and services whether necessary or perceived.The Merits of Globalization are:· There is an International market for companies and for consumers there is a wider range of products to choose from.· Increase in flow of investments from developed countries to developing countries, which can be used for economic reconstruction.· Greater and faster flow of information (through TV, Internet) between countries and greater cultural interaction has helped to overcome cultural barriers.· Technological development has resulted in reverse brain drain in developing countries.· India gained highly from the LPG model as its GDP increased to 9.7% in 2007-2008. In respect of market capitalization, India ranks fourth in the world.The Limitations of Globalization are:· The outsourcing of jobs to developing countries has resulted in loss of jobs in developed countries as a result, now they are following protectionism measures, for example USA is stopping BPO.· There is a greater threat of spread of communicable diseases.· There is an underlying threat of multinational corporations with immense power ruling the globe. For smaller developing nations at the receiving end, it could indirectly lead to a subtle form of colonization.· Exploitation of labour by offering low wages· Global recession impact on Indian economy resulted in loss of jobs in IT Sector.Swami Vivekananda, who foresaw the hazards of globalization and impact of MNC culture in India as early as in 1893 when he spoke at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. Here are the golden verses for you,"Shall India die? Then, from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct ; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force, and competition its ceremonies, and human soul its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be. Precisely such a terrible thing is taking place in India today on account of the inexorable and immutable process of Globalization".Conclusion:The process of globalization is not new. The globalization of the economic, social and cultural structures happened in all ages. Earlier the pace of such a process was so slow that we hardly noticed it. However, today with the advent of the information technology, newer means of communication have made the world a very small place. Not only the place of the globalization process, but the penetration and integration of the changes induced in our day to day life has made the impact of globalization many fold higher. With this process the world has become one huge market place.But seeing the positive effects of globalization, it can be said that very soon India will overcome these hurdles too and march strongly on its path of development.

Lets try,A number of historians both India and foreign writers and historians have started justifying the empire and even asking USA to take up the “White Man’s Burden” to bring civilizations and justice to the dark world of the dark skinned people. The views of the Western historians like Neil Ferguson or Michael Ignatief are being reflected by their Indian counterparts like Triankar Roy, Dipak Lal, or even Man Mohan Singh in his lecture in Oxford University recently. The surprising matter is that even the Sangha Parivar writers like M.S.Menon, and Priyadarshi Dutta are also propagating the benefits that the British rule has brought to India.Before the British came, India was one of the richest countries in the world. In 1800, India, China and Egypt (and probably many of the kingdoms of central Africa) were economically more developed than Britain. Indeed the British had nothing for sale that was of interest to the Indians or Chinese. When the British left in 1947, India was poor and industrially backward.Britain did bring free trade to India and China. Britain had extracted large surpluses from India, and forced it into a free-trade pattern, which obliged India to export commodities and become a dumping ground for British manufactures. Historians estimate that the net transfer of capital from India to Britain averaged 1.5 percent of GNP in the late nineteenth century. The wealth transfer was financed by a persistent trade surplus of India, which was sent back to Britain or spend to expand the British Empire. India’s export-import ratio was 172.5 percent in 1840-69, 148 percent in 1870-1912, and 133.4 percent in 1913-38. This export orientation was a tool of colonial exploitation, and free trade a British ploy to force its manufactures on India and crush domestic industry.Instead of enriching the world, the British Empire impoverished it. The empire was run on the cheap. Instead of investing in the development of the countries they ruled, the British survived by doing deals with indigenous elites to sustain their rule to extract maximum amount of revenues for Britain itself, which the British historians now deny.Whether in 18th-centuryIndia, 19th-century Egypt or 20th-century Iraq, the story is the same. As long as taxes were paid, the British cared little about "the rule of law". They turned a blind eye to Indian landlords who extracted rent by coercion or indigo and opium - planters who had forced Indian farmers to cultivate and their products were forced upon the Chinese. Unable to sell anything to the Chinese, Britain sent in its gunboats, seizing Hong Kong and opening up a market for opium grown in India. Despotic repression was fostered where it protected British interests.India is the prime example. Ruled by Muslims before the British, India was a prosperous, rapidly commercializing society. The Jagat Seth, India's biggest banking network and financier of the East India Company, rivaled the Bank of England in size. British rule pauperized India. The British restricted Indian weavers' ability to trade freely and the result was a drastic drop in living standards. Dhaka, now the capital of impoverished Bangladesh, was once a state-of-the-art industrial city. Its population fell by half during the first century of British rule. Now, average Indian incomes are barely a tenth of the British level in terms of real purchasing power. It is no coincidence that 200 years of British rule occurred in the intervening time.Rabindranath Tagore wrote “The chronic want of food and water, the lack of sanitation and medical help, the neglect of means of communication, the poverty of educational provision, the all pervading spirit of depression that I have myself seen to prevail in our villages after over a hundred years of British rule make me despair of its beneficence.”The impact of British rule in India:As Davis concludes: "If the history of British rule in India were to be condensed to a single fact, it is this: there was no increase in India’s per-capita income from 1757 to 1947." (in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino famines and the making of the Third World by M. Davis, London, Verso Books, 2001) In fact, incomes may have declined by 50 percent in the last half of the 19th century.Destruction of agriculture:Karl Marx wrote in Consequences of British Rule in India,“England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. The British inEast India accepted from their predecessors the department of finance and of war, but they have neglected entirely that of public works.”“There have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial times, but three departments of Government; that of Finance, or the plunder of the interior; that of War, or the plunder of the exterior; and, finally, the department of public works. Climate and territorial conditions, especially the vast tracts of desert, extending from the Sahara, through Arabia, Persia, India, and Tartary, to the most elevated Asiatic highlands, constituted artificial irrigation by canals and water-works the basis of Oriental agriculture. Hence an economical function devolved upon all Asiatic Governments, the function of providing public works. This artificial fertilization of the soil, dependent on a Central Government, and immediately decaying with the neglect of irrigation and drainage, explains the otherwise strange fact that we now find whole territories barren and desert that were once brilliantly cultivated, as Palmyra, Petra, the ruins in Yemen, and large provinces of Egypt, Persia, and Hindostan; it also explains how a single war of devastation has been able to depopulate a country for centuries, and to strip it of all its civilization.”Destruction of self-sufficient rural economy:“British steam and science uprooted, over the whole surface of Hindostan, the union between agriculture and manufacturing industry.”“The third form of destruction was the destruction of the self-sufficient village society of India. Under this simple form of municipal government, the inhabitants of the country have lived from time immemorial. These small stereotype forms of social organism have been to the greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as to the working of English steam and English free trade.”“Those family-communities were based on domestic industry, in that peculiar combination of hand-weaving, hands-spinning and hand-tilling agriculture, which gave them self-supporting power. English interference having placed the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver inBengal, or sweeping away both Hindoo spinner and weaver, dissolved these small communities, by blowing up their economical basis”De-industrialization of India under the British:After destroying its agriculture British had embarked upon the destruction of Indian industry. Several Indian historians have argued that British rule led to a de-industrialization of India. By the Act 11 and 12 William III, cap. 10, it was enacted that the wearing of wrought silks and of printed or dyed calicoes from India, Persia and China should be prohibited, and a penalty of £200 imposed on all persons having or selling the same. Similar laws were enacted under George I, II and III, in consequence of the repeated lamentations of the afterward so “enlightened” British manufacturers. And thus, during the greater part of the 18th century, Indian manufactures were generally imported into England in order to he sold on the Continent, and to remain excluded from the English market itself.Ramesh Chandra Dutt argued (in Economic History of India, London, 1987):“ India in the eighteenth century was a great manufacturing as well as a great agricultural country, and the products of the Indian loom supplied the markets of Asia and Europe. It is, unfortunately, true that the East India Company and the British Parliament, following the selfish commercial policy of a hundred years ago, discouraged Indian manufacturers in the early years of British rule in order to encourage the rising manufactures of England. Their fixed policy, pursued during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth, was to make India subservient to the industries of Great Britain, and to make the Indian people grow raw produce only, in order to supply material for the looms and manufactories of Great Britain”.According to Karl Marx, ” However changing the political aspect of India’s past must appear, its social condition has remained unaltered since its remotest antiquity, until the first decennium of the 19th century. The handloom and the spinning wheel, producing their regular myriads of spinners and weavers, were the pivots of the structure of that society.”“It was the British intruder who broke up the Indian handloom and destroyed the spinning wheel. England began with driving the Indian cottons from the European market; it then introduced twist into Hindostan, and in the end inundated the very mother country of cotton with cottons.”From 1818 to 1836 the export of twist from Great Britain to India rose in the proportion of 1 to 5,200. In 1824 the export of British muslins to India hardly amounted to 1,000,000 yards, while in 1837 it surpassed 64,000,000 of yards. But at the same time the population ofDacca decreased from 150,000 inhabitants to 20,000. This decline of Indian towns celebrated for their fabrics was by no means the worst consequence. “There is a good deal of truth in the deindustrialization argument. Moghul India did have a bigger industry than any other country, which became a European colony, and was unique in being an industrial exporter in pre-colonial times. A large part of the Moghul industry was destroyed in the course of British rule.The second blow to Indian industry came from massive imports of cheap textiles from England after the Napoleonic wars. In the period 1896-1913, imported piece goods supplied about 60 per cent of Indian cloth consumption, 45 and the proportion was probably higher for most of the nineteenth century. Home spinning, which was a spare-time activity of village women, was greatly reduced.It took India 130 years to manufacture textiles and to eliminate British textile imports. India could probably have copied Lancashire's technology more quickly if she had been allowed to impose a protective tariff in the way that was done in the USA and France in the first few decades of the nineteenth century, but the British imposed a policy of free trade. British imports entered India duty free, and when a small tariff was required for revenue purposes Lancashire pressure led to the imposition of a corresponding excise duty on Indian products to prevent them gaining a competitive advantage. This undoubtedly handicapped industrial development. If India had been politically independent, her tax structure would probably have been different. In the 1880s, Indian customs revenues were only 2.2 per cent of the trade turnover, i.e. the lowest ratio in any country. In Brazil, by contrast, import duties at that period were 21 per cent of trade turnover.British rule had not promoted industrialization in India either. Japan and China were not colonized by the British; they remained independent. The Indian steel industry started fifteen years later than in China, where the first steel mill was built at Hangyang in 1896. The first Japanese mill was built in 1898. In both China and Japan the first steel mills (and the first textile mills) were government enterprises, whereas in India the government did its best to promote imports from Britain.Until the end of the Napoleonic wars, cotton manufactures had been India’s mainexport. They reached their peak in 1798, and in 1813 they still amounted to £2 million, but thereafter they fell rapidly. Thirty years later, half of Indian imports were cotton textiles from Manchester. This collapse in India’s main export caused a problem for the Company, which had to find ways to convert its rupee revenue into resources transferable to the UK. The Company therefore promoted exports of raw materials on a larger scale, including indigo, and opium, which were traded against Chinese tea. These dope-peddling efforts provoked the Anglo-Chinese war of 1842 in which the British drug-pushers won and forced China to accept more and more opium.Financial Exploitation of India:Until 1898 India, like most Asian countries, was on the silver standard. In 1898, India under British rule, had to adopt a gold exchange standard which tied the Rupee to Pound at a fixed value of 15 to 1, thus forcing India to export more for smaller amount of British goods. This was another kind of exploitation of the Indian people making them poorer and poorer.Another important effect of foreign rule on the long-run growth potential of theeconomy was the fact that a large part of its potential savings was siphoned abroad. There can be no denial that there was a substantial outflow, which lasted for 190 years. If these funds had been invested in India they could have made a significant contribution to raising income levels.The first generation of British rulers was rapacious. Clive took quarter of a millionPounds for himself as well as a jagir worth £27,000 a year, the Viceroy received £25,000 a year, and governors £10,000. The starting salary in the engineering service was £420 a year or about sixty-times the average income of the Indian labor force. From 1757 to 1919, India also had to meet administrative expenses in London, first of the East India Company, and then of the India Office, as well as other minor but irritatingly extraneous charges. The cost of British staff was raised by long home leave in the UK, early retirement and lavish amenities in the form of subsidized housing, utilities, rest houses, etc. Under the rule of the East India Company, official transfers to the UK rose gradually until they reached about £3.5 million in 1856, the year before the mutiny.In addition, there were private remittances.D. Naoroji, (in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, London, 1901) suggests that the annual remittances including business profits from mainly India and to a limited extent from China were already 6 million in 1838. R.P. Dutt argues that 'the spoliation of India was the hidden source of accumulation which played an all important role in helping to make possible the Industrial Revolution in England' (in Economic History of India, London, 1897)In the twenty years 1835-54, India’s average annual balance on trade and bullion was favorable by about £4.5 million a year. During the period of direct British rule from 1858 to 1947, official transfers of funds to the UK by the colonial government were called the “Home Charges”. They mainly represented debt service, pensions, India Office expenses in the UK, purchases of military items and railway equipment. Government procurement of civilian goods, armaments and shipping was carried out almost exclusively in the UK. By the 1930s these home charges were in the range of £40 to £50 million a year. Some of these flows would have occurred in a non-colonial economy, e.g. debt service on loans used to finance railway development, but a large part of the debt was incurred as a result of colonial wars. Some government expenditure was on imports, which an independent government would have bought from local manufacturers. Of these official payments, we can legitimately consider service charges on non-productive debt, pensions and furlough payments as a balance of payment drain due to colonialism.There were also substantial private remittances by British officials in India either as savings or to meet educational and other family charges in the UK. In the inter-war period, these amounted to about £10 million a year, and Naoroji estimated that they were running at the same level in 1887. These items were clearly the result of colonial rule.In addition, there were dividend and interest remittances by shipping and banking interests, plantations, and other British investors. The total ‘drain’ due to government pensions and leave payments, interest on non-railway official debt, private remittances for education and savings, and a third commercial profits amounted to about 1.5 per cent of national income of undivided India from 1921 to 1938 and was probably a little larger before that. Net investment was about 5 per cent of national income at the end of British rule, so about a quarter of Indian savings were transferred out of the economy, and foreign exchange was lost which could have paid for imports of capital goods.As a consequence of this foreign drain the Indian balance of trade and bullion was always positive. In spite of its constant favorable balance of trade, India acquired substantial debts. By1939 foreign assets in India amounted to $2.8 billion, of which about $1.5 billion was government-bonded debt and the rest represented direct investment (mainly tea, other plantations and the jute industry).India did not reduce its foreign debt during the First World War as many otherdeveloping countries did. Instead, there were two ‘voluntary’ war gifts to the UK amounting to £150 million ($730 million). India also contributed one-and-a-quarter million troops, which were financed from the Indian budget. The 'drain' of funds to England continued in the interwar years because of home charges and profit remittances.There was also a small outflow of British capital. In the depression of 1929-33, many developing countries defaulted on foreign debt or froze dividend transfers, but this was not possible for India. The currency was kept at par with sterling and devalued in 1931, but the decisions were based on British rather than Indian needs. Furthermore, the salaries of civil servants remained at high level, and the burden of official transfers increased in a period of falling prices.During the Second World War, India's international financial position was transformed.Indian war finance was much more inflationary than in the UK and prices rose threefold, so these local costs of troop support were extremely high in terms of Pound, as the exchange rate remained unchanged. For the last fifty years of British rule there is no increase in per capita income. The most noticeable change in the economy was the rise in population from about 170 million to 420 million from 1757 to 1947. Very little incentive was provided for investment and almost nothing was done to promote technical change in agriculture. At the bottom of society the position of sharecropping tenant and landless laborers remained wretched.Meanwhile Indian taxes funded Britain's Indian army, which was used to expand the empire into Africa and Asia and which made a major contribution to defending the same empire in two world wars--all at no cost to the 'home' country! Lord Salisbury said India 'was an English barrack in the Oriental seas from which we may draw any number of troops without paying for them'.Man-Made Famines in British India:The British brought an unsympathetic and ruthless economic agenda to India" and that "the creation of famine" was brought about by British "sequestration and export of food for enhanced commercial gain." Three important factors caused devastating famines in India under British rule. First, India’s indigenous textile industries were destroyed by London’s high tariffs and the import of cheap British manufactured products, impoverishing millions of town dwellers, who were forced into the countryside to compete for dwindling land. Second, India’s traditional granary reserve system, designed to offset the impact of bad harvests, was dismantled. Third, India’s peasants were pressured into growing crops for export, making them dependent on fluctuating world market prices for their means of subsistence. As a result, tens of millions of people died of starvation. These famines were not caused by shortages of food. They took place at the very same time that annual grain exports from India were increasing.One third of the population of the then province of Bengal, which includes today’s Bangladesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and South Assam, were wiped out in the famine of 1770, immediately after Bengal was occupied by the British Easy India Company, due to their inhuman tax system. According to author Mike Davis, during the famine of 1876, "the newly constructed railroads, lauded as institutional safeguards against famine, were instead used by merchants to ship grain inventories from outlying drought stricken districts to central depots for hoarding...In Madras city, overwhelmed by 100,000 drought refugees, famished peasants dropped dead in front of the troops guarding pyramids of imported rice."The British refused to provide adequate relief for famine victims on the grounds that this would encourage indolence. Sir Richard Temple, who was selected to organize famine relief efforts in 1877, set the food allotment for starving Indians at 16 ounces of rice per day--less than the diet for inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp for the Jews in Hitler’s Germany. British disinclination to respond with urgency and vigor to food deficits resulted in a succession of about two dozen appalling famines during the British occupation of India. These swept away tens of millions of people. The frequency of famine showed a disconcerting increase in the nineteenth century,” under the British rule(in Famines in India, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1963).Very few would be aware of the horrendous calamities inflicted on Indians by the British. The annual death rate in 1877 in British labor camps during the Deccan famine was about 94%. Extraordinarily low population growth between 1870 and 1930 (due to famine, malnourishment-exacerbated disease and cholera, plague and influenza epidemics) was due to this exploitative policy. In 1943 Bengal Famine in British-ruled India about 5 million people were perished, but it was never mentioned in the British history books, because it was caused by a deliberate British “scorched earth policy” to deprive the Azad Hind Army and the Japanese to receive any support from the local people.The annual death rate in India before 1920 was about 4.8% but this declined to 3.5% by 1947 and is presently about 0.9%Using a baseline “expected” annual death rate value of 1.0% and assuming an “actual” pre-1920 value of 4.8% one can estimated that the avoidable (excess) mortality was about 0.6 billion during 1757-1837, 0.5 billion during 1837-1901 and 0.4 billion during 1901-1947. Thus the British rule of India was associated with an excess (i.e. avoidable) mortality totaling 1.5 billion – surely one of the greatest crimes in all of human history.An extraordinary feature of the appalling record of British imperialism with respect to genocide and mass, worldwide killing of huge numbers of people (by war disease and famine) is its absence from public perception. There is no mention of famine in India or Bengal in the British textbooks of history. New historians in India are now putting the blame on the victims. Meghnad Desai in his article in Cambridge History of India puts the blame on the Indian speculators; Amartya Sen suggested (in ‘Ingredients of Famine Analysis’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol XCVI, 1981) that people in that area had eaten too much to create the famine.Conclusion:The progress made in India under British Rule like the coming of railways, Postal System, Telegraphic communications, etc., were all undertaken by the British Administration to facilitate their rule. The aim of British policy was to integrate the Indian economy with that of the British in way such that India supplied Great Britain with cheap raw material for being manufactured into valued-added (costly) finished products. It is not true that if India remained independent it could not have developed railways or telegraphic system; Japan or Thailand was never colonized but they have today much better infrastructure than that in India.India during the British rule was to provide a ready captive market for British goods made from Indian raw materials. The resultant enrichment and industrial development was to take place in Britain and not in India. Thus at the dawn of independence, India inherited an economy that had the worst features of both the feudal and the industrial ages without the advantages of either. As Rabindranath Tagore wrote in 1941, in his letter from the deathbed to British member of parliament Mrs.Rothbone, that “…in the Soviet Union illiteracy was eradicated with two decades but in India even after two centuries of British rule only 15 percent of the Indians were literate”.Priyadarsi Dutta, parliamentary secretary to Balbir Punj, the chairman of the BJP’s think-tank, wrote in The Organizer, the organ of the R.S.S on 28 May 2006, that the British rule was only a learning process emphasizing the positive aspects of the British empire as written in the history text books in Britain. Thus, they are suggesting that thousands of our heroes and heroines of the freedom struggle who had sacrificed their lives to liberate India were all very stupid. This is the indication of cultural imperialism, which is bound to take place in India along with the ‘globalization’, and the ‘economic reforms’ put forward by no other than the Anglo-American economists and policy-makers.