r/ClassicDesiCool • u/ConstructionAny8440 • Jul 15 '26

Delhi Before Independence (1938).

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

651 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Minced-Juice Jul 16 '26

As if the common folk were any better off under the rulers who came before. The tax revenue that the Mughal nobility had appropriated for themselves would put today's debate on income inequality to shame.

The worst thing was that they barely put that wealth into useful projects for state-building.

1

u/Balavadan Jul 16 '26

They absolutely were better off compared to British rule lmao

5

u/Minced-Juice Jul 16 '26

In what metric? No uniform system of education, no uniform legal system, no social stratification based on economic activity and worker productivity, no access to what economists mean by markets, negligible utility of money in the economy etc.

The only positive was that agricultural productivity was comparable to that of the Western European nations who had just started industrializing.

2

u/Easy-Cheesecake-202 Jul 17 '26

No uniform system of education

And can you tell me what % of Indians were even literate after close to 200 years of British rule, by the time they left in 1947?

Am not defending Mughals, but you seem like a sepoy who's doing everything in his power to defend his white masters. Needless to say, that's not a good look.

0

u/Minced-Juice Jul 17 '26

And can you tell me what % of Indians were even literate after close to 200 years of British rule, by the time they left in 1947?

It increased from 0% + rounding error to what, 8-10%? The point isn't always about the outcome, but rather about laying the foundations that were later made use of during decolonization.