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Notes -
Re: iconic buildings in India built built by the British: the fact that all the buildings you provided as examples were built in a British/Western architectural style, and the Cathedral being specifically a house of worship for the West's dominant religion rather than that of the natives, kind of diminishes the claim that these are investments in "India".
Let's say that the United States becomes a Chinese colony, and the Chinese build several large buildings in America that look like this. Would you consider that an investment in America, its people and its culture? Or would you consider it a massive "fuck you, we own this place now"?
First of all, the architectural style is Anglo-Indian. It's influenced by the British but with many local adaptations. If these buildings were in London they would look out of place.
In any case, I don't see why it can't be both. Victoria Terminus is a functioning train station that was build for the long term. It's not anything like what gets built by people solely focused on resource extraction - e.g. a logging camp or oil well. It indicates a long term investment in infra and human capital as opposed to simply a desire to snatch and grab.
You're also glossing over a non-trivial chunk of what British Colonialism involved: the idea that it was Britain's duty to educate and improve the places they colonized. Literacy worked for Britain, why not Bengal? If a negro sets foot in London he becomes free, so why is he not equally free in Dahomey? (Note: literal argument used by imperial abolitionists.) And given proper education an Indian can of course become as competent a soldier or administrator as a Britain - it is the duty of the colonialists to provide this opportunity.
That's the ideal, at least. You can read Charles Napier's biography to hear it expounded upon in detail, as well as a bunch of complaints about how it's not being lived up to. The British were not universally as awesome as Napier, of course.
As for the China example, I do not identify as American so perhaps the example is inapt. However, suppose hypothetically that China was a) far more advanced than the US and b) made a long term investment in transmitting some of that advancement to the US (even while imposing a China-style political system). I would consider that an investment, albeit one I perhaps resented or opposed for other reasons.
Note also that this stuff was not necessarily unwelcome to many Indians. Various princely states were closely allied with the British and more progressive ones treated Britain as a source of knowledge; for example, the Nizam of Hyderabad built Osmania University with assistance from the British. It became more British (e.g. language changed from Urdu to English) after India conquered Hyderabad in 1948.
I’m honestly not sure how well the “looks like has significant investments in the country” is necessarily a good barometer for colonialism (or colonial-ish actions) necessarily being Actually A Good Thing. At the very least it’s missing the entire subclass of settler colonialists, who often would be investing in the country even for the natives, if only to assimilate them somehow (in that I mean things like residential schools) rather than exterminate them.
Consider the fourth era of domination in Vietnam; the Ming, after conquering it, expended significant amounts of money to build numerous schools and temples, implanted a bureaucracy based on competitive examination (like for centuries in the north), etc. in the region, all while expropriating much of its wealth and competitive advantages (e.g. precious stones and metals, dyes and paints, local speciality woods and other produce) and talent (many of which were sent to the Ming court - art and artists, too, were sent off) while Vietnamese were banned e.g. from exporting gold, amongst other things. A forced program of sinicization and eradication of local culture also occurred. In the end the Ming fucked off after 20 years having depopulated the region significantly.
I don’t think the Vietnamese look at that era of history with fondness, even if there were a small minority of local city elites that were pretty okay with the administration at the time.
That's not what we're discussing.
Scroll up a bit: https://www.themotte.org/post/221/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/39886?context=8#context
It was proposed that a distinction between colonialism and immigration is immigrants are "are invested in the success of their new home country". But if you take British India as a central example of colonialism, this distinction doesn't actually distinguish.
Fair enough. Lost the context a bit there reading your reply.
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