Reddit mentions of Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia

Disapponting. You once again make random assumptions, respond to a post with empirical data (and links to the source given) with a lot of rhetoric.

Also maybe you didn't read what I posted (or the links) or you are not familiar with history (I say this in a non insulting manner)

>Japan and Germany are good examples to show that colonialism isn't the universal answer to the wealth of nations.

If anything Japan is a classic case that proves the wealth transfer theory.

India's GDP per capita in 1885 was $ 567, Japan's was $ 836. A 30% difference at best. Around this time the Japanese consolidation of the home islands is over and it's colonisation is starting. Around 1900 the conquest of Korea begins and is complete by 1905. Japan's GDP in 1906 is @ 1,200 (80% increase). India's GDP is static so the gap widens. The transfer of wealth begins and by 1915 Japan's GDP is $ 1,700 (it has doubled in 30 years). It expands again after Manchuria is conquered in 1930. By 1943 (the peak) Japan's GDP was at $ 2,822 ( an increase of close to 3.5 times in just 60 years).

Tell me how Japan was not a colonising state and how it did not transfer massive amounts of wealth from China and Korea.

Germany also had a decent sized colonial empire (Google "Scramble for Africa"), but yes, this is one of the major countries that did not create using wealth transfer. It did make up for it in WW2 though.

>Are you trying to suggest that America's wealth is built on the 'genocide' of native Americans in the 1500s and 1600s ?

Selective reading again.

>>America is an exception in the sense that it was a vast untapped land with massive resources for the taking and hence did not necessitate a wealth transfer to a mother country. The wealth transfer was internal.

You can take from this what you will. Though wholesale genocide of Native Americans is a reality. Are you denying this?

>On the flip side there are countries like Spain and Portugal that had extensive colonies but aren't doing very well.

Your point? I kind of buffers my point. That this wealth transfer boosted the wealth of nations by crazy proportions. Not all of them could hold onto it and make the transition into the modern era very well.

>India didn't really have anything comparable to the Medici banks in a similar time-frame and there definitely wasn't anything comparable to publicly traded companies like the Dutch East India Company at any point of time, or bond markets and stock markets in general.

Different markets, different evolution. That being said according to The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade (sorry I only have a physical copy, can't find an online source), banks in the Mughal empire (after the Adesha system) functioned exactly like the Medici banks you seem to so admire (and I do too, the evolution of Renaissance banks and their power is fascinating to read). Jagat Seth was a well known banker who bankrolled Mughal empires.

You talk about bankers funding kings - that is precisely what Shantidas Jhaveri did. He and a consortium of bankers in Surat loaned the money that enabled Aurangazeb to win his war against Murad. Interestingly Murad himself borrowed money from the exact same bankers and when he was beheaded by Aurangazeb, the bankers made Aurangazeb pay up on behalf of Murad.

You should learn more about Indian history - it is fascinating and you will find that we weren't as backward at any point in our history till we are now (or after 1800). Another source I have also talks extensively about Hindu (Gujarati) banking houses dominating trade during the Mughal era. They all used the same Hundi system to conduct trade.

Interestingly - the system here was free from government interference. You could say pure play capitalism at work. While later banks and public companies in Europe had state banking but I digress and will stick to the topic at hand.

About Scandinavian countries or Argentina, I really cannot say. I have next to zero knowledge about these.

>The Mauryan Empire was indeed great but that was a very very long time ago. What's important is that after the Guptas, India was on a steady gradual decline, accentuated by the Muslim and British invasions.

Are you a 'v invanted zero' brain dead right wing? This is literally the most absurd thing to say.

The South of India had the Chola's reign supreme till 1400 (ok the Pandyas took over sometime after 1200). After this you had the Viajayanagara empire (famed for it's wealth and advancement...the city of Hampi even overawed the first European to visit it). In the north after a brief period of chaos from 1200 to 1500 when you had the 5 Delhi dynasties, the Mughals took over.

India really prospered under the Mughals. It hardly went through some 'dark period'. Sure, you had the tyrannical despots like Aurangazeb, but even they left things well alone when it came to commerce & trade. They ruled very well and India went through a period of peace & prosperity till the reign of Bahadur Shah I. The wealth of India under the Moghuls is famed world over and this is in fact what attracted the European traders in the first place. We had some really gifted Emperors (Humayun, Akbar the Great, Empress Noor Jahan, Shah Jahan).

>The Cholas went to South East Asia. This happened in 1025 AD, you can't really compare something so long ago with the age of discovery and exploration.

My point is we were advanced enough to launch seaborne invasions using upto 25 ships a 1000 years ago. Sea navigation clearly was not unknown to us.

I still cannot get over the fact that you think Muslim invasions accentuated the decline - fuck man, after the Gupta's India had it's pan India empire under the Mughals and one of history's finest emperors- Akbar! India's decline was actually arrested by the Mughals. They stopped the invasions from across the Khyber. Stopped internecine war in the country and set up a huge, prosperous, wealthy empire in which science, architecture, art all grew.

>Having access to guns doesn't really put you on par with the full might of European invaders. It seems very unlikely that Indian kings had access to the same kind of economic resources Europeans did (bond markets for instance)

Even as late as 1947- the very minor Nizam of Hyderabad was the amongst the top 5 richest men in the world. A temple in the tiny province of Travancore unearthed a billion dollars worth of assets.

Also your assertion is very very incorrect. According to Angus Maddison (and a lot of other sources on medieval India) India had 1/3rd of the global GDP as late as in the 1700's. All that wealth quite literally belonged to one dynasty. Unless you have some source to back your claim up, I am going to go with what peer reviewed, published sources say. That India was enormously wealthy till the 1700 at the latest.

>We had whimsical kings with very little devolution of power that constantly fought amongst themselves. After the dissolution of the Gupta empire, even the concept of India did not exist, there were just small warring kingdoms. They weren't helpless "peace loving" hindu kings that were unfairly exploited by muslim invaders. After the Guptas there was very little progress in science, technology, engineering and even economics.

You really need to read up on Indian history.

After the fall of the Gupta's you did have a period of flux that lasted about 300 years (disregarding Harsha's brief empire). By the way this flux was only in the North of India. The Cholas dominated and held huge parts of South and East India. In the north (centre) the Chalukyas took over. The Pala's of Bengal controlled most of East India and parts of North India.

If anything these rulers showed great unity when a South Indian empire allied with a Rajastani empire and fought against the Arabs in the Battle of Rajasthan.

If anything till 1600, Europe was in shambles and what you just said would describe Europe more accurately. Italy was...a bunch of 4-5 city states warring against each other. Byzantium was on the decline. Germany was a bunch of 10 major duchies fighting each other. Iberia was being conquered by the Moors and then reconquered by the Catholics.

>After the Guptas there was very little progress in science, technology, engineering and even economics.

This seriously needs to go on /r/badhistory. I am not being insulting - seriously read up on Indian history. I have referred a few books, but if you want I could make more recommendations specific to any period you might want.


>The main problem with your reading of history is that you completely ignore everything after the Guptas, or everything after roughly around the 1st millennium AD. And a failure to acknowledge the inherent rot in Indian civilization for almost 1000 years

Am sorry, but you don't seem to have even a basic understanding of Indian history and you might have to seriously fix that lacuna if you are interested in History that is.

Recommended reading.

• History of India by Hermann Kulke.
  
• Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions
  
• A History of India by Romilla Thapar
  
• The Cholas by Nilakanta Sastri (outdated but good read nonetheless)
  
• Economic History of Medieval India by Irfan Habib