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HN is not letting me edit, so here's the source: [ From the Museum Plaque / Card]. This is a photo I took when I was there. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/t

HN is not letting me edit, so here's the source: [ From the Museum Plaque / Card]. This is a photo I took when I was there. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theShiva/public-domain/master/hackernews/bengal-riches-province-1793.JPG https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theShiva/public-domain/mas... The only thing incorrect in my original statement was, it was the province of Bengal (now the state?), not Calcutta. Please read this entire thing. I've typed out the text in the photo verbatin. Last line says it all. The Colonial Impact Why did the British make Bengal their chief focus, and Calcutta their Capital? Bengal was India's wealthiest province, for her granary, rich in muslin, silk yarn, and salt petre, products which European trading companies were particularly interested in. Profits were high, and the East India Company saw it as a promising area to invest in. They were proved right. By the mid-18th century, Bengal is playing a lead role in commerce., It provides the finances to sustain an expanding colonial state, especially after the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, revenue in 1793. By 1856-7 Bengal alone is contributing 44% of the total revenue from British India. This is 260% more than Bombay. These figures tell us that Bengal is colonial India's most exploited region. Calcutta flourishes as a typical colonial city, linking the hinterland of primary production with plantations and mining resources, and exporting everything for the benefit of an imperial economy witch enriches Britain at Bengal's cost.

iguy 8y ago
Thanks. But again, beware of the two meanings of rich/poor. > "India's wealthiest province, ... rich in muslin, silk yarn" i.e. rich in luxury goods, crafts serving the 1%. That's what the company was after, because their entire shipping capacity was like a few modern trucks per year, so only super-valuable goods made sense. (And I think you'll find that the top 1% of Bengalis still live pretty well.) > "abject poverty ... generations of Indians living on the sidewalks" i.e. the poorest people. That they were poor in 1650 too wasn't really worth writing down: they were peasants, peasants were poor. That other provinces contributed so little tax in 1850s is really an indication of how little ruling was going on. Sure they got to paint the whole map pink & keep the french out, but (at that time) the company was only a few thousand people. They weren't exactly overseeing the 5-year plan in every village. I think I've been to the same museum, BTW. They had a surprisingly honest section about literature, pointing out that Bengali was the first indian language in which serious writing in the vernacular took off. And this was a blending, I'm told you see poems borrowing from oral & scriptural traditions but written in rhyming schemes taken from english poetry of the time.

iguy 8y ago

Thanks. But again, beware of the two meanings of rich/poor. > "India's wealthiest province, ... rich in muslin, silk yarn" i.e. rich in luxury goods, crafts serving the 1%. That's what the company was after, because their entire shipping capacity was like a few modern trucks per year, so only super-valuable goods made sense. (And I think you'll find that the top 1% of Bengalis still live pretty well.) > "abject poverty ... generations of Indians living on the sidewalks" i.e. the poorest people. That they were poor in 1650 too wasn't really worth writing down: they were peasants, peasants were poor. That other provinces contributed so little tax in 1850s is really an indication of how little ruling was going on. Sure they got to paint the whole map pink & keep the french out, but (at that time) the company was only a few thousand people. They weren't exactly overseeing the 5-year plan in every village. I think I've been to the same museum, BTW. They had a surprisingly honest section about literature, pointing out that Bengali was the first indian language in which serious writing in the vernacular took off. And this was a blending, I'm told you see poems borrowing from oral & scriptural traditions but written in rhyming schemes taken from english poetry of the time.