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Not necessarily true, this is only in the case of societies or empires shaped around piracy, tribute and plunder as a primary economic system. Famously, the vi

Not necessarily true, this is only in the case of societies or empires shaped around piracy, tribute and plunder as a primary economic system. Famously, the vikings & the mongols come to mind. But this is equally true for parties rallying around religion, whether it is islamic or christian colonisation. The European colonisation started largely triggered by 1. Turkey (Ottoman empire) extracting large tributes from Europe to import goods from India. 2. The doctrine of christian discovery whereby a christian ("white") can claim territory or property "discovered" by him in the name of the church. So a lot of claim on land whether in Australia or America falls under this. Even inventions can be "rediscovered". In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. In the case of China, even though extracting tributes was common and there very frequent genocidal conflicts between the kingdoms, trade was a major source of wealth as the silk-route shows.

JetSetWilly 5y ago
> In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. States like the mughal empire didn't spread and conquest thanks to sunshine and rainbows. Even looking at the kohinoor itself it was routinely stolen and taken by force by different factions across India. And just like the rest of the world (china as you point out but also very much Europe as well) India of course benefited through trade as well. But I don't see how there is anything unique or different about it.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  The current Indian practice of retroactively applying modern nationhood to prior conflicts to erase them as wars has plenty of historical context. Under that paradigm, there was never war on the Indian subcontinent. Just domestic skirmishes. Between armies. Raised by kings. Of…provinces?
- sinyug 5y ago
  > I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. A nation and a state are two completely different concepts. A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. A state is an ephemeral entity: lines on a map drawn by a power that will fade in time and be replaced with something else. So, while there have been multiple "states" and kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent over millennia, the Indian "nation" has always been there.
  - JetSetWilly 5y ago
    > A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. What is that then? Because it can't be race, religion, language etc etc. Really the nation of "India" was created by Britain. It is perfectly easy to imagine an alternative history where the Raj never existed, states in the Indian subcontinent weren't united and so no modern Indian nation as we know it today was ever birthed. In this view, the Indian "nation" would be like the European "nation" - a fiction. Just because a bunch of people live there with some similar religion and some cultural similarities at a very high level, does not a nation make. I can imagine in 100 years European nationalists of some new EU state trying to invent a history of the European "nation" that predates their state all through history. But it is just stories with no basis in reality.
    - sinyug 5y ago
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies This literally goes back to the Bronze Age and Carthage. Rome’s public treasury was a temple. (And the claim that India was peaceful before colonisation begs explanation for the country being dotted by gorgeous forts. Who were they fortifying against?) As someone with Indian heritage, I think I can safely express bemusement at the mirroring of 19th century white ethnocentrism in modern Indian exceptionalism.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  If you ran a simulation, the kingdoms in a region can constantly plunder each other or cooperate (trade). A region where only plundering dominated would be perpetually reset to square 1. The wealth of ancient India or China can be attributed to the fact that trade was a dominant force, though that does not rule out conflicts between kingdoms. The Hindu rules of war explicitly rules out destruction of civilian assets or scorched earth strategies, something quite the norm in other parts of the world. This is true in modern warfare, a big difference between modern states and the likes of ISIS.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Hindu rules of war explicitly rules out destruction of civilian assets or scorched earth strategies Everyone says this. Literally, everyone. Again, going back to Roman treatises on fighting honourably and this and that. Everyone says this. Everyone bends to reality from time to time. If you’re claiming there were zero, or even a shockingly small number, of kingdoms razed with civilians slaughtered in pre-colonial India, you aren’t consulting historical sources. (Similar to the claim that India and China gained from trading in a way that is distinct from e.g. the Aztecs or Dutch. Lots of trading empires across history. Many of them relatively peaceful, at least for a time.)
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      There are benefits to not antagonising the population of the conquered kingdoms. This is precisely what we follow in the modern world so should not be surprised. In practice it is not honour but just practical unless you want to constantly engaged in conflict with your "new" citizens.
DocTomoe 5y ago
Disclaimer: My knowledge of pre-western-influenced Indian history comes from reading a (probably bad) translation of the Bhagavad Gita and Wikipedia history summaries - and as such my insight necessarily is slanted. Those sources, though, do make me question your line of argument though, that the Indian subcontinent somehow was run by enlightened merchant/philosopher princes being determined to fair exchange of goods and peace. Other societies had trade focus - I'm thinking of the Hanseatic League and Renaissance Venice - but they also had a military arm used to "protect trade routes", which all too often meant discouraging/destroying other people trying to attempt trade on the same routes. I would not be surprised if we found the same being true for Indian merchant navies.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  If you ran a simulation, expanding your kingdom or taking control of key ports would be the right move. Destroying others using the same routes will only make you poorer, so I guess that is not what long lasting, successful kingdoms would have chosen to do.
random314 5y ago
Hindu kings did plenty of plundering too. Hindu exceptionalism is a worn out right wing trope which runs counter to the historical events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surat
- naruvimama 5y ago
  Your examples are very suspect a lot of Hindu on Hindu atrocities and Hindu on Buddhist atrocities is entirely manufactured. Especially suspect given that they were fighting a Nawab. And that doesn't say much given the long history.
  - random314 5y ago
    Of course, my examples run counter to the "Hindu exceptionalism" idea you have been pushing. Great to see confirmation bias in action. Nawab == Muslim. Hence must be a terrible person. I understand that sentiment, it's practically a religious doctrine amongst Indian right wingers.

JetSetWilly 5y ago

> In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. States like the mughal empire didn't spread and conquest thanks to sunshine and rainbows. Even looking at the kohinoor itself it was routinely stolen and taken by force by different factions across India. And just like the rest of the world (china as you point out but also very much Europe as well) India of course benefited through trade as well. But I don't see how there is anything unique or different about it.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
The current Indian practice of retroactively applying modern nationhood to prior conflicts to erase them as wars has plenty of historical context. Under that paradigm, there was never war on the Indian subcontinent. Just domestic skirmishes. Between armies. Raised by kings. Of…provinces?
sinyug 5y ago
> I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. A nation and a state are two completely different concepts. A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. A state is an ephemeral entity: lines on a map drawn by a power that will fade in time and be replaced with something else. So, while there have been multiple "states" and kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent over millennia, the Indian "nation" has always been there.
- JetSetWilly 5y ago
  > A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. What is that then? Because it can't be race, religion, language etc etc. Really the nation of "India" was created by Britain. It is perfectly easy to imagine an alternative history where the Raj never existed, states in the Indian subcontinent weren't united and so no modern Indian nation as we know it today was ever birthed. In this view, the Indian "nation" would be like the European "nation" - a fiction. Just because a bunch of people live there with some similar religion and some cultural similarities at a very high level, does not a nation make. I can imagine in 100 years European nationalists of some new EU state trying to invent a history of the European "nation" that predates their state all through history. But it is just stories with no basis in reality.
  - sinyug 5y ago

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies This literally goes back to the Bronze Age and Carthage. Rome’s public treasury was a temple. (And the claim that India was peaceful before colonisation begs explanation for the country being dotted by gorgeous forts. Who were they fortifying against?) As someone with Indian heritage, I think I can safely express bemusement at the mirroring of 19th century white ethnocentrism in modern Indian exceptionalism.

naruvimama 5y ago
If you ran a simulation, the kingdoms in a region can constantly plunder each other or cooperate (trade). A region where only plundering dominated would be perpetually reset to square 1. The wealth of ancient India or China can be attributed to the fact that trade was a dominant force, though that does not rule out conflicts between kingdoms. The Hindu rules of war explicitly rules out destruction of civilian assets or scorched earth strategies, something quite the norm in other parts of the world. This is true in modern warfare, a big difference between modern states and the likes of ISIS.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Hindu rules of war explicitly rules out destruction of civilian assets or scorched earth strategies Everyone says this. Literally, everyone. Again, going back to Roman treatises on fighting honourably and this and that. Everyone says this. Everyone bends to reality from time to time. If you’re claiming there were zero, or even a shockingly small number, of kingdoms razed with civilians slaughtered in pre-colonial India, you aren’t consulting historical sources. (Similar to the claim that India and China gained from trading in a way that is distinct from e.g. the Aztecs or Dutch. Lots of trading empires across history. Many of them relatively peaceful, at least for a time.)
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    There are benefits to not antagonising the population of the conquered kingdoms. This is precisely what we follow in the modern world so should not be surprised. In practice it is not honour but just practical unless you want to constantly engaged in conflict with your "new" citizens.

DocTomoe 5y ago

Disclaimer: My knowledge of pre-western-influenced Indian history comes from reading a (probably bad) translation of the Bhagavad Gita and Wikipedia history summaries - and as such my insight necessarily is slanted. Those sources, though, do make me question your line of argument though, that the Indian subcontinent somehow was run by enlightened merchant/philosopher princes being determined to fair exchange of goods and peace. Other societies had trade focus - I'm thinking of the Hanseatic League and Renaissance Venice - but they also had a military arm used to "protect trade routes", which all too often meant discouraging/destroying other people trying to attempt trade on the same routes. I would not be surprised if we found the same being true for Indian merchant navies.

naruvimama 5y ago
If you ran a simulation, expanding your kingdom or taking control of key ports would be the right move. Destroying others using the same routes will only make you poorer, so I guess that is not what long lasting, successful kingdoms would have chosen to do.

random314 5y ago

Hindu kings did plenty of plundering too. Hindu exceptionalism is a worn out right wing trope which runs counter to the historical events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surat

naruvimama 5y ago
Your examples are very suspect a lot of Hindu on Hindu atrocities and Hindu on Buddhist atrocities is entirely manufactured. Especially suspect given that they were fighting a Nawab. And that doesn't say much given the long history.
- random314 5y ago
  Of course, my examples run counter to the "Hindu exceptionalism" idea you have been pushing. Great to see confirmation bias in action. Nawab == Muslim. Hence must be a terrible person. I understand that sentiment, it's practically a religious doctrine amongst Indian right wingers.