I think the important question to ask, when it comes to whether the Bengali would have industrialize, is do they possess the intellectual capital needed. A big part why Britain industrialize is thanks to Newtonian physics and the empirical schools of thought which influence British intellectual thought. The Scots where also very innovative themselves thanks to the reformation, so as a result, British were a very experimental in their thinking. It helps the fact that King George III was a major patron of the science, one of his more underrated and important achievements. So Britain (especially Edinburgh) is one of major centers of innovation and engineering.
I'm not sure if the Bengali has this, so its very likely would have not industrialize or at the very least struggle to do so. However, if the Bengali can at least invite some European thinkers or build strong relationship with a European power, they can possibly perform a Meiji Restoration of their own.
However, from what I've learned about Muslim powers throughout the history, they tend stagnant as the ruling class refuse to accept new ideas before getting replace by another group. Usually outsiders.
It's a good question. Interestingly, Bengal has long had a reputation as having an important intellectual life, but that may be a post-colonization thing; I'm not sure. Rabindranath Tagore is probably the most famous Bengali intellectual.
I am a Bangladeshi and we still to this day puke when we hear the name mir jafor and is still used as a slang to call someone a traitor. And i think we didn’t industrialize cz we lacked the intellectual capacity and open thinking and naive. The native population didn’t believe that someone from foreign lands will come and takeover everything cz we already had rulers to take care of rival kings but the thought of some company from Britainnnnnn taking over everything didn’t come across their minds. When i was a child i used to think the brits won cz they had mighty army 200x the size of ours with guns canon and we where in the stone ages still and had just sticks and swords but when i learned about battle of plassy(my disappointment was immeasurable and my life was ruined)anyways you’re post was really good thanks for posting it i liked it soo much i made an account just to comment
Something to remember when reading about "rich" regions or times in the past is they were the sort of "rich" where you have about 50% infant mortality, whereas the poorest countries in the world today have about 10% infant mortality and modern Bangladesh is the sort of "poor" with 2-3%. So it's not that Bengal went from rich to poor; the average Bengali is much richer today than in 1757 but most temperate countries have become rich even faster so they seem poor by comparison.
That said with better economic policies (either a strong but wise local ruler or a more compassionate British one, or a British one more interested in preserving the local textile industry to tax it) they might have become wealthy even faster, so this is still a subject worth looking into.
Yeah, certainly. Wealth in a context like this is relative to other places, not to today. Like I wrote in the article, there's some debate as to how the standards of living of Mughal Bengal compared to Europe at the time.
Great article and good read =) I wonder if you knew that it was India that emancipated Bangladesh from Pakistan despite the UK, the US and various Islamic nations backing Pakistan with firepower and funding. The US actually sent its aircraft carriers to support Pakistan's genocide in Bangladesh.
Looking forward to more great reads from you. Cheers from India, Australia and the US.
I think the important question to ask, when it comes to whether the Bengali would have industrialize, is do they possess the intellectual capital needed. A big part why Britain industrialize is thanks to Newtonian physics and the empirical schools of thought which influence British intellectual thought. The Scots where also very innovative themselves thanks to the reformation, so as a result, British were a very experimental in their thinking. It helps the fact that King George III was a major patron of the science, one of his more underrated and important achievements. So Britain (especially Edinburgh) is one of major centers of innovation and engineering.
I'm not sure if the Bengali has this, so its very likely would have not industrialize or at the very least struggle to do so. However, if the Bengali can at least invite some European thinkers or build strong relationship with a European power, they can possibly perform a Meiji Restoration of their own.
However, from what I've learned about Muslim powers throughout the history, they tend stagnant as the ruling class refuse to accept new ideas before getting replace by another group. Usually outsiders.
It's a good question. Interestingly, Bengal has long had a reputation as having an important intellectual life, but that may be a post-colonization thing; I'm not sure. Rabindranath Tagore is probably the most famous Bengali intellectual.
I am a Bangladeshi and we still to this day puke when we hear the name mir jafor and is still used as a slang to call someone a traitor. And i think we didn’t industrialize cz we lacked the intellectual capacity and open thinking and naive. The native population didn’t believe that someone from foreign lands will come and takeover everything cz we already had rulers to take care of rival kings but the thought of some company from Britainnnnnn taking over everything didn’t come across their minds. When i was a child i used to think the brits won cz they had mighty army 200x the size of ours with guns canon and we where in the stone ages still and had just sticks and swords but when i learned about battle of plassy(my disappointment was immeasurable and my life was ruined)anyways you’re post was really good thanks for posting it i liked it soo much i made an account just to comment
Something to remember when reading about "rich" regions or times in the past is they were the sort of "rich" where you have about 50% infant mortality, whereas the poorest countries in the world today have about 10% infant mortality and modern Bangladesh is the sort of "poor" with 2-3%. So it's not that Bengal went from rich to poor; the average Bengali is much richer today than in 1757 but most temperate countries have become rich even faster so they seem poor by comparison.
That said with better economic policies (either a strong but wise local ruler or a more compassionate British one, or a British one more interested in preserving the local textile industry to tax it) they might have become wealthy even faster, so this is still a subject worth looking into.
Yeah, certainly. Wealth in a context like this is relative to other places, not to today. Like I wrote in the article, there's some debate as to how the standards of living of Mughal Bengal compared to Europe at the time.
Great article and good read =) I wonder if you knew that it was India that emancipated Bangladesh from Pakistan despite the UK, the US and various Islamic nations backing Pakistan with firepower and funding. The US actually sent its aircraft carriers to support Pakistan's genocide in Bangladesh.
Looking forward to more great reads from you. Cheers from India, Australia and the US.
Wow thank you!