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April 28, 2005
Reading about India, thinking about Iraq.
Since we're starting our RTW trip in India, I've been reading about its history to try to get a feel for its people. Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice were a hoot at the multiplex, but they hardly provide an overview for one of the planet's most ancient cultures.
I find myself drawn to reading about the brief, brutal rebellion fought by factions of Indian insurgents (nationalists, natch) against the British East India Company -- the mother of all government contractors.
A little light research indicates that many Indians threw in their lot with their British masters. Even if things sucked having to kowtow to the BEIC army and civil servants, it was still better than the treatment they'd previously received under the previous regimes.
Apparently, the BEIC did much more than just suck the marrow out of the Subcontinent, sez Wikipedia:
The Company also had interests along the routes to India from Great Britain. As early as 1620, the company attempted to lay claim to the Table Mountain region in South Africa, later it occupied and ruled St Helena. The Company also established Hong Kong and Singapore; employed Captain Kidd to combat piracy; and cultivated the production of tea in India. Other notable events in the Company's history were that it held Napoleon captive on Saint Helena, and made the fortune of Elihu Yale. Its products were the basis of the Boston Tea Party in Colonial America.
Talk about your diversified multinationals! They had more fingers in different pies than Haliburton, and were probably a helluva lot more popular.
Thank God the days are gone when a government would seek to make private companies into arms of foreign policy and outsource their dirty work just to lay hands on spice and other treasures.
Posted by Your Protagonist at April 28, 2005 11:32 PM