![]() ![]() In 1600, Britain produced 1.8 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, compared with India's 23 per cent. In Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, Shashi Tharoor, writer, politician and United Nations-based diplomat for 30 years, asks a similar question to the one posed by Cleese's beleaguered revolutionary.Īs they washed their hands and packed their carpet bags, the British departed an India in which 84 per cent of people could not read or write their own name in any language. "But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" "Orright," concedes the leader, Reg, played by John Cleese. Remember the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when a Judean rebel leader fumes as his gormless but practical comrades detail the benefits of oppression under their powerful and technologically advanced Roman oppressors? This is a reproduction of wonderful article written by Christopher Kremmer on " The Sydney Morning Herald " ![]()
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