Why was the British Empire overtaken?

So it was a lack of Indian unity? That kind of makes sense as nearly all Indian Empires were the economic superpower of the age, eclipsing China lots of times. India once controlled 34% world GDP.

>what's the real reason the British Empire started stagnating and declining
two world wars

The advent of the federal reserve in 1913, and the signing of the Bretton woods agreement in 1945 made the US dollar the worlds reserve currency-all international commerce was now done in dollars and new york became the worlds financial center.

The British Empire, like all colonial empires, were based around the navy. As soon as you cripple the navy, you cripple the Empire. America, Russia, and China, the three most predominant economic superpowers of the 20th century, were land powers that expanded to the navy when situations called for it. This is a key difference. One blockade of the British isles and you've fucked the whole empire. Even if you COULD blockade all continental America or all continental Russia or all China, these states are autarkic enough to resist the blockade at a high level.

This made all naval-colonizing powers vulnerable. Britain was forever bound to its navy and if the Navy was ever superseded, thus went the Empire. Thus, instead of developing their colonies on a state level, the state focused on building up the Navy. Instead of furthering colonial economic development of what were (in the early 1900s) loyal regions of the Empire, they arms raced with Germany instead and left the development to private contractors and private capital oftentimes sourced from local merchants rather then British capital. Many of which firms are still predominant in India and British Africa today. These native-Indian owned trading firms supported decolonization immediately after WW2.

>In an older view, the split signified a hierarchy between trading orders; the expatriates represented the “ascendancy” or dominance of foreign capital in Indian trade. 11 But this view overstates their control and overlooks the constrained nature of their business in India. 12 Another reason is the divergence thaoccurred in the mid-twentieth century. In the late-interwar period, the Indian firms supported the nationalist movement and the expatriates did not. Through this turmoil, the Indian firms gained in economic and political power, and the expatriate firms declined and changed ownership. 13

This seems like quite a reasonable argument. I then wonder whether Britain truly required to constantly build it's navy instead of economically developing it's empie. These reforms are likely to reduce resentment from nationalist groups and Britain wasn't in a politically unstable position so the threat of war was not prevelant. An alliance with Russia, Germany and the USA was already implemented and these countries recognised the hegemony of the empire and the importance of trade with it. In short i believe paranoia and insecurity about it's navy weakened the economy.

tropical environments are not amenable to industrialization

India's nascent manufacturing economy was deindustrialized by the british, who were mainly concerned with extracting inputs from the subcontinent for their manufacturing base back home.

India also made a lot of poor decisions post independence which exacerbated its already damaging internecine conflicts. Party politics and corruption also pretty much doomed its post independence manufacturing infrastructure.

India also was and is sorely lacking in financialized sectors of the economy (e.g. banking and oil), which are the sectors that matter most in postwar geopolitics.

>These reforms are likely to reduce resentment from nationalist groups

Not really.

The British never had such a policy, socialism ruined India post independence and after liberal reforms in the 90s India's economy began growing despite a lack of oil or financial centers.

German Royalty Embezzlement

House of Wettin got 90%

Because it's populated by parochial Indians, Ghandi wanted an India of self sufficient villages. Karl Pearson and Joseph Chamberlain would have of-course said racial inferiority, at the very least we must recognize culture as inhibiting. South Korea and Japan didn't leap forward embracing romantic ideas of themselves, they did so by aggressively emulating the west.
Le British deliberately made India unprosperous despite being the primary beneficiaries of Indian prosperity
Britain did primarily engineer India to be an exporter to foreign markets but given that's literally ideal for a developing nation I don't see how that can be held against them.

>Britain did primarily engineer India to be an exporter to foreign markets but given that's literally ideal for a developing nation I don't see how that can be held against them.

Because India could only functioned as a organ to Britain. Not as an independent body because India at it's core is a British construct built and designed to soley serve the empires needs.

This is a LOT more true of the thirteen colonies but they did just fine post-independence.

The idea of 'India' is as old as time, but only in the same way as people think of 'Europe'.

It is big enough to be considered a continent, with ethnically, ideologically and religiously diverse peoples who together amount to twice the population of Europe.

Indian unification is an accident of British rule. At no point in history was the area we now call the Indian Republic a single, unified state. It came close at various times, before breaking down as a result of civil wars, invasions, etc.

Surely a separation into four or five nations would be best, in an ideal world.

So was it simply greed that stopped Britain industrialising India to it's full potential? I know the African and middle-eastern colonies were basically mines, but if Britain focused more on India, they'd be a lot richer.

By the way, for the guy that asked, here is the map of all territories ever held by the British Empire.

The 13 colonies are very different (different time period, population, scenario).

Well there's been multiple Empires that ruled the vast majority of what we call India throughout history.

The British would not have benefitted from Indian prosperity. If you really think they would've, you don't understand the nature of the great imperial maritime powers.

The Mughals united most of the subcontinent, and though they were in decline when the British were ramping up their exploits in the region, the infrastructure they developed was nothing to scoff at, and certainly integrated its various parts to an unprecedented degree. I agree that unification was pretty much entirely due to the British, but your statement that "it came close (...) before breaking down as a result of civil wars, invasions, etc." is reductive and not especially accurate.

They absolutely had such a policy. It wasn't explicit, because the East India Company were the primary organ of British imperialism during the period when India was being deindustralized and their implicit concerns ran counter to local industrialization.

The economy after the reforms under Rajiv and PV Narasimha Rao was much more heavily financialized, and industries like telecom and IT became of central importance, as well as labor for multinationals. All financial industries, though they aren't oil or finance specifically (I just gave those two industries as examples).

It was a taxable population you Muppet.

yeah?
where are you moving the goal posts too though?

I agree with you about the British role in the creation of India as a nation but disagree with your understanding of "India"

What the Greeks called India was entirely a region in Pakistan. I.e Indus river Valleys. Basically Pakistan alone was the "original" Greek India.

This was then slowly expanded by other Europeans to include modern day India and regions of South East Asia and even China. See map. You will find names like "Intra India", "Extra India" and "Oriental India".

Then the British started annexing lands and overthrew the Mughal empire and created India.

On top of that you have nationalist Pajeets who claim parts of Afghanistan and Iran as Indian too based on Arabic and Persian usage of the word Hindu., which funnily enough comes from another region entirely located in Pakistan called Sindh.