Both the comments are equally naive I believe. There is no way you can logically justify English colonialism was on the whole a beneficial experience for India and you'd have to come up with a much better explanation to justify that. You need to look only as far as the middle ages to see new religions being created and Indian trade / influence extending all over south-east asia. (Seriously, even now, I walk into a Thai restaurant today and I'm amazed how similar the deities are)
While I totally disagree with the term "superior" culture (honestly, Beethoven, Bach, Da Vinci, Roman empire? No way.), I'd also urge you to look up India's art, music and general lifestyle before the British invasion, and it's not as if we were tribals living off of hunting and gathering either.
And as to your second comment about "stealing riches from its people", it's called taxing, and every kingdom levies taxes and stores them _somewhere_. In this case it happened to be a temple. If anything, it speaks to the prosperity of a kingdom that they could afford to even spend so much on art.
You haven't understood my post at all.
1) I do not think that the British colonising India was a good thing. Indeed I even went to the trouble of using the negative word 'subjugate', instead of the neutral word 'colonise' to get the point across.
2) I certainly don't think it was a good thing for India, and I never said anything at all to suggest that I did think it was a good thing.
3) I don't have a problem with taxes. I have a problem with rich people taxing poor people and then hoarding the money. My entire post was about this. I didn't criticise the British for taxing their people, because those taxes were then re-invested to the benefit of the people. India chose not to do that, and I would argue that this is the sine qua non of a weak culture.
While I totally disagree with the term "superior" culture (honestly, Beethoven, Bach, Da Vinci, Roman empire? No way.), I'd also urge you to look up India's art, music and general lifestyle before the British invasion, and it's not as if we were tribals living off of hunting and gathering either.
And as to your second comment about "stealing riches from its people", it's called taxing, and every kingdom levies taxes and stores them _somewhere_. In this case it happened to be a temple. If anything, it speaks to the prosperity of a kingdom that they could afford to even spend so much on art.