The initial commenter said just that, by comparing 18th century indian share of world trade etc with that after british rule - asserting that the difference is entirely because of British actions. That&#x27;s what I was disputing.<p>We actually don&#x27;t know if India would have been worse or better off without Britain&#x27;s influence, and we can&#x27;t possibly know.<p>Your data is not relevant to this discussion. I&#x27;m aware that Britain treated India as a vassal state and don&#x27;t dispute it, I&#x27;m not sure what you think your data proves but it isn&#x27;t anything I have argued.<p>I&#x27;d suggest that Germany didn&#x27;t have colonies because it didn&#x27;t industrialise and didn&#x27;t unify itself politically until late in the game and therefore did not have the ability to project power, not that it didn&#x27;t industrialise because it didn&#x27;t have colonies - that&#x27;s a pretty bizarre interpretation of history, once again.<p>&quot;What can I make up on the hoof to support my notion that Britain is uniquely evil and all of India&#x27;s ills are 100% the fault of Britain&quot; is not a credible position.