“Thailand has railways and the British never colonised the country,… In 1885, when the British invaded Burma, the Burmese king was already building railways and telegraphs. These are things Indians could have done themselves.”

—  Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh, Interview with "The Week" http://web.archive.org/web/20030203070332/http://www.the-week.com/21sep02/life9.htm

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Thailand has railways and the British never colonised the country,… In 1885, when the British invaded Burma, the Burmes…" by Amitav Ghosh?
Amitav Ghosh photo
Amitav Ghosh1
Indian writer 1956

Related quotes

Will Durant photo

“It might have been supposed that the building of 30,000 miles of railways would have brought a measure of prosperity to India. But these railways were built not for India but for England; not for the benefit of the Hindu, but for the purposes of the British army and British trade.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

The Case for India (1931)

John Gray photo

“Pogroms are as old as Christendom; but without railways, the telegraph and poison gas there could have been no Holocaust. There have always been tyrannies; but without modern means of transport and communication, Stalin and Mao could not have built their gulags.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Human: Why Humanity Will Never Master Technology (p. 14)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

“For it is no railways, roads, and power stations that give rise to industrial capitalism: it is the emergence of industrial capitalism that leads to the building of railways, to the construction of roads, and to the establishment of power stations.”

Paul A. Baran (1909–1964) American Marxist economist

Source: The Political Economy Of Growth (1957), Chapter Six, Towards A Morphology Of Backwardness, I, p. 193

George Stephenson photo

“George Stephenson told me as a young man that railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country — when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the king and all his subjects. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live.”

George Stephenson (1781–1848) English civil engineer and mechanical engineer

John Dixon, quoted by Samuel Smiles, Life of George Stephenson (1875)

Lalu Prasad Yadav photo

“Indian Railways is the responsibility of Lord Vishwakarma. So is the safety of passengers… It is His duty, not mine. I have been forced to don His mantle.”

Lalu Prasad Yadav (1948) Indian politician

Reacting to increasing number of train mishaps, Patna ([Boarding a train? Pray to God, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/761797.cms, The Times of India, July 02, 2004, 2006-05-08]).

Ramsay MacDonald photo

“Mr. Rockefeller not only owns the Standard Oil supplies: he controls the railways, the banks, the shops…upon which his Trust depends. The Steel Corporation not only makes steel; it owns coal and iron fields, ore steamers, the Erie and Pittsburgh mineral railway, as well as the operatives in Homestead. We oppose the Trust, not as an organisation, but because it is controlled by individuals for their own ends…But the Trust points out the line of British advance. In this country, however, the introduction of the Trust should be marked by public ownership.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

The Zollverein and British Industry (1903), pp. 159-160
1900s

Karl Marx photo

“Titles of property, for instance railway shares, may change hands every day, and their owner may make a profit by their sale even in foreign countries, so that titles to property are exportable, although the railway itself is not.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. II, Ch. X, p. 215.
(Buch II) (1893)

Edward Heath photo

“If there are any who believe that immigrants to this country, most of whom have already become British citizens, could be forcibly deported because they are coloured people…then that I must repudiate, absolutely and completely.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1968), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 245.
Leader of the Opposition

“The laws of England will protect the rights of British subjects, and give a remedy for a grievance committed by one British subject upon another, in whatever country that may be done.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

Forbes v. Cochrane and Cockburn (1824), 2 St. Tr. (N. S.) 159.

C. Rajagopalachari photo

“There is no reality in the fond expectation that Britain will leave the country in simple response to a Congress slogan. Besides, by asking the British to leave, the Congress was issuing an open invitation to a colonising power more brutal by far, the Japanese.”

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) Political leader

Rajagopalachari (1942) quoted in: Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi and Rajaji, 2 February 2003, 26 November 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/02/02/stories/2003020200680300.htm, <br class="br">Rajaji opposing Gandhi on the Quit India movement in 1942.

Related topics