tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post4481076453133426685..comments2024-03-13T19:49:05.520-07:00Comments on The Adventures of Shylock Holmes: On the thorniness of historical counterfactualsShylock Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446165270035271752noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-45822161425944060602017-11-21T09:50:16.806-08:002017-11-21T09:50:16.806-08:00I'm quite sympathetic to that view, actually. ...I'm quite sympathetic to that view, actually. The big question is how many other things would have to have been different before staying on would have been a real option. All counterfactuals involve some degree of unreality, but the question is how many deviations are involved and what they are. It's relatively easy for me to imagine the British rulers making a last minute decision to not implement partition. But as I've <a href="http://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-long-shadow-of-decolonialisation.html" rel="nofollow">written about before,</a> the process of decolonialisation started quite a lot earlier than most people realise, and I don't fully understand it. (See Chris B's objections to my post above, for instance, though I don't think he enunciates a clear answer either). In other words, I don't know how I exactly I would go about hypothetically altering Britain's history to make "staying on" happen. Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-44753946295741913792017-11-21T04:27:27.564-08:002017-11-21T04:27:27.564-08:00Or... you know... the British could have simply no...Or... you know... the British could have simply not left. They were far better at running India than the Indians have ever been.<br /><br />-- An Indian.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com