a lot of people both anti imperialist and doing imperialism apologia seem (?) to view european imperialism as having been a "modernizing" force, whether that is good or bad, but this seems strange to me. in my understanding european imperialists actively deindustrialized conquered regions and tended to force the population into, basically, doing labor intensive low tech mass harvesting operations to provide raw materials and cash crops for the metropole, and having policies that enforced an agrarian stasis economy. obviously i imagine the reality like many things is a complicated mix but this particular association seems v strange to me! bengal in particular in my understanding had significant protoindustrialization that was quashed by europe