The Indian Mughal Empire, the South American Incas, Maya and Aztec empires, the Chinese Manchu - they were all already looting and ruling. For the locals, nothing changed. The West just conquered conquerors.
Actually, life may have improved for the locals. The American slave trade tapped into the already existing African slave trade. Where are the descendants of the slaves who didn't make it to America?
Having said that a lot of importance should go to the internal fights between European nations that helped them learn human behaviour to rule other countries. Off course mainly though propelled by development and spread of scientific ideas, industrial revolution and simply the need generated by the same.
One of the problems in old India was that we always had enough: Culture, food, weather and this led to many internal divisions and no need for invading foreign lands. The internal divisions were nicely exploited by Mughals first and British after.
I do not view these issues as Black and White, however i feel Western intellectuals really does not give enough respect to Eastern schools of thought. The Bhagavad Gita or Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' as well as Chanakya's 'Kautilya Arthashastra' etc. developed far before. The pertinent question is why didn't these societies ever develop like the West ? The answer then always takes a form of a thinly us vs them narrative.
Apart from India itself being invaded by the Hindu culture. If I am not mistaken, then the lowest castes are the tribes that resisted conquest the most. It's conquests all the way down.
>The internal divisions were nicely exploited by Mughals first and British after.
>The pertinent question is why didn't these societies ever develop like the West ?
The usual argument is that Europe prospered because of the internal struggles and conflicts. But as you write, India had them too. India also invented 'Arabic' numbers, and had iron very early on.
Similarly, why did Arabic culture stall when they translated and thus had access to all the Greek treatises? Why didn't the Romans or Greeks get to it initially?
Could Weird be right, and it was the destruction of tribal structures?
There was a submission about Singapore some days ago that mentioned in passing that the long-term leader introduced Western thinking - whatever that is.
Personally, I think that it is observable in nerd culture. If you have a bunch of nerds, but no math, chemistry or physics, then it will take some years and it will be reinvented. With those weapons, whoever is left with some bully tendencies can conquer the world.
The question is: why are there not enough nerds in other cultures? Maybe for lack of the printing press? Not for the books, but books need paper, and you need cheap paper to write down your notes.