Players/Managed Independence The Sterling Balances Trap
Financial Kill Switch — From Colonial Tax to World Bank Debt
£1.3 billion owed to India — frozen at the Bank of England. Anglo-Indian Financial Agreement signed August 14, 1947 (one day before independence). India forced to 'purchase' British military installations (£100M) and buy annuities for retiring colonial officials (£176M) — paying its former occupiers with its own captured money.
Starved of capital leads to World Bank debt. First Asian World Bank loan: India, August 1949. The formal phase transition of empire: direct colonial taxation replaced by sovereign debt extraction. Same flow of capital from periphery to core, new institutional wrapper.
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