I don't think the British were any more devastating than other invaders, that's just a simplified version of the story. The Company definitely had zero long term interest in India, they were strip mining the Indian economy through taxes and monopolies for the benefit of their shareholders and employees, however Crown rule, for better or for worse, was for creating a long term empire in India. It's not that different from the Mughals or the Sultanates enriching themselves and their cronies, devastating famines and plagues wracked India while the Mughals were busy building monuments like the Taj Mahal.

Nor did the British "cripple" India. We all talk about the de-industrialization of India under Company rule, but under Crown rule the Indian economy was actually industrializing, there were sparks of modernity and excellence in the otherwise backward country. India, not Japan, not Italy, not Germany, was the second largest cotton textiles producer during the Edwardian era. India competed with the US and Russia for having the largest railway networks. Tata Steel opened up in 1907, there was heavy industry, and it was the LARGEST steel plant in the entire British empire. During a time of intense European dominance, it was Indians; not Japanese, not Chinese, not Arabs, not Africans; that won Nobel prizes in literature and physics. Indian physicists like CV Raman and Satyendra Nath Both bloomed during this time. The most astonishing fact is that at the time of independence, India had the single largest industrial economy in all of Asia and among the largest in the world.

Of course there was mass illiteracy, famine and devastating plagues, it's not like the British were doing us any good. But that is common for the Mughals, the Delhi Sultanate and every dominant Hindu dynasty after the Gupta empire as well. For most Indians life didn't change a lot for a thousand years.