Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Colonialism? Not my cup of tea

There is a popular idea among certain—usually educated—Indians. I've heard it referred to many times in conversation. Someone will bring up the blank unfairness of colonialism, and others will respond with: well, hold on. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't we [Indians] owe the British colonial system something?

At the risk of being absolutist, I'm not really sure that we do. In the United States, we owe the British some of our cultural and political institutions. That's because the Pilgrims were Englishmen, and indeed, referred to themselves as such for years.

But Indians of the subcontinent? Not so much.

The first exhibit in the "we owe the British something" gallery is: education. Christian missionaries opened many schools in British India. They spread literacy to the outer reaches, perhaps, but they also spread Christianity. One might even say that, at least in the early days of empire, the first aim was really only tangential to the second. One might also say that while the British might have contributed "education" to India, it was a uniquely British education, one that refused to acknowledge the value or validity of anything Indian. In other words, the British taught Indians to discriminate against themselves. While that may have helped the colonial powers, it didn't do much for Indians. (See this essay on the myth of the Aryan invasion. The French author falls into the same trap of assuming that enlightened Europeans must bring the light of knowledge to the Indian masses, but still...)

The second exhibit is: railroads. But it was Indians, not British, who built the railroads through India and, to a lesser extent, Africa. Today, most of India's rural population still lives at least 70 miles away from a railway station. The British used Indian labor to build the infrastructure that was convenient to the British.

In other words, nothing the British did in India was undertaken with the goal of fortifying India, but rather of creating in India a more "model" colony, one easier for the British to administer. That Indians learned to disrespect their own labor and institutions was hardly a tragedy for the British.

The answer to the question, what do we owe the British? is highly complicated and individual. Some people will say the bad outweighs the good, others will say the good outweighs the bad. Overall, though, it's worth remembering that the British looked out for their own interests while they were in India. "Indian interests" did not exist for them as a separate concept from "British interests," and this attitude colored everything they did during their colonial rule.

Note: I am using words like "British" and "they" in a strictly historical sense. It barely needs saying that modern Britishers do not colonize other nations.

Note, 2: This week's posts are brought to you by Orientalism, Edward Said's 1978 book about pre- and post-colonial scholarship.

Note, 3: As an American of Indian descent, my relationship with colonial England is more complicated than I'm admitting.

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