Was Colonialism Really that Bad?

 

Consider a small village typically set in the Indian countryside. Have a look at the social structure. Look at the pathetic condition of the so called low class secluded pockets. You will find poor, unconfident, exploited people. Its opposite class, smartly perched on top of the social structure comprises more moneyed confident persons who given their contrastingly better position appear like exploiters.

 

During the ancient times when the classes, castes and categories were settling down, it was more of fighting in a lawless land to cement your position in the present and sow the seeds of better position for your progenies. Under the brutally impartial and indifferent gaze of nature, in the emerging social system some groups gained ascendency, others lagged behind. Some groups claimed more rights and fought for these. Others surrendered more and settled at lower positions. Across generations, these differences kept on being augmented with clearly defined social rules and restrictions, always in favour of those who had taken the lead generations ago. So at the end of the tunnel, if we just ignore the gradual process and look at the position of the people on both sides of the divide, we might, equipped with our sensitivities and modern human values, dub one as the exploiter and the other as the exploited. Reality has many angles, so are the ways and means of looking at a thing, phenomenon or process. Somebody, though at a risk of condemnation, might just summarise it as a natural game between the stronger and the weaker, like it happens in nature. After all social Darwinism has such parallelisms with the way we act, behave and manage in the social jungle: the human variant of survival, fight, loss and gain, like it happens in the natural forests.

 

Colonialism has drawn an exclusivist debate about its character and affects. Just like a particular community has come to excel at the village level, and this dominance of course comes at the cost of those at the lower rungs, in the international social system also bunches of seafaring, courageous, more enterprising, less God fearing, fitter physically and mentally people came to dominate. This is the law! We try to occupy the best possible position. Be it at the community that can maintain itself just at the village level, or the Westerners whose industrialising, exuberant selves sent them on rampage to occupy territories beyond the seas. Do they become exploiters just because they gained more in a field that was open for all? Do we become the victim by default because we lost more given our inherent shortcomings? If a village level politically ambitious person manages to politically dominate a village only, does Modi become a political exploiter and a trampler on the rights of this village-level politician because Modi given his better political acumen has acquired the highest political seat? We analyse and interpret colonialism more as victims and less as sound academicians accepting certain cold hard facts.   

   

In the Indian perspective, millions of pages about the dark face of colonialism have already been written. One page about the positives of colonialism, though not popular, has also been allowed for a change of literary taste. Even some bits of facts on this solitary page need no repetition. All it includes is codification of laws, railways, telegraph, waterways, system of modern education, system of administration, the ways and means of running a democracy, great hill stations, consolidation of Indian sovereignty in the North East, dispelling evils like Sati from the Indian society, etc. But what are these?! These are very small doings by the plundering hand, they say. But what will be left of modern India if these components are taken out?

Imagine a Britishless India. The Mughal dynasty still continuing to rule for the next 200 years! India at the most would have got a few more forts, grand mosques, luxurious palaces, and possibly a still grander Taj Mahal! But where would have been the modern India we are so proud of? When Major Hudson killed the sons of the last Mughal and they packed the poet King to Rangoon, as historians we cannot judge it as a crime only. Bloodshedding even among brothers has been the norm to capture thrones in pre Muslim as well as Muslim ruled India. Possibly they even did us a favour, the valiant Britishers, in finally extinguishing the old medieval lineage which had long outlived its past splendour and architectural glory. Given Hindu apathy, and the so called ‘peace loving nature’, we might still have been ruled by some titular head, some decapitated small time great great great grandson of the last Mughal. And the last of all, consider an India without the few positives of Colonialism mentioned shyly on the single page dedicated to its positive affects! Where would have we stood? Possibly like Iran, at the most!