It's not only in India and Pakistan. It's in Sri Lanka too and pretty much the whole of the Middle East too.
And everyone in these regions are still suffering.
And everyone in these regions are still suffering.
The British Empire
- Thread starter sammsky1
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Nigel Farage was born in the wrong century. He should have been born in the 11th century, he would have made a great village fool.
That's interesting, and helpful background. But it does not really contradict the points made so far, does it? Of course a colonial power would not want groups to fight each other; that brings them nothing and hurts their bottom line. But the text does say that group identities were emphasized and strengthened - which sows the seeds for later discord, when the colonial power is gone, removing the authority that can keep tensions in check and leaving a power vacuum to be filled. So to my mind, the point remains that colonial powers worsened the situation in terms of group identify and (potential for) conflict - which may have developed quite differently without their influence. (Or not, but you can't know either way. We only know what did happen.)
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to challenge anyone’s view here (otherwise I’d have quoted them), just adding to my own which I’d already stated earlier.
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Having said that, I think where I’d perhaps depart from your own position (and correct if I’m wrong) is with the idea that there was a divide and rule master-plan determining British policy across space and time. I’d instead argue that the British played on divisions in certain times and places when it suited them, while in other contexts it was less useful for them to do so. I’d also argue that there was often little consistency in British approaches to the problem - policy could sometimes change quite drastically with the replacement of one administrator by another. Finally, I’d argue that British policies almost always produced outcomes which the British themselves did not expect. For example there were certain instances where British attempts to be neutral or even-handed actually provoked communal conflict, as this policy upset the previous balance of communal relations which had prevailed.
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And it could become as fluid again, I don't believe the Belgiums really changed the position of the Tutsi fundamentally, they just made it more rigid. I know the colonial regimes usually preferred a relatively small local elite to support it and help exploit the rest, in case of Ruanda that took very little work. It's not like they had to draw the administrative division very creatively. Of course it's difficult to get from an (ethnic) elite to a situation of equality, but not just because of colonialism but also because decolonization held more promise for the bottom end than just going back to the situation from before colonization. Especially democracy is complicated with one big ethnic majority.
No, I don't believe so for several reasons. But if they had made a mess because of religion afterwards, they would have been to blame.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that; just trying to make the connection back to where the discussion was at.
I'm no expert on the British Empire in particular, so I'll happily accept your position on this; it sounds sensible to me. So I suppose it would go too far to suggest any particular intent; rather perhaps a kind of historical opportunism (if not laziness), with little eye for long-term consequences for the local population.
Yeah. That's the key point.
Enlightening posts as always @2cents.
Larger in scale, more vicious, more looting, more long-lasting negative impact, more racist. Aside from that, no different.
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. And on that note, I'm out.Land of hope and glory goes to number one as the old biddies decide to humiliate the BBC. Will they play it in the charts I wonder?
Its a massive own goal.
Its a massive own goal.
I can't think of a more ironic time, in my life anyway, for this to be number one.
There is no need to downplay anything as the atrocities far outweigh fringe benefits. It'd be foolish to debate otherwise. You do accept that atrocities have been committed, yet continue to rationalize the reasons for the same.
I won't be surprised if you were one of those who claim slavery helped Black people develop and they are downplaying the benefits of slavery.
You can disagree with me without making pathetic comments like this.
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You tell me...what's the difference.
- You are the one who mentioned that the nations under Empire underplay the benefits....Seriously?
- If not British Empire, then someone will have...seriously?
Just accept atrocities and both parties find a way to move on to have better future. Stop rationalizing this.
No. You need to justify you're ridiculous leap in logic. If you're incapable of approaching the conversation without such a juvenile attitude, then don't bother responding again.
I don't see it a any ridiculous leap in logic. It's just a parallel arguement to what you were making in here.
Anyway, I have no interest to continuing this.
No it isn't. It's totally unjustified and it's made even worse by your refusal to back down from it. I asked to to explain it to me and your answer was for me to find the logic in it for you.
I think that's best.
I agree that there was no need for that particular comment and I also partly agree that in this debate, some people can sometimes jump to hyperbole (without mentioning names)...which makes any reasoned debate, as 2cents is attempting to have for instance, much more difficult.
However, I do think the comment you made that was quoted was (probably unintentionally) quite inflammatory. What exactly do you personally think were the benefits of British rule in the subcontinent? The main ones I've seen/read have been 'advocating' against widow suicide, for the untouchables, English as a language and of course, the extent of analysis of literally 95% of British media regarding empire...the railways.
What this attitude presupposes in a way is that these practices would have continued if the British hadn't turned up/ they never would have been able to build those other things themselves. Of course there is a chance that this would have carried on, who knows. Or, like so many other practices, perhaps it would have fizzled out by itself. It wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of human history that Americans were hanging witches. Nor that long ago that Europeans were homogenising their territories to avoid repeats of the world wars. As for the railways, again, there's no reason why India could not have simply purchased the equipment to do it as time went on. Same way most other countries are doing now/ have been doing.
I don't follow other countries' medias in the same way so I don't know what their analysis is like. I doubt the French or Spanish education systems go into detail on their atrocities for instance. So I don't agree that the British were uniquely savage, uniquely cunning, uniquely anything. But I guess they were just most successful at empire most recently and thus their actions are still impacting the modern world today (same with France's in fairness). The collapse of empire isn't some ancient event, its within living memory of a significant portion of the world population. Sadly, there is little critical analysis of the empire in British education or media, which leads to these two increasingly polarised views where one group makes out the British were uniquely x or y, while the other refuses to accept anything that happened as being out of the ordinary.
@africanspur I appreciate your attempts to continue to the conversation with a degree of civility and you raise some very interesting points, but I'm done with this thread.
Ok, Empirical rule for colonies is as bad or just a step above absolute slavery.
- There is no freedom of expression, rights of local populace are mandated by the Empire. It was based on race and skin color.
- Indigenous population is considered inferior to Empire citizens. At best they can hope to be second class citizens if not worse. Usually worse.
- Though slavery was abolished, it was just renamed as "indentured servitude" which was just slavery by contract, when population was taken out of homes and forced to work in farms even exported to other countries.
- Wealth of local rulers were confiscated [read stolen] and moved to Empire (most of which have not been given back yet).
- People were seen as a resource to be exploited and the "benefits" which you are keen to allude were leftovers of the exploitation and created to facilitate exploting and not due to any inherent goodwill.
Almost all of the above applies for slavery, albeit in more extreme levels. So making a parallel for the Empire to slavery isn't really a 'ridiculous leap of faith' but just the next iteration of the same.
Great post.
The trains point is particularly interesting. Every country today has a railway system, and they usually weren't built by Brits. So why would India have uniquely needed the British Empire to get some trains running? It's a baffling argument.
That's awesome. Don't hit the door on your way out
This phrase is stupid at the best of times, keep it out of the CE.
I ain't going to get involved between Edgar and ivaldo, but I did want to add a couple of points.
Before colonisation Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Jews all lived in the same villages, most were related to each other.
Splitting the Punjab and Indian Bangala to make the two Pakistans was specifically to disrupt the two populations from which by far the largest number of freedom fighters came. It wasn't because of higher Muslim populations, if that was the case, Delhi, for example would have been split into parts.
My understanding is the beginning of the "Muslim/Hindu" argument was a newspaper article about saris. But really, what caused the tension was to announce that there would be a split in the two areas, but no announcement of the actual boundary for months, just saying those villages with majority Muslim would be in Pakistan.
As I said earlier, most of the villages in those two areas were heavily mixed and if you were a minority in your village, you were going to lose everything, no question. People got scared and tried to affect the balance of Hindus/Muslims, which eventually led to murders.
Don't forget, a lot of those villagers had already lost loads to the British, in addition to the other abuse that the brits had put them through, like having to crawl instead of walk through certain streets, I'd say a fair number of them had ptsd, so their reaction to possibly losing everything they own was kinda understandable, if not justifiable.
I mean, I've been to Jalewala Bagh, where hundreds of peaceful protesters in a walled garden were fired on by General Dwyer. He blocked the only exit so those people who didn't die from the bullets died by jumping in the well to escape the bullets. It was one of many, many massacres.
Before colonisation Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Jews all lived in the same villages, most were related to each other.
Splitting the Punjab and Indian Bangala to make the two Pakistans was specifically to disrupt the two populations from which by far the largest number of freedom fighters came. It wasn't because of higher Muslim populations, if that was the case, Delhi, for example would have been split into parts.
My understanding is the beginning of the "Muslim/Hindu" argument was a newspaper article about saris. But really, what caused the tension was to announce that there would be a split in the two areas, but no announcement of the actual boundary for months, just saying those villages with majority Muslim would be in Pakistan.
As I said earlier, most of the villages in those two areas were heavily mixed and if you were a minority in your village, you were going to lose everything, no question. People got scared and tried to affect the balance of Hindus/Muslims, which eventually led to murders.
Don't forget, a lot of those villagers had already lost loads to the British, in addition to the other abuse that the brits had put them through, like having to crawl instead of walk through certain streets, I'd say a fair number of them had ptsd, so their reaction to possibly losing everything they own was kinda understandable, if not justifiable.
I mean, I've been to Jalewala Bagh, where hundreds of peaceful protesters in a walled garden were fired on by General Dwyer. He blocked the only exit so those people who didn't die from the bullets died by jumping in the well to escape the bullets. It was one of many, many massacres.
Sure, if there's a better phrase please tell me about it, my colonial overlord
Fish, I'm interested in your thoughts on this actually and you came to mind when I was writing the post above.
I may be completely misremembering here but I vaguely remember you before talking about some of the benefits you saw about colonialism on the subcontinent? And weren't convinced that the changes mentioned above re castes etc would have happened without them (or if they had, would have been significantly slower).
If I am remembering correctly, do you still feel that way/ if you don't, what has changed your mind?
If it wasn't you, please ignore the above.
True, but one of the benefits is the European values the colonials are now judged by.
It helped the descendants of slaves develop. Most American blacks that go 'back' to Africa return disappointed. It's not a secret Western countries are more developped and Western people tend to be more developped as a result, including the black ones since quite a while now. In the lottery of birthplace that life on earth is, blacks in most Western countries are winners just as much. Slavery was not an European invention to begin with, some blacks would have been unlocky beeing sold to Europeans, others would have been lucky. Certainly unlucky were the many sold to the Arabs. Aboliltion was an European invention.
The benefits of slavery aren't that obvious, to the individual plantation owners and on the short term they were, but to the economy of a colonizing state is a different question. Lots of hungry people looking for a job might have been a lot cheaper and could be sacked when there was less work. Slaves weren't consumers either and if I'm not mistaken a case against slavery was made on strictly economic grounds back then.
To be fair, it's somewhat embarrassing hearing "Britainia rule the waves" and "Great Britain". Definitely no longer the dominant power. We've just been tailing the US since 1945.
Still one of the best countries to settle, mind.
Still one of the best countries to settle, mind.
What are these vaunted European values?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but pointing that out as an benefit is just ridiculous.
The Indian Rail was not built to the benefit of the Indians. It was to get Indian raw materials to the coast to be shipped to the UK. It was not built at British cost either. The Indians paid for it and was built around 6 times more the cost of building it . So the Indians paid 6 times more to the British to built a railway in their own country. Of course they had no say in the matter and neither had a say in the cost of it.
Anyone who thinks the benefits even come close to the damage and destruction they caused has no idea to live in subjugation to a foreign power in their own country.
Yeah, but what you gonna do. Give up your privilege and give it to others? No chance. We'll blame the rich, make a scene and complain when we're affected. Wooo.
I thought you told me you were out? (Didn’t answer my post though)
You seem to be running out of people to talk to
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“Great Britain” just meant “big Britain” (as opposed to Brittany in France), although the more modern meaning does get played on to cringeworthy effect in the UK’s marketing efforts. It’s more obvious in French (the lingua franca back in those days) - Grande Bretagne v Bretagne.
As for “Rule Britannia”, it wasn’t written at the height of empire in late Victorian/Edwardian times, unlike “Land of Hope and Glory”. it’s an aria from a long-forgotten opera written in the reign of George II. Given a lot of people at the Proms were waving EU flags in the past few years, I’m guessing most people singing it there have their tongue firmly in cheek. Farage probably not - he no doubt hums it while hunting for refugee dinghies in the Channel.
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What a hideous bunch of morons.
They got confused when someone handed them the lyrics on a sheet of paper:
We hate Boris Johnson, we hate Newcastle too
We hate Nigel Farage but Europe we love you.