Some Ekballporeans have found contradictions between your current views
on the British imperialism in India, and those in your Aug 10, 1992
Op/Ed contribution (quoted below) in the Vancouver Sun newspaper.
Well, my current views are more mature, and a result of much reading and
thinking. So, the Op/Ed contribution from 25 years ago should not be taken
too seriously! I was fresh off the boat from India to pursue my PhD studies
on a Commonwealth Scholarship - and, my views represented the prevailing
"upper caste" hindu outlook. In fact, the conclusions drawn in that
article are not all true by my current thinking. The British imperialism
did a lot of good to India, as we have recently discussed. Imperialisms
can be good or bad depending on the natures of the colonizers and the
colonized at a given time - but, at all times we have to see that it is
not impacting the freedoms of the colonized in a negative way. With the
new world view of the sub-continent, I recognize the hindus and the muslims
as colonizers too - as we discussed with "waves" concept.
Op/Ed contribution as quoted from the Vancouver Sun (Aug 10, 1992,
page A11):
"Imperialism did nothing to help India prosper
--------------------------------------------------------------
I read with interest the article by Joseph Bako
(In Praise of British Imperialism, Op/Ed, July 11),
Being born and brought up in post-colonial India,
I wish to make the following comments.
It is far from generally true that British
imperialism brought the beginnings of prosperity in its
colonies. The Indian subcontinent, for example, was
already quite prosperous.
In fact, it was this prosperity that attracted many
Arab and European invaders. The earliest records
of history attribute the pioneering invasion to Emperor
Alexander of Greece about 2000 years ago.
I have no reason to believe that these imperialists,
including the British, had very dissimilar intentions.
In fact, it is now believed that the British presence
in India served to create an unprecedented and ugly
gap between the rich and the poor of India. Also, one
must not confuse the British colonies of Asia
and Africa with those of America for obvious reasons.
Any imperialism brings sufferings for more than one
generation of native people and often leaves behind dirty
scars.
The attendant share of prosperity of the colonizers is
hardly any compensation. The continued suffering of black
people of South Africa is a convincing example.
Also, the most developed nations today achieved their
remarkable developments deep into their post-colonial
periods or had little to do with British imperialism.
I will therefore argue that no imperialism is praiseworthy.
Even in the matter of population growth an important
antithesis exists. If we add up the populations
of people of British origin scattered all over the
world, we will observe one of the highest percentage
increase in populatin of a single community over the
last 300 years.
At the same time, the native populations of the
colonies maintained their pre-colonial growth rates.
Hence, imperialism aided by industrialization has hardly
been successful in stabilizing the world population. It
appears technology can help population only in a free
and democratic country that is neither a colony nor a
colonizer.
ARYA RAYCHAUDHURI
Burnaby"