tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/british-raj-41793/articlesBritish Raj – The Conversation2023-09-27T12:27:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135242023-09-27T12:27:58Z2023-09-27T12:27:58ZWhy some Indians want to change the country’s name to ‘Bharat’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550340/original/file-20230926-15-ivocio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C23%2C7774%2C5171&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes delegates to the G20 leaders summit in front of a placard reading 'Bharat,' the Hindi word for 'India.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-and-us-president-joe-news-photo/1669134258?adppopup=true">Dan Kitwood/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When India invited delegates attending the G20 summit in September 2023 to dinner with “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66716541">the President of Bharat</a>,” rather than “the President of India,” it may have looked to the world like a simple case of postcolonial course correction. </p>
<p>The word “India” is, after all, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-turkey-want-other-countries-to-start-spelling-its-name-turkiye-199390">an exonym</a> – a placename given by outsiders. In this case, the name came from the British, who ruled the subcontinent from 1858 to 1947, <a href="https://theconversation.com/colonialism-in-india-was-traumatic-including-for-some-of-the-british-officials-who-ruled-the-raj-77068">a violent period of colonialism</a> that later came to be called “the British Raj.” </p>
<p>“Bharat,” on the other hand, is the word for “India” in Hindi, by far <a href="https://www.forbesindia.com/article/news-by-numbers/hindi-day-2020-indias-mostspoken-languages-are/62577/1">the most spoken language in the nation</a>. Alongside English, Hindi is one of two languages used in <a href="https://qz.com/india/1712711/indias-constitution-is-over-30-times-as-long-as-the-us">the Indian Constitution</a>, with versions written in each language.</p>
<p>“Bharat” may, therefore, look like a well-reasoned and uncontroversial replacement for a term anointed long ago by outsiders – something akin to how <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43821512">Eswatini</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/08/26/archives/zimbabwe-is-welcomed-into-un-independence-achieved-in-april.html">Zimbabwe</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13072774">Burkina Faso</a> updated their countries’ names from the colonial designations “Swaziland,” “Rhodesia” and “Upper Volta,” respectively. </p>
<p>But the use of “Bharat” has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/6/india-or-bharat-whats-behind-the-dispute-over-the-countrys-name">elicited outcry</a> from the political opposition, some Muslims, and Hindu conservatives in the south, reflecting ongoing tensions in India between language, religion and politics. </p>
<h2>Two different language families</h2>
<p>My book with fellow linguist <a href="https://julietetelandresen.com/">Julie Tetel Andresen</a>, “<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Languages+In+The+World%3A+How+History%2C+Culture%2C+and+Politics+Shape+Language+-p-9781118531280">Languages in the World: How History, Culture, and Politics Shape Language</a>,” covers the language history and politics of India.</p>
<p>Hindi is the most-spoken language in India, but its use is largely relegated to a part of the country that linguists refer to as “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindi-language">the Hindi belt</a>,” a massive region in northern, central and eastern India where Hindi is the official or primary language.</p>
<p>Around 1500 B.C.E., a group of outsiders from Central Asia – known now as the <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/theres-no-confusion-the-new-reports-clearly-confirm-arya-migration-into-india/article61986135.ece">Indo-Aryans</a> – began migrating and settling in what is now northern India. They spoke a language that would eventually become <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sanskrit-language">Sanskrit</a>. As groups of these speakers separated from one another and spread out over northern India, their spoken Sanskrit changed over time, becoming distinctive.</p>
<p>Most of the languages spoken in northern India today – Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and Gujarati, among many others – derive from this history. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of India highlighting predominant languages spoken in various regions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550428/original/file-20230926-21-ur64w0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Different languages are predominantly spoken in different parts of India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/indian-map-with-official-languages-of-indian-royalty-free-illustration/1490281073?phrase=map+of+indian+languages&adppopup=true">Venkatesh Selvarajan/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>But the Aryans were not the first group to inhabit the Indian subcontinent. Another group, the Dravidians, was already living in the region at the time of the Aryan migrations. They may have been <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00868-w">the original inhabitants of the Indus-Valley Civilization in northern India</a>. Over the millennia, the Dravidians migrated to the southern part of the subcontinent, while the Aryans fanned out across the north. </p>
<p>Today, Dravidians number <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dravidian_peoples">about 250 million people</a>. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dravidian-languages">Dravidian languages</a>, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tamil-language">Tamil</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Telugu-language">Telugu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Malayalam-language">Malayalam</a>, have no historical relationship and virtually no linguistic similarities to the Indo-Aryan languages of the north. </p>
<h2>Dravidians spurn Hindi</h2>
<p>By the time the Raj ended in 1947, English had been established as the language of the elites and was used in education and government. As the new nation of India took shape, Mahatma Gandhi advocated for a single Indian language to unite the diverse regions and for many years championed Hindi, <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/fact-check-did-gandhi-want-hindi-as-national-language/cid/1705408">which was already widely spoken in the north</a>.</p>
<p>But after independence, opposition to Hindi grew in the Dravidian-speaking south, where English was the favored lingua franca. For Tamils and other Dravidian groups, Hindi was associated with the Brahmin caste, whom many felt <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/why-periyar-is-still-an-influencer-in-the-political-landscape-of-tamil-nadu/periyars-movements/slideshow/63215382.cms">marginalized Dravidian languages and culture</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Portrait of a woman smiling, wearing a blue and white shawl." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550332/original/file-20230926-21-sf77gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Indira Gandhi pushed to codify English, alongside Hindi, as an official language in the constitution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-politician-indira-gandhi-news-photo/639614209?adppopup=true">Henri Bureau/Sygma/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>For many people in the south, Hindi came to be seen as a language as foreign as English. To keep tensions from spilling over, the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, supported verbiage in the constitution adopted in 1950 <a href="https://www.uottawa.ca/clmc/language-provisions-constitution-indian-union#:%7E:text=The%20Constitution%20adopted%20in%201950,official%20language%20of%20the%20Union.">allowing for the continued use of English in government</a> for a limited period.</p>
<p>Violence nevertheless continued in the south for years around what was seen as the <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/tamil-nadu/history-anti-hindi-imposition-movements-tamil-nadu-102983">unfair promotion of Hindi</a>. It abated only when Indira Gandhi – Nehru’s daughter and the third prime minister of India – <a href="https://www.impriindia.com/insights/linguistic-diversity-language-policy/">pushed to codify English</a>, alongside Hindi, as an official language in the constitution.</p>
<p>Today, the Indian Constitution <a href="https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/EighthSchedule_19052017.pdf">recognizes 22 official languages</a>.</p>
<h2>Nationalists push for one official language</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/75-years-ago-britains-plan-for-pakistani-and-indian-independence-left-unresolved-conflicts-on-both-sides-especially-when-it-comes-to-kashmir-185932">The Partition of India in 1947</a> – corresponding to the dissolution of the Raj – led to the creation of Pakistan, which was set up to aggregate the majority Muslim regions from the colonial state. An independent India was set up to include the majority non-Muslim regions. </p>
<p>Today, roughly <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/Pakistan.pdf">97% of Pakistan’s population is Muslim</a>. In India, Hindus make up about 80% of the population, while <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58595040">Muslims make up about 14%</a> – more than 200 million people.</p>
<p>This is where modern domestic politics come into play. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/20/what-is-hindu-nationalism-and-who-are-the-rss">Hindutva</a>” is a brand of far-right Hindu nationalism that emerged in the 20th century in response to colonial rule but gained its biggest following under the leadership of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Narendra-Modi">Prime Minister Narendra Modi</a> and his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bharatiya-Janata-Party">Bharatiya Janta Party</a>, or the BJP. </p>
<p>As a political ideology, Hindu nationalism should be distinguished from Hinduism, a religion. It advances policies that seek to promote Hindu supremacy and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/11/modi-india-muslims-hatred-incitement/">are widely considered anti-Muslim</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/25/threat-unity-anger-over-push-make-hindi-national-language-of-india">One such policy</a> is the promotion of Hindi as the sole official language of India. Speaking in 2022 at a Parliamentary Official Language Committee meeting, <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/linguistic-imperialism-bjp-pronouncements-on-promoting-hindi-spark-outrage/article38492154.ece">BJP Home Minister Amit Shah said</a>, “When citizens of states speak other languages, communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India.”</p>
<p>To Shah, the “language of India” and Hindi were one and the same.</p>
<h2>Suppressing Urdu</h2>
<p>Muslims in India speak the languages of their communities – Hindi among them – as do Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Christians. </p>
<p>However, making Hindi the national language could be viewed as one part of a broader political project that can be characterized as anti-Muslim. That’s why the political opposition is against using “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/6/india-or-bharat-whats-behind-the-dispute-over-the-countrys-name">Bharat</a>,” even though many Muslims are themselves Hindi speakers. </p>
<p>These politics become even clearer in the context of the BJP’s attempts <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Urdu-language">to limit the use of Urdu</a> – a language with a high degree of <a href="https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/540/langdial/node2.html">mutual intelligibility</a> to Hindi – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61199753">in Indian public life</a>. </p>
<p>Although Urdu and Hindi are remarkably similar, their differences take on outsized religious and national significance. </p>
<p>Whereas Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, which has strong cultural associations with Hinduism, Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic script, which has strong associations with Islam. Whereas Hindi draws on Sanskrit for new words, Urdu draws on Persian and Arabic, again emphasizing associations to Islam. And whereas Hindi predominates in India, <a href="https://www.sprachcaffe.com/english/magazine-article/what-language-is-spoken-in-pakistan.htm">Urdu is the official language of Pakistan</a>, along with English. </p>
<p>Thus the appearance of “Bharat” in official government correspondence may reopen old wounds for Muslims – and even for conservative Hindus in the Dravidian-speaking south who might otherwise support Modi and the BJP. </p>
<p>Although an official name change is unlikely in the immediate future, “Bharat” will likely continue to serve as a rallying cry for right-wing nationalists. </p>
<p>To them, the conciliatory language politics of Nehru and Indira Gandhi <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/15/india-nehru-history-myths-modi-bjp-politics-review/">are a thing of the past</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip M. Carter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government’s use of the Hindi word for ‘India’ revives debates over whether Hindi should be the national language – and reopens some old wounds.Phillip M. Carter, Professor of Linguistics and English, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131052023-09-08T14:05:41Z2023-09-08T14:05:41ZBharat: why the recent push to change India’s name has a hidden agenda<p>The invitations to a state dinner to mark India’s hosting of this year’s G20 came not, as you’d expect, from the office of the president of India, but from the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/07/india-or-bharat-g20-invitations-throw-up-question-dating-back-centuries">president of Bharat</a>”. This has prompted speculation from observers both at home and abroad about whether this signifies an official government intention to rename the country.</p>
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<p>Some have <a href="https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/will-bjp-rename-bharat-if-india-bloc-rechristens-itself-bharat-arvind-kejriwal-11693915259439.html">suggested</a> that the ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata arty) is rattled, and is responding to the adoption of the <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/i-n-d-i-a-indian-national-democratic-inclusive-alliance-2024-elections-confusion-over-2-different-full-forms-for-opposition-alliance-4219182">acronym INDIA</a> (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) by a group of more than two dozen opposition political parties ahead of the general elections in 2024.</p>
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<p>There are numerous <a href="https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/trending/india-or-bharat-netizens-use-humour-to-debate-wonder-if-institutions-names-would-change-541603">debates taking place online</a> – both humorous and serious – about whether this name change ought to go ahead.</p>
<p>There’s a <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/india/bjp-mp-stirs-row-seeks-to-rename-india-to-bharat-1241795.html">growing push among BJP MPs</a> to adopt the name change, since “India” – the conventional English rendering of the country’s name – to some at least, symbolises “colonial slavery”. There have been <a href="https://news.abplive.com/news/india/india-to-bharat-country-name-change-what-supreme-court-said-1627743">previous petitions</a> seeking such a name change, but these were dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2016, and again in <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-or-bharat-here-is-what-sc-had-to-say-on-renaming-in-2020/articleshow/103398304.cms">2020</a>. </p>
<p>Just days before the G20 invitation went out, Mohan Bhagwat, head of the nationwide right-wing paramilitary organisation RSS (<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/03/706808616/the-powerful-group-shaping-the-rise-of-hindu-nationalism-in-india">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</a>) – the ideological parent of the BJP – <a href="https://time.com/6310821/bjp-rename-india-bharat/">called explicitly</a> for the use of “Bharat” rather than India, <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mohan-bhagwat-asks-people-to-use-name-bharat-instead-of-india/article67273901.ece">saying</a>: “We don’t have to think about whether anyone outside will understand this or not. If they want to, they will, but that is not our problem … The world need us today, we don’t need the world.”</p>
<h2>Constitutional change</h2>
<p>The recent flurry of speculation reopens old debates that were <a href="https://www.barandbench.com/columns/india-or-bharat-what-constituent-assembly-debated-and-what-supreme-court-held">discussed and resolved</a> in the Constituent Assembly in September 1949. Article 1 of the constitution, which deals with the name and territory of the Union, refers to the country as “India, that is Bharat”. In other words, the two names for the country have since always been understood as being synonymous. So the proposed change would mean altering the constitution to remove the reference to “India”. </p>
<p>Adding to the mix is the fact that a special session of the Indian parliament <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-likely-to-move-bill-to-rename-india-as-bharat-in-parliaments-special-session/articleshow/103381210.cms?from=mdr">has been called</a> for September 18-22, thus fuelling speculations that this in on the order of business.</p>
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<p>But it’s unlikely that the path to the name change will be a formal one in the first instance. Like many significant changes that accommodate long-held demands of the Hindu nationalist right-wing in India, any name change will probably need to follow a process of societal normalisation.</p>
<p>For example, take the decision in April 2023 to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/14/mughals-rss-evolution-outrage-as-india-edits-school-textbooks">remove from school textbooks</a> references to the (Muslim) Mughals who ruled over the subcontinent between the 16th and 19th centuries. The push for this began to gain momentum in 2016 with the informal <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/up-front/story/20160321-the-great-mughal-whitewash-audrey-truschke-south-asian-history-828594-2016-03-09">#DeleteMughalsFromHistory</a> hashtag in 2016. </p>
<p>So the G20 dinner invite is merely an opening gambit in a longer play.</p>
<h2>Rise of the Hindu right</h2>
<p>Part of the rationale offered by supporters of the name change is that Bharat is an indigenous term that goes back in history and was prominent in the anti-colonial struggles – for example, the slogan “<em><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/jaipur/aradhana-mishra-bharat-mata-ki-jai-slogan-viral-video-8926590/">Bharat Mata ki Jai</a></em>” (Hail to mother Bharat). But there are other more important political ideological factors that must not be missed.</p>
<p>As the backbone of the right-wing in the country, the RSS (founded in 1925) has always carried a vision for India as a Hindu nation that extends far beyond electoral politics. In this transformation of Indian society and polity, the idea of <a href="https://theloop.ecpr.eu/hindu-nationalists-strategy-of-othering/">“othering” non-Hindus</a> has been crucial, and at various times has targeted Muslims, Christians, non-Brahmins, secularists, atheists, dissenters and so on.</p>
<p>So the proposed change of name from India to Bharat is not an anti-colonial move. Rather it is the creation of a binary designation whereby those who continue to espouse an “Indian” identity will, over time, become politically labelled as an “other” to the true and authentic “Bharatiya” (resident of Bharat) who is the “ideal” Hindu or Hindu-ised citizen.</p>
<p>In my 2017 <a href="https://www.nitashakaul.com/uploads/Kaul-2017-Journal_of_Labor_and_Society.pdf">analysis of the rise of the right</a> in India, I outlined the strategic ways in which the right relies upon contradictory leveraging of various dualities. One that I identified was India versus Bharat. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/on-the-difference-between-hinduism-and-hindutva/">Hindutva</a>, or political Hindu right-wing vision of India cherished by the RSS and BJP, is one where Bharat stands not just for a country that is India, but also connotes an idyll of pure Hindutva morality.</p>
<p>The right is seeking to create a new wedge between those who live in India and those who live in Bharat. Much like the divide between Remainers and Leavers in the UK is a legacy of Brexit, this kind of divisive politics has long-term consequences as the meanings attached to specific terms are altered. </p>
<p>The entities Bharat and India are constructed for particular political purposes. The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said in 2013: “<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/rapes-occur-in-india-not-bharat-says-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-509401">Rapes do not happen in Bharat, they happen in India</a>.” </p>
<p>But facts matter little in the face of politically charged ideologues. Contemporary India is marked by a politics of distraction, where the recovering of some idyllic past is used by the right to obscure from view the failures of the present when it comes to equal rights and freedoms for citizens, competitive politics and the rule of law. </p>
<p>For citizens in need of life and livelihood security, a renamed Bharat is a hollow promise trading on manipulated narratives of past glory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nitasha Kaul does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The move to rename India as ‘Bharat’ is part of a push by the Hindu nationalist right to create an ideologically pure state that in reality never existed.Nitasha Kaul, Director, Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), Professor of Politics, International Relations, and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881212022-08-18T12:39:57Z2022-08-18T12:39:57ZUkrainian people are resisting the centuries-old force of Russian imperialism – Ukraine war at 6 months<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479479/original/file-20220816-16068-oq2vva.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C28%2C4763%2C3130&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People attend an exhibition of Russian equipment destroyed by the armed forces of Ukraine, in Lviv, Ukraine, Aug. 11, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-the-opening-of-the-exhibition-of-russian-news-photo/1242453575?adppopup=true">Olena Znak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The war being waged by Russia in Ukraine has been described in many ways – an attempt to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26769481">recreate the USSR</a>, a militant <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-eurasianism.html">attempt to create a new Eurasia civilization</a>, or a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ukraine-russia-us-proxy-war-b2073399.html">proxy war between Russia and the West</a>. But whatever Russian President <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/putins-ambitions-seriously-set-back-failures-ukraine-ex-cia-chief-1692236">Vladimir Putin’s ambitions and aspirations</a> were in the past, they have become ever more blatantly imperial and colonial as the fighting continues. </p>
<p>A colonial war, like Russia’s in Ukraine, is one in which a self-styled superior people believes it has the right, even the duty, to do what it feels is good for its inferiors – which conveniently conforms to its own self-interest. </p>
<p>“Colonial” or “imperial” are not just epithets thrown around casually, as are the now-familiar accusations of <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063">fascism and genocide, most recently used against Russia</a>.</p>
<p>As polemical as their usage can be, colonialism and imperialism have explanatory power. </p>
<p>Imperialism was an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/russias-empires-9780199924394?cc=us&lang=en&">antiquated system of domination</a> that attempted to include diverse peoples within a single state under the authority of a purportedly superior institution – emperors, nobles or Übermenschen – or in overseas empires under the control of a foreign master who promised to “civilize” – as they put it – the benighted natives. </p>
<p>Think of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/British-raj">British in India</a> – white men lording it over millions of Indians in the name of a higher civilization. Or the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/House-of-Habsburg">Habsburg dynasty ruling peoples</a> from Spain to the Netherlands to Austria and Hungary via strategic marriage and military conquest. </p>
<p>If empires were diverse and inegalitarian, modern nation-states were supposedly intended by their creators to be relatively homogeneous and egalitarian. <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2259-imagined-communities">Nation-makers recognized popular sovereignty</a> rather than dynastic rule. They operated democratically. The right to rule rose up from the people. </p>
<p>Consider the earliest capitalist states of the 17th and 18th centuries – England, the Netherlands and France – that practiced nation-making at home in Europe. By the time of the French Revolution of 1789, their <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo81816822.html">people were dealt with as equal citizens under the law</a>, not as a monarch’s subjects. </p>
<p>But in their colonies – like the Dutch East Indies or French Indochina – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/18905">the locals were subjects of imperial authorities from afar</a>, bereft of rights and sovereignty.</p>
<p>In the historical stories told by nationalists, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/14/empires-with-expiration-dates/">nation-states were supposed to be the legitimate successors of empires</a>. Relatively homogeneous culturally, with rulers chosen by the people, they were products of the modern world, while empires were seen as archaic and doomed to collapse. </p>
<p>But it has not quite worked out that way in the past century. And Russia’s war on Ukraine is a reflection of that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men, one in a suit, the other in a uniform, talking across a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s report in the Kremlin in Moscow on July 4, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraine/209b825923bd40ecaa5b3d85c8a86c26/photo?Query=(persons.person_featured:(Vladimir%20AND%20Putin))%20AND%20%20(Putin%20Ukraine)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1175&currentItemNo=0">Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>21st-century imperialists</h2>
<p>Over the past century, those who believed egalitarian and democratic nation-states would logically and naturally succeed empires have gotten a reeducation in political theory. </p>
<p>Nation-states can be imperialist and seek to envelop other nationalities within their territory or dominate their neighbors militarily or economically. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kurdish-repression-turkey">Turkey treats its tens of millions of Kurds like a colonized people</a>. A nation-state privileging one ethno-religious people, like Israel, <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/palestinians-in-israel-then-and-now">subjects millions of Palestinians to inequitable domination</a>. </p>
<p>Large diverse states, like the United States and India, swing between multicultural egalitarianism, recognizing the rights of minorities, and bouts of xenophobic hostility to those <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-immigration-rule-is-cruel-and-racistbut-its-nothing-new">differing from the majority, white</a> or <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/mass-movement-or-elite-conspiracy-the-puzzle-of-hindu-nationalism/oclc/847441763">Hindu</a>. </p>
<p>Within such states some people are treated more favorably than others. Minorities often experience not only discrimination, but violence. Other large, diverse states, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/world/europe/putin-war-ukraine-recolonization.html">like Putin’s Russia</a>, also vacillate between a multinational nation-state – about 80% are ethnic Russians – and imperial treatment of various subordinate peoples. </p>
<p>The Kremlin elite has promoted a <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/russias-road-to-autocracy/">virulent nationalism to rally the population</a> in its war against Ukraine, which represents a turn toward neocolonialism.</p>
<p>Take Putin’s opportunistic and disingenuous use of the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-vows-that-as-in-1945-ukraine-will-be-liberated-from-nazi-filth/">language of liberation</a>, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claims-that-ukraine-is-committing-genocide-are-baseless-but-not-unprecedented-177511">preventing genocide</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/decrying-nazism-even-when-its-not-there-has-been-russias-invade-country-for-free-card-183695">removal of Nazis</a> as justification for his invasion of Ukraine. He uses that language in the way 19th-century imperialists did when they invaded, dominated and exploited other countries, claiming they were reluctantly undertaking the <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478">burden that white men had to bear to defend</a> against barbarians and savages. </p>
<p>Having failed to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/nato-sees-russia-war-entering-stalemate-neither-side-can-win-rcna20877">decapitate the Ukrainian government</a>, the Kremlin retreated to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/renewed-russian-attacks-strike-areas-ukraine-86927182">taking territory savagely in the east and south of the country</a>. The <a href="https://uacrisis.org/en/russkiy-mir-as-the-kremlin-s-quasi-ideology">mythology of the Russkiy Mir</a> – the supposed unity of the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian peoples – has been instrumentally deployed by Russia to justify the brutal attack on the very people who were supposed to be the brothers and sisters of the Russians. </p>
<h2>‘Threatened by dangerous inferiors’</h2>
<p>Contrary to Russia’s plans, Kyiv did not surrender. Ukrainians instead <a href="https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0802/1313587-ukraine-russia-resistance-movement/">flocked to the struggle</a> against alien rule. The result of the invasion has been the strengthened resolve of Ukrainians to resist a new colonialism, which they remember having experienced for hundreds of years under the czars and the Soviets. </p>
<p>As a historian <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ecrn/crn_papers/Suny4.pdf">who has studied</a> <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/emeritus/rgsuny.html">empires and nations</a>, I believe that once a government like Putin’s has concluded that its existence is threatened by dangerous inferiors, it is motivated to use its greater power and its own righteous sense of historical superiority to bring its enemies under control. </p>
<p>If indirect rule by pliant native rulers or satraps are not sufficient to remove the perceived danger, territorial acquisition is likely to follow. The option left to Moscow as the war grinds into stalemate is direct rule over Ukrainian territory. </p>
<p>Lands under the fragile and contested control of the Russians are already being <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682">consolidated into a newly named territory</a>. A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/luhansk-governor-says-russia-will-shift-main-focus-donetsk-region-2022-07-04/">governor has been appointed</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-starts-giving-passports-to-ukrainians-from-donetsk-luhansk/a-49207353">passports issued</a>; the <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/02/27/ukraines-breakaway-luhansk-republic-adopts-russian-ruble-a57280">ruble imposed</a> as the official currency. Russia’s maximal goals appear to be to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/19/putin-russia-annex-ukraine-kherson-donetsk-luhansk">take possession of the whole crescent</a> in eastern Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson/Nikolaev as well as Crimea, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-annex-crimea-why-putin-invaded-2014-what-happened-nato-annexation-explained-1424682">annexed already by Russia</a> in 2014.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman and a girl stand together amid destroyed homes, looking sad." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents look at damaged homes from a Russian rocket attack, Aug. 16, 2022, in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXRussiaUkraineWar/332b1ea4b75f49c48a1a4b05c886f0c1/photo?Query=war%20ukraine&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=26850&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reality bites back</h2>
<p>As a nation-state engaged in consolidating its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-democracy-separating-fact-fiction-russia-1690505">identity as democratic and Western</a>, Ukraine faces an implacable foe whose current sense of self is embedded in its imperial past and its distinction from the West. </p>
<p>Torn for 30 years of independence <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/22/ukraine-east-west-war-narrows-divide/">between East and West</a>, thanks to Russia’s aggression Ukraine has decisively chosen the West. The imperialist war has given rise to an effective, if desperate, anti-colonial resistance. Ukrainians are more united than ever before. </p>
<p>For Ukrainians, compromise between independence and sovereignty on one hand and subjugation to imperialism <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/07/russias-war-ukraine-how-get-negotiations">on the other appears impossible</a>. Surrendering land to the aggressor, it is widely believed, will only feed his appetite.</p>
<p>Almost six months into the war, the Russians have their own cruel calculus. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has issued a dire warning: The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/84c4beae-fbd6-4d1e-aeb5-5d147b9621a4">longer the war goes on, the more territory</a> will be seized by Russia and brought into the expanding Russian state. The West’s continued arming of Ukraine, he claims, only <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/sergey-lavrov-russia-expand-ukraine-war-goal/">prolongs the war</a>. </p>
<p>There is, at the moment, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/08/01/russia-ukraine-and-the-decision-to-negotiate/">little appetite on either side for a negotiated settlement</a>. </p>
<p>But in this war of attrition, time and the weight of geography and population <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/world/europe/ukraine-russia-weapons-war.html">are on the side of the aggressor</a>. Russia can <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d60ef086-a252-4d6d-8534-e39ccd541926">outlast its opponents and the West</a>. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-japan-asia-middle-east-14350d5bd6d036c68159d02c2db79698">Overshadowing everything is the nuclear threat</a>.</p>
<p>War is a failure of reason, diplomacy and compromise. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-middle-east-global-trade-a2c89d94a0f8473b40a1fcde5710bda8">negotiations that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume</a> demonstrate that some compromise, however fragile, might be reached. </p>
<p>As difficult and unsavory as it is to negotiate with Putin, some end must ultimately be discussed. This is a tragic choice. Yet even empires have their limits, and when faced with determined opposition, they learn the harsh lesson of imperial overreach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald Suny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democratic nation-states were supposed to be the legitimate successors of empires. It hasn’t quite worked out that way in the past century, and Russia’s war on Ukraine is a reflection of that.Ronald Suny, Professor of History and Political Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1336052020-04-17T12:11:15Z2020-04-17T12:11:15Z1918 flu pandemic killed 12 million Indians, and British overlords’ indifference strengthened the anti-colonial movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327346/original/file-20200412-8893-1ihy43t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C56%2C4200%2C4011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cremation on the banks of the Ganges river, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/crémation-sur-les-bords-du-gange-à-benarès-inde-circa-1920-news-photo/833384176?adppopup=true">Keystone-France via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In India, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, a staggering <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-012-0116-x">12 to 13 million people died</a>, the vast majority between the months of September and December. According to an eyewitness, “There was none to remove the dead bodies and the jackals made a feast.” </p>
<p>At the time of the pandemic, India had been under British colonial rule for over 150 years. The fortunes of the British colonizers had always been vastly different from those of the Indian people, and nowhere was the split more stark than during the influenza pandemic, as I discovered while researching <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zQnyI1cAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my Ph.D. on the subject</a>. </p>
<p>The resulting devastation would eventually lead to huge changes in India – and the British Empire. </p>
<h2>From Kansas to Mumbai</h2>
<p>Although it is commonly called the Spanish flu, the 1918 pandemic likely <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-american-history/americas-forgotten-pandemic-influenza-1918-2nd-edition?format=PB">began in Kansas</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy191">killed between 50 and 100 million people</a> worldwide. </p>
<p>During the early months of 1918, the virus incubated throughout the American Midwest, eventually making its way east, where it <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/210420/worldwide_flu_outbreak_killed_45000_american_soldiers_during_world_war_i">traveled across the Atlantic Ocean</a> with soldiers deploying for WWI. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327347/original/file-20200412-138728-1tayb5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian soldiers in the trenches during World War I.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-soldiers-in-the-trenches-world-war-i-1914-1918-news-photo/463957843">Print Collector / Contributor via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Introduced into the trenches on Europe’s Western Front, the virus tore through the already weakened troops. As the war approached its conclusion, the virus followed both commercial shipping routes and military transports to infect almost every corner of the globe. It <a href="https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/us/product/Influenza-Pandemic-of-1918-1919/p/0312677081">arrived in Mumbai in late May</a>.</p>
<h2>Unequal spread</h2>
<p>When the first wave of the pandemic arrived, it was not particularly deadly. The only notice British officials took of it was its effect on some workers. A report noted, “As the season for cutting grass began … people were so weak as to be unable to do a full day’s work.” </p>
<p>By September, the story began to change. Mumbai was still the center of infection, likely due to its position as a commercial and civic hub. On Sept. 19, an English-language newspaper reported 293 influenza deaths had occurred there, but assured its readers “The worst is now reached.” </p>
<p>Instead, the virus tore through the subcontinent, following trade and postal routes. Catastrophe and death overwhelmed cities and rural villages alike. Indian newspapers reported that crematoria were receiving between 150 to 200 bodies per day. According to one observer, “The burning ghats and burial grounds were literally swamped with corpses; whilst an even greater number awaited removal.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327348/original/file-20200412-1397-po6zou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the British Raj out for a stroll, circa 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-british-raj-walking-together-in-an-indian-news-photo/3398825?adppopup=true">Fox Photos/Stringer via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But influenza did not strike everyone equally. Most British people in India lived in spacious houses with gardens and yards, compared to the lower classes of city-dwelling Indians, who lived in densely populated areas. Many British also employed household staff to care for them – in times of health and sickness – so they were only lightly touched by the pandemic and were largely unconcerned by the chaos sweeping through the country. </p>
<p>In his official correspondence in early December, the Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces did not even mention influenza, instead noting “Everything is very dry; but I managed to get two hundred couple of snipe so far this season.”</p>
<p>While the pandemic was of little consequence to many British residents of India, the perception was wildly different among the Indian people, <a href="https://www.saada.org/item/20130823-3118">who spoke of universal devastation</a>. A letter published in a periodical lamented, “India perhaps never saw such hard times before. There is wailing on all sides. … There is neither village nor town throughout the length and breadth of the country which has not paid a heavy toll.” </p>
<p>Elsewhere, the Sanitary Commissioner of the Punjab noted, “the streets and lanes of cities were littered with dead and dying people … nearly every household was lamenting a death, and everywhere terror and confusion reigned.” </p>
<h2>The fallout</h2>
<p>In the end, areas in the north and west of India saw death rates between 4.5% and 6% of their total populations, while the south and east – where the virus arrived slightly later, as it was waning – generally lost between 1.5% and 3%. </p>
<p>Geography wasn’t the only dividing factor, however. In Mumbai, almost seven-and-a-half times as many lower-caste Indians died as compared to their British counterparts - <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001946468602300102">61.6 per thousand</a> versus 8.3 per thousand. </p>
<p>Among Indians in Mumbai, socioeconomic disparities in addition to race accounted for these differing mortality rates.</p>
<p><iframe id="9Mq9o" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9Mq9o/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Health Officer for Calcutta remarked on the stark difference in death rates between British and lower-class Indians: “The excessive mortality in Kidderpore appears to be due mainly to the large coolie population, ignorant and poverty-stricken, living under most insanitary conditions in damp, dark, dirty huts. They are a difficult class to deal with.” </p>
<h2>Change ahead</h2>
<p>Death tolls across India generally hit their peak in October, with a slow tapering into November and December. A high ranking British official wrote in December, “A good winter rain will put everything right and … things will gradually rectify themselves.” </p>
<p>Normalcy, however, did not quite return to India. The spring of 1919 would see the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Jallianwala-Bagh-Massacre">British atrocities at Amritsar</a> and shortly thereafter the launch of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/noncooperation-movement">Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement</a>. Influenza became one more example of British injustice that spurred Indian people on in their fight for independence. A <a href="https://www.saada.org/item/20130128-1271">nationalist periodical stated</a>, “In no other civilized country could a government have left things so much undone as did the Government of India did during the prevalence of such a terrible and catastrophic epidemic.”</p>
<p>The long, slow death of the British Empire had begun.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct that the final quote is not from a periodical published by Mahatma Gandhi, but rather a separate nationalist publication of the same name based in New York.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maura Chhun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the 1918 influenza pandemic struck India, the death toll was highest among the poor.Maura Chhun, Community Faculty, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/998892018-07-19T09:55:29Z2018-07-19T09:55:29ZJohn Nicholson: the sadistic British officer who was worshipped as a living god in India<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228045/original/file-20180717-44076-r1f7uo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C586%2C749&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brigadier-General John Nicholson was a British officer in India between 1839 and 1857.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nicholson_(East_India_Company_officer)">wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It does not fall to many of us to be worshipped as a living god, but that was the fate of John Nicholson, a 19th century British army officer in the service of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/taboo-the-east-india-company-and-the-true-horrors-of-empire-73616">East India Company</a>. Nicholson – the subject of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Dark-Hero-Stuart-Flinders/dp/1788312368/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529417537&sr=1-1&keywords=cult+of+a+dark+hero">a new book</a> covering his life and times – served for much of his career on the disputed and perilous northwest frontier of India and it was there that his fearsome reputation led to the creation of a religious cult dedicated to the veneration of the great god “Nikal Seyn”.</p>
<p>Although his colleagues were understandably amused at the spectacle, Nicholson himself – a stern Victorian Christian who read a chapter of the Bible every day – took a dim view of this idolatry and set about his devotees with a whip. This, however, merely strengthened their conviction that he was a god and the cult lingered on, long after his death and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Dark-Hero-Stuart-Flinders/dp/1788312368/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529417537&sr=1-1&keywords=cult+of+a+dark+hero">into the 21st century</a>.</p>
<p>Nicholson is forgotten today but at the time he was one of a celebrated band of British officers in India, like <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01433/sir-herbert-benjamin-edwardes">Herbert Edwardes</a>, <a href="https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/09/24/abbottabad-and-sir-james-abbott/">James Abbott</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynell_Taylor_(British_Army_officer)">Reynell Taylor</a> and the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brothers-Raj-Lives-Henry-Lawrence/dp/019579415X">Lawrence brothers</a> (Henry and John), whose adventures made them national heroes. Their deeds and deaths are recounted in memoirs, biographies, statues and memorials, both in India and at home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228037/original/file-20180717-44091-ilcy0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brigadier General John Nicholson’s statue in the grounds of the Royal School Dungannon, Northern Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brigiadier_General_John_Nicholson_statue_-_geograph.org.uk_-_942349.jpg">wikipedia/KennethAllen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A sadistic bully and a racist</h2>
<p>Nicholson’s life was told in patriotic popular fiction and verse, including by <a href="http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sir_henry_newbolt/poems/15755">Sir Henry Newbolt</a> and <a href="http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_lostlegion1.htm">Rudyard Kipling</a>. But to modern eyes these military upholders of empire are problematic figures. The steely determination the Victorians so admired looks more like cruel victimising to modern eyes. The historian Charles Allen, himself related to Nicholson, <a href="https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781848547209">tells of the difficult feelings he experienced</a> when he first realised that his illustrious forebear was being denounced as a sadistic bully, a racist and a religious bigot. </p>
<p>Nicholson’s tough, uncompromising character was formed partly by his background in the north of Ireland and partly by his experiences as a prisoner during Britain’s disastrous invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Afghan-Wars">First Afghan War</a> (1839-42). Already quick-tempered, Nicholson emerged from this experience with a reputation, even among the hardened East India Company officer corps, for his unforgiving attitude towards Indians.</p>
<p>When one Indian leader spat on the ground in front of him, Nicholson, correctly perceiving it as a serious insult, had the man manhandled to the ground and forced him to lick up his own spittle. Passing a mosque one day, Nicholson noticed an imam who, engrossed with other things, had not greeted him with the customary “salaam”. He had the unfortunate man brought before him and, with his own hands, shaved his beard off – a deep humiliation for a Muslim, as Nicholson well knew.</p>
<p>In one of the most famous tales told of him, during the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/indian_rebellion_01.shtml">1857 Indian Uprising and Mutiny</a>, Nicholson personally ordered and oversaw the hanging without trial of a whole set of regimental cooks, when poison was found in the soup they had been preparing for his fellow officers.</p>
<p>Such stories were well calculated to please the Victorian public but they are far more problematic for people today. Where the Victorians saw a manly character embodying the virtues of the British Empire, a modern audience is more likely to see a violent bully, contemptuous of Indian life and dignity. The personification of the worst aspects of colonialism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228040/original/file-20180717-44097-pq0tmn.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John Lawrence thought Nicholson was too keen on humiliating Indian leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lawrence,_1st_Baron_Lawrence#/media/File:John_Lawrence_by_Maull_and_Polybank.jpg">wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even in his lifetime, Nicholson had his critics. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Laird-Mair-Lawrence-1st-Baron-Lawrence">Sir John Lawrence</a>, later governor general and viceroy of India, found him difficult to work with and far too keen on confronting and humiliating Indian leaders. Others found his keenness for flogging Indians on almost any grounds – sometimes even when he did not have the authority to do so – deeply disturbing.</p>
<p>For Nicholson, as for all the British in India, the supreme challenge came in 1857, when a military mutiny among the “sepoys” (Indian soldiers) of the East India Company led to a full scale rebellion, which quickly spread across northern India. Nicholson seized the military opportunity with relish, leaping into action and openly expressing his contempt for any commander who did not measure up to his own demands for a speedy resolution. </p>
<p>He was, of course, an enthusiast of flogging, torturing and executing captured rebels. Like many of the British that year, he was incandescent with rage against the Indians – partly because of the revelations of atrocities committed against British women and children, who were <a href="https://www.newhistorian.com/massacre-brutal-retaliation-siege-cawnpore/6715/">murdered and their bodies mutilated</a>. However, his vengeful hatred sprang also from outrage that Indians should dare to challenge British rule at all. He died of wounds, leading an assault to lift the siege of Delhi.</p>
<p>Few Victorian imperial hero figures survive the scrutiny of the post-colonial age but his lust for blood has made Nicholson particularly reviled. These “Soldier Sahibs” of British India were men of remarkable energy and drive, firm believers in the benefits of British rule and genuine in their desire to rescue India from what they saw as its backward and oppressive rulers. These attitudes no longer hold sway, of course, but no career encapsulates the deep chasm that separates modern attitudes towards colonialism from those of the Victorians quite as well as that of “Nikal Seyn”, the living god John Nicholson.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Lang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Few Victorian imperial ‘hero’ figures survive the scrutiny of the post-colonial age, but John Nicholson’s lust for blood led to a strange twist.Sean Lang, Senior Lecturer in History, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/844962017-09-26T23:43:19Z2017-09-26T23:43:19ZColonialism was a disaster and the facts prove it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187660/original/file-20170926-25765-1lsu7q5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A controversial article in a respected academic journal recently made the argument for colonialism. Here, a man is carried by Congolese men in a photo from the early 20th centiry</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently an academic article, asserting the historical benefits of colonialism, created an <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/19/controversy-over-paper-favor-colonialism-sparks-calls-retraction">outcry and a petition with over 10, 000 signatures</a> calling for its removal. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2017.1369037?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Cambridge"><em>The Case for Colonialism</em>,</a> published in <em>Third World Quarterly</em> by Bruce Gilley, argues Western colonialism was both “objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate” in most places where it existed. </p>
<p>Gilley, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, claims the solution to poverty and economic underdevelopment in parts of the Global South is to reclaim “colonial modes of governance; by recolonizing some areas; and by creating new Western colonies from scratch.” </p>
<p>Understandably, the article faces widespread criticism for whitewashing a horrific history of human rights abuses. <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/a-quick-reminder-of-why-colonialism-was-bad"><em>Current Affairs</em> compared Gilley’s distortion of history to Holocaust denial</a>.</p>
<p>Last week, after many on the journal’s editorial board resigned, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/09/22/author-asks-journal-pull-pro-colonial-essay">the author issued a public apology</a> for the “pain and anger” his article may have caused.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C2505%2C1656&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187632/original/file-20170926-17379-1idb6xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">India is often cited as a colonial success story, partly because of its train system: the trains transported colonial troops to quell inland revolts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Whether the article is ultimately retracted or not, its wide circulation necessitates that its claims be held up to careful historical scrutiny. As well, in light of current public debates on censorship and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/07/gay-cure-right-abuses-free-speech">free speech versus hate speech</a>, this is a discussion well worth having. Although this debate may seem as though it is merely academic, nothing could be further from the truth. </p>
<p>Although it may seem colonialist views are far behind us, a 2014 <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire/">YouGov poll</a> revealed 59 per cent of British people view the British Empire as “something to be proud of.” Those proud of their colonial history outnumber critics of the Empire three to one. Similarly, 49 per cent believe the Empire benefited its former colonies. </p>
<p>Such views, often tied to nostalgia for old imperial glory, can help shape the foreign and domestic policies of Western countries.</p>
<p>Gilley has helped to justify these views by getting his opinions published in a peer review journal. In his article, Gilley attempts to provide evidence which proves colonialism was objectively beneficial to the colonized. He says historians are simply too politically correct to admit colonialism’s benefits.</p>
<p>In fact, the opposite is true. In the overwhelming majority of cases, empirical research clearly provides the facts to prove colonialism inflicted grave political, psychological and economic harms on the colonized. </p>
<p>It takes a highly selective misreading of the evidence to claim that colonialism was anything other than a humanitarian disaster for most of the colonized. The publication of Gilley’s article — despite the evidence of facts — calls into question the peer review process and academic standards of <em>The Third World Quarterly</em>. </p>
<h2>Colonialism in India</h2>
<p>As the largest colony of the world’s largest imperial power, India is often cited by apologists for the British Empire as an example of “successful” colonialism. Actually, India provides a much more convincing case study for rebutting Gilley’s argument. </p>
<p>With a population of over 1.3 billion and an economy predicted to become the <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/india-s-economy-will-become-third-largest-in-the-world-surpass-japan-germany-by-2030-us-agency/story-wBY2QOQ8YsYcrIK12A4HuK.html">world’s third-largest by 2030</a>, India is a modern day powerhouse. While many attribute this to British colonial rule, a look at the facts says otherwise.</p>
<p>From 1757 to 1947, the entire period of British rule, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/studying-a-colonial-economywithout-perceiving-colonialism/5A4AA6A1A73FAC4399B2FFC957B560A6">there was no increase in per capita income within the Indian subcontinent</a>. This is a striking fact, given that, historically speaking, the Indian subcontinent was traditionally one of the wealthiest parts of the world. </p>
<p>As proven by the macroeconomic studies of experts such as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trade-and-civilisation-in-the-indian-ocean/05F37912D2E7BC563B8D88F4A1FABD03">K.N. Chaudhuri</a>, India and China were central to an expansive world economy long before the first European traders managed to circumnavigate the African cape. </p>
<p>During the heyday of British rule, or the British Raj, from 1872 to 1921, Indian life expectancy dropped by a stunning 20 per cent. By contrast, during the 70 years since independence, <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/india/70-years-of-independence-indias-life-expectancy-literacy-indicators-look-up-while-imr-income-inequality-are-worries-3928501.html">Indian life expectancy has increased by approximately 66 per cent,</a> or 27 years. A comparable increase of 65 per cent can also be observed in Pakistan, which was once part of British India. </p>
<p>Although many cite India’s extensive rail network as a positive legacy of British colonialism, it is important to note the railroad was built with the express purpose of transporting colonial troops inland to quell revolt. And to transport food out of productive regions for export, even in times of famine. </p>
<p>This explains the fact that during the devastating famines of 1876-1879 and 1896-1902 in which 12 to 30 million Indians starved to death, <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2311-late-victorian-holocausts">mortality rates were highest in areas serviced by British rail lines</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187628/original/file-20170926-22303-kjqvfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bengal famine of 1943 was the final British-administered famine in India and claimed around three million lives. When Winston Churchill was asked to stop shipping desperately needed foodstuffs out of Bengal, he said Indians were to blame for their own deaths for ‘breeding like rabbits.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.oldpicsarchive.com/bengal-famine-of-1943/">(Shutterstock)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Colonialism did not benefit the colonized</h2>
<p>India’s experience is highly relevant for assessing the impact of colonialism, but it does not stand alone as the only example to refute Gilley’s assertions. Gilley argues current poverty and instability within the Democratic Republic of the Congo proves the Congolese were better off under Belgian rule. The evidence says otherwise. </p>
<p>Since independence in 1960, life expectancy in the Congo has climbed steadily, from around <a href="https://countryeconomy.com/demography/life-expectancy/democratic-republic-congo">41 years on the eve of independence to 59 in 2015</a>. This figure remains low compared to most other countries in the world. Nonetheless, it is high compared to what it was under Belgian rule. </p>
<p>Under colonial rule, the Congolese population declined by estimates ranging from three million to 13 million between 1885 and 1908 due to widespread disease, a coercive labour regime and endemic brutality.</p>
<p>Gilley argues the benefits of colonialism can be observed by comparing former colonies to countries with no significant colonial history. Yet his examples of the latter erroneously include Haiti (a French colony from 1697 to 1804), Libya (a direct colony of the Ottoman Empire from 1835 and of Italy from 1911), and Guatemala (occupied by Spain from 1524 to 1821). </p>
<p>By contrast, he neglects to mention Japan, a country that legitimately was never colonized and <a href="http://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php">now boasts the third largest GDP on the planet</a>, as well as Turkey, which up until recently was widely viewed as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/27/turkey-muslim-world-leader-israel">the most successful secular country in the Muslim world</a>. </p>
<p>These counter-examples disprove Gilley’s central thesis that non-Western countries are by definition incapable of reaching modernity without Western “guidance.”</p>
<p>In short, the facts are in, but they do not paint the picture that Gilley and other imperial apologists would like to claim. Colonialism left deep scars on the Global South and for those genuinely interested in the welfare of non-Western countries, the first step is acknowledging this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph McQuade receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>An academic article that asserted the benefits of colonialism caused an outcry and resulted in calls for its removal. A post-colonial expert explains why.Joseph McQuade, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812842017-09-01T07:40:29Z2017-09-01T07:40:29ZThe British Empire’s homophobic legacy could finally be overturned in India<p>In a landmark <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-sexual-orientation-freedom-sexuality-fundamental-right-ruling-openly-lgbt-gay-lesbian-a7913681.html">ruling</a>, India’s Supreme Court has confirmed an individual’s right to privacy – including sexual orientation – under the country’s constitution. The ruling on August 24 offers new hope for the LGBTQ+ community in India, still living under the homophobic legacy of the British Empire which criminalised same-sex relationships. A formal judgement on the law, known as Section 377, is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/24/indias-supreme-court-upholds-right-privacy">still pending</a> and the hope is that the court will repeal this toxic colonial hangover.</p>
<p>This legacy dates back 157 years to a dark part of imperial history. In 1860, the British Raj – the empire in India – had been in place for three years. The British East India Company had given way to crown control after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Mutiny">1857 Sepoy Rebellion</a> and justified its conquest with a promise of bringing “civilisation” to its colonies. Part of this civilising rhetoric was tied in with reforming the ways in which desire and love were practised and accepted.</p>
<p>At the time, a multitude of social norms existed within the borders of the Indian subcontinent largely influenced by religion, geography and occasionally by ethnicity. Suggesting there was a monolithic and singular attitude to anything was misleading. In contrast, there was a rich diversity in the ways in which sexuality was understood. Even in socially conservative areas, same-sex intimacy was simply a part of life.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iplGW7MNNmI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Awadh, in modern-day Lucknow, had a ruler who would practice living as the opposite gender at times, including <a href="http://envisioninglgbt.blogspot.co.uk/p/no-easy-walk.html">changing sexual partners</a>. Bengali novels from the late 19th century such as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ofDIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=Indira+bengali+novel+lesbian&source=bl&ots=yzfyqqEjIV&sig=n6gzDDKqfifF7iJh02N2kNCiy4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjovJLUpf_VAhWoI8AKHU0ZDYkQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=Indira%20bengali%20novel%20lesbian&f=false">Indira</a> describe lesbian relationships. Texts such as the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Complete_Illustrated_Kama_Sutra.html?id=llwoDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y">Kama Sutra</a> contain advice for consensual same-sex intercourse. And Sufi Muslim texts in East India explicitly mention homosexual male romance.</p>
<p>This clashed with the British crown’s idea of how a society should be. In a system <a href="http://nottspolitics.org/2015/10/29/reclaiming-south-asian-queer-voices-the-legacy-of-section-377/">dictated by Victorian Christian morality</a>, any form of intimacy that was not geared towards having and raising children was unacceptable. Homosexual desire was the worst of these offences. </p>
<p>With such a rigid vision in mind, the empire implemented <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/12/17/alien-legacy/origins-sodomy-laws-british-colonialism">Section 377</a> in the Raj. The law made it a criminal offence to engage in any form of “unacceptable carnal desire”. Perpetrators could be jailed, given a heavy fine, or both. The law was exported to Australia, South-East Asia and African British colonial outposts as well.</p>
<h2>No united opposition</h2>
<p>Historically, Section 377 did not explicitly target homosexuals. It was meant to deter any type of sex that was not for the purposes of having children. This theoretically included protected sex between a heterosexual couple and also effectively outlawed forms of birth control. But in practice, this proved impossible to police, and over the decades, the implementation of the law came to focus purely on homosexual desire.</p>
<p>India’s diversity of sexual expression proved to be a weakness against this relentless campaign. The lack of a united narrative about homosexuality across India meant that there was no singular dissenting voice against the forced implementation of Section 377 in 1860. This was combined with a powerful propaganda machine which linked British military success with rigid masculinity and the Indian conquest with femininity among men. In particular, historical pamphlets and writings on the military victory in 1857 and the earlier victory in Bengal (the Battle of Plassey) made clear reference to the “inferiority of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Colonial_Masculinity.html?id=8RQNAQAAIAAJ">effeminate Indians”</a>.</p>
<p>There was also a concentrated and largely successful effort to alienate and undermine the agency of women and of gender non-binary communities, such as Hijra – a third gender <a href="https://thequeerness.com/2017/08/20/the-hijra-community-and-the-complex-path-to-decolonising-gender-in-bangladesh/">identity</a> who are born male or intersex but present as feminine in dress. Today, Hijra are recognised and protected by law in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/16/india-third-gender-claims-place-in-law">India</a>, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/30/a-first-for-pakistans-third-gender/">Pakistan</a> and <a href="http://www.csbronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ShaleAhmed_HjraRights_CSBR-ILGAAsia2015.pdf">Bangladesh</a>.</p>
<p>This resulted in the firm establishment of legalised homophobia (and also misogyny and wider queer discrimination) in the subcontinent over the course of the Raj. By the time the Indian independence movement began to gain viable momentum in the 20th century, the challenges to Section 377 had died out and any narrative of queer emancipation was erased from both sides of the debate.</p>
<h2>Homophobic laws retained</h2>
<p>At the moment of their birth, Pakistan and India moved towards new constitutions and penal codes, yet many remnants of colonial control remained. Section 377 was retained in their respective statute books. When Bangladesh gained its independence from Pakistan in 1971, it was maintained there as well. It is still maintained in all three countries of the erstwhile Raj – India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.</p>
<p>In fact, of the 72 countries of the world where homosexuality is illegal today, 36 punish homosexuality due to some version of 377. It is a toxic hangover which makes the <a href="http://www.commonwealthequality.org/about/">52-strong Commonwealth of Nations</a> the most homophobic global block of countries.</p>
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<p>Two key commemorations of British history are being marked in 2017. The 50th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/22/sexual-offences-act-at-50-share-your-memories-and-experiences">1967 Sexual Offences Act</a>, which partially decriminalised homosexual sex between consenting adults in Britain, and the 70th anniversary of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/india-partition-41839">partition</a> of India and Pakistan, which brought British imperial rule on the Indian subcontinent to an end. Both anniversaries are being celebrated as a triumph of progress and equality. </p>
<p>The UK, Pakistan and India are all correct to celebrate the long journeys they have taken. But it is vital that marginalised voices are heard, too. To confine colonialism to the history books, all of its legacies must be dealt with and erased completely. India’s Supreme Court could be on the way to making this happen. A petition is in the process of being submitted in the Bangladeshi Supreme Court but no progress has been reported, and there is no explicit case in Pakistan as of yet. Until this is redressed, there can be no true freedom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ibtisam Ahmed has been the Commonwealth Decriminalisation Coordinator for Nottinghamshire Pride for 2017, and the LGBT History Month Project Coordinator for the Centre for Research in Race and Rights at the University of Nottingham. Both are unpaid positions.</span></em></p>Section 377, which criminalises homosexuality, could finally be relegated to the history books.Ibtisam Ahmed, Doctoral Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/770682017-08-11T13:47:17Z2017-08-11T13:47:17ZColonialism in India was traumatic – including for some of the British officials who ruled the Raj<p>When India gained independence from Britain on August 15 1947, the majority of Anglo-Indians had either left or would leave soon after. Many within the Indian Civil Service would write of the trauma that they experienced from witnessing the violence of the years leading up to the end of British rule and the bloodbath that would follow as the lines of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-partition-of-india-happened-and-why-its-effects-are-still-felt-today-81766">partition</a> were revealed.</p>
<p>Colonialism was certainly a far more traumatising experience for colonial subjects than their colonisers. They suffered poverty, malnutrition, disease, cultural upheaval, economic exploitation, political disadvantage, and systematic programmes aimed at creating a sense of social and racial inferiority. While some may argue that any suffering on the part of the British colonialists ought to be met with little sympathy, this is not a reason to obscure it from history. </p>
<p>It was the very notion that Indian civil service servicemen were usurpers, full of privilege, in a foreign land that led to the sapped sense of humanity that many wrestled with – both during and after their India careers. </p>
<p>As my own forthcoming book details, some shut themselves off from the day-to-day lives of Indians, unless forced to engage for work purposes. Others escaped through drowning themselves in alcohol, opium or other drugs. Some convinced themselves of the intellectual superiority of the white man and his right to rule over “lesser races”, while a number found solace in Christianity. Several came to see their role as being a peacekeeper between various ethnic and religious groups, despite the irony of the British having encouraged and exploited the categorisation of colonial subjects on these grounds in the first place. </p>
<p>Underneath all of this sits a trauma that the coloniser had to either deal with – or resign their post and go home.</p>
<h2>Serving the Raj</h2>
<p>One serviceman of the late Raj who I have focused on in my research is an example of the coping mechanisms that British officials deployed. Andrew Clow entered the Indian Civil Service in 1912 at the age of 22 and would remain a civil servant until 1947 when he reached the mandatory retirement ceiling of 35 years. His most notable portfolios were as secretary of the Indian Labour Bureau in the late 1930s, followed by minister for communications and then governor of Assam from 1942 to 1947. </p>
<p>Clow, and his one thousand or so colleagues at any one time, effectively ruled India during the late Raj. This was a time of declining British prestige, and declining public and political opinion of colonialism as an acceptable social, economic and political practice. The <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9781349024391">rise</a> of the Indian independence movement with Mohandas Gandhi as its nominal leader, coincided with the anti-British international propaganda concerning its empire that came from the Soviet Union and its sympathisers. </p>
<h2>Doubt and self-loathing</h2>
<p>In the early 1920s, the Indian independence movement grew in prominence and received a significant level of sympathy at home and abroad. In 1919, the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-amritsar-massacre">Amritsar Massacre</a> of unarmed protesters by British and Gurka troops received much public criticism. A year later, two of Clow’s civil service intake year group were assassinated in a market in Midnapore, West Bengal. From letters Clow wrote to a friend, we know he considered resigning on several occasions during the early 1920s. This period of reflection led him to fundamentally question his role within the colonial system, but he ultimately decided to continue his career.</p>
<p>Clow was a devout Christian and his life in India would develop into a religious cocoon of sorts where he used his relationship with God to suppress his trauma at being a colonial usurper.</p>
<p>As he became more senior within the administration he increasingly distanced himself from Indians, Indian culture and expressed little sympathy for the plight of people who suffered from British exploitation. He spent the vast majority of his time with other Europeans and his holidays at his house at the British hill station of Simla. His diaries throughout the 1930s and 1940s became almost entirely written prayers requesting salvation punctuated by private comments of self-loathing, written in confidence between himself and God. </p>
<h2>Defender of British colonialism</h2>
<p>Upon his retirement from the Indian Civil Service in 1947, Clow returned to Scotland and became chairman of the newly-created Scottish Gas Board. His private time was spent largely in the pursuit of the preservation of the legacy of British India. He voraciously read memoirs and other reflections by his former colleagues, and would lambast any critique of the British, even if those criticisms were rather sparse. </p>
<p>Clow’s failure to concede publicly that colonialism was an exploitative practice is indicative of a complex reaction to his trauma at being a key part of a system of suppression. His heightened religiosity was a key part of his way of dealing with this. In many ways he “used” God to negate his discomfort at being one of the main figures of the British colonial enterprise.</p>
<p>Clow was typical of many within the Indian Civil Service who became troubled by their roles facilitating the exploitation of the Indian subcontinent for the British Empire. Yet, rather than resign his post and become a critic of colonial practices, Clow built a number of internal mechanisms so that he could carry on. Reactions like Clow’s go some way to explain the romance that many within British society have had for the age of empire. But today, 70 years on from the end of the Raj, public bodies and the British media are willing to engage in a much more robust critique.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Alexander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How one member of the Indian Civil Service coped with being a colonial usurper.Colin Alexander, Principal Lecturer in Political Communications, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803022017-08-10T10:37:47Z2017-08-10T10:37:47ZThe gift of civilisation: how imperial Britons saw their mission in India<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181528/original/file-20170809-26031-rksntj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Simpson, William (1823-1899) via Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The politician and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay imagined, in 1840, the fall of a great empire. He <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/macaulay/ranke1.html">conjured a future</a> “when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s”. </p>
<p>This was a nod by Macaulay to Edward Gibbon’s hope 60 years previously – expressed in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/05/07/reviews/000507.07breent.html">Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</a> – that great scholars might eventually arise from the Maori population as a result of the civilising influence of British colonial rule. Book-ending 1780 and 1840, therefore, are reflections on the rise and fall of empires and civilisations, metaphorically and literally illustrated by their successors – travellers who sit among the crumbling ruins recording the ultimate failing of even mankind’s greatest achievements.</p>
<p>The loss of America, the French revolution, Napoleonic adventuring and a radical climate in which the middle classes were alarmed at the sight of Chartist crowds marching in the streets, also suggested disquieting visions of the future for British elites. The Greco-Roman empires had fallen, Hindu culture and Mogul power had declined in India. Was the British Empire inevitably destined to crumble, like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias">Shelley’s Ozymandias</a>?</p>
<p>Linking these concerns was British self-identification as successors of Greco-Roman antiquity – as having inherited the mantle of the “cradle of civilisation”. In their <a href="https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/31454/6/Rogers%20and%20Hingley%20-%20Gibbon%20paper.pdf">2010 paper on Gibbon</a>, British academics Adam Rogers and Richard Hingley note how: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The British drew upon the classical past through an interactive mutual relationship between classical texts, scholarship, and politics; through this approach they developed intellectual discourses about both cultural superiority and decline.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the <a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1833/jul/10/east-india-companys-charter">1833 East India Bill debate</a>, Macaulay described Britain’s appropriation of the glory of ancient empires. Britain was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most renowned of Western Conquerors … beyond the point where the phalanx of Alexander refused to proceed … a territory larger and more populous than France, Spain, Italy and Germany put together … the world has seen nothing similar.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181531/original/file-20170809-26048-g2u7nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A civilising influence: British officials take two Indian princelings hostage in 1793.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Home, National Army Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Indian elephant in the rooms of the British cabinet and the East India Company was the insecurity of their eastern empire. A colonial administrator in India, Samuel Sneade Brown, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BeUWLhTsJrUC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=our+dangers+lie+in+the+vast+mass+of+people+whom+we+have+subjected+to+our+rule+in+this+country&source=bl&ots=DeUf0y9d4J&sig=klMLScPkVBSgS70gaDBMrSXjWXk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixkaqO-MnVAhWMKMAKHa_FCj4Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=our%20dangers%20lie%20in%20the%20vast%20mass%20of%20people%20whom%20we%20have%20subjected%20to%20our%20rule%20in%20this%20country&f=false">wrote home to his mother</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our dangers lie in the vast mass of people whom we have subjected to our rule in this country, and who would gladly rise and shake off the yoke of the ‘feringees’ [foreigners]. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Equally thorny, was the ambivalence of continental conquest by a nation committed to representative government. In justification, the British drew parallels with their own relationship with the Roman empire. The colonial administrator <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/trevelyan_charles.shtml">Charles Trevelyan</a> <a href="https://archive.org/stream/ontheeducationof015100mbp#page/n39/mode/2up/search/domestic">described Rome’s conquest</a> of Britain – “[how] the acquisitions made by superiority in war, were consolidated by superiority in the arts of peace; and the remembrance of the original violence was lost in that of the benefits which resulted from it.” Imposition “from without” was, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/ontheeducationof015100mbp#page/n39/mode/2up/search/domestic">he wrote</a>, necessary because “the instances in which nations have worked their way to a high degree of civilisation from domestic resources only are extremely rare”.</p>
<p>Trevelyan boldly hoped that “the Indians will … soon stand in the same position toward us in which we once stood towards the Romans … from being obstinate enemies, the Britons soon became attached and confiding friends”.</p>
<p>Thus the British equated contemporary Indians with their pre-Roman selves – and their contemporary selves with the Romans. As the Romans had civilised and befriended the British, the British would do the same for India, justifying imperial imposition and allaying fears of being “swept off the face of Upper India like chaff”.</p>
<h2>In Britain’s image</h2>
<p>The Romans had offered a sense of inclusion and common purpose – and the British envisaged assimilating India in their own image. “The past history of the world authorises us to believe that the movement which is taking place in India,” <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HWUEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=trevelyan+decided+change+for+the+better+in+the+character+of+the+people&source=bl&ots=d5LU8hsheO&sig=BACpl6cHBOOqoi8xSqLotQiwA1I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAoMyQhcrVAhUpDMAKHR7EDrIQ6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=trevelyan%20decided%20change%20for%20the%20better%20in%20the%20character%20of%20the%20people&f=false">Trevelyan wrote</a>, suggested a “decided change for the better in the character of the people”. </p>
<p>The Romans had adopted Greek tastes, and Britain was acculturated by the Romans – now the Anglicist policy of educating India in the English language would create, as <a href="https://archive.org/stream/Minutes_201311/MinutesNew#page/n5/mode/2up">Macaulay famously put it</a>: “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181534/original/file-20170809-26006-1mv2hps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glory of empire: the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joydeep via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Classical discourse thus informed imperial policy. But it was also part of metropolitan debate advocating political reform, which aimed for middle-class inclusion rather than universal suffrage. Trevelyan noted how the Romano-British civilising precedent began among the upper and middle-classes – the rich, the learned, the men of business. Indian reform would lead to “a national representative assembly” but, like back home, comprising the middle and upper-classes. </p>
<p>Equally, British working-class education was developed <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03085149700000025">largely on the Indian model</a>, associating the British lower-classes with colonial natives, justifying patriarchal oversight and political exclusion. Thus, images of empire are also visions of home.</p>
<h2>Decline and fall</h2>
<p>Finally, returning to civilisational decline, <a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1833/jul/10/east-india-companys-charter">Macaulay conceded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The sceptre may pass away from us … There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. Those triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism; that empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The message here is the same as the New Zealander at St Pauls. In the far future, Britain has continued the cycle of European superiority. The Greco-Roman torch of Western civilisation – which was once passed to the British – has migrated to the newly civilised southern hemisphere. In Macaulay’s future, Britain has completed its “civilising mission”. </p>
<p>In such a vision, Macaulay employs classical discourse to give value to Britain’s Indian empire and soothe fears of civilisational decline. As Macaulay <a href="https://archive.org/details/lifeandlettersof002360mbp">said of his major work</a>, the History of England: “I have had the year 2000, and often the year 3000, often in my mind.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Robinson receives funding from Midland 3 Cities, for PhD research</span></em></p>Intellectuals of the time saw the British Empire as the heir to the civilising influence of ancient Rome.David Robinson, PhD researcher, 19th century British travel literature on India and Italy, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.