The ghost of Rudyard Kipling lives on in neocolonialist blog Arma Virumque (thanks, Saheli and many others):
… this third-world feminist of color should get down on her knees and thank Siva that her country was the beneficiary of British colonialism. Without it, she would never have heard of feminism or even of the third world, since the very concept depends upon the freedom, education, and language that the West brought to savages [sic] countries in the 18th and 19th centuries. India is such an economic powerhouse today because of the legacy bequeathed by her former colonial rulers… everywhere that Britain went–I cannot think of a single exception–it left better off.
The right-wing blog Power Line chimes in:
It’s great to see someone standing up for colonialism, especially British colonialism.
The author, Roger Kimball, picks the wrong deity and only gets lamer from there. This hapless duffer who calls himself an American patriot is arguing against American independence, which happened precisely because the crown raped its colonies and kept its boot upon the throat of political freedom. And in crediting the Brits with everything, despite their focus on their own economic interests, he falls prey to the classic fallacy of correlation vs. causation. It’s the one made famous by animism and sports superstition: ‘I wore a cap one day, I won, therefore my cap caused the victory.’
For Kimball to give the Brits all credit requires projecting an artificial stasis in India for 200 years. If you flash-freeze hundreds of millions of people and put them into deep hibernation for two centuries, that they’ll end up relatively poor is a tautology. You have to project India along the political, developmental and educational trajectories of similar regions not under colonial rule. Otherwise you’re reduced to a bogus argument: that absent the British, India would never have built a railroad, regional highways, river ports or seaports. Even the smallest and poorest of nations have managed that, if for no other reason than the economic interests of their kleptocrats.
Absent Ford, someone still would have popularized the automobile. Absent Microsoft, someone still would have popularized an operating system. And absent the British, India still would have had transport.
Indeed, Indians built infrastructure during the Raj using their own laborers and their own capital. The London Jagannath stole vast amounts of capital and raw material; you’d add that massive attack back into the model. Getting elites bootstrapped on English turned out serendipitous because of the unexpected success of a 13-state British colony that roared. But in most other areas of development, the thievery was a net hindrance.
If the British sinned, it was not because of their colonial rule, but because of the failure of nerve that led them to withdraw too precipitously… Had Britain had the courage to face down Gandhi and his rabble a few years longer, the tragedy that was the partititon [sic] of India might have been avoided.
‘Had Britain had the courage to face down Washington, the tragedy that was the Civil War might have been avoided.’ Kimball doesn’t grasp even the basics of history: Britain intentionally divided colonies upon retreat to keep them warring and pliable, and Gandhi was the one against Partition. Divide and rule was the basis of British strategy both coming and going. So where does this argument come from? What modern-day situation could possibly motivate conservatives to argue against withdrawing rapidly from an invaded country? Thinking… thinking… wait, it’ll come to me…
I wonder when these neocolonialists will welcome a Chinese invasion of the U.S. mainland so they can bequeath to us their bullet trains, their high-tech factories and their shiny new cities. I wonder when neocolonialists will send their kids to elite schools in Beijing to learn Mandarin, the dominant language of the 21st century, and look down on English speakers as natives with sawdust for brains. I wonder when neocolonialists will say, ‘If tens of millions are killed under Chinese rule, so be it, it’s for the national good. Who knows how backward we’d be had the Chinese not developed us.’
Regarding the neocolonialists’ swish style, their fetish for festooning themselves in Latin names (Arma Virumque) and Greek classics (Victor Hanson) is hilarious because they don’t want anything to do with swarthy people today. Like the Victorian-era German intellectuals obsessed with the Upanishads and the Vedas, they want the patina of classicism to rub off on them from a safe distance.
Kipling’s own paternalistic wet dream, his quasi-religious self-absolution as his countrymen were murdering unarmed civilians, starving peasants, stealing money to build London’s banks and generally sucking the country dry, went something like this:
Take up the White Man’s burden…
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child…
Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly) to the light:
“Why brought ye us from bondage,
“Our loved Egyptian night?”
Sepia Mutiny: reporting controversy a week after it happens 😉
See also: Crooked Timber, Obsidian Wings, Digby, Majikthise, India Uncut, LGM, Geomblog, Vegacura, Apostropher, Grammar.police, Catalyst, Ed Cone, Catching Flies, Cinematic Rain, Atrios
Still fighting a losing battle for the Tories: ADC, Logical Meme
Update: Zoo Station has some very interesting comments.
Update 2: Grammar.police says:
… [Kimball is] sampling on the dependent variable… one might suggest that the British immediately be persuaded to conquer the entire world, given all the benefits that subjugation to the queen confers; applying his thesis along another axis, one might suggest world domination by both the Nazis and Soviets as well, since many if not all the countries formerly conquered by these Empires are doing very well today… Following the time variable backward, in fact, it’s hard to come up with a single historical instance of brute imperialism that hasn’t made the world a better place!
Ha! come on. you can’t be taken seriously if you can’t go beyond the media spin and the doublespeak.
This “aid” you speak of is a guaranteed loan backed by the Indian govt, hence it gets rated AAA by the rating agencies. It’s a business transaction with may be a lower interest rate than the market. But to pretend that the tiny rate difference makes up for the trillions (yes, easily when inflation-indexed) they looted in taxes… roll-of-the-eyes……
Indira Gandhi’s taxes were wrong too, but they eventually get recycled back into the Indian economy. They don’t go to build Queen Victoria a shitpot made of gold.
Remebering the past is vital for your future. This is not wimpering. It’s countering the lies of “good” imperialism.
Some of you might like to read Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham. I remember reading it a few years back when I was in college, looking for things to do while I avoided studying.
“As Moxham expands his research into the history of this barrier, he discovers with growing horror the impact of imperial revenue policy on the lives of ordinary Indians, many of whom died because they could not afford the salt they needed in their diets. This previously neglected aspect of British imperial history makes one wonder how many other horrors lie buried in the dry pages of the Empire’s official journals.”
The book goes into quite a bit of detailed conjecture as to how many Indians might have died directly as a result of the British salt tax. IIRC it also had some details about repeated famines where the greedy poms, instead of trying to help the people literally dying of hunger by the thousands, still extracted all it could in terms of taxes.
Its neither surprising or upsetting to see some stuffy racist British prick try to put a positive spin on the “Raj”, its the ignorant desis who actually buy into it that I don’t get.
Thats the result of complete mental subjugation. The Brits defined the education in India (Lord McCaulay) and …
Umm, Indira Gandhi’s tax was great on wealthier Indians (like people who actually earned regular salaries, businessmen etc). It may have been high but it did not lead to famine and starvation. The British tax was as high on the poorest and the most indigent, and essentially killed them off on regular intervals. Why do you think Gandhi’s agitations all began with getting peasants and others to stop paying taxes ? (The Champaran satyagrahas, and the one at Bardoli etc). I suggest you read what Gandhi and Nehru and others have to say about the effects of British rule before talking of their “benefits” and Indira Gandhi’s onerous tax rates.
Much as I dislike to agree, I think Arundhati Roy says it most pithily.
Gautam, I wish you had stated this impressive intellectual gem much earlier, it would have saved me the trouble of reading your other posts. Can I bill you my hourly rate for you wasting my time?
Correct. The Nazis/Stalinists had a much shorter reign of terror.
Our “current dangers” are informed and undergirded by neo-colonialist arguments. You erroneously misconstrue our fight against them as “moping”
This “aid” you speak of is a guaranteed loan backed by the Indian govt, hence it gets rated AAA by the rating agencies.
At what point did Indian government backed debt get a AAA rating? Buddy, the only debt that gets a AAA rating is debt from some 20 of the world’s top industrialised nations beginning with the US.
But to pretend that the tiny rate difference makes up for the trillions (yes, easily when inflation-indexed) they looted in taxes… roll-of-the-eyes……
You didn’t answer my question about whether India should sute Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan for the money as well. We got looted several times.
The other factor is realism. Its all very well for us to be sitting here and fuming about Colonialism but honestly, what makes you think that the present day British government will pay up. And if they don’t what will we do? Invade Britain?
So if we can’t recover the money, we can’t invade Britain and its money lost, its pointless chasing it. But even more so, its this endless talk of colonialism did this and colonialism did that which has a direct impact on the national psyche. You can never mode beyond perpetual victim status. If you see any pleasure in constantly thinking of yourself as a victim, fine. I don’t. And I like moving on.
Indira Gandhi’s taxes were wrong too, but they eventually get recycled back into the Indian economy. They don’t go to build Queen Victoria a shitpot made of gold.
Have you actually lived in India at any point of time? Was your family in India during Indira Gandhi’s time? Indira Gandhi and her family screwed the Indian economy for decades?
We should have been at par with South Korea (which was poorer in 1950 than India) by now. Her taxes may not have made her shit pot but they ruined the economy. Also, there is a small matter of the amount of money that has been looted by Indian politicians since Independence (starting with the Gandhi family itself) that wound up in Swiss bank accounts. All the colonialism chatter is fine. But what abose those millions?
And we now have an Italian woman running the country from behind the scenes. I find it amazing that this doesn’t outrage people in the least but quite often the same people talk about the British.
Gautam, I wish you had stated this impressive intellectual gem much earlier, it would have saved me the trouble of reading your other posts. Can I bill you my hourly rate for you wasting my time?
The likes of Arundhati Roy serve the bloated egos of western marxists who fund all kinds of NGOs in India that actually do more harm than good. A good example of that is relentless campaigns against multinationals, protesting large projects like dams and generally creating trouble. If Arundhati Roy’s ideas became economic policy for the country, all of India would start looking like West Bengal.
Leftism is absolutely for losers. If we haven’t learned that after more forty years of wasted effort between 1947 and 1991, then we have learnt nothing. And it is fools who don’t learn from their mistakes but repeat them.
So we don’t need the Arundhati types in India. Let her protest in Berkeley. Thats a better venue. Rich California liberals can afford such types. A country like India that needs massive investment in infrastructure can’t.
Our “current dangers” are informed and undergirded by neo-colonialist arguments.
I beg your pardon?
Islamic fundamentalism is the new global threat. Do you doubt this? And it threatens India as much as it threatens the US, Israel and numerous other countries. This is a very real threat and its on our doorstep. It is alive and kicking.
Pakistan is the world’s largest terrorist haven. It created the Taliban which sheltered Bin Laden for years. The Taliban ran training camps for Islamic terrorists from China, India, the Middle East to Chechnya.
Also, it would be ingeniuous to lay the blame for this on the British. It is the US which has been coddling Pakistan for decades while turning a blind eye to the obvious aid and comfort it has provided to terrorists.
So 9-11 was a bit of blowback. Suddenly the US Government wakes up to the nightmare that Pakistan, their great “ally”, may not have been quite so well behaved. But because by the time time 9-11 happened Pakistan had Nukes, the US couldn’t really deal with Pakistan in the way that it would have liked to.
So if there is a western power that is responsible for the mess in Kashmir, it is America.
Its neither surprising or upsetting to see some stuffy racist British prick try to put a positive spin on the “Raj”, its the ignorant desis who actually buy into it that I don’t get.
Is that directed at me?
I haven’t denied the exploitative nature of the Empire. It was run for the benefit of the colonial power. That is a fact. Did Britain benefit enormously from Colonialism? Yes. Is that wealth traceable in the British economy today? I doubt it. The second world war decimates the British economy. For all of Britain wealth’s, she could not have fought the Germans without American and Soviet help. remember that the British didn’t win WWII. The Americans and the Soviets did.
So in oure legalistic terms I don’t think the wealth is directly traceable to the economy in the way it would have been if for example there hadn’t been a war. Many of the companies that operated in India before 1947 went bust later on or went out of business.
The British used to be the leading manufacturing nation in the world in the 19th century and the third after Germany and the US in the first half of the twentieth century. But almost all of it is gone. The companies, the business concerns long went bust or simply folded up.
So the question of recovering colonial loot is a factual question. The easiest would of course for India to claim it directly from the British government. But aside from a law suit to recover it, I cannot think of what else they could do. And, I doubt if the Indian government would want to pursue that because a suit would not be very productive and it would at the same time sour relations with Britain. For all its worth, the British are permanent members on the UN Security Council. They have an important vote.
So, in balance, I don’t think its worth the trouble.
Correct. The Nazis/Stalinists had a much shorter reign of terror.
Comparing the British to Nazis and Stalinists is absurd.
One doesn’t have to make such absurd arguments in order to be critical of the British Empire.
Naipaul provides an excellent critique of the Empire in his book “An area of darkness”. It is superbly written and really gets to the crux of the colonial past.
So in oure legalistic terms I don’t think the wealth is directly traceable to the economy in the way it would have been if for example there hadn’t been a war.
That should read:
So in oure legalistic terms I don’t think the wealth is directly traceable in the economy as it would have been if for example there hadn’t been a war.
It’s countering the lies of “good” imperialism.
With the Left dominating academia in Europe and the US, one doesn’t need to worry about the proponents of “Imperialism was all good and great” theories. Their arguments will never win out in academia because Marxists will outnumber them 9 to 1.
In India schools teach kids about the evils of colonialism. I don’t think anyone who goes through the schooling system (as I did) misses the exploitative nature of the colonialism in his or her education. So the question of denying the wrongs of the past doesn’t arise.
We are not talking about academia. We’re talking about the media. Media that is taken seriously – The Economist, Time, Newsweek, etc. Niall Ferguson and his ilk are getting access to these prominent platforms to spread their theories. How do you propose it be countered? By shutting the f$#$ up pretending that it doesn’t matter?
WhoMe: did you just use the word, “chinks?” Well, I suppose it was the ‘white’ man that made you do it…
Man. The last colonialism thread I took part in (where I was arguing that Churchill and Hitler were not equivalents – yes, people, I had to argue that it would have been worse had Hitler won WW2 and that Churchill could still be admired for what he did in opposing Hitler, while not excusing his actions one bit toward India) one of the commenters linked to a Holocaust denial website as a source for comparing the two!
What is going on here?
By shutting the f$#$ up pretending that it doesn’t matter?
The best way to counter that would be with facts. A detailed study that tries to estimate to overall loss suffered by India (after taking into account benefits – we can’t have it both ways by discounting the monies spent in building roads, bridges, Courts and other structures all of which were used by Independent India and only calculating the amounts that were transferred to Britain).
However, we are now in the real of “what ifs”. And arguing that India would have been better off without the British is probably every bit as tenuous as argument as the Fergusons and the Kimballs trying to prove that it wasn’t.
The basic problem is that we don’t know what would have happened if the British had not conquered India. What would have happened then? Would we have been conquered by the Dutch, the French, The Belgians or some other European power? I don’t think it is arguable that the Dutch, the French and the Belgians were preferable to the British.
On the other hand, if we had not been conquered at all, what might have happened? To argue that India would be exactly as advanced as it is today or would have been much more advanced anyway is to make a questionable assumption. It may have been much better off if no Europeans ever showed up. I just don’t see how that could be easily shown without assuming a series of variables over two centuries. Remember the destruction that was caused by ceaseless loot and plunder by the hordes coming from the North West. All those names I just mentioned.
I certainly don’t disagree that the British need to face up to the darker side of colonialism. And to the extent that such thoeries are countered I am all for it. But I do think having lived in India all my life that there is a tendency among Indians to have the ghost of the colonial period and the attendant victim mentality hover over their minds forever. That is counterproductive. And to my mind, it feeds into a sense that we shall always be weak. But the last fifteen years have shown that this is not the case. And as a “national mood” issue we need to move beyond that.
Gautam, to say that WW2 cancelled out whatever gains the Brits made through colonialism is just ridiculous
Its not ridiculous. In the same way that the rape and plunder that Nadir Shah engaged in is not traceable in Iran today (for the most part).
Its a common fallacy among many Indian Nationalists to say that Britain is super rich because it looted the wealth of its colonies. But then Germany and Japan are richer than Britain (or were until very recently) without wealth from colonies. Britain’s economy was actually second rate for much of the post war period. If it hadn’t been for Thatcher, they would be an economic basket case by now.
They really have nothing left from the days of the Empire except fond memories when white country gentlemen could go gallivanting through India and enjoy all the luxuries of servants, better weather (for the most part) and comforts that they otherwise would never had enjoyed in Britain.
Look at how the chinks squeeze Japan at every possible opportunity by reminding them of their “atrocities”.
Thats a morally reprehensible argument. Was killing 15 million Chinese in cold blood just an “atrocity”? There are Neo Nazis who deny the Holocaust. That could also be termed to be just an “atrocity”.
Media that is taken seriously – The Economist, Time, Newsweek, etc.
This has to do with current American foreign policy. I think some American conservatives are trying to counter the arguments against imperialism and conquest by saying, “look at all the wonderful things those Brits did. Imperialism isn’t all that bad guys”.
You will see that the market for these ideas will shrink drastically once American foreign policy of conquest is changed or junked. That is not to say that those arguments shouldn’t be countered. Just that some of these writers like “swinging with the times” – produce a work for the market given current market conditions.
ouch. got deleted for ONE word? sorry about that – didn’t mean to use it in an offensive tone.
and as far as the point about killing 15 million chinese goes – many more than that died as a direct result of the british rule in India and their exploitative policies – THAT is the point I was trying to make.
Hehe he…. policy of conquest is changed? are u serious? I can’t help smiling. This policy of conquest is gonna be around for a long long time. Even our great grandkids will be wondering how it all got started. If you look at history, no nation that has had such superiority has ever voluntarily “changed” its expansion policy.
I predict that in the next 5 years the US will hire a whole army of these Niall fergussons/Christopher Hitchens types to spin out propaganda about the benefits of imperialism (“we can run your country better for you”). Their job will be to saturate American TV screens with this rhetoric (they first have to brainwash the morons at home who unfortunately can vote). Then The Project for the New American Century can be put in motion. Iraq was only a prototype, a proof of concept. There’s a whole world out there to be conquered, baby!
and as far as the point about killing 15 million chinese goes – many more than that died as a direct result of the british rule in India and their exploitative policies – THAT is the point I was trying to make.
The 15 million had lead put in their brain stem. so the causation is not questionable.
The millions of deaths that occured due to Famines during British rule is the basis for our argument that more died during British rule. The fundamental problem is that many people who often talk of the famine figures don’t understand how Indian agriiculture works. Indian agriculture has always been traditionally dependant on the Monsoon. The Monsoon has always been the lifeblood of Indian agriculture. Usually something would go wrong with the Monsoon once every five years. When that happened crops would fail and the population which had grown tremendously due to sufficient food in the previous years would now find itself without food.
Note that China was not ruled by a colonial power in the 19th century. Yest in 1876 alone 13 million Chinse peasants died of starvation.
So the key question is: is the entire figure of famine deaths in India attributable to the British because it happened on their watch? Is the entire figure attributable because they did not take the measures necessary to avert starvation? This is I think the key question.
Modern humanitarian concerns were not the basis of Government anywhere in the world at that point. So while it is certain that a certain percentage of the famine deaths could be directly attributable to the British, I am not sure if every single death could be attributable to them.
A good controlling factor here would be: how many deaths occured due to famines in the Punjab? The reason I give the Punjab example is because Punjab is much less dependant on the Monsoon because the five rivers have almost a perpetual supply of water (usually due to the melting snow from the Himalayas). While I don’t know the details and please correct me if I am wrong, I am fairly certain that there weren’t many deaths due to famines in Punjab in the colonial period. The worst hit areas were usually those that were the most monsoon dependant.
So I think one could categorise famine deaths into: (1) deaths that were directly caused by bad policies, and (2) deaths that flowed indirectly from maladminsitration.
I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that no famines would have occured during this period if the British were not ruling the country. The basic fact of monsoon depedance in Indian agriculture doesn’t change.
Hehe he…. policy of conquest is changed? are u serious? I can’t help smiling.
It will. Iraq has already cost America several billions of dollars and hasn’t brought any tangible benefits.
They’ll stop conquering when they run out of money.
Once and for all, please stop this ridiculous argument! There are may many countries in the world that were not conquered by the Brits and got railways, courts, and all the other things you want to lay at the Brits’ feet. India did not have to be conquered and raped to get these things. We do know what would have happened if the British had not conquered India. The same that happened to all other countries not conquered by Britain.
Once and for all, please stop this ridiculous argument!
Why is that a ridiculous argument? If you are arguing that X amount was raised by revenue then it is logical that amount Y which was spent on building infrastructure and associated costs, then before calculating the actual amount transferred to Britain you have to do X-Y=Z.
This has nothing to do with whether another government would or would not have built bridges. Bridges cost a certain amount of money, the railway lines cost a certain amount of money. It is only logical that when calculating the total amount that was looted, this be deucted from the amounts raised. Thats just common sense isn’t it?
Your argument is like saying A company had revenues of 10 Billion so its profits are 10 billion. Why? because every other company also pays its employees, pays health insurance, spends money on fixed assets. Whats the big deal?
Clearly that argument is illogical.
to the public. There have been no tangible benefits to the American public. But wars are never fought for the public’s benefit. They are fought for the benefit of the privileged.
The cost of war is always, always borne by the public, but the spoils of war are always, always enjoyed by the privileged, the very people who conduct the war. British aristocracy is a case in point. British public was wretchedly poor during it’s period of greatest wealth. George Orwell’s “Road to Wigan pier” is an excellent journal of life in pre-war Britain.
Why is that a ridiculous argument? If you are arguing that X amount was raised by revenue then it is logical that amount Y which was spent on building infrastructure and associated costs, then before calculating the actual amount transferred to Britain you have to do X-Y=Z.
That should read as:
Why is that a ridiculous argument? If you are arguing that X amount was raised by revenue then it is logical that amount Y which was spent on building infrastructure and associated costs be deducted before determining the amount transferred to Britain. So the actual amount should not be X but X-Y.
to the public. There have been no tangible benefits to the American public. But wars are never fought for the public’s benefit. They are fought for the benefit of the privileged.
The analogy with Britain doesn’t work very well because not everyone in Britain could vote. This is not the case with Americans all of whom pay taxes and also can vote. In that scenario its a lot harder to convince people to keep blowing money into a useless war.
Also, its a simple fact that if you as a nation engage in one uneconomic project after another, you will eventually bankrupt the economy. And bankrupt nations dont do imperialism.
That’s my point. It didn’t cost the British taxpayer a penny! It was the same as the so-called “reconstruction” of Iraq. The cost is borne by the vanquished. The laborers were Indian, the materials were Indian. only the bosses were British who eventually profited handsomely from the infrastructure! Why on earth do they deserve any credit? Do you praise a rapist for bringing life into this world?
Oh no, war is not uneconomic at all, it is an immensely profitable venture. But the risk and returns are skewed. America as a whole won’t go bankrupt, because every country they invade will provide great investment returns.
Only, with every invasion, the middle and lower classes will become poorer and poorer, while the wealthy become fatter and fatter.
MD, that was not the gist of the Churchill arguement to me
We are talking about trying to calculate what amount was looted from India. Is that correct? If you are trying to calculate what amount was looted from India you have to take into account Revenue because thats how most of the money was raised from India and sent to Britain. But is revenue all you take account of? Clearly not because if a portion of the revenue was spent on fixed assets, salaries (to Indian civil servants etc), then that amount which was spent as cost has to be subtracted from the Revenue amount.
So again, why is that such an illogical argument? Its irrelevant that the British taxpayer did not foot the bill for the projects. The projects were a cost to the colonial government and those costs must be set off against the total amounts that were raised before we can calculate an amount that was transferred to Britain.
Please explain why this is illogical.
The laborers were Indian, the materials were Indian.
When you build a project, are labour and raw material the only costs? Also, the raw materials were often bought from Indian merchants and traders who had large contracts with the government to supply raw materials. That money did not leave the country.
Oh no, war is not uneconomic at all, it is an immensely profitable venture. But the risk and returns are skewed. America as a whole won’t go bankrupt, because every country they invade will provide great investment returns.
So are you saying that the US Government and its benefactors are immune from the laws of economics? That, if US Government debt was downgraded from AAA to A, it would have zero impact on imperial ventures? Is that your argument?
correct.
Your sub-arguments don’t match up to your final point. The final point is illogical because after all your cost-benefit analysis, the British had no cost to themselves. It’s absolutely relevant that the British taxpayer did not foot the bill for colonial infrastructure because HOW IS IT WHITE MAN’S BURDEN IF THEY AREN’T CARRYING ANY BURDEN IN THE FIRST PLACE?
That is the point. you might possibly, with a lot of stretch, say that colonialism was good for the colonials only if the colonizer bore the entire cost. If the cost of developing colonies came out of Queen victoria’s treasury, you could call it White man’s burden (not even then, cause the colonials didn’t ask for it, they had it forced down their throats). That would result in the colonizer going bankrupt. But the goal is the opposite.
If they’re going to loot the colonials to pay for what they want for themselves, that’s called armed robbery. it’s a crime. why is that so hard to understand?
Imperialism is not charity.
To a certain extent, yes. It would make it more difficult, but if under certain circumstances, they can tax the crap out of the public. who needs debt? That’s what King George III did. He taxed American colonies to pay for the expensive wars with the French. He overdid it, so it backfired into a revolution, but otherwise that’s the usual strategy. The US will do the same. This time there won’t be any revolution. The war on terror will ensure that no American group even comes close to challenging the might of the federal govt.
Talking about imperialism and infrastructure, Gautam, even as the US takes credit for the “reconstruction” of Iraq, why on earth would they oppose the proposed Asian investment bank to fill infrastructure gap?
Because it’s about power.
Such an investment bank will not be under western control, undercutting the IMF/world bank monopoly on developing countries’ debt (and consequently, political influence).
John Perkins, a former Economic Hit Man, says in his new book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man….
“Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring — to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact weÂ’ve been very successful. WeÂ’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world.”
Your sub-arguments don’t match up to your final point. The final point is illogical because after all your cost-benefit analysis, the British had no cost to themselves. It’s absolutely relevant that the British taxpayer did not foot the bill for colonial infrastructure because HOW IS IT WHITE MAN’S BURDEN IF THEY AREN’T CARRYING ANY BURDEN IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Don’t yell.
Obviously, being a leftist you see everything as a zero sum game. In other words, new technology or institutions introduced or not is irrelevant because if someone made money, someone else lost.
Therefore, your conclusion is that the only way India can benefit from colonial rule is if the British lost money on India. If they didn’t, India lost. Thats absurd.
As I argued above, which it seems you’ve decided to skim over, the main point is whether a different set of historical events would have benefitted India. Would India have been better off if a rapacious plunderer like Ahmed Shah had conquered all of India?
By your absurd logic India would be better off if Ahmed Shah didn’t take his loot back to Afghanistan. If he stayed in India, didn’t do zippidy during his term as India’s ruler and left behind no institutions that benefitted the country, by your logic he would be preferable to the British even though the British built things, the British look money back with them.
I have not argued that Britain didn’t benefit because of colonialism or that India didn’t lose out because of capital outflow. What I have argued is that TANGIBLE assets created in India during British rule must be set off against monies that were raised because the money spent on Tangible assets was a cost. Those tangible assets were used subsequently after Indian independence. There were bridges built across India in the 19th century that are still in use and some are firmer and sronger than bridges that have been built after independence (just to give an example). So the costs of the fixed assets must be set off against the revenue that was raised directly or indirectly in India. That does not mean that the two cancel each other out. It only means that the revenue amounts get dimished by the cost.
Whether that means the white man carried any burden or not is irrelevant because I never said colonial rule was an altruistic project. Only fools conquer nations for altruistic reasons. That should be clear to anyone who has read History.
they can tax the crap out of the public.
You mean people will pay any amount of money in taxes and not protest? That’s absurd.
The last time someone ran on a raise taxes platform in the US, he got crushed in 49 states out of 50 (Walter Mondale, 1984). They cannot raise money by taxes. Also, beyond a point taxes become counterproductive because they hurt the economy and once economic growth slows down, revenues take a hit. More taxes does not autmomatically mean more revenue.
Talking about imperialism and infrastructure, Gautam, even as the US takes credit for the “reconstruction” of Iraq, why on earth would they oppose the proposed Asian investment bank to fill infrastructure gap?
Because it’s about power.
It is about power. It was even before America invaded. Saddam Hussein wasn’t running a charity show you know…..
Imperialism is not charity
I know that the world is round.
Foreign investment isn’t charity either. Charity is quite often not the best way to make people better off. We got lots of aid money for forty four years between 1947 and 1991. Most of it was charity (though not all).
In Rajiv Gandhi’s time it was estimated that out of every rupee that India received in foreign aid, only 15 paise (15 percent of the total) ever got spent on the intended projects. The rest got swallowed up by the Politicians and the Bureaucracy.
The benefits of charity.
The next thing you know, the World Bank and IMF (let me add US AID in that list) would be called a benevolent institutions whose sole purpose is to “help” poor nations. ha ha ha
Financing the Leviathan state. Foreign aid to India after 1947:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-170.html
CATO Institute ?? My God that bastian of pure objective research !!! Thats my attempt at sarcasm for the conservative Republican spin machine (This A-Hole Kimball and Niall Ferguson will feel right at home at CATO) that CATO institute is.
The mission at CATO is … Sir, How would you like these study’s result to turn out ?? We can do it the way you want and reach the conclusion that you have in mind :-))
Is there a workshop somewhere for self-hating desis?
Obviously as (an undoubtedly privileged) fascist you see utopia as pareto optimal…screw whoever gets trampled along the way.
No it is quite apropos. The British version of genocide and domination simply lasted longer. Your calling the comparison “absurd” doesn’t make it so. Anyway, apparently any idea that isn’t yours is absurd, since you have used that word 5 times in about as many posts. I guess the rest of sepia mutiny is off in some “absurd” alter-dimension while you hold down the island of rationality. Good luck with that project, let us know how it goes.
You bet your sweet jalebis I doubt it. Islamic fundamentalism is A global threat, not THE global threat. Another global threat is the specter of militarism, unilateralism, and nuclear proliferation, all in the face of comity and international law. (E.g. US, UK, Israel, Russia) And that threat is undergirded by neo-colonialist ideas as I said. The rest of your shpiel on Kashmir and whatnot is irrelevant to this point.
We don’t need your insipid, idiotic apologism. Go issue such slobbering obsequiousness on Powerline or something.
You complain that India has not progressed….this sort of insular attitude is the reason why.
A graceless way of admitting that you don’t have an argument. That’s a shame.
Stay in your leftist cocoon guys, as the world passes you by.
Raju – I know, I found your comments very cogent, it was someone else on the thread and I didn’t want to say who it was, because maybe they didn’t realize it. They never responded to me (and neither did anyone else, which was very disappointing).
Saurav – what is a self-hating desi? I find it interesting that whenever a commenter on Sepia Mutiny deviates from the ‘correct’ political point of view, we become ‘self hating’….and as for CATO, they are a libertarian organization. So they will analyze things from that stand point, just the way any conservative or liberal think tank will from it’s stand point. So, you have to be careful with looking at that information, wherever it comes from, and whatever the political background. The same people who scoff at CATO will quote some other organization that is equally as ideological and not even think twice.
I hate the term self-hating. There are lots of ways to control what people think and do and creating self-stereotypes within a community is one of the ways to do just that (I think I stole that line from brimful or Maitri 🙂 )
MD, I very rarely invoke “self-hating”, because I agree with you that it’s counterproductive and disempowering to other people I’m purportedly on the same side as; even when it takes the points of someone I disagree with or someone I think needs to work through some emotional issues (like the Drop it Like a FOB kids), it makes them feel even more unheard and isolated. So, given all that, I should have been more patient and not used the phrase and I apologize.
I frequently “deviate from the ‘correct’ political point of view” on SM in different ways than you do. Many of us feel alienated in community spaces like this in different ways and, unforutnately, some people leave and don’t come back, which leaves others even more alienated and the drive towards conformity even stronger. It’s a little bit like South Asia’s political history as a whole 🙂
I also find objectionable arguments that frequently red-bait or otherwise tar people on the Left with one brush and fail to accord them the same respect (with a total ignorance as to how much harm has come from this to EVERYONE’s rights, at least in the U.S.) that people with other view points receive. And ignore or don’t care about the history and politics behind why that is. Incidentally, I wasn’t the one making the point about CATO (although I am not particularly fond of them either).
However, I will not apologize for the frustration provoked by a discussion that’s essentially an extended apologia for the British empire in India, replete with nuance that dismisses the salient reality of 200 years of self-interested exploitation, non-economic and cumulative implications of domination (i always find it interesting that people interested in economics can appreciate the power of compound interest when we’re talking about the long term growth in or national economies or someone’s personal finances, but not when we’re talking about non-quantifiable factors like the cumulative effects of British colonialism on desi society. Here are some examples:
Arguments that seek to equate Indira Gandhi’s tax policy with British colonialism; Arguments that argue that opposition to British colonialism must provoke opposition to Sonia Gandhi; Arguments that contend that the British “saved” the lower castes rather than that they exacerbated divisions of all kinds in the region for particular reasons; Arguments that pretend that the British leaving behind a few things of quality is enough to redeem them for almost 200 years of unmitigated rule in their own interest predicated on racism, the impoverishment of the country, etc. Arguments that contend, in a context of discussing British imperialism, that “Moping about the past and forgetting about our current dangers is silly and counterproductive.” Arguments that exempt the British for blame for Kashmir (and other divide and rule policies) Arguments that ignore that the United States and, to a lesser extent, the USSR benefited from British and other European colonialisms Arguments that rely on some degree of Islamaphobia and other tools that the British themselves perpetuated. Arguments that don’t care about the recent history of imposed empire and power in South Asia because they’re more interested in securing India’s domination and perpetuation of the very imperial practices which we ought to at least attmpt to recognize and avoid in the interests of humanity and unhappy ironies. Arguments that ignore: the genocide in Bangladesh, the overcentralization of the Indian government and its occasionally brutal suppression of various local autonomy moements, the failure of Pakistan to estbalish continuous rule of law, the very makeup of the borders in South Asia (both internal and external to the countries, the rise of Hindutva, religious intolerance in Pakistan, and politicized religious identity politics all over the subcontinent (which occasionally boil over into people getting murdered), and many other factors which can be traced, at least in part, to British divide and rule tactics.
I’m not going to argue that “British colonialism was the worst of all possible options” or that cultural and economic and political domination (in a general sense) is exclusively the realm of Europeans of the 18th and 19th centuries, because I don’t think that’s the point here or worth engaging; I think the point is to evaluate what happened to the extent that we can, and to do it in a fair way, that’s not predicated on the assumption that history doesn’t matter or that imperial abuses can be justified since India is now in a position to commit its own.
What makes colonial and race-based power relations so much more insidious than other power relations is that they are not just political and economic, but also (and arguably, primarily) psychological.
And psychological damage takes much longer to mend/transcend than do political and economic damage. This applies to the colonizer as well as to the colonized.
One of the psychological effects of colonial relations is what is known summarily as “self-hatred.” The term is no longer very useful as it has been abused — used now in a PC, shallow sense when in fact it denotes something deep and enduring.
Colonial relationships produce in the colonized a complex mix of pride and shame in one’s own condition as it is defined by the colonizer. That internalized collision of pride and shame is the signature effect of colonial and racial power relations.
Recommended reading/listening:
W.E.B. DuBois, “The Souls of Black Folk,” esp. concept of “double consciousness”;
Albert Memmi, “The Colonizer and the Colonized”
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, “Colonial Mentality”
peace
Saurav – fair enough. And yes, the CATO comment was directed at someone else, so I should have made that more clear.
I am no apologist for British colonialism, and was quite startled to be called an imperialist on another thread, not by you of course :), because I said I could see how Churchill would be a hero if you were British, or Jewish, or a Pole and how Churchill could be, well, less than heroic if you are Indian or of desi descent. I still don’t see why that is such a wrong notion: that humans are complicated, men are not gods, we have always lived in imperfect times and have always been led by the fallible, namely, human beings. Still, given the imperfect options we have, one option is still the better of the two! That’s the only way a pragmatist can think and can move forward, and I like to think I’m a pragmatist, if nothing else.
So, democracy and self-rule are always the best, hence you can’t really compare a democratically elected Indira Gandhi to British colonial rule (although I would argue that the problems in Kashmir today have as much to do with her policies and the policies of the Pakistani government as they do with the partition of India. Colonialism is sometimes used as an excuse for not making the hard decisions that need to be made. You get what you get in this life: you have to make the best of it and move forward. Anything less is an abdication of responsibility toward the people and they deserve better. Beware politicians that will seek to defuse blame, which I guess is about 90%).
And it’s true that famines were caused by elected governments of India, due to poor policies and misguided notions of land reform, but again, to compare misguided policies of a democratically elected government to a colonial power is not the same thing. So no apologia, but if the British did do some things during the Raj that had beneficial effects, it is not wrong to point it out, and it is certainly no apologia. It doesn’t change the basic dynamic, which is that one group of people tried to rule another. What I object to is the romanticization of Indian culture, the idea that all was bliss and innocence and beauty, dispoiled by colonial invaders. We can’t ever really know if India would have be better off or not today had the British not been there; we can only speculate.
What we can say is that we have learned this: democracy, liberty, and freedom has proved to be the best way to protect the individual, and the individual is at the center of the world as we understand it in 21st century terms. It is the notion that connects left and right: the individual as inviolable.
So I find nothing wrong with Gautham stating that there may have been some beneficial effects to some British policies, while not for one minute excusing the fact that self-rule and democracy is the ideal to which everyone should be held – Indians or British alike, and each judged by how far they stray from that ideal. The world changes, I can understand that a man or woman from a hundred years ago would not see the world as I see it, that they may have held notions I find abhorrent, but I can still see that they tried to act in good faith, and tried to move the world forward. If I were to disregard everyone who didn’t hold my 21st century beliefs, I would have to empty my shelves of half the books I have, given as I am to adoring 19th century Western literature….
i.e. ‘We can’t ever really know whether the world would have been better off without Josef Stalin, we can only speculate.’
You can’t know to the degree of eliminating quantum uncertainty effects, but the ‘speculation’ is pretty damn good.