These days I am getting an overdose of the “Goodness� of British rule in India, right from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to CEOs of some BPOs and fellow bloggers.
Here are some samples
This was published in Indian Express by Jaithirth Rao:
“I, for one, am grateful to Macaulay. Without his gift to us, so many of us would be lesser individuals, not just different individuals. I use the word “lesser� quite deliberately. English is not just a medium or a means to an end; it is part of our very consciousness.�
This person has touched the nadir in showing the servile attitude to Gora Sahibs!
What our own PM was stating at Oxford University “Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.�
It is obvious he has forgotten the same police, judiciary and legal system when Jallianwallah Bagh happened and General Dyre was exonerated!
First these champions of British rule should be provided with some stats:
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The British Empire was the world’s first global power and history’s largest Empire; by 1921, it held sway over a population of 500–600 million people — roughly a quarter of the world’s population — and covered about 15.1 million square miles (nearly 37 million square kilometres), roughly 35% of the world’s total land area.
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Now some questions have to be answered by these Bhura Sahibs:
The British implemented almost the same pattern of education, governance, law, judiciary, police…….wherever they ruled. Then why not Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Uganda, Brunei….. have the similar virtues of British Empire? Roughly this world’s 52 or 53 countries had been BLESSED BY BRITISH RULE. Why not inheritors of Great Governance of these nations are shining example of freedom of press, upholders of democracy, champion of secularism, a super power in IT industry? Why these places are not producing world class professionals, writers, artists, technicians despite having the same education system? The great English education system!
The world’s 35% of the land area was under golden rule of British Empire, then why only India has consistently maintained the rule of democracy? Freedom of press? Secular Principals? Why we escaped the clutches of military rule and marshal law? Why only we have somewhat world class professional institutions? Why we have world class scientists? Why are we considered 6th nuclear power in the world? Why only our country keeps on sending indigenous satellites? Why we had Green Revolution?
Who has the time to ponder and think? Who has the inclination to read history and find out a common pattern of our lives? NOW We belong to a generation of mediocre people. (That keeps on manifesting itself in remix songs. Those suckers can’t produce anything remotely good of their own so they keep on lifting golden lyrics from the past era!) So our thinking too has become mediocre too. Otherwise it’s quite plain that the difference doesn’t lie in British rule or their education system.
It’s WE THE PEOPLE who had made all the difference. We never had a history of offering poison to our Socrates! We never termed Gautam Buddha, Lord Mahavira or Guru Nanak as infidels. We Indians never shied away from embracing new ideas, technology, religion or culture. So whenever we read Montesquieu, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Burke, Machiavelli, Marx or James Mill, we never felt threatened by their ideology or system. It never occurred to us that our Indian-ness was in danger or we will lose our identity!
So if the British rule seems good to some people, they should ponder a bit further and think why this system worked wonders for us and mostly failed in other countries.
Mohammad Iqbal has already put it succulently for us:
Kuch baat hai ki hasti mit-ti nahin hai hamari
Sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-re jahan hamara!
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