inspiration at oxford....the truth in beijing....an unreal concept in a real world.
i just finished reading Dr. Singh's acceptance speech at Oxford. In all the cacophony generated of his truthful admissions about the British rule in India, I somehow dont understand if having such a stand of positive outlook is what hits us hard everytime we set out to get a foothold on the world stage.
We try to be fair, we persist, we wait.
We believe in things like fairness and equality, and non agression.
Whatever be the level of negation in India, we usually are seen to be optimistic, and even a thousand slaps wont make us change our stand. After all Gandhi taught us that.
Two very interesting news articles shows how unreal we are in a real world, if only digging into our past is the only way to analyze our attitude.
Excerpts from Dr. Singh's speech atOxford, the interesting parts,
" I must confess that when I returned home to India, I was struck by the deep distrust of the world displayed by many of my countrymen. We were influenced by the legacy of our immediate past. Not just by the perceived negative consequences of British imperial rule, but also by the sense that we were left out in the cold by the Cold War.
There is no doubt that our grievance against the British Empire had a sound basis. As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952.
Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income. However, what is significant about the Indo-British relationship is the fact that despite the economic impact of colonial rule, the relationship between individual Indians and Britons, even at the time of our Independence, was relaxed and, I may even say, benign."
....."At this meeting, the Mahatma was asked: 'How far would you cut India off from the Empire?' His reply was precise – 'From the Empire, entirely; from the British nation not at all, if I want India to gain and not to grieve.' He added, 'The British Empire is an Empire only because of India. The Emperorship must go and I should love to be an equal partner with Britain, sharing her joys and sorrows. But it must be a partnership on equal terms.'
This remarkable statement by the Mahatma has defined the basis of our relationship with Britain."
"....Today, with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister to assert that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too. Our notions of the rule of law, of a Constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, of modern universities and research laboratories have all been fashioned in the crucible where an age old civilisation met the dominant Empire of the day.These are all elements which we still value and cherish. 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."
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Some Excerpts from the Indian Express article (http://indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=74255) ,
"‘This was a hefty horse-trade,’’ Jung Chang and Halliday write, ‘‘one well concealed from the world. On the morning of 20 October, just as the Cuba crisis was about to break, Mao gave the go-ahead for crack troops to storm Indian positions...Five days later, with the Cuba crisis at fever pitch, Khrushchev came through with his support for Mao in the form of a statement in Pravda that mortified Nehru.’’
The book describes the build-up to war in ‘‘May-June 1962’’: ‘‘Chou (Chou Enlai) later told the Americans that ‘Nehru was getting very cocky...and we tried to keep down his cockiness’.’’
"... Khrushchev had just signed an agreement to sell India MiG-21 fighter aircraft. ‘‘Mao,’’ says the book, ‘‘sent out a feeler to the Russian ambassador about how Moscow would react if China attacked India. Khrushchev seized this chance to make a startling demarche. On the 14th (of October) he laid out a four-hour farewell banquet for the outgoing Chinese ambassador, at which the Soviet leader pledged that Moscow would stand by Peking if China got into a border war with India, and would delay the sale of MiG-21s.’’ At the banquet, Khrushchev also revealed his plans for Cuba."
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I wish to know, if the worlds so busy conspiring against us, why we choose to show off our condescending attitude? Why should we be beneovelent about our hateful masters, and equally eager to suck up to the Chinese?
I think our political mind lives in utopia, and every now and then visits India when a militant strike occurs.
and despite these feel good attitude, we will still be opposed at the UN to get a permanent seat at the security council. This is bcos the world knows, We are not real....we dont understand that our non-hateful attitude, though works well in karmic terms, does not make the UN jiggle.
When we understand that, we will get our seat.
2 Comments:
Shiva,
When I saw the headline "British rule was beneficial", by the Indian PM my blood boiled. Then, I went read the entire speech and my anger though abated, was still there.
"However, what is significant about the Indo-British relationship is the fact that despite the economic impact of colonial rule, the relationship between individual Indians and Britons, even at the time of our Independence, was relaxed and, I may even say, benign."
That part makes me hang my head in shame. Any self respecting "Indian" would have taken the gun and kicked the British white ass all the way to their snooty cold England and made the condescending colonists shed the burden of civilizing the natives (civilizing us? you pathetic ignorant morons, go and read a upanishad). To hell with ahimsa, non violence and all bullshit. Strength respects strength. Cowardice too respects strength.
oops, longish comment..got a little passionate.
i dont agree with your post entirely. here are a few reasons.
1. the british conquered india and ruled us because their concept of nationhood was more advanced than ours at that moment of time. the minute we as a society understood the concept of nation, we launched our freedom movement. it could have been a rebellion or the more benign form that gandhi brought about. either way works. but truth is we learnt the necessary tools from the brits and then somehow got rid of them using their bag of tricks.
2. we are not softies. ask sikkim, bhutan, bangladesh, nepal and srilanka. remember ipkf? we are bullies with smaller countries and we suck up to bigger countries.
who cares. we are answering their phone calls now. its ok to suck upto customers too (-:
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