One of the exchanges among the characters, to the effect that it really makes no difference who rules India, brown Hindu or brown Muslim or white British faces.
God, what crap.
Take a look at British India. Then at Hindu India. Then at Muslim Pakistan.
It makes a very great deal of difference.
Only foolish White people would give ten seconds consideration to such drivel.
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PS. At one point, Count Bronofsky notes that while the Hindus and Muslims set about slaughtering each other --about a million died-- they did not turn on the British. Curious, don't you think, that the oppressive White people who should have been the objects of their special hatred were left largely in peace?
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No expert here, but was is not Islam, the Muslims, who demanded their own state --not Hindus demanding that they be expelled-- which caused all the misery and death? If "the British divided India", as the blaming meme goes, who's idea was that? Not the Brits. Maybe the Muslim League had something to do with it? And if the Indians hated the idea so much, what was to prevent them from merging after independence?
The Brits were shamed by the Amritsar Massacre. A speck of dust by comparison with the savagery that the natives unleashed on each other when they got the chance. Watch Earth 1947, if you can stand it. It shows how the inter-religious hatred unfolded among a group of friends. The particularity of it makes the betrayals almost unwatchable.
When you take a peek at the history of India, the rivers of blood that the invading Muslims caused, for centuries, it's no wonder that there are three countries there and that that Pakis and Indians hate each other unto death.
The Hindu-Sikh violence around Indira Ghandi. Tens of thousands of deaths in the mid 80's. How much human misery in history has come from alien peoples living in the same space, under the same governmental roof?
Post-colonial whining. It lacks dignity. It inspires no respect. Like that stupid African Dominican student who wanted to blame the Rwanda bloodbath on "faulty evangelization by the Europeans." Talk like that only verifies the Euros' assessment of the colonized peoples as irresponsible children.
2 comments:
Hindu India is a strong country, but crippling poverty, a genuine "rape culture" (you know, what the feminists fantasize that we have here), and a neighbor who would love to take them out? Yes, things could be better.
-Sean
I've never gotten the sense that the native Indians hated the British. It's actually estimated that 1/3 of the British men who lived in the Raj married Indian women. Hardly animosity. And yes, it was the Muslims who demanded their own states, which comprised of those areas where the Hindus had the majority, because the Muslims claimed that the Hindu-majority government would override their wishes. So despite the offers of negotiation and compromise from the Hindus, the Muslims said they would have a country on either side of India, what we know call Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Thousands of Muslims moving to areas where they could rule the roost, and thousands of Hindus angry that they were being kicked out of their homes. No wonder things got ugly.
-Sean
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