Chancellor of Ashoka University, Rudrangshu writes-
There was a time in the 17th and 18th centuries when conquerors from the West went out to convert pagans and acquire territories with the Bible in one hand and a sword or a gun in the other.
The Arabs conquered Sindh with Quran in one hand and sword in the other. Later, Turkic Muslims completed the conquest of much of India. If the British Empire was immoral, so was the Islamic conquest of India.
Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning is an example of a commander of the British Empire going out into the world as a herald of a vanished empire with his knowledge of the Bible as his armour and his keyboard/pen as his weapon.
In which case, Muslim and Christian intellectuals in India are equally immoral- unless they are atheists.
Biggar has the letters CBE following his name, he has a PhD in Christian theology from the University of Chicago and is the Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford.
He is a British patriot whose views are in harmony with those of the vast majority of Britishers- even if, like me, they iz bleck. The fact is the British government tended to improve conditions in areas monopolized by private trading companies. On the other hand, colonial governments were brutal to indigenous people. Australians were 'blackbirding' long after Westminster abolished the slave trade. The US, after becoming independence, went the extra mile when it came to genocide and grabbing territory.
The subtitle of this book is misleading because there is no reckoning here. It is a defence of the British Empire.
Because it was better than what went before and, moreover, did away with itself in a timely and constructive manner.
For Biggar, the British Empire, to use the words of W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman in that classic, 1066 and All That, was “a good thing”.
Indeed. That is why most ex-colonies, even if non-White- have kept British institutions- e.g Law Courts and Parliaments and so forth. By contrast, no non-Muslims want Sharia or Khilafat. This is not to say we wouldn't very happily live in a well run Emirate.
Portions of Biggar’s remarkable balance sheet of the empire deserve to be quoted if only to strain the reader’s credulity.
What is incredible is that this guy doesn't get that anything he says against the Brits applies to a much greater extent to Muslims in the sub-continent.
The British Empire, according to the gospel of Biggar “was not essentially racist, exploitative or wantonly violent.
This is true. There was clearly a 'closest possible world', where there was no color-bar or rent extraction or excessive violence.
It showed itself capable of correcting its sins and errors, and learning from them. And, over time, it became increasingly motivated by Christian humanitarianism and intent upon preparing colonized peoples for liberal self-government”. These virtues of empire – a “cause for admiration and pride” for those who, like Biggar, “identify with Britain” – more than make up for the “sins” of empire.
Immigrants from the New Commonwealth like this story. The alternative is to admit that their parents or grandparents moved to a horribly racist country simply out of greed.
What were those sins, according to the gospel writer of the British empire?
Rudrangshu seems to have great hatred for Christians. He uses the word 'gospel' here so as to demean Biggar. Yet, most Hindus respect Christianity. It is a matter of pride to be called a Christian just as it is a matter of pride to claim to be Hindu.
Let me quote Biggar again. The “evils” of empire included “brutal slavery;
which pre-existed British arrival on the scene
the epidemic spread of devastating disease;
whose cause was not understood at that time. Both Gandhi and his pal Dr. Pranjivan Mehta opposed vaccination because they didn't believe in the germ theory of disease.
economic and social disruption;
which would have happened anyway
the unjust displacement of natives by settlers;
which has no relevance to India. Also, it would have happened anyway under some other European power.
failures of colonial government to prevent settler abuse and famine;
again not relevant to India. The fact is the Brits put an end to famine by the beginning of the twentieth century. Once power passed to Indians- more especially in Bengal- famines reappeared.
elements of racial alienation and racist contempt;
again this hardly affected Indians the vast majority of whom did not know that the Emperor lived in a distant island.
policies of needlessly wholesale cultural suppression;
Bengalis were forced to wear top hats and frock coats. Brigadier Dyer made Punjabis wear mini-skirts.
miscarriages of justice; instances of unjustifiable military aggression and the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force; and the failure to admit native talent to the higher echelons of colonial government on terms of equality quickly enough to forestall the build-up of nationalist resentment”.
Okay, okay. Biggar doesn't have a big brain. Still, the guy is a devout Christian and is not currently known to have molested choirboys. That's a great achievement in itself.
As any reader will notice, the two sections quoted run completely contrary to each other.
Nonsense! They are complementary. Everything Biggar mentions is something which the Brits tried to remedy.
If the first quotation is valid, the second cannot be valid let alone the former compensating or making up for the other.
No. A sequence of acts can have two different properties simultaneously
1) minimize local opportunity cost
2) deviate from the global golden path in the configuration space.
That's the reason structural reforms are made from time to time.
Moreover, a close reading of the text reveals that almost each of the “evils” enumerated by Biggar are actually justified by him in the relevant parts of the book.
This is because any action of sufficient consequence can have cascading 'evil' effects which require structural changes to address. In Christian theology, there is a mysterious economy which maintains the 'katechon' such that the end of days is averted. But that mysterious economy involves diakonia of a metanoiac type. There is a ministry to others, particularly the poor, which however requires a complete change in how we think and the nature of our institutions.
The other thing to note that is that economic exploitation of the colonies by Britain does not merit a mention in Biggar’s list of “sins”.
Because it was imaginary. The plain fact is Britain's 'invisible exports'- e.g. 'Pax Brittanica' were worth much more than the revenue they extracted from India. That's why India got poorer and weaker and more insecure after the Brits ran away. That's why there are now far more Indian origin people in Britain than there were Brits in India. Also, the PM is named Rishi Sunak. Who saw that coming?
He offers no explanation of how, to take an example, India – often described by the British rulers, as the brightest jewel in the British crown – became by 1900 one of the poorest countries in the world.
It was so shitty a tiny number of British merchant adventurers conquered the whole country and projected force to China and the Middle East.
Economic exploitation does not feature in Biggar’s list because he does not believe there was any economic exploitation of the colonies and certainly not of India.
The man aint stupid. It is fucking obvious that if you go to a country and set up tea plantations or indigo plantations and then market that tea or indigo or whatever all over the world, then you have added value. There was some loot available in India but India was better off without it. Otherwise you'd just have a bunch of Rajahs and Nawabs raiding each others' toshkhanas.
There are a couple ingenuous sleights-of-hand that Biggar uses which deserve to be exposed. After making his own list of the “evils” of empire, Biggar comments, “In the history of the British Empire, there was nothing morally equivalent to Nazi concentration or death camps,
the concentration camps to which the Boers were sent had very high mortality. But Whites killing Whites was totes cool with us dusky folk.
or to the Soviet Gulag.” Biggar has obviously not heard of the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands which the British constructed as their equivalent of a concentration camp.
But Nehru & Co weren't sent there. Savarkar was. Rudrangshu is a closet 'bakth'.
Ignorance aside, Biggar compares the British Empire to the two most oppressive regimes of the 20th century and on that basis justifies the cruelties and oppressions embedded in the British empire. What could be morally more reprehensible?
Gandhi, Jinnah & Nehru- those fuckers made no preparation for the population exchange which was bound to follow Partition. Bose- also a Congress President- went the extra mile by allying with Hitler and Tojo.
Further, Biggar, as a part of his justificatory framework, makes the argument that what are considered (even by him) the more contemptible features of the British Empire were all replicated in the “history of any long-standing state”.
They were repeated on a much more horrible scale in successor states. Consider the Pak Army's genocide in Bangladesh.
Ergo the British Empire should not be singled out for condemnation.
We should look at how the Brits avoided fucking up in ways in which we subsequently fucked up. The answer has to do with having a small government, backing private enterprise, and locking up nutters till they cool down.
Also, the Brits thought a University degree was only worthwhile if you were a brainless aristocrat or a future clergyman. Everybody else needed to get a fucking job and do something useful.
Let us move from these general considerations to some specific points that Biggar tries to make. As an advocate holding a brief for the British Empire, Biggar, to make it convenient for his readers, enumerates the eight questions he wants to address:
Only one question mattered. Did the Empire make Britain safer and more prosperous? The answer, by about 1922, was 'fuck, no.'
(1) was the imperial endeavor driven primarily by greed and the lust to dominate;
It was driven by patriotism. Jolly Jack Tar kept the islands safe from invasion. But Navies are expensive. So the Merchant Marine had to grab the Assiento and establish bases in India and China etc. Then came Tommy Atkins coz 'trade follows the flag'- at least when it comes to the export of 'invisibles'. But this meant deindustrialization because of the current account surplus. Britain should have turned 'Listian' and invested in the Air Force. Come to think of it, that was Baldwin's strategy except nobody noticed coz the guy was a boring as shit.
(2) should we speak of colonialism and slavery in the same breath, as if they were the same thing;
No. Don't be silly.
(3) was the British Empire essentially racist;
Yes. We aint fucking French. Black Brits can be just as Racist towards Europeans as anybody else- unless we are speaking of Priti Patel in which case we have to pipe small.
(4) how far was it based on the conquest of land;
If land aint conquered there aint no fucking Colonialism.
(5) did it involve genocide;
Sure. But that was done by the settlers.
(6) was it driven fundamentally by the motive of economic exploitation;
No. Sexual exploitation was the main driver. Viceroy used to surreptitiously enter the huts of starving Indians and perform fellatio and cunnilingus on them so as to deprive them of their vital bodily essence.
(7) since colonial government was not democratic, did that make it illegitimate;
Yes. But illegitimacy is preferable to anarchy more particularly if Viceroy Sahib is sucking you off
and
(8) was the empire essentially violent and was its violence pervasively racist and terroristic.
Viceroy only sucked off dusky folk. If they woke up he'd threaten to shove their dicks up his pooper thus terrorizing them. There are many videos on this subject on Pornhub. I suggest Biggar watch them and then go give Rudrangshu what for.
I have deliberately italicised
Sonia is from Italy. Rudrangshu- RSS wallah that he is- is Italianizing Biggar because he too is White and Christian and thus totes immoral.
some words that are used by Biggar when he is setting up his agenda.
Agenda sounds like 'gender'. Rudrangshu is hinting that Biggar is a cross dressing lesbian of some type. White peeps are all totally immoral in that way. They are doing sexing all the time. This is because they are having non-veg diet.
As is obvious, these words and their implications are both ambiguous
sexually ambiguous. What did I tell you about non-veg diet?
and subjective.
and involve very filthy type of sexual subjugation. This is why you should not eat meat.
What one person considers fundamental/essential/pervasive to a historical phenomenon may not necessarily chime with another person’s notions of the same terms.
Particularly if they are being sodomized. That is why you should not eat meat.
There are no prizes for guessing Biggar’s answers to these questions.
Because being sexually molested is not a prize. Still, if some people continue to eat meat, the thing is inevitable.
Biggar argues, quite predictably, that there was nothing like the colonial project.
Then what the fuck was Joseph Chamberlain banging on about?
In his view, the British empire was not “a single, unitary enterprise with a coherent essence”. To make a caricature of the arguments made by critics of the British Empire, he adds, “No one woke up one sunny morning in London and said, ‘Let’s go and conquer the world’.”
Britain had been menaced by Spain which already had an 'Empire on which the sun never set.' Initially to defend themselves, but then coz making money is nice, they outdid the Spanish and Portuguese and Dutch and so forth.
Which serious historian has ever made such a suggestion? Biggar asserts that “There was no essential motivation behind the British Empire.”
Biggar is a professor. Naturally, he writes nonsense. Still he is a Christian and a British patriot and is not known to have bummed numerous choirboys.
The implication of this assertion is that the colonies were acquired and the British Empire established through a series of accidents.
The American colonies were set up as...urm...colonies with charters and so forth. British expansion in India was opportunistic. That's how commercial enterprises operate.
This is worse than flogging a dead horse since the argument goes back to John Seeley, who wrote in the 19th century that the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absentmindedness.
Americans like Gore Vidal felt the same way about the American 'Empire' that burgeoned in the Fifties and Sixties and which ended with GIs getting shot at in jungles which even the French had run away from.
No motives, no plans, no strategies – a vast global empire emerged through a concatenation of circumstances.
Because history is nothing but such concatenations. It is all very well to have a plan for world domination but little things- like the Russian winter- can overturn them.
There is an important point of historical method lurking in the assertions made by Seeley and his latter day epigoni.
No there isn't. Historical method can either be based on common-sense and the uncovering of facts or it can pretend that concepts have some 'logic' of their own- in which case they may also have their own wet dreams and episodes of auto-erotic strangulation.
The logic of empire is located at a different analytical level
it is located up Rudrangshu's arse. Biggar should look for it there.
than in the motives and intentions of the many paladins of the British empire. It is one thing to delve into the manifold secrets of the minds of governors-general and politicians and then to discover that none of them actually wrote down that they wanted to conquer, dominate and exploit large parts of the world. But this cannot lead to the conclusion that the British Empire had no pattern, logic or compulsions.
It is obvious that what could or couldn't become a colony or be retained as such was stuff that guys at the Admiralty and War Office advised on. The Treasury too got involved if the expected profit or loss was 'material'. Calculating the latter was the job of the Colonial or India offices.
The reason no 'pattern or logic' arose was because the fitness landscape kept changing. The Empire had a certain amount of 'anti-fragility' but only because it was 'co-evolved' not substantively rational.
The latter are questions related to structure,
but structures behave differently under different types of exogenous shocks. One may say that their configuration space is 'ditopological'. They way in which a thing burgeons and opens up may be very different from the way it contracts or closes itself off. The British Empire certainly burgeoned on the basis of race- though, in India, this was broadly defined. First Armenians, then Iraqi Jews were assimilated or self-assimilated. However, when it contracted, the New Commonwealth was initially given equal rights of domicile in the 'mother country'. In the Sixties, it appeared there might be a backlash but, strangely enough, Thatcher ensured that colored folk- like Rishi's parents could assimilate on the same terms as pukka goras. Still, without Brexit, it is doubtful we'd have so many 'colored' people in the Cabinet.
not to subjective motivations.
the subjective motivations of Viceroys and Governor Generals don't matter. Either they do what they are told or they are replaced or ignored.
This point needs to be reiterated because there is a pronounced tendency among historians like Biggar
a theologian surely?
and his ilk to deliberately ignore the structural logic of empire
i.e. Marxist shite about how like Imperialism is the highest, and therefore final, stage of Capitalism even though it is nothing of the sort
– a logic which binds together in a single interconnected process the development of capitalism and prosperity in Britain with the political control, the economic exploitation and the impoverishment of the colonies. It is this structural logic and interconnected process that some historians have called the colonial project.
Shit historians. Marxists shat on India's developmental potential. Mamta has kicked in the heads of those cunts.
The prejudice embedded in this book is obvious.
This man's stupidity is obvious. Biggar is not prejudiced. He is a patriot and a Christian. It simply is a fact that his country has turned out to be just as moral and righteous as a lot of believed it to be. This means we can go back to thinking that Westminster was, on the whole, a positive influence over territories British people controlled. After all, we don't have howling mobs in the streets protesting a brown man moving into Number 10 though, it must be said, this has lowered property values. On the other hand, I am on step closer to my fulfilling my dream of opening a dhaba on Downing Street.
Again, that prejudice is an old and tedious one – the British set out to civilise the colonies, train them for self-government.
Colonies involve the transplantation of the civilization of one territory to a different territory. Phoenician colonies transplanted Phoenician civilization. Greek colonies transplanted Greek civilization. America, difficult as this may be to believe, is actually an offshoot of British civilization- not the good bits, obviously.
Britain wanted its White colonies to become self governing so that they wouldn't need to be garrisoned and Westminster wouldn't have to keep passing bills about far away places. This was also the motivation for transferring power to responsible or representative bodies in India. The fact is British MPs were bored out of their gourds having to listen to debates about the ' succession to the Jaghire of Bungana Pally'.
What is shocking, however, is the ignorance and the refusal to read what writers and scholars have written about British rule.
But those writers and scholars are as stupid as shit. Why read them? Why not just blow your brains out?
I concern myself here with only India; I am sure scholars from other parts of the world will notice omissions from their fields of specialisation. Biggar writes without reference to R.C. Dutt,
An ICS officer, barrister, and- later on- a member of the Legislative Assembly. He served on the Royal Commission for Decentralization. Clearly, British rule couldn't have been very horrible, in his view, because he was very much part of that rule.
A.K. Bagchi,
nobody reads that nutter
Ranajit Guha,
who emigrated to England in 1959 and now lives in Vienna. This is not a guy who has a deep love for India- at least not as a place to live in.
Partha Chatterjee,
another useless Bengali
Eric Stokes,
who had served as an actual subaltern in India. He was deeply Christian. Why mention him here? The fact is he was pro-Hindu. I suppose he must have been in Singapore at the time of Maria Hertogh riots- Muslims went crazy because a ten year old Dutch Catholic girl was returned to her parents despite having gone through a form of Islamic marriage. Maria didn't have a happy life in Holland but Stokes would not have known that.
Why is Rudrangshu mentioning Stokes- who was influenced by Oakeshott- along with Leftist buddhijivi blathershites?
Brijen Gupta,
who proved the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' was no myth
Holden Furber,
who showed that Brijen was a bit shit as a historian
Bernard Cohn,
American shithead. If the Brits made India casteist who the fuck did it to Nepal or Bali or Ja-fucking-pan?
Elizabeth Whitcombe,
who proved that you don't have to have a penis in order to be a pecker-head.
Asiya Siddiqui…
whose micro-histories are equally tedious.
the list is endless.
it is useless.
And all those named are major historians.
Fuck off! Major historians aren't attracted to a period about which little can be said other than it was as boring as shit.
Biggar’s book fails the most elementary test of scholarship.
There is no test for scholarship in an utterly worthless field. Stupid people can get a PhD in this shit through either donkey-work or free floating paranoia. Either way, their punishment is to have to teach this shite to those stupider yet.
To use Dorothy Parker’s memorable dismissal of a novel: “This is not a book that should be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown out with great force.”
But limp wristed Rudrangshu can't hurl shite. How fucking effeminate do you have to be to quote Dorothy Parker?
The plain fact is, Biggar is a Christian and a Professor of Theology. He believes, correctly, that the Church should give Grievance Studies a miss. Us Bleck Britishers don't want it because coprophagy aint our native cuisine. We are cool with old fashioned Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or whatever. That's stuff about how you will go to hell if you get drunk and run me over with your Pope-mobile. Seriously, that's the sort of thing I worry about. That and some Archbishop getting his crozier stuck up my arse. It may be that I've been reading the wrong Theology text-books
This is an immoral book.
Not for Britishers. It is right and proper to be proud of Britain's past achievements. Showing the Empire to have been moral shows that New Commonwealth immigration was equally moral. The alternative is to show Britain as a racist country which only let in dusky folk to do the shitty jobs. If this is true, why should the indigenous Brits not throw out colored people on the grounds that they aren't doing the shitty jobs. Some are running the fucking country. But, this affords no scandal- on Biggar's account- even if that Rishi bloke worships cows or elephants or something of that sort. Meanwhile, I hope to snap up a nice little property on Downing Street to open my own desi dhaba serving only vegetarian food. Mindi it kindly.
But it might earn for Nigel Biggar, CBE, a knighthood: ersatz plumes for a false scholar.
What's wrong with that? Indeed the thing is almost routine. What is important is that Biggar turn his attention to getting the Pope to lay off the booze before getting behind the wheel of his Pope-mobile. As a Hindu, I deserve to be run over nothing less than a juggernaut. This, at any rate, is what British Hindus often tell me. Sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment