5 ms·

Not to go off on a tangent but this really struck me: “ KI There is a big difference between someone in my position and someone who has come from one of the c

by nfg 6y ago

Not to go off on a tangent but this really struck me: “ KI There is a big difference between someone in my position and someone who has come from one of the countries that belonged to the British Empire. There is a very special and very potent relationship between someone brought up in India, with a very powerful notion of Britain as the mother country, and the source of modernity and culture and education.” Perhaps someone from India could give their opinion but as someone from another country that was made part of the British empire this strikes me as nonsense - of course there are some small circles in my country where the idea might persist in some attenuated form but in general the above would considered utterly offensive and - more importantly - just plain wrong.

paganel 6y ago
I think the interview shows its age, so to speak, I don’t think similar things would be said nowadays compared to 1989.
- graeme 6y ago
  Notably that’s only 41 years after the handover in India, and 20-30 years after handovers in many other colonies. Whereas we’re now at 72 and 51-61 years. Big time difference. That doesn’t make him correct, but the comment has to be read about popular attitudes back then, not now.
agakshat 6y ago
Definitely so. Indian children are always taught about our glorious freedom movement in detail, glorifying leaders like Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. There are sadly still remnants of British culture throughout, like statues or names of streets or buildings, but I don’t think anyone looks at British rule as anything but a dark age where India went from one of the most prosperous nations in the world to.. very much not so.
- mangamadaiyan 6y ago
  Well, there really wasn't an Indian nation before the Brits sailed in and did their thing; India was a loosely-knit (if at all) bunch of "kingdoms". In addition, you don't have to look further than the transformer at the end of your street, or the nearest Railway line, (or the language in which you wrote your post) for a remnant of British culture.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    To provide a not-quite-equivalent-but-parallel example, you don't have to look farther than your phone's navigation system for a remnant of Nazi culture (via satellites via rockets).
  - mangamadaiyan 6y ago
    BTW -- being a fully resident citizen of said nation who was born a few decades after 1947 -- I personally do have an ambivalent attitude towards the British Raj. I guess not all of the administrators were merciless tyrants and scoundrels, and neither were all of them benevolent angels. I don't subscribe to Ishiguro's views expressed in the quote under discussion, either. That said, one cannot wish the facts away, which is what I was trying to put across, albeit ham-handedly, in my earlier comment.
    - agakshat 6y ago
      Any development which the British did was purely to serve their own purposes and improve the efficiency and speed of their looting the country. Why should we be grateful for that? The opportunity cost there for the Indian subcontinent (if not India as a nation) was massive, and the British took it from us. I’m proud to say I’m not ambivalent about it in the least.
      - mangamadaiyan 6y ago
        I think what you're missing is that the distribution of wealth was probably just as uneven - if not worse than it is now. Most of it was concentrated in the hands of a few. So what was looted wasn't going to be used for the good of the common folk anyway. The ruling royals (most of them; there were a few exceptions like Mysore and a few of the Holkars) were worse governments than the Brits ever were. You're free to believe whatever you want to, and feel pride in whatever makes you feel good. That is your prerogative - but do mind the facts! Edit: To be clear, I'm _not_ trying to justify what the Brits did. Bear in mind though, the royals that they replaced were in many cases much worse administrators - so the argument about the opportunity cost holds little water.
ycombinete 6y ago
I agree with him as far as there is definitely a specail relationship between Britain and it's ex-colonies. It's just not always positive. I'm South African, and I've definitely noticed it. There's often a mild animosity towards Britain from the many groups that comprise South Africa. Especially amongst the indiginous and Afrikaans people, but also the English speakers. Of a similar sort to what I percieve in the US media. The postive side is almost always from the English speakers. In fact the Afrikaans people have a nickname for the English South Africans: soutie, which is short for 'soutpiel'. Literally 'salty-penis'. The idea being that they aren't real South Africans: one foot in England, and the other in South Africa, with their penis dangling in the ocean. Even this characterisation is becoming anachronisting though, as newer generations simply see themselves as South African.
Arnavion 6y ago
(I grew up in India in the 90s and 2000s.) As a sibling comment said, the history taught in schools focuses heavily on the freedom movement. In fact students learn basically nothing about World War 1 and 2, since the freedom movement lasted from 1857 to 1947, so there's no time to talk about what was going on in the rest of the world. Every educated Indian will agree that getting independence was better than staying under British rule. However, contrary to what that comment says, I think you could safely get educated Indians to agree that the British rule was better than the fragmented mess that India was before the East India Company. British education infrastructure in general was responsible for the state of India today. Many of the leaders of the freedom movement had higher educations as a consequence of being British subjects, eg Gandhi and Nehru both studied law in England. So I would say the British rule definitely would be considered to be the source of modernity and education. Edit: The British also did a bunch of uplifting to get rid of shit like sati (widows being forced to be cremated in their husband's funeral pyre for religious reasons) and child marriage, though it wasn't completely effective and also required a bunch of effort in post-independence India.
Santosh83 6y ago
It isn't offensive but for the current generation it is plain wrong as you say. I think what he (KI) says might have been quite true for the generations living during, and for a few decades after, British India, but no longer. Keep in mind Britain has changed drastically too in these decades. It is no longer the cultural power it was, and countries like India now have plenty of our own problems for anyone to even think about the past. Besides it is nothing but romanticism. No invading country is truly altruistic. They give with half an hand and take with the rest one-half hands. Also culture and modernity are subjective concepts.
GordonS 6y ago
I'm not Indian, but I've worked closely with Indian colleagues and friends for a large part of my career. India is a huge country with varied religions, cultures and subcultures, so I don't know if you can really infer anything from replies, but I'll add an anecdote into the mix. As a Brit, I've been interested in how Indians relate to the UK today. To my great surprise, I've always had replies that are magnanimous, and even grateful for the things the empire left behind - a unified India, democracy, the English language, and thebl railways. For context, everyone I've spoken to works in the IT industry, and they don't think India would play such a role in the global IT industry if it hadn't been a British colony.
deleted 6y ago
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by nfg 6y ago

paganel 6y ago

I think the interview shows its age, so to speak, I don’t think similar things would be said nowadays compared to 1989.

graeme 6y ago
Notably that’s only 41 years after the handover in India, and 20-30 years after handovers in many other colonies. Whereas we’re now at 72 and 51-61 years. Big time difference. That doesn’t make him correct, but the comment has to be read about popular attitudes back then, not now.

agakshat 6y ago

Definitely so. Indian children are always taught about our glorious freedom movement in detail, glorifying leaders like Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. There are sadly still remnants of British culture throughout, like statues or names of streets or buildings, but I don’t think anyone looks at British rule as anything but a dark age where India went from one of the most prosperous nations in the world to.. very much not so.

mangamadaiyan 6y ago
Well, there really wasn't an Indian nation before the Brits sailed in and did their thing; India was a loosely-knit (if at all) bunch of "kingdoms". In addition, you don't have to look further than the transformer at the end of your street, or the nearest Railway line, (or the language in which you wrote your post) for a remnant of British culture.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  To provide a not-quite-equivalent-but-parallel example, you don't have to look farther than your phone's navigation system for a remnant of Nazi culture (via satellites via rockets).
- mangamadaiyan 6y ago
  BTW -- being a fully resident citizen of said nation who was born a few decades after 1947 -- I personally do have an ambivalent attitude towards the British Raj. I guess not all of the administrators were merciless tyrants and scoundrels, and neither were all of them benevolent angels. I don't subscribe to Ishiguro's views expressed in the quote under discussion, either. That said, one cannot wish the facts away, which is what I was trying to put across, albeit ham-handedly, in my earlier comment.
  - agakshat 6y ago
    Any development which the British did was purely to serve their own purposes and improve the efficiency and speed of their looting the country. Why should we be grateful for that? The opportunity cost there for the Indian subcontinent (if not India as a nation) was massive, and the British took it from us. I’m proud to say I’m not ambivalent about it in the least.
    - mangamadaiyan 6y ago
      I think what you're missing is that the distribution of wealth was probably just as uneven - if not worse than it is now. Most of it was concentrated in the hands of a few. So what was looted wasn't going to be used for the good of the common folk anyway. The ruling royals (most of them; there were a few exceptions like Mysore and a few of the Holkars) were worse governments than the Brits ever were. You're free to believe whatever you want to, and feel pride in whatever makes you feel good. That is your prerogative - but do mind the facts! Edit: To be clear, I'm _not_ trying to justify what the Brits did. Bear in mind though, the royals that they replaced were in many cases much worse administrators - so the argument about the opportunity cost holds little water.

ycombinete 6y ago

I agree with him as far as there is definitely a specail relationship between Britain and it's ex-colonies. It's just not always positive. I'm South African, and I've definitely noticed it. There's often a mild animosity towards Britain from the many groups that comprise South Africa. Especially amongst the indiginous and Afrikaans people, but also the English speakers. Of a similar sort to what I percieve in the US media. The postive side is almost always from the English speakers. In fact the Afrikaans people have a nickname for the English South Africans: soutie, which is short for 'soutpiel'. Literally 'salty-penis'. The idea being that they aren't real South Africans: one foot in England, and the other in South Africa, with their penis dangling in the ocean. Even this characterisation is becoming anachronisting though, as newer generations simply see themselves as South African.

Arnavion 6y ago

(I grew up in India in the 90s and 2000s.) As a sibling comment said, the history taught in schools focuses heavily on the freedom movement. In fact students learn basically nothing about World War 1 and 2, since the freedom movement lasted from 1857 to 1947, so there's no time to talk about what was going on in the rest of the world. Every educated Indian will agree that getting independence was better than staying under British rule. However, contrary to what that comment says, I think you could safely get educated Indians to agree that the British rule was better than the fragmented mess that India was before the East India Company. British education infrastructure in general was responsible for the state of India today. Many of the leaders of the freedom movement had higher educations as a consequence of being British subjects, eg Gandhi and Nehru both studied law in England. So I would say the British rule definitely would be considered to be the source of modernity and education. Edit: The British also did a bunch of uplifting to get rid of shit like sati (widows being forced to be cremated in their husband's funeral pyre for religious reasons) and child marriage, though it wasn't completely effective and also required a bunch of effort in post-independence India.

Santosh83 6y ago

It isn't offensive but for the current generation it is plain wrong as you say. I think what he (KI) says might have been quite true for the generations living during, and for a few decades after, British India, but no longer. Keep in mind Britain has changed drastically too in these decades. It is no longer the cultural power it was, and countries like India now have plenty of our own problems for anyone to even think about the past. Besides it is nothing but romanticism. No invading country is truly altruistic. They give with half an hand and take with the rest one-half hands. Also culture and modernity are subjective concepts.

GordonS 6y ago

I'm not Indian, but I've worked closely with Indian colleagues and friends for a large part of my career. India is a huge country with varied religions, cultures and subcultures, so I don't know if you can really infer anything from replies, but I'll add an anecdote into the mix. As a Brit, I've been interested in how Indians relate to the UK today. To my great surprise, I've always had replies that are magnanimous, and even grateful for the things the empire left behind - a unified India, democracy, the English language, and thebl railways. For context, everyone I've spoken to works in the IT industry, and they don't think India would play such a role in the global IT industry if it hadn't been a British colony.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]