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The Failed Saint: On George Orwell's India
- jruohonen 3y agoI am quite dazzled he didn't mention Burmese Days.
- readthenotes1 3y agoBeauty unshared is lessened
- KingMob 3y agoWell, the article is pretty long already, and the author says he prefers Orwell's nonfiction work. It's not like he ignored Orwell's youth as a Burmese policeman in the article. E.g.: > In the early essay “A Hanging” (1931), perhaps my favorite, Orwell describes a grotesque rite of passage for Burma police cadets that entailed witnessing an execution. The police are ushering a condemned “Hindu” man to the gallows when he steps “slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.” Why, the reader wonders, would a condemned man bother?
- shakil 3y ago[flagged]
- hackernewds 3y agonone of these are reputable publications. and fall flat on the face of accusers that fail to shine the mirror on to their own faces. India coexists and celebrates harmony with all faiths within its borders.
- littlestymaar 3y agoI don't really share the GP's opinion that this ought to be in the article, but his description is nonetheless unfortunately accurate: the rise of Hindu supremacism is indeed very concerning, and saying that “India coexists and celebrates harmony with all faiths within its borders” is oblivious at best. You can find descriptions of the things GP said in pretty much any reputable foreign newspaper with international coverage. See for instance the Guardian about the hindu temple being built on too of the ruins of a destroyed mosque: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurates-hindu-temple-on-site-of-razed-mosque-in-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurat...
- unmole 3y agoBecause decades long legal battles are the hallmarks of Facist regimes?
- littlestymaar 3y agoFascism is both the totalitarian end state and the motion towards it (Italy in 1920-21, Germany 1931-32). Obviously India isn't a fascist regime but the trend is still very concerning.
- unmole 3y agoFascism is an ideology. While the BJP has strong ethnonationalist tendencies, it is no way facist. Statist authoritarianism and larger than life political personas have been very much the default in India since independence.
- g-b-r 3y agoFascism is not an ideology, strictly speaking it was just Mussolini's political movement. Other authoritarian movements or regimes that came after it either called themselves or were called fascist. Largely speaking it's often used to refer to any authoritarian/totalitarian regime or political movement, especially right-wing ones.
- subtra3t 3y agoIndia is a big enough country that no one statement can truly apply to all of it, but the media blows such concerns out of proportion. Yes, the rise of Hindu supremacism does exist and is a very real thing we have to grapple with. But in my experience it doesn't apply to most of India. Most people don't partake in or support communal riots, they are perfectly fine being acquainted with members of different faiths. In a country as big as India, some incidents are bound to happen. That is a terribe way to phrase it but I can't think up of anything better. I am not trying to be a BJP apologist, but you simply can't point to such incidents and try to say that India is becoming a fascist country. Sorry, the first sentence of the last paragraph is a truly bad way to describe my feelings on the matter. I was thinking of removing it because it is such a terrible take (if you isolate it from the rest of the comment) but I am trying to illustrate how in a country as massive as India the likelihood of some types of events occuring is much higher. India has many problems, and I believe Hindutva to be one of them. I just don't think it is as big of an issue as the media sometimes makes it out to be, and that it is harmful to focus on it when there are far more pressing issues at hand (some of which relate to members of the ruling party). Note: Upon reading through my comment I realized that some people might come to the conclusion that I happen to live in a region with few interfaith fights (that feels like a crude way to describe them). That is not the case, just a couple days back a mob was responsible for some disturbing events at Mira road in the same city I live in. However, I believe such events to be the exception rather than the norm. I am not trying to justify any such events in any way whatsoever.
- sumanthvepa 3y agoEvery once in a while I come across people with nostalgia for British Raj, and I point them to Orwell's essay 'A Hanging' to remind them to thank what gods there may be that they no longer live in British India.
- inglor_cz 3y agoWikipedia says that there are currently 488 people on death rows in independent India. Meanwhile, the UK hasn't had death rows for 60 years by now, because death penalty was de facto abolished in the 1960s. If you are an opponent of the death penalty, I cannot see how the current situation is better, much less why gods should be thanked for that difference. If the only thing that matters to you is that it is a native hand that wraps a rope around the condemned's neck, well, in that case I understand where you are coming from, though I don't agree with that. Here in former Czechoslovakia, the death penalty was applied both by occupation powers and our own authorities. Same bad shit, I am glad that it is over, hopefully forever.
- shash 3y agoWell, first it was _not_ banned when India became independent, and if anything, the British system was quite trigger happy with it. If you look at just the history of British executions pre 1967, you'll find a massive number of wrongful convictions, being overturned or pardoned decades later. After independence, the use has declined over the decades, and in the last 20 years, it was used seven times - three convicted terrorists (one of whom may have been innocent) and four gang rape convicts (not much doubt about guilt there). It's quite rare that the sentence _isn't_ commuted in the modern era. So, if Britain improved over time, that cannot be used to argue that the situation isn't better in India over the same time; maybe not ideal, but definitely better than at the point of Independence.
- rex_lupi 3y ago> "Since 2000, eight executions have been carried out in India, all executions have been carried out by hanging." (Wikipedia) One ought to to check out the offenses committed as well. These are no ordinary crimes. Public opinion matters. It's a large and extremely complex place and "system".
- riffraff 3y agoI'm a bit puzzled by the bit about "orientals". Was the term already obsolete at the time of writing, as to deserve analysis beyond considering natural in context? E.g. one would probably not consider unusual the term "indian" for native Americans in the same period, I believe.
- defrost 3y agoIt originates from the regions of the Roman Empire, the Diocese of the East, aka the Diocese of Oriens, aka Dioecesis Orientis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_the_East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_the_East ; by the time of Kipling and later Orwell during peak British Empire it referred to everything East of the then European "Western World" .. and so included India, Burma, et al. It later contracted somewhat to mainly be used for South East Aisa (excluding India | Pakistan) and more recently been dropped to the floor and is out of favour (it was a ridiculously broad brush). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient
- mellosouls 3y agoThe question I think was more about why the dig against Orwell for a word which was presumably not considered offensive at the time.
- defrost 3y agoAgreed. I merely went halfway to frame out where it came from, how it has been used in history, and dodged the breakdown of how it became increasingly offensive post WWII.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zilti 3y agoI don't think it being too broad was the reason. "Asian" is just as broad, and the silly "PoC" is even worse.
- hackernewds 3y ago> In The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), he wrote: For five years I had been part of an oppressive system, and it had left me with a bad conscience. Innumerable remembered faces—faces of prisoners in the dock, of men waiting in the condemned cells, of subordinates I had bullied and aged peasants I had snubbed, of servants and coolies I had hit with my fist in moments of rage (nearly everyone does these things in the East, at any rate occasionally: Orientals can be very provoking)—haunted me intolerably. I was conscious of an immense weight of guilt that I had got to expiate. The first and last sentences of this oft-quoted passage are typically shared with an ellipsis, omitting the offensive part. I assume this erasure occurs because it is difficult to read the middle sentence and find sympathy for the man who wrote it. It affords a glimpse of the Raj’s daily violence and admits what a tormented man held festering in his heart. very powerful
- goethes_kind 3y agoReading this, it occurred to me that a good conscience is like a high intellect, a gift which only a minority possesses. Most contemporaries of Orwell surely convinced themselves that the way they were behaving was perfectly moral and upstanding. There's very few people that have the capacity to self-reflect and question everything they ever believed in and to pounder the morality and justice of it all. These are the people moving society forward. We wouldn't have arrived to any notion of human rights, personal freedom or democracy without them.
- atulatul 3y agoEinstein: There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human obduracy. Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this method, who has delighted–and educated–us all. from: https://todayinsci.com/E/Einstein_Albert/EinsteinAlbert-Quotations.htm https://todayinsci.com/E/Einstein_Albert/EinsteinAlbert-Quot...
- neilk 3y agoOrwell himself thought that his primary abilities were “a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts”.
- marxisttemp 3y agoGeorge Orwell was a colonist cop who described his subjects as “brutes. The success of 1984 and Animal Farm were largely due to his wife Sonia Brownell promoting them in her job at the British propaganda ministry. He self-described as a “Tory-anarchist” but a detailed review of his life and beliefs leads me to think he was just the former.
- badpun 3y ago[flagged]
- KingMob 3y ago[flagged]
- marxisttemp 3y ago[flagged]
- LAC-Tech 3y agoIs "Tory" in your mind just this vast, vague ocean, with sea monsters and dragons scribbled in the corners, that lies to the right of wherever you are? The man fought for the republicans in the Spanish Civil war, for goodness sake. How can he be a Tory? Just because socialists 90 years ago had very different social sensibilities to those of today, does not mean you can suddenly decide they were conservatives. (Not sure how detailed your review was, but he abandoned the "Tory Anarchist" label after his experiences in Spain in the 30s, and before his socialist apologist books that made him so famous).
- OJFord 3y agoIf you can say that and show awareness of Animal Farm, 1984 too really, in two short sentences then this is either trolling or you actually have something interesting to say if you'd care to expand on your 'detailed review of his life and beliefs'?
- marxisttemp 3y ago
- thesystemisbust 3y agoIt’s fascinating to explore George Orwell’s complex journey from his time as a colonial policeman to his later works as a writer and critic. His introspection and ability to evolve his views over time are a testament to the power of self-reflection and the importance of questioning one’s beliefs. Orwell’s writings continue to provoke meaningful discussions about society, politics, and human nature, reminding us of the value of critical thinking and empathy in shaping a better future.
- rramadass 3y agoVery Right! IMO, his Essays are where the essence is; the novels are merely a thought-experiment on how far you can map the ideas onto a "realistic" world. For example, reading his Notes on Nationalism (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...) will give you greater insight into Animal Farm/1984.
- rramadass 3y agoEvery fan of George Orwell needs to get the Everyman's Library Hardcover edition titled Essays. It is 1400+ pages of almost all of his non-fiction writings.
- neilk 3y agoThe article notes that Orwell’s father was an overseer of an opium farm in India. You might ask if it was just for medicines. Nope, the British Empire was also in the drug business, and it fought two wars against China to keep the opium trade going. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars Setting aside the horrors and humiliations of colonialism (not to mention what came afterwards too), ultimately this is why Hong Kong and Shanghai are different from the rest of China. That has its effects on the technology industry even today.
- amriksohata 3y agoBritain benefit more from India than all other colonies it had.