Niall Ferguson justifies British colonialism in India in his book West and the Rest.I Sent a rebuttal of this to IBN18 online but they decided not to publish it. I give below what I wrote quoting from my book Mona Lisa does not smile any more. My lurking worry is, is India media more Western than the West in thinking about India.
Incidentally I sent rebuttal of colonial OCCUPATION justification of Ferguson to The Guardian UK, The Independent etc, and they published it wIthin 1 hour. But IBN18 ONLINE AFTER THREE DAYS STILL THINKS THAT IT MAY BE WRONG TO REFUTE COLONIZATION OF INDIA BY BRITISH.
My email to IBN when my rejoinder was not published and the material that rebuts West and the Rest.
| Hello Meenakshi, Thanks for taking my call and being helpful. As per the telephonic talk I am putting in attachment the rejoinder to the review of Niall Ferguson's thesis justifying and supporting colonialism in general and in India in particular. In keeping with the fair tradition of freedom to express you would publish my rejoinder. Incidentally almost similar rejoinders by me have been published by The Guardian UK, Independent, and the Telegraph. I also resent your reviewer for putting down the receiver when I called to enquire about the rejoinder. It will really be uncomfortable to think my own country's media deny me the right to counter a theory that justfies Brtish Colonialism on India, while the West has published my opinion on the subject. Thank You, Viktor Vijay Kumar Associate Professor Delhi University The Rebuttal In rebuttal of the racial-superiority and Colonial justification arguments of " No human or animal desire to live in cage or chains. Would the British have swapped development at the expense of slavery under Nazis? It is the primary motive that counts, incidental outcomes there from are of no consequence. British subjugated About the 'globalization' Ferguson talks of look up the role of Church in destroying India's culture and religion and I quote from Henry James Coleridge, ed., The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, 2d Ed., 2 Vols., (London: Burns & Oates, 1890), "These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage." Naill Ferguson dreams of replicating such a world. His thoughts will come to grief. No East or West should try to be the fascistic moral godfather of humanity and this applies to all--to emerging For has not the West killed 70 million in II World War and this alone should be the reason enough for West or any among the Rest to not talk of civilizational superiority. One has to be wary, for Hitler was not a person but was an idea that was sold to millions of innate superiority of some in relation to the Rest. |
