With India continuing to trouble its own minority communities, the United Kingdom, which colonised the subcontinent for long, continues to shamelessly look the other way. A YouGov opinion poll says three in four British people believe the Empire is something to be proud of rather than ashamed of. They also think it left its colonies better off and a third would like it to still exist.
The subcontinent, which comprised Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, possessed some of the richest cultures across the globe. Many modern-day conventions sprout from these lands and their layered heritage is unrivalled. The colonisers called it the jewel in the crown as it had abundant natural resources: notably precious material, spices and fertile land.
The Mughal Empire, which ruled over the majority of India until the British took over, has gone down in history as one of the most reasonable and fair keepers of any ancient society. Religion and tradition together created a unified, prosperous society.
Many people who took part in the YouGov poll would probably resort to the ‘good’ aspects the British Empire brought, like railways, political concepts and education. The disenchanting reality is that these are all paper-mâché medals drenched in cheap, acrylic paint that have been embedded into the British education system. While the British did build the first railway system in India, this luxury was reserved for whites only.
It was used for trade purposes; simply a transport system that carried the fruit of British exploitation. Western politics may have banned some inhuman practices, but what school history lessons miss out on is the fact that colour-based discrimination was built into the justice system. A white man killing a brown man would receive 20 months in jail. A brown man stealing from a white man would receive 20 years in jail. Are people seriously confusing historic ‘Western politics’ with institutional racism?
Finally, education in the form of degree qualification is just a blatant lie. The first university was founded by Fatima Al-Fihri in Morocco in 859AD. The Mughals brought her convention along with other developments to India at a time when the British did not even allow fundamental rights, such as women attending a university, during the 19th century.
After the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, social reform has risen from the ashes of historical racism. People of colour are no longer bowing to the wrath of Western bigotry. It is time to acknowledge the raw truth of our ancestral past, and teach the children the difference between prowess and prejudice.
British rapacity ignited communal discord as part of its divide-and-rule policy. It is this very policy that lies at the heart of human rights violations in India today. If the British are wondering about what they have to do with this, they have to look no farther than the Kohinoor diamond that sits rather uneasily on the queen’s crown.
HAKIM HUSSAIN
HUDDERSFIELD, ENGLAND
