British Influence in India
WE tend to forget that our lifestyle and mindset have largely been influenced by our colonial past. The British influence has changed the way we look at ourselves and has stripped us of a confidence that comes naturally to a people belonging to an ancient and great civilisation.
Colonisation coerces people from subordinated culture to denigrate themselves. A kind of a virtual reality is created to expedite this attitude of self-hate among the native population. An alternate reality is created as a smokescreen to hide coloniser`s repression, tyranny and exploitation.
Ignorant of a history that has an enormous potential to extricate us from our state of self-depreciation, we continue to be a victim of this crime.
Though Delhi fell to East India Company in 1803, yet the Indians` confidence which motivated them to initiate a freedom struggle remained strong. Profound political awareness of Delhi`s intellectual elite made them present a line of action to the Indians. After a careful analysis of the situation, they motivated the native populace to take up arms against the colonisers. Subsequent decades reveal an unparalleled history of struggle for freedom which continued till 1857. (One can read W.W. Hunter`s famous book Our Indian Muslims for the details of this movement.)
It was in this context that the colonisers came up with an elaborate scheme to strike at the very heart of native confidence “to create a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in morals, in opinions and in intellect.” Once the colonisers were over with shedding the native blood, they focused on replacing the leadership that had expedited the Indian freedom struggle with one that believed in `compromising` with them. Delhi`s pre-colonial intellectual elites who realised very early the bane of colonisation were replaced with a friendlier class of `scholars`.
At the same time `educational institutions` were established in the country, with the sole
Colonisation coerces people from subordinated culture to denigrate themselves. A kind of a virtual reality is created to expedite this attitude of self-hate among the native population. An alternate reality is created as a smokescreen to hide coloniser`s repression, tyranny and exploitation.
Ignorant of a history that has an enormous potential to extricate us from our state of self-depreciation, we continue to be a victim of this crime.
Though Delhi fell to East India Company in 1803, yet the Indians` confidence which motivated them to initiate a freedom struggle remained strong. Profound political awareness of Delhi`s intellectual elite made them present a line of action to the Indians. After a careful analysis of the situation, they motivated the native populace to take up arms against the colonisers. Subsequent decades reveal an unparalleled history of struggle for freedom which continued till 1857. (One can read W.W. Hunter`s famous book Our Indian Muslims for the details of this movement.)
It was in this context that the colonisers came up with an elaborate scheme to strike at the very heart of native confidence “to create a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in morals, in opinions and in intellect.” Once the colonisers were over with shedding the native blood, they focused on replacing the leadership that had expedited the Indian freedom struggle with one that believed in `compromising` with them. Delhi`s pre-colonial intellectual elites who realised very early the bane of colonisation were replaced with a friendlier class of `scholars`.
At the same time `educational institutions` were established in the country, with the sole