Human Rights Violations During British Imperialism

Human Rights Violations United Nations had published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that all are free and equal. However, throughout history, there have been many examples where groups of people have been denied their human rights because of ethnic background, gender, religious preference, or political affiliation. Thus, people attempted to end many of these human rights violations, though it may not work. The people who lived in India during British imperialism and Jews during the Holocaust are the examples of human rights violations. The treatment of Indian during British imperialism was one of the examples of human violation. British imperialism means that Britain, which was strong, took over the weak, such as
India, for the cheap labor and market, natural recourses and raw material. Firstly, during that period, Britain was in the Industrial Revolution; thus, they needed to find some raw materials, such as cotton for the textile industry. Then British forced Indians to grow crops, such as cotton, indigo and tea, and took over them. This is known as cash crops. Moreover, many Indians starved because they only grew little food and sold most of their crops to British. Secondly, India included nearly 300 million people, which could provide a large potential market for British workshop. Thirdly, after British took over the cotton, they made clothes in British’s factories. They also prohibited Indians textile industry, which means Indians cannot made their own cloths, so they could sell the clothes back to India. This could increase the price of the clothes. Thus, British make a good profit on it. After British made India became their colony, they started to do something that was against the human rights to Indians. First of all, they set up pass books, which were a kind of id, to limit the place where Indians could go. Indians only could go to the place they lived and worked. In contrast, Europeans didn’t have to hold the books. This was one of the unequal treatment or racist to Indians. In addition, when sepoys, who were Indian soldiers, worked for British had to load gun, they needed to bite the cartridges, which were greased with beef and pork fat.
However, most of the sepoys were Muslims who don’t eat pork and Hindus who considers cow sacred. Therefore, British didn’t show respect to their culture, but ignored them. For this reason, sepoys refused to accept the cartridges. Then British jailed the disobeyed soldiers, but this action was improperly and led to the sepoys rebelled. Sepoy rebellion was one of the fist attempts of the Indians to rid India of foreign dominance. It led to the rise of nationalism in India and the desire for independence. Furthermore, in 1919, Indians wanted to protest Britain peacefully in Amritsar, but unfortunately, British commander felt nervous about the protest of Indians, then he decided to fire the crowded. This event was known as Amritsar Massacre. It caused many Indian felt angry to the British government and changed their loyalty to British into nationalism. Amritsar Massacre gave Gandhi a chance to become a leader of the independence, and he played an important role on against British imperialism. He urged the Indian National Congress to endorse a policy called civil disobedience, which was to refuse an unjust law by nonviolence actions. For
example, he urged all Indians to weave their own cloth, which against the laws of British because British forced them to buy the clothes that came from Britain and also expensive. Thus, if Indians made their own cloth, they could save money to buy other things. This called homespun movement. He also suggested Indians to make their own salt by walking to the seacoast and collecting seawater and letting it evaporate. However, this movement was against the British laws again. British only allowed Indians to buy salt from government and had to pay sales tax on salt. Thus, Gandhi thought this law were unjust, then broke it. This action made British angry. British beat Indians by using clubs. Nevertheless, Indians didn't fight back and defend themselves, and continued to march to the seacoast to get salt. This method also known as passive resistance, which means using peaceful way to against violence. These kinds of strategies not only disrupted the British economy, but also bought international attention on the plight of the Indians and helped Gandhi to gain more supports on independent movement. Finally, Indians gained their independence after World War Ⅱ in 1947. Although it gained independence, the different religious, Muslims and Hindus, had conflict. Then, India was partitioned into both India, which controlled by Hindus and Pakistan, which controlled by Muslims. Holocaust was another examples of human rights violation.
Holocaust was the genocide of Jews from 1933 to 1945 in Europe, and it was decided by the leader of Germany, Hitler. After World War Ⅰ, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which compelled Germany to give up territory and to pay reparations to countries whose lands it had damaged. In addition, Germany suffered the great depression, which was the downfall of economy. Thus, Germany not only had to pay the reparations, but also had to face the depression of economy. Base on this situation, Germans wanted to have a strong government to help them to overcome these problems; thus, they chose to live under totalitarianism, and its leader was Hitler. Hitler was anti-Semitism, which means he was against or discrimination to Jews. He also mentioned his hatred of Jews in Mein Kampf, which he wrote while he was in jail. He asserted that the Germans were “Aryans” and Jews were “non-Aryans” and also were inferior. He urged people to support his racist ideas by saying that Jews were conspiracy to control the world and opposed to the Aryan. As a result, the holocaust began to start. First of all, Nazis passed Nuremberg laws to deprive Jews’ rights of citizenship, public education, public office, etc. Nuremberg laws tried to remove Jews from public life. Additionally, Germans’ companies fired Jewish workers, and German disenfranchised Jewish stockholders. Jewish were forced to live in a life that they didn’t want.
However, worse was yet to come. In 1938, a Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, assassinated Nazi German diplomat Ernst Vom Rath in Paris. Then, Nazis used this case as a pretext to launch a violent attack on the Jewish community. Nazis attacked Jewish homes, business, and synagogues. Many Jewish died at that night; thus, it known as Kristallnacht, or “Night of Broken Glass”. Hitler also ordered Jews to move to ghettos, which were segregated Jewish areas. The condition in ghettos were bad, which were horrific and crowded, because Hitler wanted that Jews could starve to death or die from disease. However, the result went to the opposite way as Hitler hoped, then he decided the “Final Solution”. “Final Solution” was a program of genocide, which means that Hitler wanted to kill entire Jews. Jews that lived under the control of Hitler were sent to the concentration camps, which were kind of ghettos. Jewish were not only forced to hard labor works, but also given little food. They also slept three or more people per crowded wooden bunk. Hitler also hoped that these horrible conditions in the camps could speed the total elimination of the Jews. As he wished, many Jews died in the camp because of the starvation and torture. Hitler also set up the extermination camps, which used to kill large groups of people quickly and efficiently. In extermination camps, Jews were murdered by using a poison gas called Zyklon B. Jews were told to undress to take a shower, but in fact, they were herded into gas chambers and killed. Therefore, Nazis could kill a huge number of Jews in one day, which was what Hitler hoped. What’s more, Nazis not only killed Jews, but also used Jews as the guinea pig in the medical experiments, which were against Jews’ will, and Josef Mengele was an infamous physician in Auschwitz concentration camp that participated in such medical experiments. He did many experiments that were without humanity. For instance, he sewed two Roma children together to create conjoined twins. He also did the surgeries without anesthesia. These were cruel actions because the people who were on his dissection must be suffered tremendous pain. Fortunately, the holocaust finally ended in 1945. Nazis criminals were put on trial in Nuremberg. They were accused of committing “crimes against humanity” and most of them were received a death sentence. As a result, holocaust was an example of human rights violation.