I like a drop of history myself, but no, I didn't know that.. apparently so though. Before we got there it had been colonised many times and in fact, pretty much throughout its history it had colonised, as in taken over each other's tribes and princedoms or been colonised..
This is important to know.. for accuracy... and I am a stickler for accuracy...
I am forever seeing people go on about the Brits and how evil they were in colonial times.. they WERE!! I'd never say anything different - it was hideous, arrogant and vile! But there are important things to remember...
1) At that time most ordinary Brits were little more than slaves themselves.. they had NO power, no say, no control over what happened.. they made good soldiers/sailors but the orders came from high above NOT ordinary Brits.. most of us were poor and lived lives just as controlled by aristocracy as those that were colonised.
2) In almost ALL cases it wasn't just a matter of going in beating up a ton of people and then ruling.. nothing's that black and white.. in MOST cases we dealt with rich native people.. people who let's face it sold their own people out for money and power..so while that doesn't excuse Brit-land they must accept some responsibility too for their own people's suffering and the exploitation of their land..
3) At the same time we were doing these hideous things.. SO WERE LOADS of others.. we were by far not the only ones.. for some reason whenever you hear someone talk about Empire and Colonialism people bang on about the Brits like they were the only ones.. they seem to entirely overlook or perhaps not know that the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Spanish and the Portuguese were all just as bad.... Again it doesn't excuse what the Brits did but lets not be inaccurate here.. context is everything..
4) As above... those were different times.. more barbaric times, ill-informed times, times when ordinary people had no say... we are now VERY different people.. the fact that, in some cases things that happened over 100 years ago, keeps being cited and thrown at random Brits as if THEY are responsible 0 is madness at worse and at best, ill-informed. We aren't proud of what happened.. we DON'T think it was ok..
5) And it's my belief that a) the aristos did start to feel it was wrong and that's why they backed off in a lot of cases, got out in others and negotiated returns in still others.. and b) the common people started to have more say.. and WE as a people don't condone that.. so things were changing..
6) where it has taken longer to get out of a country.. people who seek to point fingers and judge need to remember - it's not black and white.. it's almost always the case that some of the populace DONT WANT TO BE divorced from the UK.. I know it sounds mad but that's sometimes the case... so having gone in there, stomped our big feet on things, we cannot simply abandon those who don't want to be abandoned... it's not simple.. often takes years of negotiation... and hard as it is to believe.. even tho we did wrong.. there was a lot we did RIGHT and which the country concern values. for instance while many Indians will say UK was bad to colonise, many will point to the good things that were brought into the country, systems, rights, laws, order, unity etc.. that even the Indians want to keep.. I know it's hard to believe!!
7) Testament to this.. it's very telling that once *free'd* of our terrible oppression many of the countries we colonised chose to join the commonwealth. Again because people aren't accepting that there were good as well as bad.. I've heard SO many times that people think the counties we colonised must hate us.. fact is mostly they don't.. we've been forgiven.. why others, ok Americans mainly, want to believe we are still despised is beyond me.. but I am afraid it's not true.. and further testament is that we have many people here from those colonies.. people who chose to come here...
6) As i say it was a long time ago.. I wasn't responsible, I had no say, I couldn't have stopped any of it. Why do people seem to think that ANY and every Brit is responsible for something that happened so long ago? It wasn't my ancestors - mine were all poor! It's like blaming Germans for Hitler.. most of them had no say..
So going back to India.. we did bad.. sure.. but we weren't the first, nor necessarily the worse... those were horrible times, .it's important not to harp on as if that's now or as if we are the same people .. we aren't.
Louie 