The British Legacy in India

When European powers began colonizing parts of the world some of them, like Britain, saw it as a chance to build new nations loyal to the crown. It was a way to spread culture and a competition between European powers to see who’s society was greatest. In Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, it is explained that the British wanted to learn as much as they could from the subcontinent, “…establishing correspondence could make the unknown and the strange knowable”. The British wanted to use their newfound knowledge to improve their society as well as India’s, while still being under British control mind you. This all changed after the Sepoy Rebellion, and Britain would start to influence the people of the subcontinent to hate each other. Even though Indian politicians preach against the rule of the British they don’t try to fix the problems they created, in India at 70, and the Passing of Another Illusion, Mishra Pankaj states, “Nehru never let go of the British-created colonial state and its well-oiled machinery of repression”. The Cast system and a hatred towards Pakistan are two examples that still exist in India today.

Leave a Reply

Privacy Statement