Legacy of the Raj

[Sbane]

To play a little bit of Devil's Advocate I'd point out 3 things:

1. It took quite a while for India to have a change of power.
2. Pakistan WAS more loyal to the West during the Cold War.
3. India didn't pursue sensible economic policies until fairly recently.

The rest doesn't really come as much of a surprise. Racism is much more recent phenomenon than we'd like to think.

Could you expand on your first point? Was the transfer of power in India more tumultuous than in Pakistan? And wasn't all the chaos a result of Britain agreeing to partition?

You are absolutely right about your third point. But you should consider the way the Indian polity back then viewed capitalism. They conflated capitalism with colonialism and didn't want to be too close to the US as they felt they only wanted to replace Britain as the overlords of India. And then there were all the arcane rules that shackled businesses in chains. Yet it is interesting that Pakistan hasn't grown any more rapidly than India even while being the friends of the capitalist west.

Also if the British hated the Brahmins so much, why didn't they actually try to curtail their power and try to enpower the lower classes by educating them and such? The British tried to implement education for the masses but they were only able to raise the literacy rate from about 5% in the late nineteenth century to 12% in 1947. Today India's literacy rate is 66% and among those under 24 its 82%. Of course the reality is that the British didn't care how the lower castes were doing, rather they just used their crusade against the Brahmins to gain moral high ground for their own immoral actions. They didn't do anything to stop the Zamindari system, rather they extended it into tribal territory and thus destroyed the autonomy they enjoyed through antiquity and even under the Mughals.

And what do you mean that racism is a recent phenomenon? Do you think the British weren't racist towards Indians and Hindus in particular, including even the lower castes.

[Sbane]

To play a little bit of Devil's Advocate I'd point out 3 things:

1. It took quite a while for India to have a change of power.
2. Pakistan WAS more loyal to the West during the Cold War.
3. India didn't pursue sensible economic policies until fairly recently.

The rest doesn't really come as much of a surprise. Racism is much more recent phenomenon than we'd like to think.

Could you expand on your first point? Was the transfer of power in India more tumultuous than in Pakistan? And wasn't all the chaos a result of Britain agreeing to partition?

You are absolutely right about your third point. But you should consider the way the Indian polity back then viewed capitalism. They conflated capitalism with colonialism and didn't want to be too close to the US as they felt they only wanted to replace Britain as the overlords of India. And then there were all the arcane rules that shackled businesses in chains. Yet it is interesting that Pakistan hasn't grown any more rapidly than India even while being the friends of the capitalist west.

Also if the British hated the Brahmins so much, why didn't they actually try to curtail their power and try to enpower the lower classes by educating them and such? The British tried to implement education for the masses but they were only able to raise the literacy rate from about 5% in the late nineteenth century to 12% in 1947. Today India's literacy rate is 66% and among those under 24 its 82%. Of course the reality is that the British didn't care how the lower castes were doing, rather they just used their crusade against the Brahmins to gain moral high ground for their own immoral actions. They didn't do anything to stop the Zamindari system, rather they extended it into tribal territory and thus destroyed the autonomy they enjoyed through antiquity and even under the Mughals.

And what do you mean that racism is a recent phenomenon? Do you think the British weren't racist towards Indians and Hindus in particular, including even the lower castes.

My first point was simply that India has been dominated by a party (or one might say a dynasty) for most of the post-war era. That isn't really different from Sweden, as far as party goes, of course. Still, the article sounds as if India is a model democracy. To me, a model democracy wouldn't have three generations of the same family holding the premiership and the same party being in power for too long.

Being friends of the west of course isn't the same as pursuing western policies. I'm obviously not making the ridiculous claim that Pakistan is in any way better than India.

I'm not sure whether the paragraph about brahmins has anything to do with me. Regardless, I'm not contesting it.

My third point was probably a bit badly worded. What I meant is that racism is a recent phenomenon in contrast to being a thing of the past, not that it emerged recently. I realized that in typing it but couldn't be bothered to change it then.

Yeah I thought you might have been talking about the one party rule that existed for a long time in India. It is very much possible, even probable, that it is one of the reasons development took so long. Of course India has always had multiple parties, but none had the national reach of the Congress and could never dream about forming the government. That was changed by the "emergency" declared by Indira. It made a lot of people realize a check against the Congress is required and it also served to unify the opposition somewhat.

Also the rant about Brahmins was a response to the article itself, not you. Should have made that clearer.

[Sbane]

I feel the urge to quote at length from the introduction to the first British Census of India, from 1871.

"Nationality, Language and Caste

Although nearly the whole of the inhabitants of British India can be classed under one or other of the two prevailing religions ^{[the chapter on Religion is just above]}, it will be found that, when arranged according to nationality or language, they present a very much greater variety. The population of the single province of Bengal contains many races and tribes. Bengal proper, and some of the adjacent districts, are inhabited by the Bengali, living amid a network of rivers and morasses, nourished on a watery rice diet, looking weak and puny, but able to bear much exposure, timid and slothful, but sharp-witted, industrious, and fond of sedentary employment; the Bengali-speaking people number some 37 millions. Allied to these, both in language and descent, even more timid, conservative, bigoted, and priest-ridden, are the Ooryas, or people of Orissa, numbering four millions. The Assamese, of whom there are less than two millions, speak a language very similar to Bengali, but have a large mixture of Indo-Chinese blood; they are proud and indolent, and addicted to the use of opium. The Hindustanis of Behar are hardier and more manly, have a less enervating climate, and use a more substantial diet; their language is Hindee, and, they number(in Bengal) some 20 millions. Besides these, there are the Sonthals, koles, Gonds, and other aboriginal tribes in Chota Nagpoor, the wild mountain races in Julpigoree, the inhabitants of the Garo, Cossya, Jyntea, and Naga Hills, and those in Tipperah and the Chittagong Hill tracts. (...)

Great pains have been taken by the writers of the several reports in the classifi- cation of the population according to caste. The result, however, is not satisfactory, owing partly to the intrinsic difficulties of the subject, and partly to the absence of a uniform plan of classification, each writer adopting that which seemed to him best suited for the purpose. It has, indeed, been found possible to put together a few particulars which are mentioned in 'nearly all the reports; but these give little idea of the mass of detailed information which has been collected under this heading.

The title of Hindoo, in the category of nationality and caste, includes many persons of Hindoo origin, who are no longer Hindoos by religion, such as Native Christians, or who have branched off from its stricter use, such as Buddhists ^{[the vast majority of the Buddhists enumerated in this census are Burmese, so wtf?]}and Jains, or whose actual religion is unknown, such as the aboriginal tribes. In this wider view of the Hindoo people, we find 149 mil- lions so designated, of whom about 10 1/8 millions are Brahmins, and 5 5/8 millions Kshatriyas and Rajpoots ^{[Obviously the British did not consider Jat, Yadav, or any other numerically large, locally dominant peasant caste with at least a shred of military tradition to be Kshatriyas, as the custom is now. Otherwise the figures would probably be closer ten times that. Actually, wording elsewhere in the report implies that this is simply the no. of Rajputs, presumably including Thakurs.]}; 105½ millions belong to other castes; of nearly 790,000 the caste is unspecified; 8¾ millions are out-castes, or re- cognize no caste (as the Bud- dhists) ; not quite 600,000 are Christians.

Actually there is evidence that a lot of traditions that are unequivocally "Hindu" today are actually adopted from these tribes. The worship of gods like Shiva, Durga, Kali, perhaps even Vishnu and Rama, probably came from the tribal population. The Ramayana was actually written by a tribal. In addition some languages of India have been influenced heavily by tribal languages, the most prominent example being Bengali and its similarities to the Santal language. And considering that religious traditions in India change from region to region, including aboriginal religions as "Hindu" makes a lot of sense.

Also many tribes have a heirarchy within them similar to the caste system, bringing up the question as to where the caste system originated. There might be several different sources but I do think an indigenous system of class certainly existed in India before the arrival of the Aryans. IIRC the Namboothiris(Brahmins) of Kerala follow traditions that are much different from the Brahmins of the north. There is also no evidence of Brahmins moving to Kerala, like there is with Bengali Brahmins. Are they just "converts" of upper class tribals? Who knows. I will also note that the Namboothiris were one of the strictest practitioners of untouchability and all that junk.

[Sbane]

I wouldn't speak too soon. Without Pakistan to hate, I doubt the Indian Union will last long.

So Pakistan doesn't exist anymore? Did I miss something?