British Monarch Death reflection....

 

The death of a longstanding British monarch triggers all kinds of dialogues and discussions among people in India. That the monarch ruled India indirectly through the East India company first and later for nearly 90yrs directly and responsible for plundering $45 trillion of wealth means that the response to her demise has not been all solemn. That during the period of the British ascend and occupancy, partly due to their relentless resource plunder from India, the country was subjected to severe famines killing more than 30 million people is still remembered by students of history. The parting gift of the partitioning India and Pakistan resulted in the largest migration in human history with approx. 20 million people being displaced, while till date we don’t know how many lives were lost, estimates place it as high as 1 million people killed. An equal number of Indians were taken as indentured labourers to the various British held colonies from the late 19^th century. A country that contributed to about a fourth of the global production was reduced to less than one percent of the global production by the British during their occupancy.

Today India is a Democracy, the largest in the World in terms of population and thriving economy that is driven by one of the largest work forces in the world. While the British legacy of administrative services, judiciary, military, education system and police force has been retained, India has built healthcare system, social security, rights for the marginalized communities, agriculture, and industries and its own unique panchayat system of grassroot democratic governance today. The colonial hangover does continue to haunt some of the authoritarian ways of the institutions that have been left behind. It manifests in two ways – treating ordinary Indians with distrust and as slaves just like the British and rubbishing the Indian ways - whether it be cultural, social, or local knowledge of living and transacting. Unfortunately, there has been no evaluation of the loss of dignity or the demeaning of knowledge due to colonial systems being sustained even today by any Indian individual or group. 

Modern corporates today have perhaps far exceeded the net worth of several countries (top 200 MNCs have sales equivalent of 30% of the world’s GDP while employing less than 1% of the population according to financial media) and are the largest contributors for the global inequality. Their quest for cheap resources (both natural and human), corrupt governments, lax regulators and willing local partners has made them the new colonizers. Their method of operation is no different from the East India company of the old, the differentiator today being the global media that is ever willing to present the colonizer in all splendour as the saviour to their victims. Britain owns 20 of the top 500 MNCs in the world (India has 5-7), with the royal seal (that improves global sales for a brand by 10% and provides an annual free publicity of $400 million) being extended to over 800 companies.  Britain officially has nearly 5% of its population as millionaires commanding more than 4 times global wealth than the 200,000 millionaires India is supposed to have. Every British royalty, including the new-born in the family is a millionaire. British economy today is driven by the service sector with tourism as a leading contributor and the media hype driven attraction of the monarchy is a significant contributor to this. Indians continue to be obsessed with the monarchy and today contribute as tourists to the British economy (about 2% of outbound Indian tourists visit Britain according to Govt of India data). A British sterling values 92 Indian rupees today.

So, as Britain mourns the death of their royal, the question to ask for us in India is which colonizer do we mourn? Should we express condolences and fly flag half-mast in honour of a monarch who never apologised for all the atrocities committed or address the colonization that continues to enthral, enslave and emasculate the Indian ways through the residual colonial institutions and its modern corporate version amplified by the corporate media. Our knowledge of history and capacity to learn from it will inform how we respond.

 

10/09/2022 

P.S.: Don’t split hairs about the numbers quoted in this article, these are based on a quick search online and may only be approximations. I have used them here only to support my argument.