When sorry is the hardest word
A friend of mine recently told me in a complaining tone that Shashi Tharoor is unnecessarily digging an old box. He was referring to the eloquent MP’s periodic reminder about an uncomfortable (for the English, painful for the rest) chunk of history. It all started, if i’m not mistaken, at Oxford Union with a speech that went viral. In it, Tharoor punched some pressing points on why it’s important for the British government to acknowledge the misdeeds of their past. Since then, he has been vocal about his cause throughout. Given his penchant for sticking to facts and established stats, it’s difficult to defeat him in a debate. Something you too will realize while reading his latest book, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India. However, there have been counter-arguments in place too, many surmising that expecting a reparation for colonial crimes is absurd. But this isn’t about money. If you are an Indian, as you flick the pages, chances are you’ll be furious at the systematic cruelties British Raj rained on this subcontinent for over two centuries. In fact, you don’t even have to be an Indian to fathom the extent of nonsense that was carried on in the name of corporate monarchy. Development? Yes. Industrialization? Yes. At what cost? Ahem.
My friend’s bones of contention were as follow:
- Let bygones be bygones because the future beckons those who have moved on.
- Tharoor is bringing up this issue now because he wants to sell his book and gain political brownie points.
I wholeheartedly believe that there is no such a thing as bygones-be-bygones, especially for the victims. The perpetrators don’t get to choose the mode of closure. Technically speaking, this particular topic is a case pertaining to forefathers; their forefathers conducted atrocities on ours. We shouldn’t flash our victim cards merely by association. However, we aren’t talking about a small community here where a few people subjugated others for greedy purposes. We are talking about the greatest empire ever created—the great Roman Empire doesn’t even figure in the top-25 list — and the fact that India played a titanic role in it. Or should we say, the continued degradation of Indians did. Nobody is formally asking the current British government to pay for the wrongs of the past. A heartfelt apology — a la Canadian government’s to indigenous American tribes or Australian government’s to austral aborigines — would be a welcome change. According to Tharoor, April 13th of 2019 would be a fine start to say sorry for once. The day would mark the centenary of the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre, when non-violent protesters in Amritsar were trapped in a park, killing 379 and injuring more than 1200. If that wasn’t enough, they were later mocked. For what the British empire did to the desis, there should be a seething anger in us. But interestingly enough, there is hardly any. Because the hatred we should have nurtured towards the white skins got transferred to fellow brown skins. The bloody Partition ensured that. For the past 70 years, Indians and Pakistanis have been at it, miraculously forgetting the devil behind the divisive design.
As for the second point, Tharoor is a well-known writer as well as a successful diplomat-turned-politician. What he chooses to be his cause is a matter of personal volition. Moreover, who doesn’t want to share their views and ideas? The very reason i am writing this piece and you are reading it is because of my desire to share something that i happen to observe/believe in. If he writes a book about it, well and good for him as long as he makes sense. Which he unflinchingly does through his recent book and numerous media appearances where he has effectively called for the English folks to peek back in to their history. If you’re going to be proud of your past, shouldn’t you be sorry about bits that aren’t savoury? Perhaps look at how Germany and Japan has conducted itself since WW2. Or being in the winning team exempt one from its radiant flaws?
Fortunately, we, the Indians, fully understand what a theft is. It stares at us on a daily basis. From the potholes that decorate our roads to the lack of basic amenities in public spaces, we know who are stealing from us. It didn’t take us scams of astronomical figures to see what our so-called leaders have been doing to us. These thieves are, in some sense, the successors of those who reigned us before independence. Just that those were angrez [an Urdu word combining ang (Sanskrit for body) and rez (Persian for destroyer) to demonstrate the extent of iniquity] with their perceived poshness to boot. It didn’t make their act any less of a heist though.
Lastly, we should remember that it’s easy to recover from an assault on your physique but it’s well nigh impossible to recover from an attack on your mentality. And that’s what the British empire were great at with their tenacious propaganda that we are inferior to them. Why? Because they said so through their education system—more of a literacy system to produce English-speaking lower middle class — and we blindly accepted it. The beauty of their modus operandi lied in their clever usage of words. Instead of addressing our ‘religion’, they used the term ‘culture’, comprising all the Indians irrespective of their faith, caste, sect, creed or profession. Divide and rule theory was applied much closer to the independence than farther. But then, you don’t annex 75% of the known world without some mind games thrown in. And for that reason, it’s alright to expect an acknowledgement of deception, even if the emphasis on the resulting horrors aren’t pronounced.
In an ideal scenario, India and Pakistan, along with other commonwealth countries, would be spearheading a campaign for the greatest apology ever. But we don’t live in an ideal scenario where Koh-i-noor can go where it belongs or a sorry can come to those who weren’t even expecting it.
