When will we apologise?

Centuries of Ill-treatment

Whether or not it is any real consolation for those who suffered extensive and intensive brutalisation through the centuries, the world has at least and at last woken up to the realisation that centuries of cruelty, exploitation, discrimination and dehumanisation let loose by the colonial powers over their subject nations was wrong.

Just think about it. The entire industrial revolution of the British and the Americans would not have been possible without slave labour. Equally, the economic development of the North Americas, and even Australia and New Zealand, etc., were greatly aided by the wealth created in plantations using slave labour. European economic expansion was almost entirely the result of slave labour from Africa, not to mention the colonial exploitation and indentured labour (a euphemism for slavery) of South Asia and Far Eastern Asia. North America was colonised by virtually decimating the native human population. As were Australia and New Zealand.

It hardly takes any deep deliberation to realise that it is no coincidence that all the exploiting nations of yore are prosperous today, called developed economies, while all the exploited are among the developing or under-developed. As a matter of fact, if much of the Western hemisphere is rich today, it is purely, exclusively and only at the cost of much of the Eastern hemisphere.

And the dehumanising and ruthless exploitation of nations lasted centuries, crippling the colonies even as the colonisers continued to nurture their own interests at the cost of those colonised, to a point from where aspiring for economic development is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Sadly, the former colonial masters have almost never been duly, sufficiently or properly reflective or repentant about their past injustices heaped upon over half of humanity, choosing instead to look down variously upon their long noses at the teaming billions of the developing world in Africa and Asia, as if they are the children of lesser gods.

However, some correction to this attitude, albeit very minor, has been in the offing. Some realisation is at last setting in that whether slavery, racism, decimation of the natives, or exploitation of continents and their people for their raw materials and other riches -- they were all fundamentally wrong. In some cases, token gestures of moral restitution, if not economic recompense, are on the way -- whether it is France returning 24 skulls of Algerian resistance fighters from 170 years ago or Americans bringing down statues of the former Confederate “heroes” who were slavers, or removal of the sculpture of the Belgian King Leopold II, who brutalised and dehumanised Congo, in Antwerp.

In many countries, the tokenism has taken the shape of replacing names of places and institutions which were originally named after colonial heroes to the names of native ones. In yet other parts of the world, the symbolism has taken the shape of returning a handful of artefacts from the European museums to the original countries from where a lot more was stolen in the first place.

Slow as the Western nations may have been to seek absolution for their sins, however perfunctory, here is something for us, the people of India, to reflect upon.

The practice of casteism has been a tragic and historical blot on our society for millennia. Casteism, which included and includes untouchability, rank exploitation in near-slave conditions, separate and special set of social and legal codes, inaccessibility to wells, temples, punishment for riding a horse or wearing shoes, and more, is well and alive in much of rural India even today.

There may be many amongst us who elevate casteism to some uplifting religious philosophy of Manu and do not blame casteism per se, but at best only the form of its practice today. Well, one can only say, casteism may have been justified in Manu’s times as much as slavery was justified a few centuries ago amongst some.

Whatever the history and social place of casteism in the India of 2,000 years ago, one can hardly get away from the fact that its practice has dehumanised a large proportion of our own brothers and sisters and the practice has kept development, whether economic or social, systematically away from them.

Very often, the hurt, insult and psychological trauma we may be causing to a segment of the population may be entirely unthinking and continued due to social inertia. Take, for instance, the use of the terms ‘Bhangi’ and ‘Jamadar’ (for cleaners), which are as much in the government’s official lexicon as a form of abuse amongst many. Not too long ago, an anchor, who fancies himself very funny, in the Hindi version of one of the episodes of ‘Science of Stupid’ on National Geographic channel, used the phrase, “Oy, tu banda hai ki nai.” I complained to NG by mail that ‘banda’ in Punjabi means man, and ‘nai’ means barber. Now, this particular phraseology “banda hai ki nai” in Punjab harks back to the times of a casteist society when barbers were considered untouchable and lesser humans. Much as I hold the works of NG in high esteem, sadly, I never heard from them and. At least, when the same episode was telecast again, I did not see the offensive reference removed. ‘Chamar’ is another caste name that is frequently used as abuse.

Of course, one may say the name ‘Shoemacher’ in the West and ‘Chamar’ in India have identical meanings. Yes, but certainly not the same connotations.

Finally, while we expect the West to apologise for their inhuman persecutions of the people they brutalised for centuries, have we, as a people, come together to apologise to the castes that we singled out for inhuman treatment through the millennia in this country?

This is what we need to reflect upon.

(The writer is Director, Schulich School of Business, India Programme)