Were the British discriminative towards Indians?

 By Avishek Ganguly

The previous day I was reading an interesting blog written by a gentleman, Ankit Arora, under the Small Strokes section. He had rightly pointed out that it would have been better had the British stayed in India for another six decades. Well, as I had liked the post I discussed it with my friends and shot came the reply, “people like me and the author who write and say such stuff do not love their country. They should rather go to England and be slaves there”. Well, during the conversation, somebody pointed out that “ in the British rule, no Indian was ever judged in the right way. The English always looked down on Indians and exploited them”. I started thinking over it. Were the British really discriminative towards Indians?

Well, let me be very clear from the beginning that I do not agree with my friends that the British were discriminative towards Indians. On the contrary, I feel that they were the ones who really understood the intellectual capability in us and used it in the right manner. But just like in any debate or discussion, I will present my views logically about why I feel that the British never looked down on us.

Take for example, the very thought of freedom and democracy. I guess it was due to the contact with western civilization through Britain that our leaders really felt the need for Indian Independence. In this regard, mention needs to be made of Allan Octavian Hume, the founder of the Indian National Congress. Well he was an Englishman who felt that the need of the hour was political reformation in India. Amazing it may sound, but even today the main national party that is in the center, was founded by a Briton.

It is beyond doubt that the British were the ones who first provided a platform for intellectual Indians. They were the ones who first patronized Indian writers, scientists, philosophers, and learned people. In spite of being foreigners, it was they who again revived Sanskrit (which was almost becoming a dying language during the Mughal period). Be it supporting Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rammohan Roy in social reforms to preserving the historical heritages of the country, it was the British who made India progress and reform. And we still say that Indians were only exploited in the British rule.

Agree or not, almost all famous Indians whom we worship as idols had worked with the British and earned worldwide fame. Radhanath Sikdar, Dadabhai Naoroji, CV Raman, the list goes on. And why only the famous ones, ask our grandfathers. They too had worked in government offices and got their due salary, pensions, gratuities and everything, just like any other common English employee received. So what was the discrimination all about?

We should also not forget that the British were the first to respect Rabindranath Tagore with the noble Prize. Such was their admiration for the great writer and poet. Was that discrimination? But what about the disrespect that we Indians have done to the legend, by not even preserving and saving his Noble Prize and letting it get stolen? I guess the answers are simple.

The British may have come to India for their own interests but the faith they had on colonial India was perhaps much more than we Indians, really have on our country. Just like their homeland, they tried to instill that discipline in their colonies too. They were the ones who created the backbone of progress and reforms and we are such impotents that we can’t even preserve that, let alone continue it. More than discrimination, I feel India was saved due to British rule from the path of darkness.