I type this article from what a German man said recently in an online forum. I am not sure he said it to be mean or harsh. But it seems like from his statement and even those of many others (of foreigners and Indians), that they believe Democracy, which they equate to the great ideal of equality is an idea that innovated and created the whole ”actually” civilized world and before which the world with all its Empires was in some sort of dictatorship of Monarchy, and an entirely barbaric setup. This German man, who I choose not to name, said that India won’t develop because (his exact words follow) ”They don’t understand the concept of Democracy and taking responsibility“.The pity is, today Indians are taught that this fantastic ideology of “all are equal” was born in the West and that people had no voice in the rules of kings in India. In short, the legacy of being fair and just has come to be attributed to the West completely. Morality in governance has been hijacked into being a patent of the West, despite all those atrocities of the colonial era!
Coming to earlier times when kings did rule, its a complete lie to assume that kings or rulers of any kind always dictated people completely. The people did have some good say and could threaten the power of king. Largely, things depended on the rulers themselves. As such even today in democracies like UK and USA, the people could do nothing when the government planned to war in the Middle East. The people of Britain protested sending troops to Iraq. Ultimately, troops were sent to Iraq. Where was the democracy? After all the word “democracy” comes from the Greek words demos (people) and kratos (rule, strength). That fact tells us a great deal about how governments have exercised their power independently despite the numerous fancy names they have come under, since the dawn of civilization.
Democracy has been something the West has prided itself of, for sometime now. Even in a future, as India develops, we will be asked to believe that the West has actually educated us on how to run a nation fairly or how to govern ourselves and that we have somehow imbibed that and enriched a Western legacy.
In colonial times, the Western governments have had a nice manner of presenting great ideals but not following them in much depth themselves. By that we need to keep in mind that the people who waged wars against the Native Americans in their own land and occupy it, were people of a democracy and spoke of equality of men. The British Empire which imposed racially biased laws and impossible taxes for things as basic as salt, leaving Indians (East-Indians) to starve to death in their own nation, were people of a democracy! I believe Demos-Hypocracy would be the appropriate term, which is hypocracy of the demos (people) represented by the government. This world is an ironic joke of Empires that have waged wars displacing original inhabitants from their lands and speak of great ideals, which are actually very simple but stanrgely enough presented in a prolix manner. But it is what the West has prided itself for, for years now.
The West, despite “creating” this form of government shouldn’t really pride itself too much. Because, I don’t see it as something they established themselves through. Everything that a Democracy stands for has been breached by empires while they established their democracies, and claimed to educate people on civilization. Democracy in its present form may come from the British to India, but the concept of people’s opinion being regarded is not new, nor is the concept of all humans being treated well. Instead, in Indian philosophy, this goes furthur to treating every sentient being (including animals) well. What the Indians need to understand is to not fall into these perceptions imposed by many.
Has India completely benefitted by the British system of governance and justice? For one, if India had a less number of staged processes in decision making, we would have gone ahead faster. Same with the judiciary system - which is why many cases, which started some 30 years ago are still pending and going on! The problem is, Indians generally failed to understand that with their cultural diversity and population they need to take a different, yet just approach to governing a nation, rather than aping the West.
Indians need to pioneer their form of governance, to have value, not follow or ape other systems. The more the Indians do the latter, they wrongly assume nation structure of India as that of Western nations. That is a great mistake, keeping in mind that European nations aren’t as populated, nor as diverse, nor with such poverty. Furthur, we are ultimately seen as being brought to order by the West and our successes directly reflect to foreigners. On the other hand, the Western civilization for all its crimes on humanity is brought to be though as open, righteous and spreaders of a philosophy of equality, leaving them to go to online forums to educate people on the Concept of Democracy. This isn’t an outlash on anyone, but its all over the internet – the pride of having established Democracy. But its important to remember that the largest democratic empire in Western civilization (the British Empire) was a Demos-Hypocracy, not a Democracy. That is what their policies to the native peoples around the world reveal. Funny, we had times in India, when an obnoxious trials of justice taking place with a British judge trialing an Indian for crimes of not paying taxes to the British government in his own country! Does such justice (sic) make sense? Not to me.
The Stage’s Play
I remember seeing a movie on Bhagat Singh: The Legend of Bhagat Singh, a Hindi movie. In that, Bhagat Singh is being trialled for some “crime” in a court of “justice”. The point being that though the British government in India had imagined itself to be the authority of justice, its very existence was everything contrary to justice. So, that court of justices, that existed through the British Raj in India, or in other colonized lands in the era of colonialism was merely a show. A show that they are civilized, a show that they stand for equality. It was like a play, were the actuality of emotions and the display have no connection to what is actually going on. There was rampant injustice, and quiet frankly even many parts of the world today face such injustice with nothing being said of it in this ‘civilized’ world.
How obnoxious is it, that people praise their governement for spreading an ideology of equality and furthur speak of educating the world on equality despite their governments’ actions? This world is indeed an ironic joke, like a miser speaking of the importance of charity or a cold-blooded murderer lecturing on compassion to all. All the speeches of man of one blood and about equality, was after they just colonized numerous natives and usurped their lands.
Tags: Barbarity, Civilization, Civilize, Clash, Colonialism, Democracy, Destruction, East, Equality, Evil, Greed, Hypocracy, India, Injustice, Law, Liberty, Lies, Murder, Peace, People, Right, Show, Supremacy, Truth, War, West, Wrong
