As India’s celebrated her 70th anniversary of Independence, a timely debate on Europe’s wealth and India’s poverty is called for.
There is some arrogance in the EU dealing with citizens from poor countries; the same countries that were ravaged by colonization. A friend told me about an interview in Delhi to obtain an entry visa. I saw him worried and was outraged at the lack of respect that forced him to waste 2 days and money to travel over 1800 Km from Bangalore to Delhi, a distance greater than Lisbon to Frankfurt!
And … there is Skype.
Unfortunately, that is the standard procedure adopted by the EU. Someone had to take responsibility for his stay and return trip. What is the EU suspicious about then?
Is it the ostentation of a waning power? Or a guilty complex for the poverty?
Indian embassies do not require individuals to go through such tribulations.
It reminded me of the pathetic statement in the British Parliament by Lord Macaulay on Feb 2, 1835.
“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”
India was considerably richer than Europe up to the XVII century. Angus Maddison states that in 1700 India accounted for 27% of world wealth compared to Europe’s 23%. Furthermore, Indians were fully aware of their great civilization.
Tragic Portuguese maritime history that brought considerable material gain would not have taken place if not for the earlier credible accounts on India’s wealth and trade. These were later confirmed by sailors who made huge profits turning India into a disputed land to every greedy nation.
On her production techniques, Yorkshire-born J.T. Sunderland from the US wrote:
“Nearly every kind of manufacture or product known in the civilized world – nearly every kind of creation of man’s brain and hand, existing anywhere, and prized either for its utility or beauty – had long been produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or any other in Asia. Her textile goods – the fine products of her looms, in cotton, wool, linen, and silk – were famous in the civilized world; so were her exquisite jewellery and her precious stones cut in every lovely form: so were her pottery, porcelains, ceramics of every kind, quality, color and beautiful shape: so were her fine works in metal – iron, steel, silver and gold,
She had great architecture – equal in beauty to any in the world. She had great engineering works. She had great merchants, great businessmen, great bankers and financiers. Not only was she the greatest shipbuilding nation, but she had great commerce and trade by land and sea which extended to all known civilized countries. Such was the India which the British found when they came.”
American historian and philosopher Will Durant , the author of The Story of Civilization (11 volumes) travelled across the world and on landing in India in 1930 was so appalled by English atrocities that he stopped his Story to write “The case of India” instead denouncing with acute sadness English voracity:
“The British conquest of India was the invasion and destruction of a high civilization by a trading company [the British East India Company] utterly without scruple or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain, over-running with fire and sword a country temporarily disordered and helpless, bribing and murdering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that of illegal and ‘legal’ plunder which has now [1930] gone on ruthlessly for one hundred and seventy-three years.”
He reports in awe and disgust what he saw and read about the “willful and deliberate bleeding of India” that he exposed as the “biggest crime in history”.
Fortunately there are many serious historians. They may not be in possession of all the documents; the stooges of the colonizers were nearly absolute masters and ‘compromising’ material would lead to their elimination in order to prevent ‘history’s judgement’. Outstanding among historians is Shashi Tharoor and his magnificent book “An era of Darkness” where I got the two preceding quotes from.
Where is rich industrial India? The countries that left her in tatters put up a snobbish look, moneyed and preaching ethics… humiliating the poor left in their wake, making senseless demands for a simple entry visa. An inconvenient question looms large: what is the foundation of Europe’s wealth? Where does it stem from? From plundering their colonies, India being a good case in point!
(The author is Professor of AESE-Business School and Director of AAPI-Friendship Association Portugal-India (Lisbon)
