RamaY ji, was this what you wanted?
Quote:
Keerthivasan wrote
"Second and more importantly, it will destroy the class of Indians that developed as a legacy of collaboration with British imperialism and colonialism. The obvious strategic weakening brought about by the USA in the long run will get associated to the last remnants of this class currently dominating the ruling elite of India. This in turn will help destroy its hold. "
- Can't understand this Brihaspati ji. Can you please explain with examples?
If we look at the way British imperialism consolidated its hold on the subcontinent, one crucial factor stands out - they were consistently helped by certain sections of Indians to undermine, bypass or overthrow pre-existing regimes and rashtryia systems. The process is complex, with many twists and turns, and describing it perhaps is an attempt at listing the incidents of collaboration over almost 400 years (starting with the first modern significant European enterprise of the type we are talking about in Vasco's expedition to the deep south - where the local "rajah" eagerly welcomed him to play essentially mercantile politics in breaking the Arab monopoly. As far as I know, this "royal house" still proudly displays "gifts" and "tokens of appreciation" from Vasco's side - forget what Vasco and his successor "governors" unleashed on Indians they fell upon, and no one even feels the shame in not condemning this "royal house" for its display of pride in the "association").
However, we do see a pattern. Perhaps the same pattern that allowed the vicious cycle of arguments that led to the presence of the Arab mercantile interests who in their turn introduced and provided the infrastructure for Islamic invasions. This was something like - we were not present in the Arabian sea trade, (or we could not or did not or chose not to or our priests forbade us - does anyone remember the cliche excuse of "I was late for the office because my wife ran away this morning with the milkman"?), but we needed Arabian (read western) products desperately, so we let them come and settle and intermingle, and breed with the locals and set up their religious institutions (although we proudly proclaim our immense and loud presence at the very same time in the eastern Indian Ocean maritime activity, but fall silent on why we retreated from the west) which in their turn served as informational and support networks for later invasions. But because they came and delivered all that we needed, we did not need to go out and enforce our own presence and dominance in their "homelands". And because we did not do that we were not present in the Arabian Sea trade.
Thus we find that a certain mercantile mentality facilitated invaders, and fostered collaborators. I am here distinguishing between "mercantile mentality" and "mercantilism". In the mercantile mentality, everything is a marketable, auctionable and tradeable quantity - your country, your society, your family, your wife, children, parents, siblings, ideology, your fellow men and women, the resources of your land and society - everything. Mercantilism on the other hand deals primarily with what we normally consider trade goods of pure consumption, and in spite of exceptions, typically and normally is not associated with human cargo, the rashtra, or ideological commitments.
The reasons why such a mentality developed in India is perhaps OT. But we can definitely see the effects in the Muslim invasions and the European invasions. Look at how the British progressed in India. Charnock, Clive, were all helped by locals. They did it from personal mercantile interests, which at least for some of them also definitely extended to the "mercantile mentality". The latter group, not only sold cotton or dyes or fine linen, but they also sold their loyalties, their local regimes, and their own people. Part of it was definitely local politics and jealousies. Many non-Muslims collaborated with the British in Muslim over-ruled areas perhaps as an obvious means of getteing even with perceived injustices. But by the same token we do not expect a "Nizam" in the South to collaborate with the British at the same time a "Hindu" Maratha force is also collaborating to finish off a fellow "Muslim" opposing the British. So in general we do find that there is a consistent pattern of sections of Indian society collaborating with an outside invading force to settle old internal scores, or gain pre-eminence over fellow Indians who are seen as rivals for the same status and positions.
It was such a class, including the ancestors of many a later "patriot", (like the famous one who sided with the British against Indians in the first war of Independence, and whose "shining sun" "royal scion" descendant now graces the party which claims to have brought about Indian Indpependence by its sole inititiative and primarily under the leadership of two individuals) who primarily made the British empire in India possible. This not only included elements from the then elite but also middle sections (the service sector and professionals) who latched on to the opportunities provided to bypass glass ceilings, by the British in their need to weaken and breakdown older regimes resistant to British charm.
It is the last remnants of this class (represented by the mentality of readiness to trade with one's own country, preople, society and ideology, if it benefits or protects self-interest), whose primary vision had become collaboration with "white Europe" as a means of survival and enhancing self-interest, that is still in power. They have been forced to collaborate now with the USA, and it is apparently not a big jump for them, because for most of them USA still represents the latest inheritor of the Anglo-Saxon legacy - therfore worth licking the boots. Their mistake is the fundamental error in realizing that the USA has moved beyond colour based identities, has shown therefore that it has found better means of dominating the world and extract consumption value from others - than the old European tribal paranoia transformed into colour based racism. USA realizes that racism itself can become a barrier to further consumption, but the remnant Anglophile class of India does not realize that yet. This represents a fundamental shift, if not a complete break with the old British Imperialist and Anglo-Saxonic mindset for USA.
As outlined in the previous post, USA's attempts to keep the Indian horse in check, will lead to an imbalance of alignment and inefficiency in the five horse team. Because the effects of this will be seen to have come under the mediation of this Brit-phile class, and both will be seen to be an obstacle to aspirations that will initially be generated as a result of "recognition" by the USA - future generations will feel it necessary to discard both.
