ways in which colonization snags us all

In December 2015, I visited Andaman and Nicobar. As is the norm, we did the touristy thing of going to the Cellular Jail on Port Blair. Walking around the complex I saw this diorama showing a prisoner being punished. Our tour-facilitator explained that the prisoner being punished in the scene is a political prisoner. When the political prisoners did not meet their quota of labor at the Cellular Jail they were punished, sometimes by lashings. The lashings were administered not by white british soldiers but by other indian prisoners. The jailor would look for prisoners who were sent to the jail not for political dissent but for other crimes (such as murder, dacoity, etc) to be the administrators of these punishments, giving them incentives of better prison conditions. What made me think about the scene is that it is one indian punishing another indian:

If we look at the history of colonization, these scenes will abound. Who killed the people at Jalianwala Bagh massacre? The person who is reviled in india is general dyer for that massacre and it is true that he led the massacre; but the majority of soldiers under dyer’s command were indians. indians served in the civil service for the british, collected taxes, fought wars, killed and oppressed other indians. The british could not have held india without the help of indians (both the rulers who were feudal oppressors themselves; and the indians who colluded with the colonizing powers and participated in the oppressive structures of government set up). to be clear: i am not “blaming” them for at some level what difference did it make to a person to be a ruthless tax collector for the mughals, or marathas, or the british. At the micro-social level, there was no difference in the work. At the macro-level it helped maintain 200 years of colonial rule in india.

de-colonization, then, would mean actively resisting the incentives gained through participating in systems that are oppressive at the macro-ethical scale.

The crash of 2008, that devastated lives and was the much needed shock of bringing income inequality to public consciousness, would not have been “better” if the wall street bankers, real estate speculators, and corrupt hedge fund managers would have been black or brown or women instead of mainly rich, cis-het, white men.

It gives me no comfort that an “inclusive” army means that now queer folks can be responsible for killing other human beings (including other queer folks of color) at the behest of the colonizing/imperialist march of the US.

Sure, these do constitute incremental progress. If the wall street has to exist, I’d much rather that it is more diverse. If our government maintains an effective “economic” draft, I’d much rather that queer soldiers not have to bear the additional burden of hiding their identity. But real progress n come from confronting and questioning the practices themselves.

A lot of rhetoric around “inclusion and diversity” within education leaves untouched the target of what people are being asked to participate in. The notion is that that the system becomes better just through more diverse bodies participating in the system. decolonization, then would mean rejecting that rhetoric to say that any such effort to diversity/make-inclusive a discipline will need to be accompanied by a critical examination of what it is that the people are being asked to participate in. If I assume that the technocratic, meritocratic system of education that currently exists is actually serving the imperialist and colonialist enterprise, then I got to challenge that system not just diversify it.

It does raise some issues: for those who are already marginalized does it not place additional burden to now question the system, where being able to rise up in the system might have provided some respite?

One part of my mind goes to sympathize with the indian prisoner who chose to punish another indian prisoner at the behest of the british, in order to find a modicum of respite from the terrible prison conditions imposed on himself.

The other part says that such collusion maintains the system.

I wonder of practical de-colonizing would argue finding a way to balance: sustaining within the oppressive system in order to continue challenging it …

Originally published at http://blog.umd.edu on June 8, 2017.