On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:13 AM, ravi <[email protected]> wrote: > would you agree that back in India you will still find upper-caste old men > ruing the day the British left? The East India Company did not gain > dominance, AFAIK, without the support of locals (by which I do not mean the > hapless sepoys and working class). While the example I offer is not > equivalent (to the imperialist state's people of colour supporting > imperialism), it negates your claim above.
Yes, India is still ruled by its old feudal upper-castes. And yes many Indians collaborated with the British. That's how a relatively small number of British mercenaries were able to control large parts of India by the 1850's. But lets think about this a bit: the Indian elites in the 18'th century did not have a racist "us against them" ideology unlike the British. That's is what made it possible for them to collaborate with the British and other European forces against their local rivals. They simply never had this idea of the white man as the "other" to the local "us". And this lack of a racist ideology is one of the reasons why the Mughals for instance never became a imperialist regime even at the height of their power. India in the 18'th century had (and still has) a largely non-capitalist society, so the category of "working class" is not that useful in my opinion. -raghu. -- Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
