Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sftri.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxm!sftig!sftri!rajeev From: rajeev@sftri.UUCP (S.Rajeev) Newsgroups: net.nlang.india Subject: Re: 'Jewel', British India, and us Message-ID: <381@sftri.UUCP> Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 22:30:52 EST Article-I.D.: sftri.381 Posted: Fri Mar 15 22:30:52 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 00:22:56 EST References: <374@sftri.UUCP> <1064@ihuxe.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit N.J. Lines: 65 > > ... In fact I wondered if the facts were > > grossly distorted, as has often been the case in reports and movies > > about India. I guess I had been conditioned by years of what might > > charitably be called British P.R. (after all they had gotten to > > write the history books and describe themselves as benevolent, if > > firm patriarchal figures) > > I'd just like to draw your attention to the fact that "Jewel" is a > British production. You know, those people who "describe themselves > as benevolent." > What should I be, grateful? I don't think so, for talking about them will not right any wrongs. To take admittedly extreme examples, should the Vietnamese feel "grateful" to Americans if an American film is made about My Lai? Jews to Germans for a German movie on Auschwitz? Native Americans for "Little Big Man"? The spate of Empire movies is not an act of contrition or sorrow. It's merely that in times of trouble, people look to a glorious past, and the British, with their country in decline, want to bask in the vicarious thrill of running an empire. Furthermore, there have been plenty of Empire movies before, e.g., 'Gunga Din', 'Lives of a Bengal Lancer', 'The Man Who Would Be King', that extolled the virtues of the colonists (the "benevolent", "P.R" stuff?). This reminds me of a couple of recent letters (to the NY Times and the Wall St. Journal) by Blimpish types who railed at the "distorted" views presented by 'Jewel' and yearned for the good old days of 'Gunga Din' etc. Good old days for some, I'm sure. > > ... and who do we get but the British, with an even more > > inhumane caste system and extreme colour-sensitivity > > That's a pretty large statement. Would you care to back it with some > _comparative_ evidence? I meant two things here: one, the class system among the British that denies opportunity to those who were born to the wrong parents, went to the wrong school, have the wrong accent, and so on. I have British friends who are resigned to never being 'somebody' because of their accents. This is certainly a pretty inhumane system in my view. Second, and more important, the British caste system in India did a) nothing to make our home-grown caste system less pernicious and b) anointed themselves the highest of the castes, and treated every Indian as an outcast. Top jobs were not open to Indians; nor were clubs, first class railway compartments, hospital beds... Not even to Indians who were knighted by the British crown. There were even cases of Indians dying because they were denied a bed in the "British ward" of a hospital, get this, built and operated out of Indian taxpayers' monies. I think you get the picture. I'd call this comparatively inhumane. As for colour-consciousness, please read any of the Empire books, by Paul Scott, Rudyard Kipling (Kim), John Masters (Bhowani Junction), some of Somerset Maugham's Malaya stories, or even any of the Agatha Christie books. Dame C. probably reflects her times well: her contempt for all foreigners is legendary, especially, and in increasing order of skin colour, the French, the Spanish, 'oily Levantines', Indians, Africans. Frankly, it gets tiresome after a while when Brits are astonished every time a person of dark aspect actually turns out to be a 'jolly good sort'. By the way, a disclaimer: I have no quarrels with Britons. In fact, to use the old bromide, one of my best friends is British. My tirades are directed towards the mythical colonial in a solar toupee ("I say, Cuthbertson, the natives are getting rather restless"). -- ...ihnp4!attunix!rajeev -- usenet ihnp4!attunix!rajeev@BERKELEY -- arpanet Sri Rajeev, SF 1-342, Bell Labs, Summit, NJ 07901. (201)-522-6330.