1757- East of the Cape of Good Hope
Page 29
The British enjoyed a fat century, a very rich period of prosperity, borne by the loot of India. No wonder their Queen called India a Jewel in the Crown. Pakistan was carved by splitting up Punjab and merging Baluchistan, Sindh and NWFP (Northwest Frontier Province) provinces to the western wing. The Eastern wing was carved out of the state of Bengal. NWFP was a frontier lawless state, as it is today and it was administered directly by the British through her Viceroy in India, Sindh, basically a desert region, was spared the civil strife, and Baluchistan was a remote territory, sparsely populated and ruled by the warlords.
Pakistan was hardly viable economically. In that caldron of heterogeneity and mayhem, Pakistan was not expected to function and it has not since its inception. It has been varyingly ruled by failed civilian leaders or by military dictators aided and abetted by the West. Afghanistan and the Pakistan’s nuclear bomb have added to the witch’s brew. Economically, it has been on life support from the World Bank who has injected the country with funds multiple times to balance its budget. After the 1971war with India, Pakistan broke up and Bangladesh emerged from the ruins of East Pakistan.
Britain left a legacy of poverty so appalling that even after sixty years, India is still the one hundred and fifty first poorest nations on Earth. Mahatma Gandhi summed it well. He said that ‘we have to wipe the tears from the eyes of every Indian’, and there were three hundred and fifty million pair of those eyes.
India was a broken state. Food supply was scarce. Refuse and garbage accumulated in streets, clean water was a rarity. Towns, cities and villages suffered from tropical and pathogenic diseases. Malaria, typhoid, cholera, small pox and other virulent fevers were common. The population died young. People had nothing to look forward to. The litany of failures included: Mass poverty, hunger, unemployment, illiteracy, social injustice, low life expectancy, infant mortality, and little healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, no roads, no industry, little power generation and no access to elementary education. India’s literacy was only seventeen percent. Worst of all, no money; a bankrupt and a derelict state. Life expectancy was just thirty-two years.
June 23, 1757, a day of deceitful triumph for Britain, also a day barely known in India, using President Roosevelt’s words will live in infamy. The innocence of India was violated by the British, who were welcomed there so that they could make a living, while the British continuously planned to rob India of her treasures and fortune. India was at peace with the World, never coveted anyone’s money or territories and in that serene state of mind, never suspected the British motives. Britain has avoided India’s rage because the British have very cleverly concealed their dastardly act of raping and denuding the entire wealth of India, in order to avoid the day of reckoning and the return of the stolen wealth.
The present day reality in India is troubling because the Indians do not know their history. Whatever history they know was given to them by the British, a fabricated story of falsehood, a story of brazen lies of self- sacrifice and altruistic reasons. George Santayana said that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Indians today are ignorantly repeating their sorry history by opening itself to the same forces in the disguise of Free Market Capitalism, which is also called vulture capitalism and sadly India is on a path to regrettably rue the same outcome. Money remains at the nerve center of all the dealings of the free market capitalists and right or wrong, fair or foul, holy or profane, they will deceive to make money. The recent fraudulent dealings, the Libor scandal, Iran money laundering, and the London whale scandal and so on show that nothing has changed with the free market capitalism and their greed and the Indians will have to ponder and accept that reality before they can ever change it.