Monday 2 April 2012

Two Sides of a Coin


I am studying about how the British rule over India all over again for some reason. It’s funny how you swear up and down after your 10th Board exams that you're not going to come even remotely close to any book that has Mahatma Gandhi written on it, let alone touch it. But, today when I read the same stuff I feel nostalgic and I actually enjoy reading about my country's history. It’s all about perspective, I guess.
Anyway, there are certain things that I notice now that had skipped my attention in the 10th Standard. Surely if the British were suppressing us so much, they must be justifying their actions to themselves somehow. A little bit of digging showed that Europeans believed that they were doing us a favour by ruling over us. They thought that we were unorganised, technologically incompetent and inefficient. By providing means of communication and transport they were selflessly helping us develop as a country.
No doubt, all of these things did help us and we wouldn't be where we are today as a country if they hadn't made certain contributions but Indian scholars posed very suitable questions, contradicting their theory: If their contribution was so selfless, why were they taking away so much revenue to England? And if we were so inefficient how were they able to take such large revenues?
What I want to say is that every coin has two sides. While, we comfort ourselves by claiming that were victims of the British rule, they comfort themselves by saying that they were doing us charity. There is truth in both perspectives. It depends on which you chose to interpret from.
But, then if we take this example, there is never be any concrete truth in the world. There will always be point-of views, opinions and different versions of truth. There is nothing black and white. It’ll always be grey.

No comments:

Post a Comment