Andrew on India

Andrew is joined by James and Mia to talk about the history of India.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to it could happen here once again,
posted by myself Andrew from the YouTube channel andrewism as
we talked about whatever and whatever in question is the
second most populous country in the world, and one potential
vision for its future drawn from its anti clunial past.

(00:26):
Are speaking, of course about India, a sub concern from
which I draw a good portion of my heritage, and
when I boasts over nine thousand years of recorded history
and roughly fifty years of knowing human settlement, India is
an incredibly diverised country ethnically, linguistically, religiously and otherwise. But

(00:50):
unfortunately it has suffered much of the same fate that
the rest the world has fallen free to the rapacious
appetite of British clunialism. Well, historically, the Indian local economy
was dependent upon the most productive and sustainable agriculture and horticulture,

(01:11):
and of course pottery and food and Jamaican jewelry was
very well known for jewelry, and in fact Indian jewelry
makers ended up starting some very successful jewelry businesses when
they were freed from indentionship in Trinidad Um. They also
got involved in leather work and a lot of other

(01:31):
economic activities in India. Um, but the basis of India
has traditionally, historically, you know, for thousands of years been textiles,
different types of tex styles. Each village had its spinners
and carters and dyers and weavers who were of course
at the hearts of that village's economy. But an interesting

(01:52):
outcome of British cleanism in India has been the flooding
of India with the machine made, inexpensive, mass produced textiles
from Lancashire during you know, in brit terms Industrial Revolution.
The local textile artists were very quickly put out to
business and village economies suffered very terribly. So I mean,

(02:13):
you know, well, I think we're familiar with this sort
of general story. Smaller cottage industries became overrun by you know,
mass production. And of course I don't mean to sound
like I'm entirely demonizing mass production, just describing what has happened.
Of course, mass production has had its many benefits in

(02:35):
providing access to resources and two products many different people.
But of course it's also had its many drawbacks, including
you know, the share environmental impact as well as the
impact on people, um. You know, as Mark spoke about,
of um, their alienation from the process of production, as

(02:59):
the industrial system basically separated each step in the process
of production two different workers, and so no one had
a hand in the production of a product and start
to finish. And of course that that had significant social
and I would also assume mental impact on the people

(03:20):
with you know, that whole era of British economic imperialism
happening India. The changes that took place within a generation
was so rapid, you know, your headwards spin, that evolution
of you know, the India home economy. It was really
a site to behold. And another element of British economic

(03:42):
imperialist on British imperialism more broadly was the introduction of
British education under colonial rule in the eighteenth century. UM.
When Lord McCaulay introduced the Indian Education Act in the
British Parliament, UM, he said, and I quote, a single
shelf of a good European library was with the whole

(04:03):
native literature of India. Neither as a language of the law,
nor as a language of religion, has a sand script
any particular claim to our engagement. We must do our
best to former class of persons Indian in blood and color,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.
So the typical racism, typical white pants, burt and typical

(04:26):
you know. Um, of course this phrase was used in
a North American Indigenous American context, but I believe the
phrase is taking the Indian out of the man. Yeah,
kill the Indians, save the man, right. Um, So it's
kind of interesting. It's a different type of Indian talking
about there, but that sort of idea still applies. And

(04:48):
really that sort of sentiment is something that has existed
throughout the history of communism, something that you know, is
seen in all of Britain's former colonies. Because Monster's Aim
was put into Parliament and pushed forward, it was pursued
with the mine to the British Raj. All the traditional
schools that took place in different village communities were gradually

(05:11):
replaced by colonial schools and universities. Of course, take advantage
of the cast and class system that was in place
in India prior to their arrival. The British would have
selected wealth year Indians to be sensed the public schools
such as Eton and Harew and universities like Oxford and Cambridge,
and those Indians that you know, they learned English poetry,

(05:32):
English law, English customs, to the neglect of their own culture.
You know, it's like why read the classics of the
Vedas when you have Shakespeare and the London Times. And
so having been raised in that environment, having grown up,
having basically their minds colonized from the crib, they began

(05:53):
to see their own cultures as backward, uncivilized, old fashioned,
regressive and again and something you see all over the world.
You sort in the residential schools, you see it in
the schools in the Caribbean, and you see it in
schools in Africa. Basically everywhere they colonized went Um. They
would take a generation, they were take generations of young people,

(06:15):
and they would develop that self hatred um not the
stained for their own culture by you know, positioning um,
their education, British education, as you know, superior. In fact,
during the process of decolonization could and quote um of
you know, formal political independence. So many of the former

(06:37):
colonies of Britain, particularly in the Caribbeans, that's way most
familiar Um. A lot of the people who became you know,
the fullest prime ministers of the country, the one that
would establish the trajectory of the country for years of
decades to come. UM thinking of people like Bustamante and Jamaica,
Eric Williams, Dr Ric Williams, in Trance people, UM, among others.

(07:01):
Basically all of the fullest prime ministers basically every single
Caribbean country. They had all been educated UM in English schools,
in English universities, in well in the prestige schools of
their countries. Didn't end up being flown out to writain
itself and they basically became the rulers, became the leaders.

(07:27):
Um were handed power over by the British to basically
rule in their stead. Of course, with all the talk
of finally independence, UM people got caught up in that
energy of political independence and freedom from the control of
the British after all the decades and centuries of struggle.

(07:49):
But unfortunately it proved I believe to be a rules
as very little changed for the average person in the
years post political independence. Yeah, this is something that Phnan
talks about UM in in the sort of Francophone context
of like even even in countries you have like Atward,

(08:10):
you know that the colonizers are thrown up actual revolutions.
You get this class of like like lawyers and intellectuals
who are like have been educated like in imperialist powers
or in sort of their schools, who wind up as
like the first generation of of post independence leaders. And
those people, like you know what, whether they want to

(08:31):
or not, end up sort of like reflecting the sort
of values and political positions of like of the form
of colonial powers. And there's this whole sort of dynamic
that like, I feel like, I feel like this is
the part of Penon that people don't read very much.
But that's about how these leaders sort of like lose

(08:53):
touch with it with the sort of like anti colonial masses,
and how they sort of like wind up reincorporating their
country back into sort of colonialism. Yeah. Yeah, that's really
how you see that new clonal dynamic developing UM. And
it's really it's hard to tell retrospectively whether these leaders
thought they were actually you know, anti colonial, or if

(09:16):
they knew that they were you know, carrying on a
particular legacy. But I find that because is only UM
only recently celebrated just last year sixty years of independence.
There of course people who were alive prior to independence,
and so you find a lot of the older generation
how they how some of them speak, particularly the more

(09:37):
educated ones, how they carry themselves, or they dress, the
attitudes their spouses very much like to get any kind
of respect in their time, you had to behave to me,
had to present yourself to me, and to present yourself
in a as approximate to Britishness as possible, the whole
you know, conversation of respectability, politics and stuff. So I

(09:59):
have understanding of what they had to go through and
where they're coming from when they hold onto these perspectives
still because that's what they grew up in. But there
really is a shame that they've been holding back progress
for so long now because they still hold onto these
deeply conservative, deeply religious, deeply reactionary ideas that were just

(10:22):
you know, they just inplicated within the education system and
in the cultural pygeist of their time. I was just
when May was talking about Fan, I was thinking as
well about like, have you read a book called Beyond
the Boundary by seller James Andrew. I haven't because it's
about cricket and I'm not too integrated cricket. But I've been. Um.

(10:46):
I know it's an iconic and that's I think he
explains a lot of it very well. I think people
could read it even if they don't. Like I'm not
a big cricket person, but it's certainly one of the
best sports books I've read, maybe one of the best books.
And he doesn't he put a lot of bangers in
his time. Yeah, he did have some bangs, highly recommended. Yeah,

(11:11):
if you don't want to read about cricket. He also
talks about this in The Crewmen and the Ghana Revolution. Yeah,
but it's not about cricket. It's more of an autobiography,
like seen through the lens of his his cricket, I think.
But yeah, it's cool because I know he spent a
lot of time he grew up of course born readers

(11:31):
and stuff. I'm truing that, so be interested to see
um sort of if he talks about his political development,
how battery was in his time in Ta, yeah, I
think he does. It's been a while since I've read it,
but I think he talks about like how he sort
of saw himself constituted a colonial subject, like through his
experiences interacting with British people on one of the places

(11:55):
where the terrains where he did encountered them, I guess
was playing cricket because great, yes, of course, and you know,
thankfully we've come to decimate them at their own game
as usual. It's true. Yeah, yeah, And even like English

(12:15):
cricket at a certain point, like getting really into cricket,
which I know it's a diversion, but like they had
rules where you could only have a certain number of
international players playing for each English county. It's extremely like
if you look at how the Empire constituted White Us
through sport, and like who was allowed to play rugby,
which is a touching sport, and who was allowed to
play cricket, which which isn't normally a touching sport like

(12:37):
it did. It's racist as fun. Yeah, I mean, of
course it's hilarious in sports history. Sorry for the cricket diversion. Sorry,
please continue. It's entirely fine. I see, it's all Greek
to me because I don't know what any of those
points or numbers or anything means um to many different

(12:58):
types of cricket. I mean, I've had trying to explain
to me be for it's just the fine thing. Um,
I know, people who play it though, so you know,
good for them at all. But back to India, right,
If there's one particular person in India's history that really

(13:20):
represented to this type of Western educated, colonized subject trying
to be something bigger than that kind of mentality, it
was Jawaharlal Never who became the first Prime minister after independence.
Nu of course sought to promote the industrialization of India,
not be a capitalist route, but by more of a

(13:41):
centralized plane and route, which is why if you look
at the India India's constitution, you will see that it's
refers to itself as a socialist country. Yeah. Actually, really,
if I'm remembering right, neighbor was like he was like
a Fabian socialist or something. Yeah, yeah, be his inspiration.
His inspiration came from the intellectuals of the London School

(14:01):
of Economics and the Phobian society. So yeah, he's quite
the character. You see the sort of direction that he
ends up putting the country. And I mean even today,
India in many ways continues to be ruled in the
English way without English rulers. Um, just like in the
Caribbean continues to be ruled in the English way. Without

(14:24):
English rulers in Africa, you know, the various countries have
been ruling their various colonize and powers way rather than
in their own way without the colonizes rulers. The other
colonizing rulers. UM. The industrialists, the intellectuals, the entrepreneurs, all
of them are working with the government to see the
salvation of India taking place in a subordination to the world.

(14:49):
Back can the I M F from the G A
T T. You know, they see India as part of
this global economy, meant to submit into sue to moultinary
no corporations. UM. But of course the people of India
UH not to please in the people of India suffering
under the brunt of that um. After seeing the failures

(15:12):
of of course the Congress Party under Nehru and his
daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. Um, the
poor continues to be poor than ever the middle classes
and tuning towards uh just say certain directions. UM. And

(15:35):
of course, as we've seen in the past few years,
the farmers have been agitating against various pressures. They've been
placed under things kind of stuff and it was pretty
much how Mahatma Gandhi predicted that it would because, unlike

(15:57):
Nehru and unlike other western that he here to think
of his time, UM, Gandhi thought differently about what India's
potential could be, what it looked like. And that's part
of the reason they killed him. And I must preface
this discussion of Gandhi's vision of a free India by noting,

(16:19):
of course that Gandhi himself was a very flawed person. Um,
you know, racist, sexist, Um, pretty sure he assaulted somebody,
He did some very um fucked up stuff to his knees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just well, we leave it at that. But I

(16:40):
mean that's not something you can put aside, so something
to be cognizant of. But one of the aspects of
UM his time on this planet UM had been his
development of a sort of a vision of a free India,
not as a nation state, but as a confederation of

(17:00):
self governance, self reliance, self employed people living in village
communities deriving their right livelihood from the products of their homesteads.
It would have been a sort of bottom up system
where the power to decide what could be important into
or expert from the village where economic and political power

(17:20):
all I mean in the hands of village assemblies, where
people in these village assemblies, in these communities would continue
to live in relative how many with their surroundings with
They would continue to weave their homespun clothes, eat their
home and grown food, use their home made goods, care

(17:41):
for their animals, their forests and their lands, take care
of the fertility of the soil, enjoy the home grown
stories and epics of India, and continue to build their
temples and appreciate their various regional distinctive cultures. This were
is meant to be the system, the practice the idea

(18:05):
of the philosophy of Swedeshi, which is a conjunction of
two Sanskrit words Swa which meeting self or own and
desh meaning country, Swadeshi as an adjective meaning of one's
own country. According to the principle of Swadeshi, the idea
is that whatever has made or produced in a village

(18:26):
must be used first and foremost by the members of
that village. So I mean there could be traded and
collaboration between villages and communities, but Gandhi thought it should
be minimal, like sort of an ice and on the
cake um goods and services to him was something that
should have been generated within the community. The things that

(18:46):
needed to be used by the community should be created
in that community. Another influential, perhaps the most influential aspect
of Swadeshi and Swadeshi philosophy, took place in the early
twenty tieth century as a direct fallout the decision of
the British India governments to partition Bengal. The use of

(19:09):
Swedeshi goods or the goods that are produced and made
in India buy and he here for Indians and the
boycott of foreign made goods were among the two main
objectives of the Swadeshi movement, and so the boycott resolution
ended up being passed in the City Hall in August
seven nine four UM boycott in the use of Manchester

(19:29):
cloth and sold from Liverpool in the district to barrisl
The masses adopted the message of boycotts of formad goods
and the value of the British cloth sool. They have
fell very rapidly. Various songs and cultural works ended up
being produced in the time UM to sort of bolster
the movement. At one point, one English cloths were burned

(19:54):
as part of the boycott, and the symbol of caddies spinners,
the sort of tool that was used to weave cloth
to we've fibers to create theon, became a major force
in the movement and the representation of the movement. I

(20:16):
think I get what you're saying, like, we can all
benefit from a little specialization and the like improvements that
that brings, while still sort of acknowledging that autonomy is desirable. Yeah,
I think there needs to be some some balance between
you know, autonomy and seft reliance and that kind of thing,
and also collaboration. I think he goes a bit too

(20:36):
much in that autonomy direction, But in the context of
when these ideas being developed, it's sort of understandable because, um,
in this time, you know, the self reliance of the
people as being vastly eroded, people being forced into you know, cities,
they've lost their livelihoods, um, and they were there was

(21:01):
a sort of developing reliance and the global economy. Whereas
as she proposes a you know, India avoids economic dependence
on external market forces that create these vulnerabilities and communities
that end up um, you know, really harming the members
of that community, so that she's meant to avoid the

(21:23):
unhealthy and wasteful environmental destructive transportation of goods um between communities,
avoiding the excessive emissions that would cause UM, and promoting,
of course, the development of a strong economic base to
satisfy the needs of the community, to satisfy the uh

(21:44):
local production consumption, so that she is kind of about
both creating a self reliant India and also creating self
reliant villages within India, so that each village is a
microcosum of the greater in a web of sort of
a distributed, decentralized web of loosely interconnected communities. In a

(22:19):
time where the British were promoting the centralized, industrialized and
mechanized mode of production, Gandhy was turning to the principle
of decentralized, home, crowd and handcrafted modes of production h
rather than mass production production by the masses. I think
there was also a spiritual component of the idea of Sweeshi,

(22:41):
because at the time Gandhy was not a fan of
the idea that people were not using their hands to produce.
The idea that you know, everyone should be involved in
some kind of um trade or skill of some kind
that utilizes their hands because of you know, the whole
spiritual component of using the body that you have fully

(23:05):
and another aspect of the spirituality. So that she was
of course, the idea of this locally based community enhancing
a community spirit, community relationships, and community well being, an
economy that actively encourages mutual aid, that encourages the principle
of care between families, neighbors, animals, lands, forestry, natural resources

(23:28):
for present and future generations. It's, uh, there confrontation of
the driving force between mass production which Gandhi so has
this cult of the individual, where there must be to
expandsion of the economy of global scale uh and expand
the consumption production of the sake of economic growth out

(23:51):
of a desire for the individual's personal whims, for the
desire for you know, personal and corporate profit. Another reason,
of course, that Gandhi rallied against this idea of mass
production and promoting into the production for the masses by

(24:12):
the masses. It's because mass production leads people leave in
their villages, they land their crafts and their homesteads to
go work in factories where they became cogs in a
machine standing in a conveyor belt, living in enchanty towns,
and dependence upon the movies see the bosses. And of course,
as those bosses gained access to more efficient technologies because

(24:35):
they were constant in pursuit of greater productivity in this
creative profit, the masters of this economy, you know, they
want more efficient machines working faster, and so they want
less people. We can those machines as so the result
was that the people who had to move to these
cities to working these factories we eventually thrown out when

(24:55):
they were no longer considered useful and became and joined
the millions of unemployed, you know, rootless, job less people
in uh Indian society. Sweeter, she instead encourages the idea
that the machine should be something that subordinates the worker,

(25:16):
but instead something that is subordinated to the worker, that
it doesn't become the master, but instead it is mastered
and allows us to orchestrate our own pace of you know,
human activity. It's not that Sweeter, Sweaters, she is necessarily
against automation, against technological development, but it's more so that

(25:37):
it aims to circumvent the harms that could be caused
by such technology as being out of the control of
the people themselves and in the control of the select
private few. I think swear that she has a sort
of an element of glorification of the past. Um. They

(26:01):
weren't doing my research for this episode. I ended up
looking into um of course, the writings of proponentsswether she
um and people discussing Andy's thoughts on the subject. And
I'll just quote one particular passage. So what as she
is the way to comprehensive peace, peace with oneself, peace

(26:25):
between peoples, and peace with nature. The global economy drives
people toward high performance, high achievement, and high ambition from
materialistic success. This results in stress, loss of mening, loss
of in a peace, loss of space for personal and
family relationships, and loss of spiritual life. Gandhi realized in
the past life in India was not only prosperous but

(26:46):
also conducive to philosophical and spiritual development, so that she,
for Gandhi, was a spiritual imperative. I think it's understandable
that a de colonial project would attempt to develop a
pride in the history of the people who have gone

(27:09):
through so much UM and you know their legacy and
their traditions and their ideas. But I think it's a
bit of a stretch to um glorify h India's past
and and precluling your past in such a respect. I
don't think any people's freakling your past should be excessively

(27:34):
glory glorified or um like mythologiized. Mythologized, Yeah, romanticized, because
I feel as though one that clouds our judgments UM
and a critical eye for the aspects of past societies
that do do it need to be challenged, do need

(27:56):
to be changed? Um? I think that's part of my
issue is with A. She is this idea that you know,
if things just go back to uh, these sorts of
villages and village community, is that everything else that would
just be okay. But of course there were other issues
that Inky was teeing with, even priortic colonization, you know,

(28:16):
in terms of sexism, in terms of the control of
the cast system and the higher casts, UM, and the
other aspects of Indian society that of course we made
um more surveyor by British communism. Colorism, I think is

(28:38):
one of those issues that of course existed practical colonization
but was made worse by the British and their presence
in the subcontinent. But I think striking that balance of
uh cleaning, learning from respecting that um, that prequeling the past,
but also in art equal in our projects, not excessively
romanticizing the past in an effort to progress towards the future.

(29:03):
These days, I believe sweet actually is most known for
its focus on protect protectionism. It's the staining you foreign
important investment. But it was of course a very wide
spanning philosophy. It was a vision um and a philosophy
of life that Gandhi held his entire life. That's i
It's not something that I was familiar with prior to

(29:25):
looking into it and my continued pursuit of decluding your
perspectives and explorations of various post cludon projects and philosophies.
But it's something that I've appreciated, despite my criticisms or
some aspects of it. Asked about all I have FIOL today.

(29:47):
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(30:08):
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