These days I am getting an overdose of the “Goodness� of British rule in India, right from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to CEOs of some BPOs and fellow bloggers.

Here are some samples

This was published in Indian Express by Jaithirth Rao:

“I, for one, am grateful to Macaulay. Without his gift to us, so many of us would be lesser individuals, not just different individuals. I use the word “lesser� quite deliberately. English is not just a medium or a means to an end; it is part of our very consciousness.�

This person has touched the nadir in showing the servile attitude to Gora Sahibs!

What our own PM was stating at Oxford University “Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.�

It is obvious he has forgotten the same police, judiciary and legal system when Jallianwallah Bagh happened and General Dyre was exonerated!

First these champions of British rule should be provided with some stats:

====================
The British Empire was the world’s first global power and history’s largest Empire; by 1921, it held sway over a population of 500–600 million people — roughly a quarter of the world’s population — and covered about 15.1 million square miles (nearly 37 million square kilometres), roughly 35% of the world’s total land area.
================
Now some questions have to be answered by these Bhura Sahibs:

The British implemented almost the same pattern of education, governance, law, judiciary, police…….wherever they ruled. Then why not Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Uganda, Brunei….. have the similar virtues of British Empire? Roughly this world’s 52 or 53 countries had been BLESSED BY BRITISH RULE. Why not inheritors of Great Governance of these nations are shining example of freedom of press, upholders of democracy, champion of secularism, a super power in IT industry? Why these places are not producing world class professionals, writers, artists, technicians despite having the same education system? The great English education system!

The world’s 35% of the land area was under golden rule of British Empire, then why only India has consistently maintained the rule of democracy? Freedom of press? Secular Principals? Why we escaped the clutches of military rule and marshal law? Why only we have somewhat world class professional institutions? Why we have world class scientists? Why are we considered 6th nuclear power in the world? Why only our country keeps on sending indigenous satellites? Why we had Green Revolution?

Who has the time to ponder and think? Who has the inclination to read history and find out a common pattern of our lives? NOW We belong to a generation of mediocre people. (That keeps on manifesting itself in remix songs. Those suckers can’t produce anything remotely good of their own so they keep on lifting golden lyrics from the past era!) So our thinking too has become mediocre too. Otherwise it’s quite plain that the difference doesn’t lie in British rule or their education system.

It’s WE THE PEOPLE who had made all the difference. We never had a history of offering poison to our Socrates! We never termed Gautam Buddha, Lord Mahavira or Guru Nanak as infidels. We Indians never shied away from embracing new ideas, technology, religion or culture. So whenever we read Montesquieu, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Burke, Machiavelli, Marx or James Mill, we never felt threatened by their ideology or system. It never occurred to us that our Indian-ness was in danger or we will lose our identity!

So if the British rule seems good to some people, they should ponder a bit further and think why this system worked wonders for us and mostly failed in other countries.

Mohammad Iqbal has already put it succulently for us:

Kuch baat hai ki hasti mit-ti nahin hai hamari
Sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-re jahan hamara!

Today I was reading Sidhartha’s post. He was mourning the loss of his beloved teacher. I remembered that I had written a post on teachers too ages ago. I just wanted to repost it.
==================

I think a lot about this profession called teaching. Most of the present herds of teachers are in this profession, but not by choice. Imagine, if most of us are provided with choices of being an engineer, doctor, software professional, a corporate yuppie or a mere teacher, what will be our choice? You don’t have to be very creative to visualize the respect an engineer, a doctor, a software professional get from family, society, future in-laws and current and ex – would be-s and could be-s.

I had to carry out a survey among the various schoolteachers for a project. I was busy preparing the questionnaire. Suddenly I thought of this question, ” If you were given a chance to choose your profession again, what would be your choice?” I had to show the questionnaire and subsequent result to my project leader. I was secretly happy with the list of questions I had on my register. This particular question was my favorite. I was eager to see the response. And more than that how my Project leader would sum up my findings.

Ok, the due date was coming nearer. All of us behaved like schoolchildren with our project leader. If he was about to take our class, and we tried to squeeze in some drops of water down our throat in scorching heat of Rajasthan, and he entered the class a few minutes earlier, we happily forgot our thirst. Quenching thirst was not worth it. Our parched throats could wait. We ran back to the class.

Well the due date had arrived. I was armed with my findings. He started to discuss the final results. It seemed a long wait. What the heck! My name starts with A?. Why was he taking so much time? Suspense was building up inside me. For the first time I was experiencing the feeling of “butterflies in my stomach”. Finally it seemed that my name was being spoken.
He asked the whole class, “Can you figure out how many persons one would meet in his / her teaching career, if it covers a period of mere 20 years?
The class was busy finding out statistics. One
“Sir we need more data.”
“Ok if a teacher takes 5 classes everyday. And each class consists of at least 50 children?”
“Sir, 250 persons everyday!”
“In which job, you think a person comes in contact with so many impressionable minds?”
Dumb silence!
“See, a teacher really has the power to leave impression on so many young minds. Nobody, in any profession, comes across such a large number of unadulterated minds for prolong period.”

For the first time I realized, in this profession you are not dealing with products, codes, text files, documents or machines. You are not coming in contact with any damn inanimate object! You are getting the opportunity to write on a blank slate. Just imagine, how many lives you are going to deal with? You are entering in a frail world. The echo of every careless action will be heard till eternity! Tread on this path delicately.