A coloniser by any other name

The other day, a news article caught my eye. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat, talking about the coronavirus pandemic, said that India has done very well when it comes to containing the pandemic. As a study in contrast, he suggested America, so powerful, so much in the forefront of medical services, the country which ruled India for 200 years yet failing to control coronavirus.

Huh? What? All the meme factories went into overdrive, of course, and the Twitterati had a field day, heaping scorn on poor Mr Rawat for his dodgy knowledge of history. I think this is all unwarranted. There is so much to be said in Mr Rawat’s defence, I hardly know where to start.

For one, look at the public good he’s doing. Think of the thousands, worried sick about the pandemic, to whom he provided solace and hope with his words. If Amreeka is faltering, and India is doing well (if Mr Rawat says India is doing well, so be it)… well, all’s well. Just the very thought that we’re outdoing the US is comforting. It’s as good as a month’s worth of thali-banging to cheer you up. While talking of the people he cheered up thus, one must also not forget the many thousands who got a good laugh out of that pronouncement. As any good doctor will tell you, laughter is the best medicine.

Then, take a moment to see it from Mr Rawat’s point of view. These days, things being how they are, it’s not wise to allow yourself to be mistaken for a historian. Show that you know your history, and the next thing you know, people will think you’re Ramachandra Guha or Romila Thapar, and then you’ll be trolled and hounded and sued. Better to show you’re part of the gang that believes in ancient India being the home of plastic surgery, aeroplanes, and the Internet; better to rewrite history than parrot it blindly.

And, all said and done, how can you blame the poor man? One Western, English-speaking, predominantly white (at least to the distant, none-too-aware eye) country is very much like another. Add to that the fact that India overflows with American brands, TV series, and so on: we are more familiar with Coca-Cola, Big Bang Theory, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut than we are with Robinson’s Fruit Shoot, Bella Italia, or Life on Mars. India does feel more like a former colony of the US than of the UK.

There’s also the startling resemblance between this utterance and one of ex-US President Donald Trump’s many bizarre distortions of history. Is that, or is it not, perhaps an indication of the result of American colonisation?

Madhulika Liddle

Novelist and short story writer

Twitter: @authormadhulika