CHINA AND INDIA -- CONTRASTING RESPONSE TO A COLONISED PAST

CHINA AND INDIA -- CONTRASTING RESPONSE TO A COLONISED PAST

The Chinese consider their hundred year humiliation at foreign hands, the Opium Wars waged on them and the occupation and colonial exploitation of their motherland by Europe, USA and Japan as unforgivable sins which they must duly pay back through their national resurgence. Chinese students are taught this history in no uncertain terms in schools and universities. Thus, they grow up to be patriotic and nationalistic in nature. India, on the other hand, has suffered a far worse humiliation under alien occupation, colonial exploitation, cultural desecration and, eventually, geographical dismemberment but Indians have been made to remain blissfully ignorant about the savageries perpetrated against their forefathers by these dastardly elements of Europe and West Asia. We have been colonised mentally so severely that we have lost our national identity, our individuality and self-respect as a nation with the colonial hangover remaining as a mushrooming cloud right above our heads obscuring heritage and civilisation from our colonised perspectives.

The Chinese child is never allowed to forget that his forefathers have been treated like dogs by the British, that Britain and USA have plundered Chinese wealth by waging opium war on them, that Japan has molested China savagely. No, he is never allowed to forget these past realities with present consequence still. The Chinese do not pander to appeasing the minorities for electoral ends for their one-Party communist system does not need such appeasement for survival. They do not allow the proliferation of proselytising Islam and Christianity and put a ban on all such activities that can subvert the growth of their country into the superpower they have been for thousands of years. Human rights violations are rampant no doubt in China with Uighur Muslims being given the death deal by the government but everything is done to lift the country's 1.44 billion people out of poverty to a life of decent existence with Chinese culture, heritage, tradition and civilisation being the hallmark of everything that shall be allowed to shine in the renascent nation's efflorescent future. If Islam comes in the way, it must go. If Christianity seeks western dominance of China, it must be marginalised. If communism itself stands in the way of national resurgence, it must be modified to Chinese needs and become 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. The pragmatic philosophy of Confucius is everywhere in China and they do not need Middle Eastern tribal traditions of religion and regression to help them along to glory and greatness. Let India learn from China.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Deng Xiaoping, father of the Chinese reformation