Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in response to the article by Dinesh D’Souza, titled, “Two Cheers for Colonialism”. I do not agree with Mr. D’Souza on several counts. There is no doubt in my mind that colonialism is a complex issue, which has left profound impacts (both positive and negative) on both the colonized and colonizing societies. Having said that, here is what I think about several of the points Mr. D’Souza raises.

Firstly, a justification of Osama bin Laden and his ilk is not necessary in order to condemn colonialism. Moreover, both reparations and terrorism, in my opinion, sidestep the issue. In fact these ‘solutions’ to colonialism will hinder the search for real alternatives to the colonial models of development.

There is no question of ‘relieving’ the third world of responsibility for its state today. Insofar as the colonized countries failed to resist European invasions and subsequent subjugation, they have to share the blame. To paraphrase Gandhi, the British ruled India because the Indians allowed them to.

Comparing British rule in India to previous conquests by the Mughals, the Greeks or the Persians is misleading. There is a superficial similarity in that all these were conquests by foreign powers but colonialism is not defined just by the presence of the foreign power. It is a specific system of economic and social relationships between the rulers and the ruled. Several of India’s former rulers mentioned need not be labeled colonial only because they ruled empires. One point of distinction maybe the extent to which wealth generated in a place is distributed locally (a local economy) as opposed to being siphoned outside. During the Mughal period for example though a lot of India came under ‘foreign rule’ apart from taxes a lot of wealth remained where it was produced.

Let us examine the true reasons for the west’s prosperity according to Mr. D’Souza viz science, democracy and capitalism.

Examining the role of science depends to some extent on what we mean by the term science. In the most general sense it can mean some sort of a hypothetico-deductive method that allows the induction of natural laws from empirical observations. In this sense it has existed for many millennia before the renaissance in Europe. This is not to say the renaissance Europe did not contribute greatly to this process by among other things, formalizing it. Of course it did. But more commonly when we talk of the achievements of modern science, thrown in there is also modern technology. And here it is possible to argue that the nature of modern technology (mainly its non-sustainability and its conflict with nature) is a result of its development in the colonial period. During this period, less attention needed to be paid to local (and restricted) availability of resources since they were often available in plenty and cheap from the colonies, which had entered (by force) into lopsided trade agreements. It was therefore possible to underestimate the true cost of the new technology being developed (human as well as environmental costs) since someone else, somewhere else was paying for it.

For capitalism, once again, the trick lies in hidden costs. The positive and negative economic effects that the colonies had on colonizing nations have been well studies from the time of Adam Smith. Colonial monopolies such as the British East India Company were guaranteed a source of cheap raw materials and labor as well as a market for their surplus goods. Because they were monopolies they could afford to buy cheaper and sell higher than they would have been able to in a free market. One great positive impact was the ability to externalize costs on manufactured products. Meaning that the consumers in colonizing countries did not have to pay the true cost of the goods they were buying. The true cost here is not purely on what the consumer is willing to pay for it given the demand and supply situation of the product or service. It is based on the free market cost of the raw materials as well as the labor that went into the process. In slave labor (an institution coexisting with colonialism), a one time capital investment is all that needs to be paid for a lifetime of labor thereby vastly reducing the price of products reaching the consumer. Thus at least some, if not most of the wealth created by capitalism during that period may have been accumulated thorough such non-free market or downright unfair policies. Such policies, even if they created wealth for Europe, can hardly be replicated today by the developing world.

In short, I don’t think it is valid to infer a simple cause and effect relationship between colonialism and the success of western civilization. They are process that went hand in hand for several hundred years. The development of science and capitalism probably received much help from the colonial system and the colonial system in turn was maintained through the fruits of science.

At this point Mr. D’Souza gets into the question of how colonialism has benefited the descendants of those colonized. Of course there have been indigenous beneficiaries of colonialism in India. In fact in several erstwhile African and Asian colonies the ruling elite and the middle class are beneficiaries of the colonial process. But they maintain that status at the cost of many times their number of countrymen who have been the losers during and after colonialism. Thus whether colonialism has been beneficial or not depends, critically, on whom you choose to ask.

To sum up, I would say that it is time to move beyond whether colonialism was a good thing or a bad thing. Is more westernization today a good thing for the ‘still savage’ world? The answer for me lies not in a global endorsement of all things western as good and desirable or bad and undesirable. If decisions are taken by local people, who understand the nature of the problem they are trying to solve, and are open-minded about possible solutions, they will adopt western solutions, if those solutions are appropriate and non-western ones if they are appropriate. The west had made its point, now it should stop trying to force it down everybody else’s throats. Our big responsibility is now showing that a viable alternative can be created and sustained.

Amit Basole