Are all Indians Treacherous as Claimed by this article by Rajat Mitra? Does his Psychology Degree make him Right ?
Jallianwala Bagh - Why Indians fired on Indians
I lived in Hong Kong for some years. One of the facts I observed was that Hong Kongers by and large do not like Indians and many of them even hate us. Whether an Indian goes on to look for a home or on the streets to buy groceries, the feeling is palpable. Many Indians I talked to said they feel it rather strongly. I had asked several people but got no satisfactory answer.
Finally, I asked a local friend about the reason. He was a historian at one of Hong Kong’s University. At first he tried to deny that this exists but then later said the roots of it are historical. “Do you know,” he said, “the British came to Hong Kong in 1841 and when they tried to build the first police force with the help of locals, they realized that the loyalty of the locals cannot be trusted to follow their orders or shoot and kill if their fellow brethren revolted or were a rebellion. But they realized they didn’t have the same experience in India. So they brought the Indians. The first batch of Indians who came brutalized and tortured the people here. The memory still lives in the mind of every person here and we haven’t forgiven you for it and will never do,” he said in a deeply emotional voice. “You Indians followed orders and didn’t show any mercy towards us which we expected you would do.”
I could only apologize to him and said it was an injustice. But what he had said left me perturbed. In social sciences ‘the other’ is a term that denotes how human beings divide, create walls with other groups whom they perceive as not similar to them and even inferior. For the American ‘the other’ is everyone who is outside America. For the British everyone who is not White and outside the country is ‘the other’. For the man from Pakistan it has become the Indian. Same can be said of the Chinese. But the curious thing for Indians is that for many an Indians ‘the other’ is not an outsider but another Indian only with whom his deepest chasm lies. He is someone whom we make into an enemy.
“You Indians, you have done it with your own people, like in Jallianwala Bagh. That is how the British controlled your nation for two centuries, isn’t it?” The historian’s words have stayed with me since then.
In one of his books, Amitav Ghosh, the author, writes that the British believed that the Indians can always be relied upon to ruthlessly put down any one whether their own in India or anywhere else on their orders, something they could never imagine doing with anyone else. Would a Japanese be ever trusted to fire on its own people on the orders of a foreign General? Would a Chinese army have done so when asked? I believe the answer is a big no.
As one ex-General from the former British Indian army said, “The British were masters in making the Indian people believe that they were fighting on the side of the truth and so when the Indians fought a fellow Indian they saw him as evil and felt little or no guilt killing him.”
Is that why even today we are deeply divided, can torture a fellow Indian and feel little empathy, even shoot at him or beat him to death?
Why did we Indians create ‘the other’ amongst each other and not outside like other nations do?
Once, a British historian, on the mention of Jallianwala Bagh, said that a British police force or army would never shoot at its own people if asked to do so.
Why did we Indians did it then? I believe it is worth finding an answer to this dilemma.
Why didn’t the police force refuse to follow Michael Dyer’s orders and not shoot at their own people? This maybe is one of the most poignant and perplexing questions in understanding why British could rule India.
Has the notion of ‘the other’ as one we can hate and eliminate always existed amongst us in our history and as one that the British only perfected when they came in contact with us? I wish to ask this on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh if we as a society created a gap within that can cause fissures and we can again be ordered into maniacal behavior on the orders of a white man or woman.
Did we carry our philosophy of ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ too far and become like the subjects in Milgram’s experiment?
Jallianwala Bagh to me appears to be not the action of a deranged, crazy lunatic General but of a psychopath who knew this weakness of Indians only too well, who understood this mindset in us. He knew that when ordered to fire, the men wouldn’t stop because the cries of their own country men would have no effect on them. This philosophy, sick and dangerous, may need to be addressed and understood that may lead us to kill each other or destroy. Will it ever lead us to become a united cohesive nation and not hold us back?
Creating ‘the other’ and making him into an enemy is dehumanizing which has just not only been symbolic, making us slaves but also making us lose what is the most precious, our freedom. It delineated us from the power that rightfully belonged to us as a nation.
Last year we visited the Jallianwala Bagh. There were hundreds of people laughing, talking and taking pictures. No single face looked solemn. Only some seemed curious looking at the Well or the Bullet marks on the wall. Where does this detachment from our history comes from?
Slavery dehumanized us Indians. As we know from history, no group cedes its privileges over others out of altruism but is forced to do so when the privileges they enjoy begin to threaten their survival. Gandhi could never do that to the British. Only once during the INA Trials and the Naval Revolt, it happened when the idea of one Indian being separate from ‘the other’ got erased terrifying the British into thinking it might bring their annihilation in India.
Will the present generation erase this blot? In it perhaps lies the safety that will make our future generations safe from the contradictions that pushed our ancestors into slavery and annihilating each other.
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
----------------------------------
Shyams Take:
The oldest trait amongst Indians is treachery !!
History is replete with clear instances of Indians carrying information to the enemies to win over our own land.. when Alexander (I think) who came to conquer found the river crossing too broad & wanted to retreat, an Indian gave him the information that the breadth of the river decreased 20 miles upstream.. Alexander went ahead, crossed the river & won over a brave king Porus (I think)..the idea of using elephants in his forces was given by an Indian, as it would confuse the horses of the king's reputed cavalry...
Take the case of Ettaiappan, whose treachery to Kattabomman is well documentated & is a folklore..
Even in the movie Laggan, you saw how the slimey, sleazy Indians carried secrets & strategy to the enemy camp...
British perfected the art art of divide & rule... created meaningless titles for which Indians would do anything to be honoured/ decorated by the British with such titles.
30 crore Indians were ruled by 430 British bureaucrats...
Indians were known for licking the boots of the white man for trivial gains at the cost of his own kith & kin..
Similar to S Indians to the north guys.. see the fawning leadership....
No wonder NTR Atma gauravam resonated rarely amongst the Telugu people... when a AP CM carried the shoes of Rajiv Gandhi..
Our thousands of years of being ruled by monarchies...how to please the king, even by ratting on your own friends & relatives... we're always seeking favors & entitlement.. there's a treatise on why Indians are like this, which captures the essence of our personalities..
-------------------------
Peter Masilamani wrote:
We visited JW bagh on April 5 this year, one week before the 100th anniversary. I believe it is too simplistic to adopt that “Indians” are heartless. That is bullshit.
On the contrary, under the British system of government, the army is supposed to intervene in support of the civil authorities to regain control when the police are unable to do so.
Usually Troop’s from outside are used. For example, they would not use A Scottish regiment to suppress a situation in Scotland. They would use Welsh or Irish or English troops in Scotland.
The Indian system ( which is the British system Adopted in Toto, is exactly the same. A detachment of Gurkhas stationed in Pallavaram was used to Open fire in Pollachi where many people died , and was the end of the violent Anti- Hindi agitation in TAmil Nadu in 1965. Of course at the time the ruling party both T the centre and in Tamil Nadu was the Congress.
Hope this sheds a more correct light.
Incidentally, the attack on the Golden Temple was carried out by Barefoot Sikh troops led by a Sikh General, who fucked up very big time, and the Army had to use tanks to Bombard the holy site.
Of course, if Non - Sikhs has been used it would have been totally wrong as it would have inflamed the Sikhs.
Madame Gandhi was machine gunned ( 32 bullets) by her own bodyguards who were all Sikh since their loyalty was totally beyond doubt. You can imagine the anger that drove them to assassinate her, in my opinion fully justified as the whole Bhindranwale story was a ploy for madame to retain power by hook and by crook.
-----------------------------------
Rambos Take on this Topic:
How each and every human being irrespective of Race, Religion, Caste etc reacts to a given situation (in this case Topic)is directly proportional to what he can draw from his life time of experiences etched in his memory. No Body is right or wrong, each person is entitled to his personal views.
It might be true that the Indians Brutalised and massacred the Chinese in Hong Kong under the instructions of their British masters. Just reverse the scenario and lets say the British brought Chinese Troops to Control the revolt at Jallianwala Bagh. Do you really think the Chinese whould have shown mercy ? No way. They would have had a field day butchering every Indian who was there to be shot. Trust me I have a lot of asian friends and it is common knowledge that because they are of fairer complexion they look down upon the dark skinned people from the Subcontinent.
You have to see how Chinese treat Indian shoppers in Singapore. Pardon the expression they treat Indians like shit unless you are loaded and drive around in a Mercedes. The situation in Malaysia is worse. Mostb of the Indians in Malaysia were taken by the British as slaves to work on the rubber Plantations. Indians in Malaysia are even today referred to as Klings.. Kling being the noise made by the Chains around their feet when they were slaves. So Chinese and for that matter Asians in general are no angels either. The world is aware of all the attrocities committed by the Japanese during WW II especially against Chinese and Koreans. To Non Asians we call them all Chinese. Koreans and Japanese definitely dont like being called Chinese and for that matter Chinese from Hong Kong do not want to be called Chinese either.
To us Indians every one in England is English. Trust me don't make the mistake of calling a Scotsman or a Welch or Irish as English. They will stop you on your tracks and tell you they are not English meaning do not put us all in one basket. Atleast every one in Britian spoke one common language ENGLISH, dressed the same and ate the same type food.
India is not the same. Let's be honest Indian was Created by the British. Remove the British rule of India for arguments sake. Was there an India when then East India Company arrived as Traders ? No what we had was a feudal system with as many as 50 different kingdoms ruled by kings who had their own armies. each Kingdom had its own language, attire and cusine. People south of the Vindhya Mountains were dravidians or dark skinned people. There were three main kingdoms Chera Chola and Pandya Kingdoms. The people were all Hindus yet there was a religious divide as Iyers or Shiva Followers and Iyengars Vishnu followers and they were at logger heads no different to the Sunnis and Shias of islam or the Catholics and Protestants of Christianity. all man made divides.
Even at school even though we were all friends the minute and fight broke out it became a racial or religious divide. Birds of the same feather flocked together to derive strength in unity.
The Chera Chola and Pandya Kings were always at war that even to this day in Tamil Nadu there is a common saying "If you see a Malayalee and a Snake, kill the Malayalee first and these feelings were transported to Malaysia.It was in fact a Malaysian friend I heard this from.
My looks are non descript and no one cal say which part of India I am from. I am in fact an Avial. Born a Hindi speaking Kalapani born in Andamans to Telugu speaking parents who did my schooling in Madras.
After graduation I was deputed to Delhi fora couple on months. North Indians referred to me as Madrasi Sala ( assuming I did not know Hindi) and on a bus I accidentally stepped on a chaps toe and said sorry " and in Tamil he says " Kaalai merichittue Sorry solraan paaru muttal" meaning look at this idiot he stamps on my toe and says sorry..
We did have a few sardarji boys at school. the minute they started to speak to each other in Punjabi the rest were alienated automatically.
Fast forward to 1976 onwards and my life in Australia. For the Aussies every brown skinned man or woman is Indian, you could be Indian, Pakistani, Bangladesi, Srilankan......every one is called an Indian. Police reports always say suspect in a crime is of Indian, African or Middle eastern or Asian Origin.
New migrants to Australia from India in the 70s after the white australia policy was scrapped by the Whitlam govt in 1975 all wanted to continue their traditions in the new country and formed the Indo Australian Society which included all Indians. This was a very beautiful period where all Indians were united. In the eighties we have the Tamil Association, Kerala association, Bengali association and so on In the nineties the Tamil assn split into two groups of Brahmins and Non Brahmins, the Malayalee association virtually split into Kerala Hindus, Kerala Muslims and Kerala Christians and the Bengalis assn split into Indian Bengalis and Bangladesis.
Let's look at Just Tamilnadu where every one spoke Tamil or Telugu. The factor that decided your status in the society was your CASTE. You had the brahmins the Iyers and Iyengars at the top of the caste hierarchy followed by the businessmen aka Vanigaas, like the Mudaliars, Chettiars and the Naadars and the lowest case was the Sudras like me meat eating low caste born to do menial work and then there were the harijans or Dalits or Untouchable who were virtually born to clean thge shitof the upper castes...
Yes we were all born in the same continent and the generic name is Indian yet we are all so different and sadly first generation migrants tend to live in Australia they way they lived in India. The next generation of Indians born in Australia have an identity crisis as they are Aussies by birth yet classified as Indians even though they may never have set foot on Indian soil
Jallianwala Bagh - Why Indians fired on Indians
I lived in Hong Kong for some years. One of the facts I observed was that Hong Kongers by and large do not like Indians and many of them even hate us. Whether an Indian goes on to look for a home or on the streets to buy groceries, the feeling is palpable. Many Indians I talked to said they feel it rather strongly. I had asked several people but got no satisfactory answer.
Finally, I asked a local friend about the reason. He was a historian at one of Hong Kong’s University. At first he tried to deny that this exists but then later said the roots of it are historical. “Do you know,” he said, “the British came to Hong Kong in 1841 and when they tried to build the first police force with the help of locals, they realized that the loyalty of the locals cannot be trusted to follow their orders or shoot and kill if their fellow brethren revolted or were a rebellion. But they realized they didn’t have the same experience in India. So they brought the Indians. The first batch of Indians who came brutalized and tortured the people here. The memory still lives in the mind of every person here and we haven’t forgiven you for it and will never do,” he said in a deeply emotional voice. “You Indians followed orders and didn’t show any mercy towards us which we expected you would do.”
I could only apologize to him and said it was an injustice. But what he had said left me perturbed. In social sciences ‘the other’ is a term that denotes how human beings divide, create walls with other groups whom they perceive as not similar to them and even inferior. For the American ‘the other’ is everyone who is outside America. For the British everyone who is not White and outside the country is ‘the other’. For the man from Pakistan it has become the Indian. Same can be said of the Chinese. But the curious thing for Indians is that for many an Indians ‘the other’ is not an outsider but another Indian only with whom his deepest chasm lies. He is someone whom we make into an enemy.
“You Indians, you have done it with your own people, like in Jallianwala Bagh. That is how the British controlled your nation for two centuries, isn’t it?” The historian’s words have stayed with me since then.
In one of his books, Amitav Ghosh, the author, writes that the British believed that the Indians can always be relied upon to ruthlessly put down any one whether their own in India or anywhere else on their orders, something they could never imagine doing with anyone else. Would a Japanese be ever trusted to fire on its own people on the orders of a foreign General? Would a Chinese army have done so when asked? I believe the answer is a big no.
As one ex-General from the former British Indian army said, “The British were masters in making the Indian people believe that they were fighting on the side of the truth and so when the Indians fought a fellow Indian they saw him as evil and felt little or no guilt killing him.”
Is that why even today we are deeply divided, can torture a fellow Indian and feel little empathy, even shoot at him or beat him to death?
Why did we Indians create ‘the other’ amongst each other and not outside like other nations do?
Once, a British historian, on the mention of Jallianwala Bagh, said that a British police force or army would never shoot at its own people if asked to do so.
Why did we Indians did it then? I believe it is worth finding an answer to this dilemma.
Why didn’t the police force refuse to follow Michael Dyer’s orders and not shoot at their own people? This maybe is one of the most poignant and perplexing questions in understanding why British could rule India.
Has the notion of ‘the other’ as one we can hate and eliminate always existed amongst us in our history and as one that the British only perfected when they came in contact with us? I wish to ask this on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh if we as a society created a gap within that can cause fissures and we can again be ordered into maniacal behavior on the orders of a white man or woman.
Did we carry our philosophy of ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ too far and become like the subjects in Milgram’s experiment?
Jallianwala Bagh to me appears to be not the action of a deranged, crazy lunatic General but of a psychopath who knew this weakness of Indians only too well, who understood this mindset in us. He knew that when ordered to fire, the men wouldn’t stop because the cries of their own country men would have no effect on them. This philosophy, sick and dangerous, may need to be addressed and understood that may lead us to kill each other or destroy. Will it ever lead us to become a united cohesive nation and not hold us back?
Creating ‘the other’ and making him into an enemy is dehumanizing which has just not only been symbolic, making us slaves but also making us lose what is the most precious, our freedom. It delineated us from the power that rightfully belonged to us as a nation.
Last year we visited the Jallianwala Bagh. There were hundreds of people laughing, talking and taking pictures. No single face looked solemn. Only some seemed curious looking at the Well or the Bullet marks on the wall. Where does this detachment from our history comes from?
Slavery dehumanized us Indians. As we know from history, no group cedes its privileges over others out of altruism but is forced to do so when the privileges they enjoy begin to threaten their survival. Gandhi could never do that to the British. Only once during the INA Trials and the Naval Revolt, it happened when the idea of one Indian being separate from ‘the other’ got erased terrifying the British into thinking it might bring their annihilation in India.
Will the present generation erase this blot? In it perhaps lies the safety that will make our future generations safe from the contradictions that pushed our ancestors into slavery and annihilating each other.
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
----------------------------------
Shyams Take:
The oldest trait amongst Indians is treachery !!
History is replete with clear instances of Indians carrying information to the enemies to win over our own land.. when Alexander (I think) who came to conquer found the river crossing too broad & wanted to retreat, an Indian gave him the information that the breadth of the river decreased 20 miles upstream.. Alexander went ahead, crossed the river & won over a brave king Porus (I think)..the idea of using elephants in his forces was given by an Indian, as it would confuse the horses of the king's reputed cavalry...
Take the case of Ettaiappan, whose treachery to Kattabomman is well documentated & is a folklore..
Even in the movie Laggan, you saw how the slimey, sleazy Indians carried secrets & strategy to the enemy camp...
British perfected the art art of divide & rule... created meaningless titles for which Indians would do anything to be honoured/ decorated by the British with such titles.
30 crore Indians were ruled by 430 British bureaucrats...
Indians were known for licking the boots of the white man for trivial gains at the cost of his own kith & kin..
Similar to S Indians to the north guys.. see the fawning leadership....
No wonder NTR Atma gauravam resonated rarely amongst the Telugu people... when a AP CM carried the shoes of Rajiv Gandhi..
Our thousands of years of being ruled by monarchies...how to please the king, even by ratting on your own friends & relatives... we're always seeking favors & entitlement.. there's a treatise on why Indians are like this, which captures the essence of our personalities..
-------------------------
Peter Masilamani wrote:
We visited JW bagh on April 5 this year, one week before the 100th anniversary. I believe it is too simplistic to adopt that “Indians” are heartless. That is bullshit.
On the contrary, under the British system of government, the army is supposed to intervene in support of the civil authorities to regain control when the police are unable to do so.
Usually Troop’s from outside are used. For example, they would not use A Scottish regiment to suppress a situation in Scotland. They would use Welsh or Irish or English troops in Scotland.
The Indian system ( which is the British system Adopted in Toto, is exactly the same. A detachment of Gurkhas stationed in Pallavaram was used to Open fire in Pollachi where many people died , and was the end of the violent Anti- Hindi agitation in TAmil Nadu in 1965. Of course at the time the ruling party both T the centre and in Tamil Nadu was the Congress.
Hope this sheds a more correct light.
Incidentally, the attack on the Golden Temple was carried out by Barefoot Sikh troops led by a Sikh General, who fucked up very big time, and the Army had to use tanks to Bombard the holy site.
Of course, if Non - Sikhs has been used it would have been totally wrong as it would have inflamed the Sikhs.
Madame Gandhi was machine gunned ( 32 bullets) by her own bodyguards who were all Sikh since their loyalty was totally beyond doubt. You can imagine the anger that drove them to assassinate her, in my opinion fully justified as the whole Bhindranwale story was a ploy for madame to retain power by hook and by crook.
-----------------------------------
Rambos Take on this Topic:
How each and every human being irrespective of Race, Religion, Caste etc reacts to a given situation (in this case Topic)is directly proportional to what he can draw from his life time of experiences etched in his memory. No Body is right or wrong, each person is entitled to his personal views.
It might be true that the Indians Brutalised and massacred the Chinese in Hong Kong under the instructions of their British masters. Just reverse the scenario and lets say the British brought Chinese Troops to Control the revolt at Jallianwala Bagh. Do you really think the Chinese whould have shown mercy ? No way. They would have had a field day butchering every Indian who was there to be shot. Trust me I have a lot of asian friends and it is common knowledge that because they are of fairer complexion they look down upon the dark skinned people from the Subcontinent.
You have to see how Chinese treat Indian shoppers in Singapore. Pardon the expression they treat Indians like shit unless you are loaded and drive around in a Mercedes. The situation in Malaysia is worse. Mostb of the Indians in Malaysia were taken by the British as slaves to work on the rubber Plantations. Indians in Malaysia are even today referred to as Klings.. Kling being the noise made by the Chains around their feet when they were slaves. So Chinese and for that matter Asians in general are no angels either. The world is aware of all the attrocities committed by the Japanese during WW II especially against Chinese and Koreans. To Non Asians we call them all Chinese. Koreans and Japanese definitely dont like being called Chinese and for that matter Chinese from Hong Kong do not want to be called Chinese either.
To us Indians every one in England is English. Trust me don't make the mistake of calling a Scotsman or a Welch or Irish as English. They will stop you on your tracks and tell you they are not English meaning do not put us all in one basket. Atleast every one in Britian spoke one common language ENGLISH, dressed the same and ate the same type food.
India is not the same. Let's be honest Indian was Created by the British. Remove the British rule of India for arguments sake. Was there an India when then East India Company arrived as Traders ? No what we had was a feudal system with as many as 50 different kingdoms ruled by kings who had their own armies. each Kingdom had its own language, attire and cusine. People south of the Vindhya Mountains were dravidians or dark skinned people. There were three main kingdoms Chera Chola and Pandya Kingdoms. The people were all Hindus yet there was a religious divide as Iyers or Shiva Followers and Iyengars Vishnu followers and they were at logger heads no different to the Sunnis and Shias of islam or the Catholics and Protestants of Christianity. all man made divides.
Even at school even though we were all friends the minute and fight broke out it became a racial or religious divide. Birds of the same feather flocked together to derive strength in unity.
The Chera Chola and Pandya Kings were always at war that even to this day in Tamil Nadu there is a common saying "If you see a Malayalee and a Snake, kill the Malayalee first and these feelings were transported to Malaysia.It was in fact a Malaysian friend I heard this from.
My looks are non descript and no one cal say which part of India I am from. I am in fact an Avial. Born a Hindi speaking Kalapani born in Andamans to Telugu speaking parents who did my schooling in Madras.
After graduation I was deputed to Delhi fora couple on months. North Indians referred to me as Madrasi Sala ( assuming I did not know Hindi) and on a bus I accidentally stepped on a chaps toe and said sorry " and in Tamil he says " Kaalai merichittue Sorry solraan paaru muttal" meaning look at this idiot he stamps on my toe and says sorry..
We did have a few sardarji boys at school. the minute they started to speak to each other in Punjabi the rest were alienated automatically.
Fast forward to 1976 onwards and my life in Australia. For the Aussies every brown skinned man or woman is Indian, you could be Indian, Pakistani, Bangladesi, Srilankan......every one is called an Indian. Police reports always say suspect in a crime is of Indian, African or Middle eastern or Asian Origin.
New migrants to Australia from India in the 70s after the white australia policy was scrapped by the Whitlam govt in 1975 all wanted to continue their traditions in the new country and formed the Indo Australian Society which included all Indians. This was a very beautiful period where all Indians were united. In the eighties we have the Tamil Association, Kerala association, Bengali association and so on In the nineties the Tamil assn split into two groups of Brahmins and Non Brahmins, the Malayalee association virtually split into Kerala Hindus, Kerala Muslims and Kerala Christians and the Bengalis assn split into Indian Bengalis and Bangladesis.
Let's look at Just Tamilnadu where every one spoke Tamil or Telugu. The factor that decided your status in the society was your CASTE. You had the brahmins the Iyers and Iyengars at the top of the caste hierarchy followed by the businessmen aka Vanigaas, like the Mudaliars, Chettiars and the Naadars and the lowest case was the Sudras like me meat eating low caste born to do menial work and then there were the harijans or Dalits or Untouchable who were virtually born to clean thge shitof the upper castes...
Yes we were all born in the same continent and the generic name is Indian yet we are all so different and sadly first generation migrants tend to live in Australia they way they lived in India. The next generation of Indians born in Australia have an identity crisis as they are Aussies by birth yet classified as Indians even though they may never have set foot on Indian soil
