The death of Queen Elizabeth reignited the debate about the misdeeds of the crown around the world as India celebrated its 75th anniversary of independence from British domination. The Fox News personality, Tucker Carlson, had an epiphany about the benevolent British Empire that civilized India in the midst of this revived debate over whether the Queen had any regret for Britain’s past or whether King Charles should apologize on its behalf.
Some claims just call for a fact check or a second view, while others call for a history lesson—an instruction that would be prohibitively expensive in any reputable school. This essay aims to shed some clarity on why Carlson’s claim leans more toward the latter.
First of all, even if one ignores how contradictory the phrase “colonial responsibility” is, it was only a burden that the British were forced to shoulder by the British themselves. Nobody invited the citizens of an island nation to set out on a global expedition to first breach a nation’s fortification through trade routes, destroy its autonomy, and then perform their duty to civilize its citizens.
Ironically, throughout the British administration of not only India but also all of its colonies, the enlightenment virtues of liberty, fraternity, and equality—all regarded as the pinnacles of Western philosophy and civilization—were all methodically destroyed. Millions of people in their own country were denied the right to free speech and expression—the cornerstone of every civilized society—while racism, which has no place in a civilized society, was a common occurrence.
The fact that the zenith of the colonial era roughly coincided with the Renaissance period is even more astounding; it seems that the white man took the enlightenment values, intended to de-escalate ongoing conflicts in human society, as a burden to go and forcibly civilize the entire world.
While India is home to countless religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and sectarian groups and sects that have coexisted peacefully for millennia despite numerous intergroup wars, invasions, conquests, sieges, and two World Wars, Europe is still struggling to coexist with each other as a single people.
The beginning of human civilization itself is a further period of history that Carlson appeared to have totally ignored during his studies. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, and the Indus Valley Civilization are the four Old World civilizational cradles that scholars have recognized.
These four historical occurrences show how hunter-gatherer humans initially established the guidelines for social coexistence. Humans established a social hierarchy, moral standards, and the necessary infrastructure to support a sizable population for the first time.
The comments made by Tucker Carlson are not only factually incorrect, but they also reek of bigotry, snobbery, and an attempt to justify the atrocities committed by the British against the Indian nation. According to estimates, 35 million Indians perished in a series of famines as a result of British policy, the Indian economy’s contribution to the world economy fell from 47% to 3%, and an estimated 800,000 Indians perished in the suppression of the uprising and its aftermath.
News Mania Desk
